Casa del Libro

As always I've always devoted the end-year holidays to reading books which I've bought all year round. Fine, not always but I started to do so last year. I finished the adrian mole series last year and h.p. n d half blood prince as well as that dreadful bukit kepong. This time around, I brought a huge number of books again along with me to madrid.

I had two more to bring but I didn't as it would take up weight and I wouldn't be able to finish them. From that pile now, there are still a few which I haven't even started on.

Books I've finished :
1. The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks
2. The Wedding - Nicholas Sparks
3. True Believer - Nicholas Sparks
4. At First Sight - Nicholas Sparks
5. Devil Wears Prada - Lauren Weisberger

Books I've not touched yet :
1. Harmony Silk Factory - Tash Aw
2. Memoirs of A Geisha - Arthur Golden

Looking at that list, I find it funny that i've read 4 nicholas sparks books and one chick lit book. They're nice books though.

Currently, I'm dwelling on The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. Great book kononnya since it won The 2006 Man Booker Prize. I have to admit that it's kind of boring for me. She just seems to be repeating the same stuff over and over again. Some of the stuff doesn't even make sense to me. The fonts are so bloody small I tell you that it strains my eyes. Then again, i'm not even in the middle yet so it'll hopefully get better.

Did I mention that I even completed that Konserto Terakhir for next year. I haven't even started on the synopsis yet. Gonna have to do it soon since school's gonna be starting. I'm sure every Form 4 reading it would agree with me that this is so much better than all the war crap in Bukit Kepong. This novel is just more understandable and all but it kinda reminds me of Panas Salju. If you must know, Konserto Terakhir is one hell of an incestuous story to me.

I'm now reminding myself that I would have to seriously complete all holiday homework or I'll be suffering like shit again like this year. I have the konserto synopsis plus that silly add maths paper leong gave. I've kinda forgotten how to do some of it so I'm referring to the analysis series book non stop. Better complete it or risk being murdered by leong.

Worse still, I completely forgotten about the moral assignments which I told myself I would do at this time of the year. Jiam reminded me two weeks ago but I still haven't started. I have 4 to do and I haven't even started on one! Reminds me now on the computer assignment I was supposed to e-mail to lalitha. I haven't started too .. can someone just strangle me now.

Student life sucks .. blame it all on stupid homework especially the holiday ones. I'm gonna calm myself down, stop fuming and probably start on them. Tranquilo ..

Before I go, I just have to show you all this bottle of El Gaiterro champagne I think which we opened last night. It was absolutely good. Very good quality spanish champagne from asturias. It was not too bitter but not too sweet. Perfecto taste. Expensive stuff from some friends though. I wanna open a bottle of cava tonight.

-adios y hasta luego-

Ni Una Sola Palabra

The past week I dare say has been a week full of 'action'. Lots of unexpected and fun stuff happened.

First of all, my mum's maid, Annie whom she brought along from manila ran away. Yes, RAN AWAY! Dia telah LARI. She was supposed to go back to manila on the 29th as my mum didn't want her anymore. We even issued her air ticket already. She didn't wanna go home and thus felt it was better to run away which we presume was partly caused by the influence from some of her friends.

She went out in the afternoon and she was not back yet even at 7 pm. It was then only at about 8.30 that she sms-ed my mum telling her that stuff and that she was with her new employer in pamplona. That we didn't believe coz she couldn't have reached pamplona in such a short time. Trust me we're still happily surviving here. In fact we're really happy coz there are just times when you won't be able to stand her attitude. Changing the lyrics of a PCD song, it would be "I don't need a maid to make it happen" .. sounds so wrong. Enough of this now.

Remember when I blogged on how there was only one computer to be shared with four people under one roof. The situation now has changed thanks to my step-dad who recently bought a brand new computer! The old one just couldn't start anymore so yeah it should just end up in some junkyard. Pretty much explains the sudden fluctuation in the number of posts on this blog. This ASUS system is working well for me despite having a spanish OS. Intel Core 2 Duo processor mind you. =)

The highlight of the past week was something I eagerly wanted to blog about but just didn't find time to. I saw Real Madrid yet again. My fourth time having seen them thrice last year. I was lucky to see them for their last match of the year as we had previously missed them two times since we arrived. Trust me you don't really feel like waiting for them after so many times but we didn't have much to do so why not. I know anyone reading this would probably feel like slapping me but it really ain't that fun to wait that way anymore.

