yes it's not Lyon! isnt that fantastic. an somewhat absurd weekend trip brings us to Marseille. because it was hard to get tickets to anywhere. and actually it was also an insane idea to buy the tickets, because they were exceptionally expensive. very. because we got the discount tickets for first class TGV. like $150 total for return trip or something. and only one direction was first class. ah well. in the end it was worth it. lots of stories in this trip.




after skipping some boring photos, ok they have these really pretty bus stops. i like, the frosted glass is so fun.


then we pop into the first big church we saw. and voila a wedding, and it's a black couple at that. only realised later that Marseille has many immigrants from the continent down south. but this is quite a cool thing to see. the photo's blurry, din want to disturb their wedding. wanted to wait to see them kiss, as part of the kissing photos collection, but we din have time. cool anyway.


this city, is in an absolute mess. it's an amazing mess. there's the construction works for the new tramline, there's trash all over the city. and it looks like some suburb.
though amusingly we discovered when we were leaving marseille that there was strike going on. guess what, trash disposal service was on strike. wowz. which ends up with all that rubbish on all the streets.
bizarre. we encounter strikes so often. but oddly i learned somewhere that they don't actually strike that often. shrug. so yeah trash.



see when you don't really know what to do, you grab some map, you sortof think that you want to see this this and this. and then you walk, very important, you walk, then you see people, the you follow people, into alleys if you must, and then you end up at nice places. so here's one of their weekend markets. in some dirty street. i thought it was quite shady, but i guess it was that trash un-disposal's fault.




in there was much much food. i guess they were expensive? since it was like middle of the city. but darn their fresh apricots are so cheap. bought a paper bag of them. coz lunch was packed food. and i think we had peaches too. i miss soft fresh sweet apricots. ack.
and why are singaporean bakers so stingy with strawberries


roadside cafe, don't you think that's a cute way of arranging the glasses. pretty!


titled: gulls in various stages of flight


if you don't understand the timetable, you're like dead, coz you might not get back home from the island. boat trip out to an ex-prison on an island. now what was the name. this boat trip was very very important and fateful.


we decided to walk first, for reasons i cannot remember but which made sense at that time. we went on a 10 church spree. roughly that number of churches in marseille, i think abit more. yes they're mad. so we stumble upon more outdoor performances. to my further amazement, there are performances that night. wow. more music outdoors. festival. i cant remember the name, i only know we didn't attend.


i like this building. coz of that thing. and there are words on it. it reads "SENEGAL -something- MERCI"


building on other side of entrance to the harbour. something from long ago to defend against sailing boats. ah well. and then see that cliff there, it looks decently pretty, but there are actually vagrants living in the cracks. yes there are, saw them when our boat went past. marseille is a rather unruly place actually. gangster city


we went walking in the streets. and this is one of the artistic photos. very nice setting. they've got these narrow winding sloping backstreets. very nice


decorated for their festival. and since it's so narrow, they can do nice things.


cute?


paper decorations, and other recycled materials. done by a primary school. very pretty.


the entire setting is lovely, absolutely fantastic. the alley, the colors... priceless view


ok this was from some church. i took very long and got this nice photo finally, so im proud of it. we spent a great deal of time resting in churches coz it was sooo hot out there. argh. i think it was 30 deg. or more.


more decorations. very simple and handmade and pretty and village-like


peculiar. ohyes it's very tiring to walk up and down, up and down... the middle portion is for draining water. that's yanghan on the left, waiting for me to take odd photos


see, more weddings! so many. but it's such a pretty summer day. and then after that can go for honeymoon


see that, MS-DOS 5.0 manual! *gasp* must've been more primary school era.


i think this is the wrong order, but nvm. Lapin! i want to try rabbit. but i think pecilius will not be happy with me


trimarans in the harbour. do you know how pretty they are. the sleek lines, the emptiness. the bare skeleton and magnificent sail. this one is named Skywalker. apparently some competition going on i think.




