Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Weekend!!

Just when i thot i have to rot over the weekend with nothing to do, alejandra decided to throw a crepe party at her place on saturday nite! WOOTS!! haha and we didnt have to do anything cos all the cooking and preparations was done by martha, ale and andreas. It was really good to just eat warm crepes when its so cold outside.... fillings of nutella, jam and this caramel thingy that Luis made out of condense milk, honey and stuff. good shit man. Anything sweet makes me happy.

After, we tired playing UNO and it wasnt easy, to compromise on the rules, considering 5 different nationalities were playing. Like whether or not we can intercept, end with non-number card etc. And of cos the german guy (aka hitler) had to take over and take control. When i first threw more than one card down, all of them looked at me as if i was some kinda retard... like "wat the eff" look.... it was really funny.

We decided to go to the Artist Market beside the Soane river and the Museum of Beaux Arts the next morning. It was really cool to walk ard Vieux Lyon on the weekend cos everything seemed to slow down quite a bit. there wasnt as many pple and it was just a pretty sight. We chanced upon a food market and i saw those damn freaking roasted chickens again... i was this close to stealing one.... but still no sight of any stall selling chocolates. like good ones.... not supermarket types. dang.

Here are some photos of the artist market that we went to:





Damn pretty right? budden one of those wud cost as high as 1000euros... like erm, no thanks, i'll pass.

Went for lunch at a BOUCHON!!!! Like finally!!! its the name of a restaurant selling traditional Lyonnais food. I ordered andouillete, which is actually a sausage made out of the inerds of pig or cows... and i mean since i loved my kway chap, i think i'll be able to handle this. whahaha and it was actually quite good!! i had no idea what animal i was eating thou.... the plat came with aperitif, salad and desserts... all for 12.50euros which i thot was quite cheap!!

Tytti: "Bon appetit Bitches"

hahah she didnt actually say that but i think i relate to her the most cos she is 25 and i am the second oldest... she hates to wait for late pple cos she is finnish and yeah. she's really funny even without trying. So anyways, Andreas aka Hitler decided to change plans and not go to the museum. he wanted to go to the convergence of the Rhone and the Soane which he thought would be nice.... but of cos he has no idea. but most were ok with it, except me, Tytti and Isabela cos it was sorta our plan to go to the museum.

But anyways, we walked to the convergence, just at the tip of the Presq'ile (meaning "almost island").... here are some of the pics:

Can u see the moon??? Its 330pm!

The industrialized part of the city

Commerce de trade de something de Lyon, with pretty flower motifs and all

this is what i call art!
The view at the end of the walk
a lonesome train track

We finally reached around 1 1/2 hours later and actually the route there wasnt like spectacular, but its just nice to walk for abit and discover things like u dun normally see in town.
The tip of the "almost island"
Ale, Luis and Martha on the tip
Swans resting in the river
Picture of hitler taking a picture
After we left the almost island, we headed for the tram to take us back to INSA... by now we were like far away from town and we had not idea we were in the dodgy area of Lyon.... we saw literally hundreds of caravans parked by the roadside and in some vans were lighted candles. At first i thot it was some prayer thingy that the nearby workers used budden suddenly i saw a black woman wearing nothing but bra and hot pants in one of those caravans....

and then i started seeing more of such women and i was like "OH MY GOD WE ARE IN THE FUCKING PROSTITUTE ZONE"..... but no of cos i didnt say that out loud.... it was more like a screaming in my head kinda thing. I thot it was a really BRILLIANT idea... to tell others that u are busy by lighting candles and to say u are "open" for business, literally if its not lit (or vice versa... its just our theory)... but it was quite exciting cos some of them saw used condoms on the floor... but of cos i was too distracted by the whole booby situation to notice what's on the floor..... (by the way i am not a pervert.... they werent even pretty. fat actually.... i was just quite amazed)

ok so that was my weekend. quite exciting i must say.... and today, i managed to finally (FINALLY) choose my modules, registering tmr. And i bought my 12/25 card which enables me to get discounts on all french train rides, bought my tickets on the 16th to Karlsruhe to find my bitch which i now call my "source" (cos he can freaking dl tv serials and movies!!), heading to Cologne for that weekend for a Karnaval thingy which i am quite excited and then moving back to his place for 4 more days!! so damn fucking excited to see familiar faces again!!! and i bought a Celio sweater for 15euros! Finally bought something during the winter sale. Would have bought a white turtle neck for the same price but i mean i was hesitating cos, i dun think i will ever need to wear a turtleneck in spore... but i look damn fine in it ta ma de. WHAHAHA. The agony of a poor, money-less student.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Morning after...

