The last bits of Madrid

Rounding up our trip to Madrid with highlights on some of Spain’s finest cultural sites.

Bright and sunny day to visit the Museo del Prado which features one of the world’s finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture, it also contains important collections from Velázquez, Francisco de Goya (the artist more extensively represented in the collection) and Bosch, amongst some of the famed artists.

No photography was allowed in the museum so we took the chance to do some cam-whoring outside the museum instead.

En-route to Gran Via from Museum del Prado – the city’s architecture was truly a sight to behold and marvel at.

And before we left Madrid, we managed to squeeze in a short visit to the Placcio Real de Madrid – the official residence of the King of Spain, but these days, it is only used for state ceremonies.  The interior of the palace is well-known for its wealth of art, especially with regards to type of fine materials used in its construction and the decoration of its rooms.  Personally, I still preferred the Palace of Versailles.

Note:  Beat the crowd by booking tickets to these sites in advance on their websites. 

London in a flash

When the Man told me that we were going to London for the weekend to visit Mr B, I was really excited!  It meant – hanging out with our dear and crazy friends for the weekend – check!  Shopping – double check!!  And a chance to meet up with super-talented baker extraordinaire and blogger – Ms R from The Pleasure Monger – triple check!!!.  We’ve exchanged loads of comments and had chats over twitter but nothing beats meeting this lady in the flesh.

The weekend literally passed by in a FLASH!  Of course, London greeted us with grey skies and the occasional showers, but I went prepared with my brolly.  Here’s a quick round-up of the weekend in pictures:

Friday Evening:

We were stuck at the customs for 1.5 hours and after that another hour in the weekend traffic. We arrived tired and a little hungry at Mr B’s place where we polished 3 bottles of Vino before heading out for Japanese at Roka. Made a ruckus at Roka and we were nearly chased out. That’s what you get when you put these 2 boys together who are best of pals for almost 10 years.

Chu-toro and O-toro sushi cravings satisfied at Roka

Saturday:

Blog-meet with R and I was tres-excited.  Left home an hour earlier as I was worried about getting lost, but still I was slightly late due to the closures of some of the train lines.  Minutes later, the lovely R emerged from the crowds, we exchanged greetings and she handed me a box of macarons freshly baked from her kitchen that very morning.  Aww..I was extremely touched by the gesture but was even more thrilled to have the pleasure of actually tasting her bake-treats after ‘drooling’ over the goodies that she’s made and wrote about on her blog.

Lunch was a cosy affair with loads of girlie-talk exchanged over yummy Lobster noodles at Mandarin Kitchen.  I also managed to get some really good baking and food-styling tips from the Baking Princess herself which she graciously shared.  And Cat – I finally got to sample those lobster noodles that you’ve raved about. 

Weather was starting to hold up, so we took a nice walk to Portobello Market for some vintage-hunting.  Had a good haul of vintage buys which I will share in my next post.

The Hummingbird Bakery at Portobello where I got the Hummingbird Cupcake Recipe book

I had wanted to get a pair of rain-boots, so R brought me to Selfridges to check out the massive shoe-gallery.  The Summer Sales had just started and there were some really massive discounts that we spied, but we exercised a certain amount of self-restraint.  Hehe.. And before we knew it, the 4-odd hours that we had spent flew by.  I had such a wonderful time just hanging out with R that we arranged for another one – this time in Singapore to stuff ourselves silly with local food.

Red velvet cupcakes from The Hummingbird Bakery

The Pleasure Monger’s hazelnut, black truffle and salted white chocolate macarons

My photos of the macarons don’t do justice to R’s home-made sweet delights.  We’re staying with our friends and I didn’t want them to think that I was insane bringing out all their cutlery and photographing them with the macarons.  This was the best shot I could come up with before popping them back into the refrigerator.  To me, macarons are best enjoyed after dinner!

And after dinner as we were all sitting around watching the US Open 2011 with our wines in tow, I excitedly proclaimed it was time for ‘Petite Fours’.  Brought out the macarons and split them amongst the 4 of us.  As I bit into the macaron, I was blown away by the different flavours that R has created and infused in this tiny treat.  I’ve tried the Pierre Herme White Truffle and Hazelnut Macaron once and the memory lingered on.  Now I can add on the macaron that R created and etched into this sweet memory of mine. 

Absolutely heavenly and delicious!