I must say that my photos this time really sucked coz the stupid guard kept on blocking my camera at the wrong times. I must say however that it was definitely worth seeing Cannavarro and Van Nistelrooy. The rest were just the usual. Did I mention that I almost got the chance to shake Casillas hands but just missed it. Ohh yah, Fabio Capello's face is just as sui-yong-ish as you always see in his pictures. Funny thing is that my sister's best shot was of that effing coach. I'll just show you all pictures of the RMA bus. Don't want people stealing the players pics. Kiamsiap ..

That same day, Real Madrid signed on another new Franco-Argentine, ex-Boca Juniors player, Gonzalo Higuaín. I'm not sure why but he just looks like some glimmer of hope for RMA. This is what I just presume from looking at that beaming face but I can't be sure as I'm no fortune teller. What's more, he's only 19. I'm sure female fans out there would be screaming for him soon coz I can already hear my sis and mum doing quite so.

A few days later, ex-River Plate player, Fernando Gago was signed on. If i'm not mistaken, he was very much sought after by RMA and there was a lot of talks between Real and River Plate. Pray and hope RMA will do better with these two. One way or another, Ramón Calderón's promises are kind of fulfilled though he initially promised to bring in Kaka and Torres as well. That would make it 6 new signings this season including Diarra, Marcello, Cannavarro and Van Nistelrooy.

The Malaysian embassy staff had their x'mas party last thursday at this buffet restaurant called sigland. They decided to invite us too since they love my gila mum so much. We try avoiding coz we didn't wanna fatten ourselves with another buffet but they insisted. My mum is also sick of the food there coz she used to go there every single week for the parties of various filipino associations in madrid. It's just silly that they keep on using the same place. Don't people get bored?

Sigland has a cool ambience the moment you step in and it was rather filled that day during siesta. Like every other buffet there's lot of filling food like sushi, pasta and pizza which would make you full real fast. Stupid people always tend to take lots of this for some funny reason. It ain't worth it. We even skipped all the oriental food served coz it will obviously taste horrible. My mum would be able to cook the same stuff 100% better. Thus, the only thing really worth eating there is the seafood, meat and the desserts especially the crepe which I didn't manage to try.

The staff had some exchange present thing among themselves which was really funny. It had something to do with my darling or something like that. It took me a while to get the game. At the end, I was glad I didn't overeat like how I always do in buffets. Only makes you feel horibble and it only makes you FATTER ! Overall, sigland ain't that bad but I doubt so if i'll go there again for lunch.

Group Pic (L-R) : Jenny, Shakira, Mum, Brendi, Me,
Syam, Enrique, Fauzi, Faridah, Ayub

My sis, Brendi's got something brand new to show off to the world which is her new phone. The latest Nokia 5300 which looks superbly good especially with its music player function. It has a rather clear screen and camera too. My sis lost her phone sometime this year so now she has a phone to use. Hopefully she keeps it safe. I know her Fernando Torres waallpaper seems strange but you just cn't stop any girls obsession over hot futbol players.

If my sis got something new, so do I. I recently bought a new mp4 player. No, it's not that expensive yet bulky Zen Vision M but it's close enough. A Creative Zen V Plus was what I got. Bought at Mediamarkt for the price of 199 euros. I knew I needed a new player so I canvassed around for almost a month. I had enough cash from some savings and my PMR cash from last year. I actually wanted the Samsung T-9 but it was out of stock. Opted for Samsung K-5 but it was only available in 2 GB.

So my final choice was the Zen V Plus. I must say that i'm not entirely satisfied with it but it's better than nothing. However, if I do find a 4GB samsung k-5, I'm so gonna switch. Here in spain, everything you buy is refundable as long as it does not exceed 21 days. Cool rite but many spanish kinda take advantage out of it.