Here are some pics of the morning after it snowed... it was definitely what i dreamed of all my life, in fact even better. ENJOY!:

Walking in a Winter Wonderland, thou 1 month late


On the way to have breakfast

Snow Fight!!!! (part deux)

Weee!!

Wee!!! (part deux)

Icicles


Wednesday, January 24, 2007

SNOW HAS LANDED!!!

Somehow i think i sorta willed the snow to fall... i just came back from class and i typed in my MSN nick "lets pray for snow!!" and 5 minutes later, as the french like to say, VOILA!!! hahaha the power of magical thinking!!! anyway here are some videos and pictures! enjoy!


French people gathering to enjoy first snow of the season!!


Can u tell that i am super happy?

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Praying hard...

Its really wierd.... after so many days of sunny and warm weather, today's weather was totally out of whack... it was so damn cold the whole day that i had to go back and change into a thicker jacket after lunch. It's only 6 degrees today and apparently it may start to snow as early as.... tmr.... and temperatures will dip to below 0 on Wednesday, according to Yahoo Weather.... SO.FRIGGIN.EXCITED.

Everyone, for my sake, please pray that i can see snow!!!

Sunday, January 21, 2007

(MEGA) Update (part onze)

As promised, here is the mega update for the past 5 days:

1. On Wednesday we went to Stade de Gerland for the match between Olympique Lyonnais and Le Mans....

Mug shot (back)

Mug Shot (front)

I'm not exactly a big soccer fan, but for 8euros, it was quite a good steal for a fun nite out! It was rather cold but the atmosphere more than made up for it. I think the last time i went for a live soccer match was during the Malaysian Cup era... i was such a super fan those days but thereafter, the S league was, erm, less than satisfactory. In fact i think the turnout for this match can trash the turnout rate for one whole season of S league.

Stade de Gerland


Crowd going mad when players are coming out... one joker held a ManU scarf.



The crowd cheering!

The stadium

the stadium again


Crowd swirling their scarves after the first goal!!

US!!

Les Femmes

WOOTS!!! Flares!!! This is soooo European!!

In the end, OL won the game 1-0, scored my some guy named Abidal (i think)... but everyone's favourite player was some Brazilian called Juniho or something. Apparently he's quite a good free kicker but all his freekicks that nite werent that spectacular... oh well. I didnt really cared much for the game anyway, i was there more for the excitement!

2. On friday, Eric and i had a little presentation about Singapore.... and it was quite terrible cos both of our french are quite bad so during the Q&A segment, although we wanted lot to talk about a lot of things in detail, our lack of vocabulary and grammer made the presentation rather superficial....

Like when they asked us our our nightlife, all i could say was "we were ranked second in the world" without going much into the details... and i was stumped when they asked about our political system... cos of all things in the world, I HAVE NOT A SINGLE FREAKING CLUE about politics. I just told them we only have one party governing us since independence and they take up 90% of the seats every election. I was ASHAMED!!! If they'd asked how many times Britney was caught partying without her undies i probably would have aced it (4 at last count by the way)

But we did spice things up a little by telling them about Singlish and Kiasu-ism... They wanted the both of us to "perform" a little something in Singlish but of cos i freaked and all my ang moh slang came out... they were appalled about the whole chewing gum thing, not being able to use mobile phones while driving and censorship in television ("gasp!!!....no Will & Grace or Sex and the City??? NOoooooooo")

3. Was supposed to wake up at 510am on Sat for the ski trip so that i can have time to dilly dally for the 615am bus... but i overslept till 545am. Freaked out and woke dalibel up who stayed over the nite cos her roomate was having a party at her place and my roomate was attending that same party so yeah. (nothing scandalous happened by the way)

The bus ride there was uncomfortable to say the least and of all pple i had to sit beside Brian (the american with super bad ettiquete)... i basically ignored him the whole journey and slept. We went to Les Deux Alps for the trip and i was so super excited!! It wasnt as cold as i thot it would be... i only wore 2 layers of clothes and one thick jacket... i actually had my first perspiration while skiing in the Alps... ironic huh

The gang

The queue for the cable car ride up

all geared up!!