So that’s London in brief, I’m looking forward to our next trip there to catch up with friends and hopefully try out some new restaurants.

National Geographic moment..

One of the memorable incidents at the Mara has gotta be the kill!  I know, it probably sounds rather gruesome and to some extent cruel, but if you are all the way in a Safari adventure, deep down inside, you are itching to see some carnivore going straight for the kill.

We got really lucky the second day at the Mara.  Nelson was just driving around the reserve when I spotted a flock of animals running amok.  I alerted the guide and asked if that’s where the migration of the wildebeest would be.  Obviously, I was wrong as the animals were running around the hill and not the river.  But nevertheless, it was a good spot.  It lead us to the spot where we eventually witnessed Shakira (the cheetah) teaching her cubs the basics of hunting.

Here’s some of the pictures that we managed to capture…

Are you ready for the actual bloody shot??

The cheetahs feasting on the Impala…..you could actually hear the crunching of the bones and other stuff…

This was truly a National Geographic moment….

After witnessing the very visual kill, we still could manage to have our breakfast…

Raiders of the lost bark…

Our second day at the walking Safari… just when I thought things were going to get better, they didn’t.  We started the day bright and early (630am to be exact).  After breakfast, our guide decided to play ‘Indiana Jones’ and started to scout the footprints for animals who may have roamed our campsite the night before.

Kitonga spotted the rhino footprint and was all geared up to search for the animal.  He was even more thrilled to discover that it was not 1 but 2 rhinos that we may possibly find.  So we donned on our Indiana Jones persona and went in search of the revered black rhinos.  Over thorny bushes and hills we climbed and after about 3 hours of wandering among the hills, we finally spotted the elusive animals.

Below is a pictorial journey to sum up the hunt:

The journey to our second camp-site was worse than day 1.  The roads were treacherous and laden with thorns that just pierced through my shoes.  As I walked through the rocky hills, I could feel the hot tears streaking down my cheeks.  I was all ready to just give up.  But then I couldn’t!  I couldn’t just leave and turn back.  We were literally in the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere!  There were practically no humans and we were literally in danger of being trampled upon all sorts of animals in the jungle.  So I persevered!  Walked another 12km, over mountains, valley of thorns and rocky hills.  Well, what was I supposed to do?  Sigh…

After another 4 hours of walking, we eventually saw the light at the end of the tunnel.  Again, joy and happiness just went through my head!    After taking an afternoon siesta, we spent the remaining afternoon going to the nearest Masai Mara village.  It was an insightful visit to the village, can’t imagine living in a hut made by sticks and mud.  The gender divide is still extremely distinct.  So the men of the village sleep in a separate area from their wives.  The hut was dingy and tiny, I wondered how that many people can live in such a confined area.  The little children we saw were carefree and we got trigger carried away with some of the shots of them.  As we left the village and headed back to campsite, we crossed paths with a herd of elephants and mama elephant was not happy.  She proceeded to chase the group and we had to run up the hills for our lives.  It was pretty funny but yet scary.

Safari Bootcamp

Thought I would continue where I left off with our Africa travels…. wanted to name this post ‘GI JANE CADET TRAINING’ as Cat so aptly summed up my entire experience but decided to just stick to my original header.

We were off to a pretty late start on our walking trail at 9.30am when the sun was slightly up.  We kinda held the group up as we woke up pretty early (5.30am to be precise) for the airplane ride.  Thereafter, we had breakie and then went back to our hut to pack up.  The late start made our guide a little grumpy as we did have loads of ground to cover by mid-day.  Well, how was I to know?  Before we started on our hike proper through the Lewa Conservancy, Kitonga (our guide) went through a couple of ground rules.  Rule no 1: always stay close to him.  Rule no 2: do not run unless it’s absolutely necessary or when he says so.  Rule no 3: keep hydrated throughout the walk.  I was all geared up for I’ve never gone hiking in my entire life before this trip.  Actually, the entire Africa trip had many firsts for me.  I got chided not long after for wearing white.  Apparently, one of the basic rules for Safari is not to wear white.   Most animals are colour blind and white and black will stand out very clearly in their eyes thus making you a striking target from far.  Well, had I known that, I wouldn’t have brought so many white tees for the trip!  Sigh… so I was off to a slightly wrong footing with the guide.  Darn..

