madrid, spain (aka where we spent a night on a rock) // early early 26th june 2007.

we missed the train to valencia. thus we spent a night on a strategically located rock somewhere between the prado and another big building not too far from the train station. oke maybe the rock was more of a granite pedestal yet unoccupied by a monument or statue. but in any case, for this mostly sleepless and particularly memorable night on a rock, we blame and thank mango sales, ourselves, and the super strict madrid train station. we arrived 15 minutes before departure time but they functioned like an airport with security check gantries and gate closing times and so we could see our train but we were not allowed to board it. haha it was a long night with accounting, paranoiding, postcardwriting, randomdancing, feelingcoldandhungry, fightingtokeepeyesopenandhandsonallbags, and wahlaoinghaha, but thank God we survived.

madrid, spain // 24th to 26th june 2007.

hun mentioned again today the giant half of a watermelon that we ate with two tiny red gelato spoons somewhere in italy and that reminded me that a retropost on this blog was really overdue. so here i am picking and posting again.










we nearly fainted from the scorching heat after we landed in madrid but we managed to make it to our first hostal, hostal miguel angel, albeit the major lack of lights going up the pitch dark stairs with our backpacks and two other girls lugging suitcases. we walked a fair bit despite barely sleeping that first day but madrid was actually nicer than expected (based on friends' reviews). we ate at a local bar-cafe thing standing up at the bar with all the power grandmas and some uncles and aunties and the occasional gentle grandpa, saw a museum and walked around a heckload and sat in plaza mayor. after talking to an elderly indian man we met at the hostal on the first night we discovered many other places we could go to on the second day and even did some strategic bus hopping after killing our feet walking everywhere the first day. because of what he told us, we got to check out the real madrid football stadium, jumped madly to grab on to sculptured bulls outside a bullfighting stadium, found some interesting architecture, ventured into a semi atas neighbourhood, found a patch of park-fountain-monument where there were actually more locals than tourists, and even dipped our feet in pools amidst trimmed hedge mazes in royal gardens and of course met many power grandmas along the way.

sheep and bear adventures : brussels-leuven, belgium // 23rd to early 24th june 2007.

in brussels we met up with zhijun who was then doing a one month stint in a supermarket outside of brussels and he brought us around and occasionally carried our bag(s) too. we did the necessary brussels then headed to leuven, a sort of university town away from brussels and it was quite a nice place. there was a street festival going on (seems like this was the start of many coincidental street parades/festivals/parties we would unexpectedly run into later during our great trip).

i remember staring at this little girl on her father's shoulders while we were in a crowd that was watching abit-too-young-for-their-moves(but who's to say nowadays right..) dancers on stage. even when i first started shooting some years ago, i had always been fascinated by people's backs and what that revealed or concealed about them if you'd look closely enough. sure, a head-on face shot of someone may be punchier or be much more direct sometimes but from time to time, or maybe alot of the time, i still like to keep looking on even when people turn away.

solo sheep sojourns : eindhoven, delft, amsterdam, den haag // 19th june 2007 to 23rd june 2007.

i left london on a surprisingly sunny afternoon and landed in a freshly rained on eindhoven in the evening. it was still sunny though and i quite enjoyed walking around despite having heard about it being a rather industrial little town. there i stayed a night at president's place before taking the train to hun's place in delft the next day.





hun the brownbear was amidst rushing for a submission when i arrived so after a quick but wonderful bike tour of delft in the evening i was pretty much free to and very much encouraged to make my own daytrips to amsterdam and den haag (the hague) in the next few days before we left delft together for our sheep and bear adventures.





amsterdam was confronting. shops and signs and people everywhere - you really don't know where to look and where to go. the weather left me drenched to the core too so that didn't help. i did make it to the van gogh museum on foot though and i really enjoyed it.

i didn't have much time in den haag so i pretty much just walked down the main street while nursing a major and chronic craving for soto ayam....and then i found soto ayam! i was really happy and even had chendol after that too. haha. little joys.





delft actually also reminded of lund quite a bit (except it had alot of canals), so it was heartwarming though a little heartachey too.

solo sheep sojourns : london // 12th june 2007 >> 19th june 2007.

i left lund to travel on 12th june. my first stop was london for a one week transition between the lundlife and the summer backpacking trip. many of my friends and some of my family work/live/play/study in london so it felt like a good place for a relaxed extended stopover before i met up with the brownbear in delft for our sheep and bear adventures in europe (mostly in the countries along the mediterranean)...





in that one week in london i stayed with maner, aida, olivia and met james and barbara (cousin and his wife) for lunch too.

and so, i was always living at friends' places (thanks thanks thanks you all!!) and went out with them sometimes but i spent a fair bit of time walking all over on my own too which was lonely at times yet mostly rather rejuvenating too. spent alot of time in museums, parks, flea markets and maybe a little too much time in the underground. felt like a worm after all that tube-taking from the first few days so i made it a point to walk more instead of taking the tube in the last few days.