Alhambra, Andalusia

A few months ago.....Monkey was flipping through a really thick book - 1,000 places to see before you die....it was my birthday gift from my loveliest roomies...
and in Spain, there is ONE and ONLY ONE place to go.....Alhambra

I lurve the name so much already!!!!! then after a few tapping here n there on my ipad, I've got the whole idea where is Alhambra, what is Alhambra..though we all have learnt it in school history, I guess my knowledge already gone...dissipated the moment I left my school >.<


Part of Alhmabra from another palace....Palacio Generalife
JS was so so so accommodating and sporting for doing this with Monkey...it's about 2.5 hours train ride from Seville. There's nothing to do here except visiting this palace in a city called Granada.
But we sure found good hotel and great food and yummy tapas :)))) huhuhuhuhuahhahahahahhaha

a lil info about Alhambra:
built back in 889 as a fortress high up on the mountain during the Islam conquest. Oh don't forget Europe was conquered by Muslims. Known as the Nasyrid Dynasty, this is a very important place and palace in the history of Islam. Soon it was converted to a beautiful palace in 1333 by Sultan of Granada. Throughout the years, it was reconquered and conquered between the Muslims and Christians and finally the last muslim ruler was ousted....he actually cried having to leave this pearl set in the emeralds....

it's really really really so beautiful and totally worth the trouble coming all the way....JS even insisted he would like to visit Alhambra again....O.O




Weather wasn't too kind to us...we were hiking up this mountain by 6.30am in the rain!!!!!
story was...visitors are supposed to make reservation to visit this palace..and Monkey must have missed that in her lil research...she only found out a week before the visit...by then nobody could help us to secure reservations bcoz it's fully booked and there's only XX number of ppl are allowed to visit this place. Following a tip, Alhambra do have extra tickets for blur visitors like us hahahaha...but the thing is...they only dispatch them for sale from 8.00am to 8.30am....only a 30 minutes windows!!!!

arghhhh we didn't wanna missed that...so by the time we reached the top at the ticketing counter at 7.00am sharp...there was already a queue!!!!!
we were alarmed!!! oh damn!!! I thought we gonna be the first!!!! and so we queue up with strangers, chatting up, sharing umbrellas and breakfast. I was with a lone woman-traveller from Egypt, giving me free history classes about Alhambra...woohooooo!!!!!! This is even better than my old history books :)))))))))




Carlos V Palace
u must be wondering why is this so Roman....coz it is!!!!!
in fact it's Renaissance, built by Emperor Carlos V who was a ruler of America then. He spent his summer here and decided to built his residence next to the Arab palace...it's so "next" that both his palace and the Arab ones are connected -_-"
let's take some time to digest this.....Spain conquered America last time...OK? still with me???

Spain found America...remember Christopher Columbus???
Ok he's not spanish...he's Genoese from Genoa...present day Italy...or some say he's Portuguese...watever it was he worked for the Spanish Monarchy. It was also him who introduced Christianity to America....arghhh let's not go into a different chapter of history...
come back to Alhambra :)))))

despite the rain the wetness the coldness....Monkey was so so so so happy...
and she's not even in the Arab castle yet!!!!
there's a time stamp on the ticket....you are only allowed into the most important part of the Palace once for a maximum of 30 minutes. If u missed your time allocation.....then that's it :P


there!!!! this is it!!!!!

Queue-ing with other curious tourists....snapping pics for each other....as usual we were early for our 9.00am window of time allocation...just in case...hahahahha. In Singapore this is called Kiasu-ness.

Once the machine read my ticket and the bar was raised for Monkey to enter...she was so ecstatic..
yeah just to see some stones and history -_-"
JS was no better....he was bz snapping away...he decided he won't need the umbrella anymore...and so there I was....carrying our unglamorous umbrella....

We went berserk!!! wow look at the Moorish windows!!!!!
look at the view!!!!!!
I wished this is my bedroom...or study room...even if it's a kitchen I don't mind...hmmm even if u put a bath tub next to those moorish windows it's gonna be so awesome!!!!!!

the intricate artwork!!!! and stone carvings...they must have really good masons then
We were WAH-WAH-WAH-ing our way in :P

WAH WAH WAH
no words can describe the artwork...look at the Jawi alphabets carvings, it's 3D, u can touch them :)))
In Islam, you can only do geometries and flowers....no animals or humans

and then we saw IT!!!!!! it's there!!!!! THERE!!!!!!
u have no idea how difficult it was to shoot this pic with no tourist nearby....patience is highly needed at this juncture....just stand there and wait for that opportunity. No one is allowed outside the courtyard...we were constrained to the perimeter within the building.....

Ladies and gentlemen....the reasons we were here.....
The Lion Palace!!!!!
so so so so so beautiful and the highlight of Alhambra

The courtyard housed the private rooms of the Royals, there's water feature everywhere with more Moorish designs.....those cute lions spouts water outta their mouth, at the exact angle onto the smaller drainage system.....each orientation north south east west wings of the courtyard have more lil fountains that flow into the center of the courtyard...

