Fain In Spain, Stay Mainly In...Waterfront and Flamenco Show

By the time my train arrived Barcelona it was almost six o'clock in the afternoon already. It took another half an hour to reach my hotel, which located in the Waterfront area.



Compared to the hotel in Madrid, this one looks like the kind of hotels you will find in Miami Beach and caters more to the 'hip' crowd, people like Paris Hilton or Britney Spear. Not necessary a good sell for me somehow



The room itself is in the open Studio style where the bedroom, bathroom and a mini office (desk) all combined together into one single unit.



Facing the bed is a full window view of the beach and the indispensable flat screen TV.





But the thing I appreciate the most is the IPod adapter that allows you to recharge your IPod as well as plug it to the stereo in the room so that I can sleep to the music I want



My plan for the night was to have dinner in one of the local restaurants that provide the celebrated Flamenco Show. However, I was delayed due to a 'bathroom malfunction'. The draining system obviously was not working when I tried to freshen up in the shower. All the yuppie design of the room has come to haunt you since the water actually leaked to the living room as well





It took a good half hour before the maintenance guy arrived. He was friendly and helpful but by the time I managed to get to the restaurant dinner was already over and the show was only five minutes away from starting. So the only thing I have was a drink. The restaurant has a dining section and separate stage room for the show. The stage room is cozier than I expected but the atmosphere was intimate. I was seated close enough to tape the first ensemble number.


It seems a full figure is a prerequisite for (female) Flamenco dancers. Women right activists could consider popularizing the art of Flamenco to counter eating disorder and unhealthy weight loss.

Flamenco is generally considered to be a style unique to Spanish culture. The show I watched comprised of five dancers, three guitarists and three singers. Not being able to speak Spanish I of course had no idea what the singers were singing about but I got the feeling that all the singing are ad-lib. In fact it felt more like conversing (between the singers themselves and between the singers and the dancers). The dancers are typical Latino spitfire passionate and the singers often seemed to echo the emotion of the dancers. Here is the a solo section of one of the dancers who appears to be an Asian, probably Filipino. Spain has a sizable Filipino population for historical reason



More so than the hip, Flamenco is a strenuous exercise to your feet. Here is a perfect example


I wonder if all Flamenco dancers are Footsie enthusiasts

The show lasted slightly less than an hour. Upon returning to the hotel I discovered, half expectedly, that they had switched my room due to the drainage issue. The new room is just right across the hall of the old one but that also means I got a different (less desirable?) beach view



My hotel is actually a good twenty minutes walk to the closest metro station, Barceloneta. However with the temperature in the upper teen degree (Celsius) even in the evening and the breeze from the sea, it was a very pleasant twenty minutes and no compliant from me.

Fain in Spain, Stay Mainly In... Madrid

The objective was to escape from the New England winter, Barcelona was chosen for its mild weather. Better still is that November is considered slow season in Spain so there is some bargain to hunt. While in Spain there is no reason NOT to visit the capital city. Besides what better excuse to take European train again, a favorite of mine since you don't get to travel on train in America very often, than a continental commute. However, if you are going to both cities it is always better to fly to Madrid than to Barcelona because the round-trip train fare between Madrid and Barcelona will be the same regardless which way you go but you will have to pay more to fly from Boston to Barcelona than Madrid

Instead of going East directly, my flight actually had to stop at Philadelphia before crossing the Atlantic Ocean



The luggage claim at Madrid Barajas airport for flight from Philadelphia. Notice how the two "Ph"s of Philadelphia are spelled in Spanish

Like most European cities and Hong Kong, the public transportation system in Madrid is much more reliable and accessible than its counterpart in U.S. It only takes about 40 minute’s metro (subway) ride from AeorPuerto station at the Airport to my hotel



Notice that unlike London or Hong Kong, the doors of the subway trains in Spain (and Paris too) don’t open automatically. Rather each door has an individual button that you need to push before the door will open. That is something I often forget and almost miss my stops.

The closest Metro station to my hotel is Banco De España (Bank of Spain) and you can guess that it is right in the middle of their financial center.



