Down to Earth






Slim River-Tanjong Malim, Spain-Portugal Trip (More updates!)

Dear Bloggy,

I'm in Tanjong Malim now. Probably quite surprising why am I here. As usual, following my dad travel for work purposes. He has to be interviewer for nursing course intake in Slim River Hospital. Actually I am supposed to be in Slim River but my family decided to stay in Tanjong Malim after looking at the spooky resort in Slim River yesterday. Just imagine you arrived late at night like quater to 1 am in a huge resort with no receptionist, no security guards but only met two drunk men living in one of the rooms in the resort. Not much street lights around the resort area and it is quite isolated from town. So, all of us decided to drive on to Tanjong Malim to find a hotel. Well there are few hotels here but I am sure none of them are star rating hotels. Luckily, we found a nice hotel named Cahaya. Quite strategic, not much facilities however, it is clean and acceptable (comfortable to stay for few days, not a week). I'm happy to stay here especially with good coverage for my celcom broadband.

Another news is that I finally received my posting letter to UITM Dungun in Terengganu. Alhamdulillah, at last I can plan my career much smoothly. Just that, so many things to think such as accomodation,teaching programme etc. Anyway, I hope everything will be fine. Cross fingers.

For this post, I feel like updating my trip to Madrid and if I am still not yet sleepy, I might write about Toledo and Seville too. Alright we'll see how it goes. So after 3 nights staying in Barcelona, the three of us moved on to Madrid. If I still remember, we reached Madrid quite late than we have planned because we missed the train that we have reserved earlier. Thanks to the person who gave us wrong instructions! Of course we had to get a new ticket and had to pay more. Sigh... Anyway, we arrived Madrid safely and thats the most important thing.

The day we arrived to Madrid, it was a White Night. According to one of the Spanish people we met,she (who I don't know her name) said White Night is a special night where everything (meaning the theatres, musuems etc) are open for free entrance! And also, there are lots of street performers around Madrid city. Most importantly is the Real-Madrid stadium is open for free entrance including free guided tour which I missed! Quite frustrating actually.

On the White Night, Chiunghui and me (without Wang Wen as she decided to stay indoor because of too exausted) enjoyed ourself by watching the Flamenco in one of the bars in Madrid.

Flamenco show in a bar in town

Flamenco is the famous Spanish traditional dance where you can see either the men or women dance very energetically. The dancers normally show a very serious expression when they dance and the audiences will shout 'ole' loudly every time the dancers make some good and outstanding movements. The lady dancer usually wear tight dress with fluffy skirts to shake around and both man and lady dancers wear special shoes that when they knock their heels continously, sound according to the music tempo can be heard.


Pictures taken on the White Night

After watching Flamenco, we walked around the city centre. There were so many people in town, really crowded. We watched some street perfomance like Spanish culture dance and people playing music. It was fun. I think we slept quite late that night around 3 or 4am.

I woke up late the next day, so did Wang Wen. Chiunghui woke up early and left us for his own interest of tour around Madrid. Wang Wen decided to go for shopping instead which I was not really on the mood for it but I hate to tour alone. It was quite lucky that I saw an advertisement of free guided tour in the hostel's kitchen and made a deal with Wang Wen. In the end, we decided to go for shopping in the morning and by late afternoon to follow the tour. My mood for shopping was back when I saw there ZARA in the city. I really love the Spain ZARA collections as they produced variety of designs and I grabed 3 clothes from ZARA. I was very happy with the clothes I bought and did not expect that they were cheaper than in the UK.

Around 3pm we followed the free guided tour. There were like 10 of us who followed and came from different nationalities-China, Malaysia, Slovakia and many more. In fact, the tour guide herself is not originally from Spain, she came from Australia and decided to settle down in Spain since she enjoys her works alot! She is very familiar with the history of each places she brought us to. If you see the slide show below, these pictures were taken during the tour. I cannot remember all of the stories except for one about the bear, it is the symbolic of Madrid.



Pictures taken during the free guided tour

In the hostel where I lived in Madrid, I met new friends. It is good that the hostel provides a shared kitchen where everyone can meet up each other. It is some sorts of like common room for everyone who stayed there. From the kitchen I got to know a girl from France (I cannot remember her name but she is in my facebook) and she gave tips of where to go in Madrid. Too bad we did not have the chance to hang out together as she was in her last day on the day I met her. She left her Madrid city map to me. Very nice of her. Also, I met a guy from Canada. He was the one who told me about the free entrance for Real Madrid stadium. He was lucky to go. I met a group of Malaysian students who are still studying in Glasgow. They are doing farmacy course. Well, this is how I make friends from travelling. It is better if the hostel has good and comfortable common room so that everybody can meet up and chat. The hostel that we booked in Madrid is really good and we did not regret staying there for 4 nights. It is clean, strategic, and convenient, very easily to go to the plaza and metro station. Surrounded by shopping centre and restaurants.

It is 2.02am now, I guess I have to save the story in Toledo and Seville in the upcoming post. Oyasumit nasai! zzzz...
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