9am

After the Subuh prayer, I felt too lazy to even open my eyes. It was cold outside and it's nice cuddling under the thick blanket. My bed creaked but I don't mind. I guess beds in hostels in Spain are mostly creaky. Why.. just a few nights ago Jules told me that our "neighbour" at a room next door in Gaudy Hostel crashed their bed. So the couple had to repair the bed in the middle of the night. It was no surprise.. its cold winter nights and its a land where love is expressed openly ladida hahaha

I turned and the bed creaked again. Oh I forgot to tell, the bed slanted so actually I was not very comfortable laying with my head lower than my two feet.. anyway, its time to get up.

I hit the shower.. Oh my GOD! The water was cold. Unlike in Gaudy Hostel, we have a proper bath tub, here at the sol and .. hostel, we only have shower stall, so one has to be very careful not to let water sprayed all over the stall and make the bathroom slippery.

After the morning ritual of showering and waiting for Jules to get ready, we decided to explore the city and go to the tourists attractions. So our tourists trail started along the river which was just a walking distance from the hostel.

I read the map that we snagged from the hostel reception and started planning for the visits hehehe. We have decided to stroll along the Rio Guadalquivir and enjoy the view. Yep, we really enjoyed the view. The river is wide and they have river cruise for tourists to enjoy scenic view. It seems that there are other activities in the river such as water volleyball, kayaking but NO SWIMMING wierd huh. Spent some time admiring the river and just people watching.

Anyway, we reached our first spot the Torre Del Oro.. a hundreds of years old watch tower to monitor the ships coming the Guadalquivir. Translated, Torre Del Oro means Tower of Gold. It is because of the shiny and glittery of the stones when reflected by sun. Like the gold reflection, the tower has colourful pasts but now it house a naval museaum. It was closed when we were there so we just admired and took pictures of the tower from the outside.. amazing.

From there we follow the map to McDonalds! Yea! We didn't have breakfast and it was almost lunch hour. We have agreed to buy ourselves McFillet large meal. It was our first McDonalds meal during this trip grrr..am salivating already.

The fastfood joint was just across the road from the riverside. It was at among the new shopping buildings selling clothes, restaurants and bars that sell tapas.

Had some communication problem with the counter.. solved immediately using sign language. Whats so difficult? Just point and say si hahaha.. I took out my chilli sauce sachets aahhh we are in seventh heaven kekeke..

After the quick lunch, we browsed one sports store next to the McDonalds for a silverquick shirt and bermuda shorts for Ardi.. hahaha too expensive. Okay now proceed to tourists spots.

2pm

Jules made me carried a 1.5litre water in my bagpack

I had almost 2kg bottled water in my bagpack. Why can't she bought a smaller one? I argued.
"No" she said.
"We need the water. Besides bigger is cheaper."
Argghhhh! I know we need to drink a lot of water but carrying around a 1.5litre bottle can be tiring..
"Don't worry, I drink a lot. By no time at all I'll finish the water," she said tucking another 1.5litre bottle into her backpack.
"You'd better drink the one I carry," I grumbled.
She gave me a happy Yes!

I nevigated both of us using the tourists map and our second destination was Plaza Espana. We can see the tower from afar and just could not wait to explore the place. We stopped at the Maria Luisa Park which is next to the Plaza Espana to admire the trees and take pictures.. as usual. Since I got more than 600 pix memories on my 254mb memory card I "borrowed" from the office, we vowed to click and snap at every whims and desire.

Plaza Espana was magnificient. The plaza was undergoing some restoration works of the beautiful mosaics of all the Spanish provinces all around the square. It was unlucky for us to seethat the canals were dried up for the restoration work but still the place was worth a visit.

To quote a friend "If you've seen Star Wars II - The Attack of the Clones, you might have seen a friction of the beautiful plaza. One of the scenes of this movie was shot between the columns of the palace. In a science fiction movie like Star Wars, the Plaza de España looks like it really belongs in the 34th Century."

It would not be complete if one did not take pictures in front of square mosaics representing the provinces in Spain. There are some 40 provinces representing by these mosaic boxes. Unfortunately after three shots my camera battery went kaput.

Oh well, have to depend on Jules camera then. Took a few more pictures at our favourite provinces. Then we headed to the third in our itenarary.. Real Alcazar.

I read in my travel guide book that Real Alcazar was real beauty. So off we go. I got a bit lost with the map. hahaha.. actually some of the roads were under construction. I guess they were building metro for Sevilla so some of the roads are closed for trafic.

After a bit of going around and our brief stops at shops selling souvenirs we finally found Real Alcazar tucked between old buildings and narrow cobblestones lanes. It was late afternoon when we finally went in the palace after purchasing the entry tickets for EUR5.

From Puerto de Leon we enter the courtyards, the rooms that show beautiful mosaic fragments from the muslim eras to when the palace and Andalucia was captured by the Spaniards. From Patio de las Doncellas to Salon del Techo de Carlos V, Salòn de Embajadores and to the underground secluded bath of Los Baños de Doña María de Padilla (we suspect it was an ablution area for women muslims before converted into special bath hahaha). There was this one duck lazying around the ablution area for men.. though surrounded by beautiful carvings, jardines (gardens), this lone duck was the main attraction that day.. I wonder why..

Unfortunately we did not have the time to visit the beautiful jardines as the real was closing. Snap some photos at the castle.. ops Jules battery conged. Both camera conged. Bought some postcards to compensate the pictures we could not take waaaaaa!

Well, we just had to make do with whatever source we can find and in this case EUR to buy postcards and official guide of Real Alcazar. From aerial view the jardines surrounding the Alcazar was the most lush garden in the whole of Sevilla. The gardeners painstakingly taking care of the old trees and beautiful flowers. It was magnificient.

After spending some three hours inside the Alcazar, its time to head back to the hostel. Instead of using the same route, we decided to walk along the narrow cobblestone roads. My reason was if we go down the hill, we should not get lost. As Sevilla is a bit hilly.. going up means farther away from the river and going down means towards the river. However, how far we are from the hostel was the risk we have to take.

6pm

So that afternoon, we purposely lost ourselves in the maze of narrow cobblestone roads and just let our feet took us along the trails. We reached the business districts where all the imported goods were displayed behind glass windows. From designer clothes to expensive looking flamenco dresses, piel (leather) goods such as bags and shoes to internet cafe, the road is littered with shoppers both locals and tourists thus, the pricey goods.

After working hours was the time for the locals to enjoy window shopping so the roads were quite busy. Like in Madrid El Corte Ingles was also one of the popular shopping complex here. A building by its own, the place is tucked between building and a plaza. Jules said her feet hurts for all the walking.. so was I. So we decided to go down hill and hope to see the river. After 20 minutes of walking along very narrow and intimidated lanes, we finally found our bearings. The end road was about 3km away from our hostel.. our poor feet...