I Walked on Ice

I just came back from my dentist today. As much as I wanted to stay at home, away from the cold, I had a dentist appointment that I had to attend in the morning. As I walked out my apartement, what I saw immediately was the snow had gone hard and it's not as beautiful as it looked yesterday. When it was snowing yesterday, the snow was really soft, flaky and easy to walk. This morning the flakes changed to this hard ice, something like the ice in ice skating rinks but with uneven surface. If you have ice skated before then you know how very slippery it is to walk the rink with normal shoes. Now imagine the skating rink is moved to road pavements and add the uneven surface to them. If you're not careful enough your backside could easily hit the ground. So you can imagine how hard it is to walk it. The normally ten minutes walk took me about half hour to walk. And along the way, I almost fell down a couple of times.

I'm still learning about the different types of ice after snow. Beside the hard ice there were two other types that I came across today such as the ice slush and ice crust. If you ask me which one is better I'd probably have a hard time answering because I prefer none. The ice slush is like, you know, slush. It's watery and wet, and when mixed with the debris of the roads it looks kind of brownishy and it does not look pretty at all. The ice crust probably is safer to walk as it's not as slippery as the hard ice and it's not as wet as the slush. But as I said before I prefer none. Anyway, I hope I'm not boring you with the different types of snow. I just find it fascinating learning about this new stuff.

The road to my dentist - I was resting here and taking photo at the same time :)

It's Snowing in London!

Living in London has its varieties. One of them is the snow at winter times. I've been living here for two years but this is the first time I saw the snow this thick. It was about 10cm thick in the morning and it's been snowing non-stop that in a local newspaper it's said that it has reached about 17.5cm deep. The newspaper also mentioned that this blizzard has caused the thickest snow in London since 1964.

The bizzare thing about the snow in London is that the city is incapable of coping with it. Two years ago when it was snowing for 4cm of depth, most of the tube lines were not working resulting in people flocking buses to work. I myself spent almost 2 hours reaching office. And of course, it was not a nice experience as I had to queue for a long time in the bus stop and when I managed to get a bus I had to squeeze myself to get into it with everybody else. This time, with 17.5cm of depth, I would expect it to get worse and it did. A lot of people were left stranded in the middle of going to work, some made it to office after a few hours and some others, who couldn't make it to office, went back home and tried to work from home. What happened with the public transportation? Some tube lines are either cancelled, partly suspended or with delays. Some buses were out of service due to road safety. In short, London is in a halt. You would have never thought that being a city used to wintry weather, London is having difficulty with its infrastructures whenever there is snow. And it's the sad truth. To its defense, London doesn't always experience snow in winter, especially one like this is very rare. That's probably why the infrastructures were not built to deal with it.

But it's not all bad news. I went out to walk in my neighbourhood and people were out and about, taking photos, making snowman, and in the park nearby people were sledging, snowboarding or just enjoying the snow. Dogs were obviously happy in the park. They were running around eating snow and scrubbing their faces to the snow. I also went out to Tower Bridge to take some photos of the city in white. Luckily the tube were working okay from my home to Tower Hill station and back. And so here are some photos I took today. Enjoy!

The view from my balcony

Another view from the balcony

On the way to the park - a post box covered with snow

This is an unusual sight - the park had a number of visitors today

On one side of the park with the pond

Another View of the park

Walking to The Tower Bridge

The Tower Pier and Tower Bridge

The City Hall

The Seats near Tower of London overlooking the Tower Bridge

A Winter Weekend In Barcelona

I just spent a weekend in Barcelona. And yes, I went to Barcelona again! This is a city where I will always go back to whenever I have the time. I love it!

I took a plane from London and the weather was OK in London. I happened to check on the weather forecast on Barcelona for the 2 days on BBC's website and saw the wind would be 80mph on Saturday. I was wondering whether 80 is good or bad but I didn't really think about it much after that. On the plane, the captain mentioned that the flight would be a little bumpy at Barcelona because of strong wind. That's when I remember about the 80mph. I don't fancy flying. No matter how many times I fly, I don't think I will ever get used to it. So I was already worried before we even got to Barcelona.

When the plane started to descend at Barcelona, it started to shake. It was a clear day. I could see the mountains covered with snow. I could see the little houses and buildings. I could see the sea. I could even see the shadow of the plane reflecting on the sea. Everything was really beautiful from up there. But it was really, really shaky. I was really scared. I held my hands tightly to my seat and was hoping the plane to reach to the ground soon. I could feel that the captain was trying really hard to turn the plane towards the runway as it was turning against the wind's direction. Everytime the plane turned a bit, it went down very deep. I heard people at the back screaming. It was really that bad. Finally, the plane touched the ground. It was not a smooth landing but I'm not complaining. I was so relieved and so was everybody else in the plane. It was the worst turbulence of my life.

At the airport, I heard announcements that flights were delayed because of the storm. Outside the airport, I could see why. The wind was intensely strong. It was told on the news that the wind caused a significant damaged in Barcelona where a roof collapse killed several people.

Moving on from the aiport, I took train to the city, went shopping for a bit and then had lunch at my favourite lunch place at La Rita. I visited Gaudi's Casa Batllo and spent quite some time in there. I still think Gaudi is a genious. The best room in Casa Batllo is the drawing room overlooking the largest window in the building where bone-like pillars attached to it. The mushroom fireplace is unique too. The rooftop is somewhat similar to the one in Casa Mila but in a much smaller scale. Gaudi used a lot of broken ceramics to design the rooftop, which is also similar to what he had done in Park Guell. Everything about it is uniquely his style and creation. There's no question on that.

The next day, on Sunday, the weather was very good. The sun was shining brightly and it's the best time to go to park. So I decided to go to Park Guell again. I was surprised to find the park was closed. Some people said the park was closed because of falling trees all over the park. I understood it but was still disappointed. Then I walked up along the border of the park and found the highest open area outside the park and saw a superb view of Barcelona. It was just incredible.

I wanted to end my weekend trip by shopping spree in Barcelona and was very surprised to find most of the shops in the city centre in Barcelona were closed on Sunday. I knew about some Spanish cities celebrating siesta and to see shops closed on Sunday in these cities was not surprising. But I'm very much amazed to see it in Barcelona! I thought being the second largest city in Spain, it would open as business as usual, even on a Sunday. Apparently, I was wrong. So I decided to just walk Las Ramblas and the old town area. The old town looked different when the shops were closed. I think the shops were distracting too much that I never noticed the old town as the old town. I usually just looked at what the shops were selling without realising that the old town of Barcelona is beautiful. It was actually a good thing that the shops were closed.

All in all, apart from my worst flying experience, I enjoyed my weekend in Barcelona. The winter weather in Barcelona was good. It was about 13-15 degree Celcius, quite warm for a winter, very much like most summer days in London. The sky was bright blue and the sun was shining. It was such a nice warm winter.

The effects of the strong wind, from the top: motorcycles parked at Passeig de Gracia, a falling tree in Park Guell, and almost a falling tree outside the Cathedral de Barcelona.

Gaudi's Casa Batllo

The fine view from the highest hill near Park Guell

The bullet shaped building, Torre Agbar, appears at the end of the road

Reflection at Placa de Catalunya

I'd say this is probably the most photographed icon in Ciutat Vella