The effect??? Soothing zen water sounds with such splendour view....
aaaaAAAAaaaaaaaaa no wonder he cried when he was kicked out fr here. I think I'll do more than crying...hahahahaha

There are 12 lions in total....each representing the 12 tribes of Israel...so errr I think the lions are Jewish???? From the 11th century, 2 special Lions have got triangles on their head representing Juda and Levi, the chosen tribes. Yeah don't ask me why are the Jewish Lions sitting inside a Muslim Palace which has been conquered and reconquered between the Muslims and Christians....I should have paid more attention in my history lesson -_-"

One for the album.....
We were here!!!!! 

Monkey tilted her head in pain......
wwwwooooowww~~~~~~~

Honeycomb ceiling they called it
this was the Comares Palace, perfectly square.
The largest hall at the palace, it was also the Throne Room/hall for the sultan.


this bath house must be almost a thousand years old.


In between buildings and palaces, there were many gardens like this...
one can really get lost here.

Such magnificent view from the Alcazar....
Alcazar is one of the oldest part and was for military use....afterall it's a HUGE fortress up on this hill. From here u can see the whole Granada.

a fantastic view of the snow capped mountains - also known as the Sierra Nevada
the highest peak of the whole of Spain lies in this mountain range at about 11,411 ft

Later we were off to the last bit of Alhambra - the Generalife
this place is huge isn't it??? hence u will need almost a day.

From Generalife, u have a spectacular view of all the other palaces we visited.

so cantik!!!!!!
I wished I could read wat's on the wall :))))))))

JS was so happy and mesmerized with this place that he actually took the late afternoon off.
off fr Monkey...and climbed another different hill at a different part of the city to photograph this entire hill from a different perspective. I called him MAD

For more info:

www.alhambra.org

Some cute signages that I saw

sometimes the difference in culture and languages give different meaning in words
the moment we touched down at Madrid airport from Paris, we were changing from Bonjour to Ola

searching for an exit...we switched from Sortie *French* to Salida *Spanish*
but before we can get our asses out from the airport we need to retrieve our luggages and this was what I saw
Cinta = Loading belt

Yes I know u very "Cinta" me but where's my luggage????
it took some time for it to make its grand appearance with me breathing a heavy sigh of relief

then I google-ed translate the word Cinta
it also means Band, tape, cassette, headband, film, ribbon

As we were traveling down south to Andalusia by train, JS and Monkey were joking
JS: "They said no pasar here, means no operating your goreng pisang nasi lemak etc stalls here"
hahahahha oh my, u were right...it's so clean!!!!!

Pasar = cross, skip, go, pass

But the best culture and language and word reference indifference happened in Seville
Monkey: "Hablas ingles???"
Waiter: "uhhh a little bit...."
Monkey: "Okie buen. Agua minerale sin gas uno botella."
tried to sound her best in spanish which she learnt during the 2 hours Plane ride
but totally failed dot com
however Monkey managed to order yummy good food all the time
worse to worst just describe with hand gesture, finger pointing and sounds mimicking a certain animal. Yeah now u laugh but it works every time in ever single country.

so.....the story was...we saw some really huge ass Langoustine on display
the size of my hand + wrist + palm
price goes according to kilos and it was about Euro 140 per kilo. We ordered 3 huge ass ones
before it goes onto the grill, the waiter put the fresh seafood onto a stainless steel plate to show us

out game 3 huge ass TIGER PRAWNS

Monkey and JS were in horror
"Langoustine!!! not gambas!!!"

Waiter then was ku-li-ku-lu in spanish which we totally don't understand and being smart enough to know that Langoustines don't emit any sound, hence I can't mimick its sound to give him the correct animal or seafood...watever -_-

I'm hungry....go to the kitchen and show him wat we want!!!

Finally, JS did wat needed to be done
ku-li-ku-lu waiter then came to me: "senora!!! ku-li-ku-lu ku-li-ku-lu CIGALAS!!!!"
ok ok ok I got u...it's called Cigalas not Langoustine

how would I know the same thing in France is Langoustine and in Spain it's cigalas
and u call your prawns langoustine
ARRRGHHHHH
and u call your shrimp gambas
>.<

later....when asking for recommendation on dessert
Waiter: "Ku-li-ku-lu ku-li-ku-lu"
Monkey: "What was that???"

Waiter: "it saaaa a bacon from heaven....from the sky..."
it doesn't sound like an interesting dessert at all -_-

whatever I'll just try your bacon from heaven bestowed by your angels, trust me u'll be surprised by its bacon from heaven kekekekekeke
will post about this place soon....it's fun to travel and learn new things from locals. really fun and hilarious :))))))

I promised myself I will download a translator the next time we go to Spain
So.Kenot.Get.it.Spanish

Rocky Mountain

I don't know if this rock is qualified as a hill or mountain
but it's one hell of a huge ass rock that our train had to go around it
the train went really fast so all my pics were blurry so pardon me for that

as the train turned around the rock, I got slightly different angle of it....
esp when the Sun shone on this rock and unveiled its terrain
those were olive trees at the foot of it
:))))

there were too much of reflections on the pics....very sorry
but I can assure u the view was really stunning

after making a 270 degrees turn around the rock, we got a different view
cool huh?
so totally different fr the first pic

there are different types of mountain - Fold, Volcanic, Dome, Plateau and Fault-Block etc
guess this was a Fault-Block Mountain :D
I wasn't a mountain person but a sea-person
now I am beginning to fall in love with mountains :))))