Aigues-Mortes

After the Pont du Gard, we went to a medieval city called Aigues-Mortes. The town is surrounded by a high wall.

the entrance we used

another one further away

the guys jumping in their own styles

group photo (kinda...thanks to the photographer!)

the entrance...see Goh and Kai Lun waiting there? (Alex was still outside taking photos...of the entrance and of me taking photos of the entrance, as it turned out)

candid shot

a tower we later went up

People actually had to pay to go up to the ramparts...but admission was free for students (and those under 25, I think). Lucky for us :)

the guys posing in the ramparts

switch turns

in my case, the walls were just a little too far apart for me to touch :P

the guys crossing over to the aforementioned tower

Alex took a photo of me right after I took that one. Trapped in a tower with no one to rescue me... *sniff* :P
(that wasn't the tower we were going to, by the way...I was behind them)

The view from the top of the tower:

Alex taking photos dangerously :P

joined by the others on the wall

A photo taken from said dangerous position...see the walls of the town? That was probably where we were earlier.

one of Alex's masterpieces...dog marking his territory, as he put it

As you can see, I'm writing less and less...just letting the photos do the talking. There's not much to say...the trip was so long ago anyway.

Pont du Gard

Next stop: Pont du Gard.

This was our best destination, in my opinion. You can decide for yourselves after you've finished reading about all our destinations ;)

The Pont du Gard is a Roman aqueduct which was used to transport water to Nîmes. You might have heard of it; here are a few photos that might refresh your memory:

pont means bridge, by the way...and Gard is the department in which the aqueduct is situated

from the side while approaching the bridge

from the other side after crossing the bridge

Here's the scenery from the bridge:

That's where we walked down to later.

I love the blueness of the water...and the reflections of the bank.

Another beautiful piece of scenery, shot by Kai Lun...I kinda like the angle ^_^

And then...a little bit of everything.

The guys attempting leaping photos again. Somehow this makes me think of chromosomes...the cell division part. :P

Me on the bridge

After crossing the bridge:

The guys each doing their own thing. Alex and Goh took off their shoes to go into the water...Kai Lun and I didn't.

Alex's shoes and socks

Goh's slippers

After we got tired of fooling around and taking pictures, we sat down to rest...



...and then took a group photo somewhere during that time.

From left: Goh, Alex, yours truly and Kai Lun.

Then we walked all the way back to the car, checking out some souvenir shops on the way (we passed them on the way in as well, but didn't stop then), and proceeded to our next destination.

Pont d'Arc

After the cascades in Roque-sur-Cèze, we went to a small town called Vallon Pont d'Arc. In fact, we wanted to see the Pont d'Arc, which is a naturally formed archway along a river. And Vallon Pont d'Arc was the closest town to it (I think :P )

Most of the photos taken in this town (or should I say all?) are from the others, since I didn't take much. It was just a small town, rather touristic because of the Pont d'Arc (which we went to see later, so the photos are lower down).

Here we are at the town hall, where they were preparing for a lavender festival the next day. (in a very rare instance, I am not posting these photos chronologically)


Alex likes to take candid photos of us "shopping":



Kai Lun tested some perfumes, and here he was letting us smell his lavender-perfumed finger. And Alex, ever the cameraman, clicked away instead :P


We also saw a giant ice-cream, which was a welcome sight in the hot weather. (actually the same ice-cream, in different colours, was in front of a lot of ice-cream shops)

Er...if we look barbaric it was because we were dying of thirst...and from the heat :P

Upon reaching the town, we had asked someone for directions to the Pont d'Arc, and after walking around, we left to look for it. But on the way we stopped for a few photos as well...

Like when we saw some nice scenery.


We took a photo with the car...

Er...can't see much of it, huh? :P

And Goh seized a once-in-a-lifetime posing opportunity.

"Quick, Kai Lun, quick! Before a car comes!"

Another piece of scenery from earlier:


And I wasn't going to put this...

