Had already covered all the main tourist sights, so it was suggested that I head to the Oriente district. This is the newest district of Lisbon, a planned, landscaped area that came up for the 1998 World Expo (yeah, I know, its 12 years ago, they don’t really build many new things in Europe). I don’t usually like such types of places (think similar planned new cities like Putrajaya in Malaysia), which always strikes me as being built for cars, with wide roads, buildings very far apart and architecture that can at best be labelled ‘interesting’.
The design of the shopping mall and train station were nice, but the rest of the place I felt was pretty ugly. Despite that, I enjoyed myself. Finished reading a book I started sometime ago on a succession of random benches along the sun-drenched waterfront and, when it got too hot for me, indoors with an ice-cream cone at a live music bar and with a BK King-sized Coca-Cola at the foodcourt of the shopping mall.
There were the flags of countries which participated in the ‘98 world EXPO, but Singapore’s was missing. Asian Financial Crisis that year maybe?
Anyway, I did something bad today: I had a buffet lunch. Its one of my vices, always tempted by the large portions and varieties at buffets, then regretting afterwards, but still somehow finding myself in a buffet restaurant constantly. This was an Asian buffet featuring lots of Chinese food. The food was okay I guess, and for 8 euros it was a bargain, but I was so stuffed afterwards that my stomach hurt for an hour.
Hence, my dinner only consisted of one banana. And then went for drinks with Joao and his friends in town before going back to sleep. I quite like this culture of going for drinks at night actually. If only it were cheaper to drink back home…
No comments:
Post a Comment