The neighborhood of the hotel is currently under construction so it was a bit chaotic. Inside the hotel room it is nicely furnished but there is really not much of a view to boast



On paper I was staying in Madrid for two days, in truth it was four half days combined together. If you take away the time to commute to and from the aiport, the hotel check-in, the actual visiting time is pitiful. After settling and taking a shower in the hotel, my first stop is El Palacio Real de Madrid









El Palacio Real de Madrid is the official residence of the King of Spain but that remains official only because the King and Queen actually stay in a more modest estate, El Palacio de la Zarzuela. Today the palace is mainly open to tourists if it isn't reserved for State ceremony, which is not necessary announced ahead of time. So you will need to try your luck if you plan to visit there. My luck had been good and bad. Good is that it was open to visitors; Bad is that upon arrival I found out I could've got in for free with my Portuguese passport had I come one day earlier for the Palace is free admission for any EU passport holders every Wednesday!

According to Wikipedia El Palacio Real de Madrid is the biggest palace in Europe but personally I found it dwarfed by Château de Versailles in France, probably because the palace is only partially open to public. Unlike Château de Versailles, the internal of El Palacio Real de Madrid (and most tourist attractions in Spain) does not allow being photographed, except Plaza de Armas







It was in Plaza de Armas that I bumped into three Hong Kong guys who are currently working as an intern in Ireland. They found me look familiar and so struck a conversation with me:



We even swapped email addresses but sadly I have left it in my hotel when I left for Boston. 八神 if you happen to read this please drop me a message.

The only other place I visited in Madrid is El Museo Nacional del Prado, one of the three major museums in Madrid.



Due to my sense of orientation, or the lack of it, a ten minutes walk from my hotel had wasted me almost forty minutes in order to locate the museum, if only I started in the right direction. It will be way too overwhelming to visit all the exhibits in El Museo Nacional del Prado but fortunately the museum provides visitor a quick guide to their masterpiece collection in their floor plan:



El Museo Nacional del Prado is famous for its Goya and Velázquez collection.



None more famous than Las Meninas by Velázquez but unfortunately no photograph allowed so a picture snatched from the net is all I can do



After a swift two hours browse of El Museo Nacional del Prado I quickly left for Atocha station to catch my train to Barcelona





There are two railway train stations in Madrid, Atocha and Seville. The latter is supposedly more breathtaking and worthy to visit but I will have to save it for next time. It took about two hours and forty five minute to reach Barcelona. The land between Madrid and Barcelona is not particularly scenic but movie is available. Below you can see "Ice Age: The Meltdown" was being showed during my ride

Fain In Spain, Stay Mainly In...Canon PowerShot G11

The trip to Spain is an impromptu decision, partly personal and partly pragmatic – need to exhaust the vacation time cumulated before it expires at the end of the year, and the relatively mild climate of Madrid and Barcelona seem to be a good getaway from the New England winter.

I’ve specifically upgraded my digital camera for this trip. Correctly speaking, I was advised by a friend who is a connoisseur in photography to try out Canon PowerShot G10 almost a year ago after I complained about my camera didn't handle night photography too well. As the ever careful consumer it took me a year and a trip to make up my mind but by then Canon has already released the next model of Powershot, the G11. After considering the pro and con between the two I decide to go with the better night shooting enhancement of G11 over the extra mega pixel of G10.


The front of the camera


The back of the camera

One neat thing about G11, at least to me it is neat, is the tilt/swivel LCD monitor. By tilting/swiveling the monitor it allows you to take shots that are hard to frame with the fixed LCD panel provided by the G10 model. The down side of it is the size of the panel has to be reduced to 2.8 inches diagonal from 3.0 inches of G10


The LCD monitor in the back can be flipped open to 180 degree


And it can be rotate about 90 degree downward and 180 degree upward

After you flip open the LCD Monitor to 180 degree, turn it upward 180 degree and then close it, you have the whole monitor in the back just like most standard digital cameras.


This design provides you a large preview during filming but also the protection of a hidden LCD moniter while the camera is not in use.

When I was reading some online reviews of the camera during shopping, many of them have stated that G11 doesn't allow zooming during video recording. That of course is a turn-off but I decide to go ahead due to the reputed improvement in night shooting. Then to my surprise, G11 actually does allow zooming in video recording:

Above is a clip I tape in the backyard of my house

G11 provides three different modes of video recording. In additions to standard mode, there is Colour Swap mode which will swap one colour of your choice to another. It is this non-standard recording mode that doesn't allow you to zoom but for a trickery like this I doubt it matters.


Here I swapped the color light grey to red in my backyard. The effect is only passable but you got the idea.

G11 also provides a Colour Accent mode which allows you to keep one single selected colour and turn the rest to just black and white.


Here I accented the pastel yellow of my backyard

All these colour enhancement would probably work better on a static photograph than the dynamic video clip. OK enough of the gadget, next will be the actual trip. Stay tuned.