Here's some of its specs :
- 4 GB memory
- Brilliant full color 1.5" 128 x 128 pixels OLED display
- Up to 15 hours for continuous audio playback
- 43.5 x 67.5 x 15.9mm
- 43.5 g
- FM Radio
- Voice Recording
- Mass Storage Device
- Built-in Microphone
- Image and Video(AVI) viewer

So far it's been working really well. It produces sound of superb quality and the screen colours are amazing. The only complaint I have is that the player freezes and hangs when playing certain videos. The only way to solve this is by pressing the small reset button which can only be reached using a needle. Frustrating . . really.

Another purchase I made at mediamarkt was the zapatillas, el canto del loco's album that came out last year. El canto del loco is like the best spanish band ever if you ask me. Just love all their songs. I had downloaded all the songs but I just had to have the original album. Lucky for me, it was on promotion and I bought for only 5 euros ! That's like only about rm 20. There is this other new ecdl dvd which is out. Wanna buy it too but it's 19 euros. I only have like about 10 euros left ..

Since we were all shakira fans, my mum decided to buy the shakira two in one album which was also on promo. For the price of 13 euros, you get Fijacion Oral vol. 1 (spanish album) and Oral Fixation vol. 2 (english album) plus a limited edition dvd. It's seriously worth to buy. You would never find such a good deal back in kl. One of the reasons why I fucking adore mediamarkt. They're even selling original Lost season 1 and 2 discs for 45 euros! If only I had more cash ..

Lastly, my sis and I received a shared x'mas gift from my step-dad and mum. They got us a external hard drive for our computer which we kind of need too. For 89 euros only and we got a 250 GB Lacie external HD. 250 GB is a LOT !! I just can't imagine how both of us are gonna fill it up. It would probably last for 10 years or more. A thoughtful yet very useful gift indeed.

-adios y hasta luego-

X'mas Is So Over

I have nothing much to do so I decided to this thingy. I did not get tagged by anyone but who cares. The last time I did one of this was on friendster last year. Boring or not ? It's all up to you.

Layer ONE : On the Outside
Name : Brandon Yew
Birth Date : august 26 1991
Current Status : single
Eye color : i would say black but i think its darkish brown
Hair Color: black
Righty or Lefty : lefty
Zodiac Sign : virgo

Layer TWO : On the inside
Your Heritage: chinese
Your Fears : saying the wrong stuff at the wrong times
Your Weaknesses : expensive stuff
Your Perfect Pizza : pepperoni

Layer THREE : Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
Your thoughts first waking up : what am i gonna be doing today
Your Bedtime : any time i like
Your most missed memory : lots

Layer FOUR : Your Pick
Pepsi or Coke : coke
McDonald's or Burger King : McD
Single or group dates: single ones
Adidas or Nike: nike !
Lipton tea or Nestea: i like both .. just depends when
Chocolate or vanilla: any
Cappuccino or coffee: coffee

Layer FIVE : Do you
Smoke : nope
Curse : definitely

LAYER SIX : In the past month
Drank alcohol: almost every other night
gone to the mall : yup
Been on stage: nope
Eaten Sushi : nope
Dyed your hair : nope

LAYER SEVEN: Have You Ever?
Played a stripping game: nada
Changed who you were to fit in: sometimes ..

Layer EIGHT
Age you're hoping to be married : no less than 25

LAYER NINE: In a Girl/Guy.
Best eye colour: bluish
Best hair colour: anything that fits
Short or long hair: doesn't matter

Layer TEN: What Were You Doing.
1 minute ago : doing this
1 hour ago : taking a bite
4.5 hours ago : sleeping
1 month ago : dunno .. shopping mayb
1 year ago : where i am now

Layer ELEVEN : Finish The Sentence
I love: airplanes
I feel : delighted but sad
I hate : lala people
I hide: secrets
I miss: my frens
I need: to get out

Layer TWELVE : Tag 5 people
1. Brendi
2. Jiam
3. Amanda
4. Peako
5. Yoong jie


Before leaving, I'll just leave you all with some pics of what I did on christmas day this year. Generally, it was just a friendly lunch at the home of the pang family (rmbr them). It was really nice of them and there was just too much food there. It was good that I limited myself to how much I ate.

