Don't cry for me Argentina.....Part Tres

Like I said in Part I, I didn't really have much time to get out of downtown BsAs to look around the city but miraculously on the 4^th day I managed to take a half day tour (more like a 4 hour tour) of the city (even though it meant just looking at some of the places from within the van itself as we couldn't go down and the places where we could go down to explore and take pics, we were only given at most 30 minutes!). Such a shame as the weather was lovely (in fact, throughout my stay, the temperature was an average of 20˚C…highest 27˚C).

So at 9.30am, the van picked us (Mi Madre and yours truly) up from our hotel. We were the last pick up and all in all there were about 12 people in the van (I remember there were people from US, Brazil, Uruguay to name a few). The tour guide was a Japanese Argentinean woman (cool huh? wonder if there is a Malay Argentinean) and everytime she explained something; she did it in 3 languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese).

According to the guide, Argentina is an immigrant country and BsAs is a port city, hence the locals are called porteños (the majority of porteños have European origins, with Italian and Spanish descent being the most common).

At the first stop (some garden/park…can’t remember the name coz they have so many) some guy came on the van with a camera and started taking everyone’s picture. I sensed something fishy but what the hell, everyone had their picture taken anyway so I let him take mine. After taking pics, he got off the van and we proceeded with our tour.

Let me just start by saying that taking pictures from inside a moving van sucks...especially if you don’t have a particularly good view. Hence I couldn’t get any nice pics of the barrios (neighbourhoods) we passed by (the city of BsAs is formally divided in 48 barrios), our van passed by 4 of them Recoleta (which is suppose to be a posh neighbourhood),San Telmo (a bohemian neighbourhood), Palermo and Puerto Madero (mostly occupying the riverbank area)

Puerto Madero

The historic red brick port structures have been transformed into restaurants, modern residential and business lofts

There are also many luxury hotels and apartments around the area

Some random huge flower thingy (it isn’t even their national flower) in one of the parks



Some statue in some park that is suppose to symbolize the local Argentinean men I think (I wasn’t really paying attention....heh.. but if that’s so, all I can say is you lucky Argentinean women you!)

 

Another statue (think this might be in the Recoleta barrio)The city is filled with all sorts of statues, either in parks or in the middle of roundabouts




Statue of Eva Peron aka Evita



The Teatro Colón, the main opera house in BsAs and considered to be amongst the five best concert venues in the world. Prolly looks better at night with the building lighted up. Apparently it underwent massive refurbishment in 2005 and just opened up in May 2010

  



El Obelisco de Buenos Aires (The Obelisk), the main icon of the city (kinda like how Petronas Twin Towers is KL’s). You can find souvenirs of the El Obelisco in most of the shops downtown.

 

A lil’ history lesson for you (and me) - El Obelisco was built in May 1936 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first founding of the city. It is located in the center of the Plaza de la Republica (Republic Square), the spot where the Argentine flag was flown for the first time in Buenos Aires. El Obelisco is often the venue for various cultural activities and a traditional gathering spot for sports fans to celebrate when their favourite team wins, especially the national football team. According to the tour guide, during the 2010 World Cup, Maradona announced that if Argentina win the WC, he would run around the Obelisk naked (so I guess in a way, it’s a blessing in disguise that Argentina didn’t win?).

Oh another fun fact, in 2005, the obelisk was covered by a giant pink "condom" to commemorate the World AIDS day



Just had to google this pic..haha



Plaza de la Republica - Google pic just to give you an idea of how the plaza area looks like. The Plaza is actually situated at the intersection of 3 of the main roads of the city, i.e Avenida 9 de Julio, Avenida Corrientes and Diagonal Norte

We stopped briefly at Plaza de Mayo (May Square) which is the main square in downtown BsAs. It is the scene of the 25 May 1810 revolution (hence the name of the plaza) that started the process towards Argentina’s independence from Spain 1816.  



Pic taken from Plaza de Mayo.Can you see the obelisk from afar?



Ok, ready for some heavy stuff? I added links so you can read it yourself…pretty interesting. The plaza, since 1977 is where the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have congregated with signs and pictures of their children, who were subject to forced disappearance by the Argentine military in the Dirty War, during the National Reorganization Process

Several of the city's major landmarks are located around the Plaza e.g. the La Casa Rosada (the office of the President of Argentina), the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires, the Pirámide de Mayo, and the Equestrian monument to General Manuel Belgrano.



The Metropolitan Cathedral which holds the coffin of General José de San Martín (independence war hero) inside a mausoleum under military guard

Pirámide de Mayo (May Pyramid), the oldest national monument in BsAs. Its construction was ordered in 1811 to celebrate the first anniversary of the May Revolution.



La Casa Rosada (the Pink House) which was declared a National Historic Monument of Argentina. Besides being the office of the President of Argentina, it also has a museum, with objects related to the presidents of the country. According to the tour guide, the president actually lives in a province far from BsAs downtown and travels by helicopter to Casa Rosada.  

Bronze monument of General Manuel Belgrano (considered one of the main liberators of Argentina) on a horse holding the flag of Argentina (he created the flag of Argentina) in front of the Casa Rosada.

 
After 20 minutes in Plaza de Mayo, we were off to visit the barrio of La Boca, the only barrio that the van would stop and let us down to explore and take pics (plus in my opinion prolly the most famous barrio). I was excited...La Boca, aqui vamos!

p/s….I’m purposely blogging bit by bit…coz my Argentina trip aside, I really have nothing to blog about! Haha. Plus I kinda like reminiscing.