SPG Tour

Just came back from my tour in Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar (SPG) together with my family. For those who don't know what Gibraltar is, it is a British colony at one tip of Spain, something like Singapore 200 years ago with much dependence on its harbour. Anyway, here are some of the highlights of my tour...
Attractions there were mainly historical. This included buildings, monuments, statues, cathedrals, castles, palaces, paintings, sculptures, etc. After a while, they all seemed the same. But there were two gothic cathedrals that stood out. One of them reminded me of the mines of moria in Lord of the Rings. The other had a hole in the ceiling that was so beautifully decorated, the hole allowed light from the sun to enter the cathedral and light up this beautiful decorated wall.


There was also this impressive cave called the St. Michael's Cave in Gibraltar that claimed to be the gateway to Hades. It was filled with lots of beautiful stalatites and staglamites! Now it is mainly used as a performance arena. One thing about caves is that it is cool during the summer, and warm during the winter.
Other attractions included bullfights (which we thought was pretty cruel so we skipped it) and gipsy dancing (which was pretty autentic and really up close and personal!) And who says old grandmothers cannot dance?

Busking also seemed popular in Spain. These include the static ones in the pictures, and the more dynamic groups like capoeira and hiphop which had crowds of people. Sadly there was one person performing wushu, and the only crowd he had was me and my family. He didn't perform much in the end.

This picture shows why i didn't buy much souvenirs. Just joking. Anyway one problem in spain was language. Most people in Spain do not speak English, which also means most of the TV channels were in some foreign language that i do not understand at all, not to forget their DVDs, magazines, books, etc. Fortunately that wasn't the case in Portugal and Gibraltar. The summer heat proved itself alright, but the latitude helps cool the place down during the nights. Currency was in Euros for Spain and Portugal, and in Pounds for Gibraltar. It was really expensive there, about twice the price in Singapore. One meal can easily cost 10 to 20 Singapore dollars for each person! And it's much worse in Gibraltar where eveything was about four times the price in Singapore. Food wasn't really all that fantastic even though we had a mixture of them. Best meal i had was the pizza in this Italian restaurant named Locanda Italiana. Its pizza tasted even better then any pizza i had tasted in Singapore including Al Forno!


Some of the most worthwhile sights include the northen tip of Africa and the Atlantic Ocean!

One of the more interesting hotels we stayed in was Hotel Abades which had a futuristic design that made it look like we were staying in a spaceship. Check out the pictures. Another hotel even had radio music in the bathroom!
Finally, the best part ironically was the SIA fight. Own personal screens with a detachable remote cum joypad! Watch movies, TV serials, cartoons, documentaries, etc of your choice! Plus lots of video games to play, some of which are network games that you can play with other passengers on board! I played mahjong with my sis and watched a total of 10 shows! Eragon, Arahan (some Korean fighting movie), Stomp the Yard, Bridge to Terabithia, Ghost Rider, One Last Dance (the movie that was filmed in Singapore), Shooter, 200 Pound Beauty, Justice my Foot (some Stephen Chow show), and the Number 23.