Monday, September 12, 2011

Bullfight in Spain

Bullfighting - the most popular, spectacular and utterly cruel 'sport' in Spain.

The Spanish see bull fight as a form of entertainment, and bullfighters as glorious heroes; in their eyes, the sport was a scene of such:


pure magnificence


In my eyes, it was something like this.




And this.


one of the most famous bullfighters receiving a severe groin injury


Are you squeling?

So am I.


I don't get the sport. Other than the cruelty of of animals, the sport itself is outrageously dangerous, and more often than not, fatal. And yet there are hundreds of thousands of people in Spain, Portugal, Southern France and Mexico cheer for this sport every year; despite of tens of thousands of people protesting against it every year.

But nevertheless, I respect tradition, so in this visit to Spain, I visited an actual bullring-turned-museum in Seville to understand more of the crazy sport.

bullring brochure


front of bullring
remember that horse?


Here we go.

Entering the bullring.

entrance to bullring


corridor
the interior around the bullring


entrance on the inside
VVVVIP seats?


seating
the not so VIP seats


arena seats
super third grade seats, jk.



arena
the bullring!


entrance
Is this where they kept the bulls? no?


Inside one of the halls inside the arena was where they set up a museum to showcase the history and culture of bullfighting in Seville.

bullfight museum


bullfight dress
one of the heroic bullfigther's costume


bullfighting uniform


hanging heads
people who died running from bulls?


The guide also showed us how to kill a bull with one strike.

weak point
aim for the point above the head, and it will kill it instantly.


bullfighter
one of the legendary bullfighters


bullfighting outfit
look how small the costume was, imagine how tiny people used to be back in those days


And this was the legendary bull of all time.

the bull


Can't remember its name but according to the guide, it was increadibly massive and has defeated many bullfighters of its time. Unlike many of the bulls, it used to march and charge with its HUGE head held high hence made it difficult for bullfighters to spear its weak point.

I bet the bullfighter who finally defeated it must've gained massive amount of fame after.

guide with the big bull


That's about it for my bullfighting experience. Pretty shallow. LOL.

Anyway here are the rest of the photos for the rest of my trip in Seville.

fancy house


Visited the Plaza de España and its Botanical Garden.

fountain


seville river


couple riding vehicle
don't know what to call this vehicle...


tall slim trees
I love how their trees are so tall and skinny


botanical garden seville


line of trees
line of trees


horse drinking water


fountain rainbow
rainbow!


cobbled ground on Plaza de España
Traveller friend lent me his polaroid film to take this photo, did you notice how nice the sky looked?


Plaza de España
Plaza de España! Built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929.


horse carriage
I want to take one of those! We used to have plenty of those in Melaka in the 90s; come to think of it, they're more of cow carriages.


shrines


Ended the day at a cozy tapas restaurant for some authentic local food before I sign out of Spain completely.

tapas restaurant


friend and sangria
Moi traveller friend with his glass of sangria


kiosco de los leones


beef salami and jamon
some salami and jamon


cheef beef patty
cheesy beef burger, looking a bit sad.


bread
bread, d'oh


And then we parted, as usual, and I went on my journey, leaving beautiful Spain behind, and into happy Portugal.

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