After that we had a short hop to a mall called Xanadú. Funny name rite. The main attraction of this mall is it's gigantic artificial skiing facility. It is nothing like those you find in genting or singapore as they seriously remodelled it to look like an original mountain. You even get those cable car thingys to get up. Ski or snowboard down the long slope plus a guarenteed supply of snow at -5 degress.

Xanadú

the snow place

the tremendous length of the skiing slope

I hate how bloody fat and gay I look like in all those pictures. blek. i blame that stupid jacket i'm wearing.

-adios y hasta luego-

Feliz Navidad !!

Merry Christmas To All !!

Or as the Spanish say, "Feliz Navidad"

Christmas time is here again. Time to rejoice .. time for presents. Christmas in madrid I would have to admit just isn't that interesting. It's just all quiet and moody. However, the christmas mood here has certainly improved compared to the last year. The Comunidad de Madrid probably had more income or something. One noticable thing this year would be the various lights around the main roads of madrid.

My best christmas celebration would certainly be the one in manila. In philippines, you can help but feel the spirit of christmas. It's just bloody joyful. At midnight, you would just hear firecrackers going off non-stop for an hour or so. Then you would hear news of those hurt by them the next day. Haha. Somehow I've been listening to a reasonable amount of fireworks here too.

I have nothing much to say so I'll just leave you all with some pictures of the x'mas decoration around the condo which were rather last minute. They were like bought and put up all in one day about two weeks ago.

1. Mini X'mas Tree

2. Ribbons and a Christmas plant

3. Hanging Santas outside the window

4. Christmas Lights on the railings

The x'mas tree I know must be unique to many of you all. We decided to buy a mini one since my mum already has two big tress stocked up in manila. Silly to buy another.

Hanging santas are really popular here in spain. So many condos hang them. They even have just one huge santa. Trust me it looks freaking attractive when you see it outside.

-adios y hasta luego-

Salamanca y Avila

Another effing long absence indeed. One computer broke down, lots of activities, korean dramas, spanish reality shows, The O.C ... just some of the reasons for my lack of blogging. I know you all wanna know more on spain but three people sharing one comp. here just ain't an easy feat so enjoy this one.

As I said in my last post, we made an out of madrid trip to salamanca and eventually avila two wednesdays ago. There were public holidays here in spain on that wednesday and friday. Lots of madrileños took thursday off to travel out while schools closed till monday. Madrid was rather quiet those few days.

We also had a similar trip last year to navacerrada and segovia. We were again guided by my step-dad's friend, martin. He is a filipino who has lived in spain for quite some time and trust me who knows LOTS about spain .. every aspect of it. Not just about spain but almost anything knowledgeable to the extent that he talks too much without knowing it. He'll be fun to listen to at first but you'll get bored after some time. I just wonder how awfully pain my step-dad's ears would be at the end of the day. Being the evil ones we are, we just 'bitched' about martin in canto behind his back ..

Enough of martin now and more of salamanca shall we. Salamanca is about 200 km out of madrid which is almost a 5 hour drive. Salamanca is Spain's great education city. The earliest and best universities in Spain were set up here. Quoting what martin said to me, "Salamanca is the place to head to if you plan to study in spain particularly the spanish language. It's the best".

The first place that most people come to is usually the Plaza Mayor. No, it's not the same the one in Madrid. It's just similar in the sense that it functions as a town square. Huge squarish space sorrounded by tall buildings with exits at certain sides not forgetting a clock tower. They even had a gigantic decorated christmas tree right in the middle.

There are numerous universities in Salamanca. You'll never finish seeing each and everyone but there's just two or three main ones which are like the most important. Somehow, I never noticed they were universities till they were pointed out by martin. Every building just looked almost similar. All old looking but architecturally HOT.