Most of them already had some experience whereas me, the freaking chink, who has never seen snow in my entire life, was left to survive by myself, 2400m above sea level. Alexandra and Andreas were kind enough to give me some tips but they went off to ski with the others after a while... i guess i was "bad wood cannot carve" material...

the first time down nearly took me 2hours for a 4km (i think... or at least it felt that long) route. I was like majorly freaking out cos the path was only about 2 lanes wide and thereafter its the cliff... so if u dunno how to maneuver (like me) and brake in time (like me)... there is a high chance they you basically get flung off and, well, die. I was quite appalled by the lack of fencing but oh well...

i was falling into awkward positions the whole way down and i nearly twisted my right knee... falling was not fun... and there were slopes that were almost 60degrees. and me being the humji person, just sat on my ass and slide down. DUN LAUGH... it's scary for someone who doesnt even have the balls to take theme park rides.

Basically everyone sped off, leaving Fernando and i behind. He was equally, if not worse, sucky at it. Skiing is not for Asians man.... hahaha. And we got lost for a while because we didnt know where to go cos everyone was so far ahead. And the only way to go was DOWN. We finally saw the rest who already lapped us once (!!!). i was super duper embarrassed cos some of them were girls. They showed us the way to the cable car back up and we finally have some time to rest and catch out breath.

This, my dear frens, is LIFE
Snow fight!

Digging out the snow

Hey poodle!

Striking a pose on flat ground


The 2nd time down was so much better than the first.... i could actually ski more than 100m without having to stop for dear life... but i still cant handle the slopes.... i rather let pple laugh at me than to break any bones in my body.

But i mustered up my courage to do at least one steep slope before leaving... i was like telling myself "you can do it... u freaking paid nearly 50euros to come here to do this... u better do it" and of cos i fell..... and i fell hard man. i lay on the ground for about 10secs, making sure i was still alive and breathing. Then and some french lady came to help me get up. really grateful.

the slopes!! SNOW!!

My legs were too wobbly to do it a 3rd time so i just went to the cafe with martha and christiano and just chilled and enjoy the scenery....

Ahhh the sun! (PS pple were actually skiing down that slope... i applaud their courage)

i would definitely go skiing again.... and this time i swear i will take watever balls i'm left with and attempt more difficult things!!!

3. Sunday morning, i woke up with my whole body aching but my hauled ass and went to the sunday market that i was talking about the other time. basically they sell things like our pasar malam, clothes and food, the only difference is that its during the day.

Weekend market

Selling cheese!

Oh man i felt like stealing one chicken and run away. it smelt THAT good

It wasnt anything spectacular, except now i can have a little "me" time, doing something typically french on a Sunday... and i bought cherries!

4. Missed out on the winter sale here.... wanted to buy a Zara denim jacket but when i went back the next day, it was gone. i was DEVASTATED... but at least i got to save some money from buying unnecessary clothing.

5. I get lots of dried blood in my mucus every morning when i wash up and every nite when i bathe... its become a norm to me already. i dun really care about it anymore.... there was this one time i blew my nose the whole sink was splattered with blood i tot what the eff happened to me... perhaps its the coldness and dryness, i dunno. if the CSI team came they'll prolly be super happy to find lotsa dna sample from the shower and basin.

Alrighty now thats all from me!! Hope u enjoyed the update!!

Thursday, January 18, 2007

[Untitled]

Sorry for not updating for the past 2 days... nothing really exciting. except that the weather is like friggin screwed up.... its like totally warm (around 13 degrees) when it shud be getting colder... as if one whole season of winter is skipped and it went directly to spring... and i dunno i heard from who but hedgehogs are starting to wake up from their hibernation in france already...

freaking hell the world is going to explode..... WAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR WORLD???!! SAVE THE PLANET!!! STOP using plastic utensils when u da bao or pack for supper!!! u have your own fucking spoons in ur room!!! re use and reuse whatever paper you have god dammit!!! Crap man, for (most probably) not being to see snow falling from the sky...

ok. on a lighter note, i will be going for a soccer match of Olympique Lyonnais and Le Mans in about 2 hours time. HAha. Shud be quite exciting... even thou i am no soccer fan. And i am going SKIING this saturday!!! WAHAHA shud be quite exciting too!

Stay tuned for more picture updates!!

Monday, January 15, 2007

Just because...

Just because i want u to know how wasted i got.... here are the picture to the other nite:






i have no idea why i keep sticking out my tongue... i am SO embarrassed. WOOTS!