Kitonga was full of energy as he explained to us the different animals that roamed the conservancy.  We also learnt how to identify the different animals from the dung that they left behind.  That’s right, I can now identify dung from the elephants, zebras, impalas, etc.  That must count for something right?  After a couple of animal sightings, the excitement eventually waned off as the sun was way up high and I was feeling faint from the scorching heat.  B was trying to be the hero and he ended up carrying a heavy camera bag that weighed close to 5 kg through the 7 hour hike.  As I walked though the hills and the winding trails that was laden with animal dung, I wondered what in the world made me agree to come to this?  I should have just joined the rest of the camels and enjoyed the scenic route that they probably have taken.  This was not what I signed up for.  The itinerary specifically wrote this :

The trail is hosted by one of the guides from Wilderness Trails.  Each night is spent in comfortable fly-camps, operated by a full safari crew.  Accommodation is in walk-in mosquito net dome tents, furnished with comfortable bedrolls consisting of a mattress and linen. Bucket showers and a long or short-drop loo will be located behind the tents.  There will be a central dining /lounge area with a mess tent erected for protection.  All equipment is moved by a train of camels.  Walking is essentially unlimited, although each day will involve a morning walk to reach the new camp which could take between 3-7 hours.

Yes, I know that we are going to be walking but how was I to know that the walk was so tough.  No one said anything about going through the hills and the mountains.  Where did all the straight roads go?  Well, I guess we were really slow and we took all of the 7 hours!  By 1pm, I was a real grouch and constantly bugged B with the eternal ‘Are we there yet?’ question.  The only reply that we got from our guide was ‘Yeah, we will eventually reach there after those 2 hills, a couple of plains and then across another hill and viola!’  I seriously felt like a fugitive that just broke out of prison in search of the promised land.  The journey to our campsite was treacherous and the downhill was a killer for me.  The shoes I had was rather ill-fitting and my feet was wobbling as I went down-hill.  I just felt like crying everytime my foot slipped off the rock.  I was tired, grumpy and these random thoughts just kept playing in my head ‘Just shoot me!  Kill me!  What am I doing here?’ After almost 6 hours of walking, we eventually reached our campsite.  The meaning ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ never felt more real to me that moment.

We ended day 1 with another hike around the campsite.  We climbed up a hill and just sat there to admire a family of elephants feeding their young.  It was almost surreal for me as I never imagined to be so close to nature like this.  Of course, the other surreal experience was the sleeping in a tent experience as I never did camping in my entire life   The showers and the toilets were also (to me) out of this world.  B said I should be thankful that at least we had proper shower and toilet facilities.  Yes, I was thankful for that.  But still!  It was definitely a challenge to do any kind of business with the make-shift toilet.  I was also grateful for the warm water that I could enjoy at the end of the day.  Lastly, I must say that the food that we had during the walking trail was AMAZING..  The crew whipped up a fantastic feast and I truly looked forward to lunches and especially dinners under the stars and a cold can of Tusker beer in tow.

BACK from AFRICA

We have about 2000 plus photos between the 2 of us.  That’s the final count that B did after going through all the photos and taking those that are clear and worthy of keeping.  I just spent the afternoon cataloguing the photos from B’s camera and have yet to do so for my own.  Phew, too many photos and because we merged all the photos together in 1 major album, the sequencing all got wonky.  Sigh…

Anyway, here are some pictures from the first day:

We stayed a night at the beautiful House of Waine at Nairobi.  This unique boutique hotel is located 2km away from the famed Karen Blixen Museum, but more importantly, its peaceful and serene ambience gave us the much-needed break after travelling for close to 24 hours.  Yup.. that’s me with my back-pack, a rather tiny one at only 13kg for 16 days.  I’m amazed at how I managed to pull off that little outfits.  That only meant that my ensemble is only restricted to what I can conjure with for the day with whatever clean clothes I may have left.  Haha…

Fooling around with B’s SLR and trying to learn how to take nice shots using the manual mode.  The Sierra Lager Malt is by far the best beer I had in Kenya.  The dinner that we had, on the other hand, was not that memorable.  We wanted our steak medium rare but it came out well-done instead.  Shocker!

Simply love this decorative piece.

Oh-kay, need to try and get some shut-eye for work tomorrow.  Hard to come back to reality after 16 days of relaxation, waking up to some of nature’s best morning calls and sleeping at 9pm almost every night.  I was momentarily plunged into a world of no technology (yes, no internet and TV) for the past 16 days and now need to catch up with what I have missed.

Will write more (SOON).