We entered various gift shops in Salamanca and most of their souvenirs were of frogs. Frog magnets, frog keychains, froggy postcards .. We were curious and asked martin. There was a true meaning behind all the frogs. There is this tall facade of one university with lots of like small sculptures on it. Among all the sculptures there is one of a skull with a frog sitting on its head. It is a local belief that if you succesfully locate this frog, you'll succesfully pass in your course/degree or as some say get married soon.

As for me, finding the lil frog would just benefit me for my SPM next year. I'm neither doing my degree nor planning to get hitched anytime soon. We ended up at that facade place eagerly looking for that frog. We gave up after almost 10 minutes and spent another 5 looking for it guided by martin. I must have look bloody foolish at that time. There were some 'not so blind' germans and americans who succesfully found it.

More walking around salamanca, looking at various beautiful sights including some building with lots of shells on its walls. There was one particular huge building which I found to be all majestic and nice. Apparently you can pay 8 euros to go on top of its tower but we didn't have so much cash to waste. Had pictures taken though.

We then decided to drop by Avila which was another place located on the way back to Madrid. Avila is one place i've longed to visit since last year and finally i get to. Avila's actually one of the few remaining walled cities aka. 'negara kota' in spain and the world. The walls here are just really high and long. Not forgetting its unique shape which makes it even more beautiful particularly in winter.

I feel asleep in the car on the way there. By the time, we reached there it was almost 3 hours later. It was getting dark rather soon so we quickly took pictures. The moment we stepped out of the car, it was freaking cold added with the blowing winds. Avila is without doubt one of the highest points in spain thus explaining the cold and strong winds.

We didn't do much inside avila as it was already dark so we focused on the walls outside. They switched on the lights when it gets dark so the walls just looked magnifico then.

A little further down from Avila, we sort of stumbled across this huge stone cross on top of some not very high hill. There were people taking photos there so we decided to do the same. We walked further into that area and found out that we were right across Avila overlooking most of the walls. What a sight to behold added with its lights in the night. Took some pics of and with the cross. Next thing, we were back in the car.

It was yet another long journey back to madrid. Reached home at about 7 pm if i'm not mistaken. You don't wanna know how much my ass was aching throughout the day. Martin had dinner at our place so I was forced to eat even though I was already kinda filled with a sandwich.

That was kinda all that happened that day. Hope you all didn't get bored and sorry if any of your systems crashed as a result of the incredulous amounts of photos.

I feel glad having already visited all the 3 UNESCO World Heritage sites located near Madrid. Avila this year while last year I visited Toledo and Segovia. Plus Salamanca, that would make it four. Anyone visiting Madrid should include these three cities in their itineraries. They're seriously worth seeing.

Contrary to many people's believe, I do not always have such outings like the one I've blogged about it neither do I do stuff tourists do like tour all sorts of places. One reason to explain this - i've done it all last year. There's not much of madrid that I haven't seen or visited. I kind of live a normal daily life here even though i'm in spain. There's just times where I go no where else besides the supermarket or the oficina laboral.

I think that would be enough excuses for now. haha

-adios y hasta luego-

El Viernes y Sábado

Sorry for the long absence but beautiful spain has been eating up lots of my time. Then again there were just those times where you are just uninterested to blog at all.

It's already been almost a week but I'll just blog about what i did sometime last week. There was this huge sandwich holiday in spain this week so we made a 'out of madrid' trip on wednesday which i'll blog about that real soon.

Last Friday, we had dinner at this beautiful chinese restaurant aptly named Restaurante Royal Fenix. There is no spelling error here as it was seriously spelt FENIX and not PHOENIX. I kind of burst out laughing when I first saw it.

When I went, I was rather surprised. The place looked really nice unlike other horrible chinese restaurants i've seen though this is the first that i've eaten in. They decorated the place nicely in a modern like way. Best of all was how they placed hundreds of paraguas as in umbrellas on the ceiling. Light would have to pass through these red paraguas thus creating this gloomy reddish effect in the resto. Unique deciration if you ask me.