so this was on the fateful boat trip to the prison-ex. where the wind was very strong and view was very good. and here, this china-man started chatting with us. coz we spoke chinese and we had two prc ppl with us. so chat chat. this lonely single guy somehow likes to talk to us so much, he stuck with us during the entire boat trip, and also during the entire time we toured the prison-ex!! and also after that! and after that and after that!! for the entire time.


something nice on the island

just to show u what the day was like

and that guy. no he's not crazy, he was just insanely game to try anything and we were in the midst of a period of taking jumping photos coz Mr. Lumiere did them, and they made him famous. so he's prc, working with IBM, attached in marseille at that time, does not speak french.


view of the city. very pretty. such a pretty city.


havent yet mentioned why that guy is so impt, but here's another nice view of the city. setting sun color. the magic hour before dark, superb lighting.


another pretty photo. look at the kid's eyes.



just to show u. and that's one of the nice places. nice design.



then we got back to land.. er. and we walked somewhere, which wasn't great, except for it's height and the view. so we took nice photos instead.


then we decided to eat properly for dinner, at a cheap restaurant, or rather cheap by their standards, but we are not very rich to eat $50 bouillabasee, equivalent of non-spicy seafood curry. i was very happy because i was very hungry.


walked past interesting vehicles. and dangerous dark lonely streets where we were afraid of being robbed coz that guy, what'shisname got pickpocketed or robbed in marseille. but he sounded quite cool about it. odd. hm.

ok so i gotta tell story now. we are in marseille for two days, saturday and sunday. we did not book any accomodation. we were either going to find someplace to stay, or stay out. as in really stay out somewhere. which was a very crazy plan. yeah. heh.
then that guy finds out about our crazy plan, coz in the end we din get to go find any rooms and yeah. and he apparently thinks we're very fun and happening, and really likes us alot. and invites us to stay with him in his hotel room!! what the. yeah madness ok. hotel. so we were really suspicious for the entire day. coz this stranger comes and chats with us and follows us around and invites 4 complete strangers to stay in his hotel room. HMMM. somehow in the end we decided to go. yeah it was rather worrying. rather rather rather. tall story huh. so that's the room we were in.


of course there isn't space for so many thing to be placed neatly. but we did get to bathe and sleep in nice hotel. goodness.

then there's one big bed. well. so guess what happens. we had one girl, 3 guys, and him. so? so he graciously let's yanghan sleep on the bed. his hotel bed, his hotel room. and then the 4 guys sleep on the floor, on bedsheet. the story gets more fantastic huh. yeah it's just madness larh. mad mad mad. and we never gave him a single cent. nor lose any. nor did we get kidnapped or robbed or murdered in the middle of the night. fantastic. and the next morning he wanted to go to the calanques with us. and we planned on leaving at 7am, coz we din plan on sleeping much. so that's also another reason why he wanted to stay with us. he's mad lah. we went to sleep like 3am or something i think. 2am maybe. we din even plan on bathing. well it's a crazy weekend trip. then in the morning, he and yanghan went to eat the hotel breakfast. also another deliberation coz we din know whether it was safe for yanghan to go with him alone. but well nothing happens. and tmr is another day for another post. it's just utter madness that we met such a person and had such a trip. we din dare to tell the INSA teachers and our hosts what we did, for fear that they would go crazy over our safety. but it was truly risky. though it did balance out the expensive train tickets. received a CNY email from him too. really nice guy.

Libellés : France, Marseille

forgot to mention something about one of the nights in Lyon. it wasn't recorded on photo so I missed it. night of 17th June 06, after we got back from Annecy, 4 of us guys decided to go to one of the pubs. just to see. decided not to go to the Fish, coz you gotta pay for that place, and we weren't planning to stay the night, but Fish is on a boat!. so we went to something i dunno what.

then we met somewhere. and at night it's so deserted, prob 9-10pm. but you see they don't function at night see. so it's deserted and then we came to this traffic light. so let me describe the scene. at one side there was this police car, and then from another direction these two cars arrived and stopped at the junction. and we just standing at one corner. and then the green man came on and we started crossing. then in those two cars were many guys. and from one car, someone starting firing fireworks at the other car! absolutely jaw-dropping. and we were just crossing in front of them. freaky, two cars side by side and then sparks start flying. we almost got hit by some of those fireworks. unfortunately i don't have any footage of it. so the police obviously saw it all, and then they drove over and stopped them and whatever else after that. it was just somewhat more happening than we expected.

so then we had to walk further, and we were rather wary of what else will happen. then ppl in cars will be like yelling or something. wellz. so we got to a pub place, and then we were actually speaking english to the bouncers, who looked like americans. there was one really friendly one, who helped us quite a bit. he was encouraging us to stay, coz apparently pretty girls would arrive. had some problem coz someone wasn't wearing long pants, but it was impossible to change coz 'home' is far away and hard to get to. but we got in anyway, since we were 4 poor underaged-looking helpless tourists.
then i was really tired and there was a considerable journey home after that so i didn't want to drink, then i only ordered coke while the other guys had assorted dilute alcohol. and then the friendly bouncer, who helped us order coz we dont speak french very well and they wanted some dunno what drink, he was either amused/surprised/tickled by me ordering coke that he actually treated me for it. news of this started spreading in sch thereafter, but it was really funny. i can remember it as the time i was treated to coke by the bouncer. sheesh.

then we left early coz we didn't want to pay alot of euros to take cab home. it was a rather crazy weekend coz we went Annecy on saturday daytime, went out again at night, and then sunday spent the entire day out to Geneva. it's very tiring to have to take 2 hr train trips and waking up early to go to the train station. zz

Libellés : France, Lyon

this guy picked up a metro ticket from the ground, examined it for a short while, then promptly threw it back down onto the ground and walked away. gosh they go around trying to reuse tickets. coz there are 2 hr tickets, and various other kinds.


that evening i went to a synchronised-diving ?show. mainly for the parents of the kids. i believe they had some competition recently. Laure, the elder daughter is in one of the teams. some of them are like ultra young, little kids. ok it's called Aqua Synchro Lyon. there are like all ages, even some national team women. funny thing: some ppl's noseplugs drop out, then you can see them trying to stuff it back in halfway through their routine. but little kids just started out learning only larh.


breaktime. got to see close-ups of their hair. see the kids being very fascinated with their friends' 'superglued' hairstyles. funky.


that's actually the little place selling food. it's very informal, like families selling stuff, but they sell Perrier and cakes. and that TV there is showing World Cup, France vs someone. and of course France won.


that's Laure. and Mdm Jaillard is taking video.


i like this shirt, i think it's a Jennyfer

Libellés : France, Lyon

20th June 2006
another day of misc photos

daily dose of indulgence / expensive tarts / after-school shopping centre jaunts. monthly public transport ticket is good! =]


had to rush home after the tart, coz i went along with Mme Jaillard to the youngest daughter Ségolène's Play. so we went to some dunno-what neighbourhood on the other side of town. discovered alot of things.

they have these world war monuments everywhere. like one in every locality. both wars were very big things to them. like half the road names are named with the war and the other half with great frenchmen. obsessions.



yeah primary school kids sorta Play. amusing, of course, kids being kids. it's so funny the way they act. and so cute too. many parents, many videocameras. i liked the interval music, and i was very fascinated with how two kids were playing some hand game but i couldnt follow it, looked fun.


the older kids. segolene is 5th from left. this one was a disaster. they forgot their lines and were going around in circles, and they were speaking so softly it was inaudible. the teacher wasn't very happy with them and apologised to the audience, bleh.


then we got home quite late. and i think i missed most of a world cup match. and i can't stand it that they don't seem to need dinner, or just a small dinner. i think i ate one small sandwich before the plays, and a little bit of tidbits after it, and then some bread with cheese at home. hungry.

Libellés : France, Lyon, photos, Play