I must add that I absolutely love the design of the chairs they used. The cloth used was just so attractive I wanted to bring a chair home. They made the chairs look cheap though coz they attached hooks behind them. You must look at it to understand. Before I forget, they have a rather attractive bar as well.

As for the food, it ain't that good compared to the chinese food in kl. Even my mum cooks better than them. Not only was the food not tasty, it was bloody expensive. I can't really blame them coz they have to cater to the taste buds of the local madrileños. They generally like their food sweet. The tip for chinese visiting spain is to avoid all chinese food here.

We ordered ice-cream for dessert which came in a effing cute cup. My mum liked it so much she even asked the owner where she bought the cup. Silly of me to be eating ice-cream in cold winter ..

As we were in a rather big group, they gave us two free bottles of Freixenet Cava. Cava is kind of some Spanish variety of alcohol. It wasn't that bad and it was very nice of them. Needless to say, I drank about three glasses.

We were all belanja-ed by Miss May, the Welfare Officer at the Oficina Laboral and Merlyn. Miss May's one really nice lady and its certainly not just because she paid for dinner. It's hard to explain but yeah she's really friendly and nice to talk to. Merlyn is Miss May's assistant she brought along from Manila. She even invited the Pang family which is one of our friends in Spain.

L-R : Veronica, Merlyn, Miss May, Mum, Sis, Me, Step-dad, Felipe, Mr. Pang, Fernando

I met the Pang family last year. They're a Chinese-Filipino-Spanish family. Mr. Pang who is a Chinese came from Hong Kong to Spain many many years ago. He's a wonderful cook and once opened a chinese resto here in madrid. Mr.Pang married Veronica, a Filipina he met here. They've stayed here all this while and have two sons, Fernando and Felipe.

You might wonder why I say that they're a Spanish family but they don't a speak a word of any other language but Spanish to each other. We speak english to all of them except Mr. Pang who speaks cantonese. Since we don't know much canto chinese in spain, Mr. Pang's like me and my sis's grandpa in Spain. We call him kong kong while my mum and step-dad calls him Papa Pang. =)

They're very nice to us. Always inviting us for dinner and stuff. Not to forget, they even presented a plaque thing during my step-dad's farewell party which stated like "Familia en España" meaning Family in Spain. How sweet of them.

Proceeding to the next day, there was yet another important event. It was the Deeparaya celebration of the Malaysian Embassy here. It would also be the 1st anniversary of the Malaysian Association in Spain (MAIS). The celebration comes really late coz Deeparaya already like passed more than a month ago.

Everyone who went was supposed to bring a dish of their choice so my mum brought 4 steamed fishes and it was a definite hit particularly among the spanish who attended. Their cuisine does not have anything similar to it. The curry was rather welll received too.

There was generally just lots of socializing involved as always. I would say there was about 60 people who attented the event at the embassy. I wasn't really interested in the malaysian food so I ate a little. When we were bored, me and my sis went out to the building's fire escape. It had really nice sights and was preety windy. With such nice sights, we had some camwhoring done. Haha

One of the highlights of the event was when Datuk gave his speech. He announced that he would be retiring soon, going back to kl. Furthermore, he informed everyone of the resignation of my mum as MAIS President. My mum was awarded a certificate of appreciation and was given a personal gift from Datuk and Datin, some bell they bought when they were assigned in Nepal. I was really proud of my mum at that moment.

L-R : With Datuk Yusof and Datin Niki

I must mention that me and my sis met someone new there. It was this 14 year old guy named Alex whose malaysian mother is married to a spanish man. It was actually my sister who desperately wanted to know him. She was almost begging to know the 'hot' guy but she didn't say much to him when we were talking. Haha

I did most of the talking and found that he kind of loved computer games. He's a gamer type of person. It was good that he spoke fluent english. Another thing worth mentioning was his height for a 14 year old. I so envy him. I feel short ... blek

When everything was over, a few of us went to Latheral, the bar across the street from the embassy for some drinks. It was my second time there but I must say that I like that bar for some reason. Look how unique those colourful vodka bottles look.

That's all for this post. I'll be posting about our trip to Salamanca and Avila as soon as possible.

-adios.hasta luego-