Alex's "king of the world" pose

...but for the existence of "the making of". :P


And finally, the aim of all this driving around: the Pont d'Arc.


The Pont d'Arc is at one end of the Gorges de l'Ardèche, sort of a river in a valley which is a very popular touristic spot. There are rapids there and many people go kayaking. It is supposedly a beautiful natural spot. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to travel all along the Gorges, so we had to content ourselves with a part of it.


Since Alex took the above photo (and several others) for us, it was only fair that we help him take some photos of him too. These are the consecutive ones I took:

The more the merrier ;)

I call it the pile-up. :P

And here is Alex taking a video; he does that at every destination, and even makes a running commentary.


And that was all we did for the day, before having dinner and then heading home - that is, Goh's home - for the night.

Oh yeah, and for those car enthusiasts out there, here's a clearer view of the one we rented.


Don't ask me more :P

Race of the silk worms

I got this from Lydia Teh's blog some time ago.

1. The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference.
He acquired his size from too much pi..

2. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but
it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.

3. She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.

4. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class
because it was a weapon of math disruption.

5. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a
little behind in his work.

6. No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.

7. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

8. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result
in Linoleum Blownapart.

9. Two silk worms had a race.
They ended up in a tie.

10. Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.

11. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The
police are looking into it.

12. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

13. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One
hat said to the other, ‘You stay here, I’ll go on a head.’

14. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then
it hit me.

15. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said:
‘Keep off the Grass.’

16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a
hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was,
a nurse said, ‘No change yet.’

17. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

18. It’s not that the man did not know how to juggle,
he just didn’t have the balls to do it.

19. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a
small medium at large.

20. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is
now a seasoned veteran.

21. A backward poet writes inverse.

22. In democracy it’s your vote that counts.
In feudalism it’s your count that votes.

23. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.

24. Don’t join dangerous cults:
Practice safe sects!

Getting wet at the cascades

It's about time I wrote about my trip to the south-east of France, don't you think? The trip was a month ago...

We actually went to visit Goh who was (and still is, at the moment I'm writing this) doing his internship in a coin paumé (lost corner, literally) of France, a place called Bagnols-sur-Cèze. The closest big town is Avignon...or at least that's how he told us where he was going for his internship, since no one had heard of Bagnols-sur-Cèze before :P

I went there with Alex and Kai Lun, who are both, along with Goh, one year my senior (in France and in age). They were to come from Metz by train and meet me in Lyon where Alex would rent a car and we would drive to Goh's place. They were supposed to reach Lyon on Friday night and get the car right away, but there was a fire somewhere along the way and they had to stop in Dijon for quite a while. By the time they arrived, it was too late to get the car because the rental shop was closed. So they spent the night at my place and we set off the next morning. (destroying several of Goh's plans for us in the process :/ )

Oh the way there we passed alongside the Rhône river for a while, ans I thought it looked pretty nice, so I took a photo. (this is south of Lyon) I have photos that have a bridge in it, but they're slightly blurred due to the car moving...my camera's not that high-quality!


After we reached Goh's place, we had lunch and then went out to our first destination, Roque-sur-Cèze. The main thing we went to see was the cascades du Sautadet (cascades is something between waterfalls and rapids, I gather), but there was also a small hill/town that you can see in this photo:


After the cascades we went walking around the town a bit, but it's nothing much.

So back to the cascades.

the best angle for capturing the waterfalls...we all took photos there!

to the right of the scene of the previous shooting :P

and even more to the right

looking back from further away, where Alex was brave enough to venture :P
(see the three of us waiting for him?)

It rained just a few minutes after we arrived at the cascades...large heavy drops that exploded on our backs. (and on the ground...we could see wet spots which were like an inch across (I didn't measure them...so maybe I exaggerate...or maybe I underestimate!) So we went back towards the road and took shelter under a tree (there was no lightning...luckily!)


Later the rain stopped, and that was when we went to continue taking photos at the cascades (and walk a little further) But the rain came back again...and this time we decided to walk back to the car after sheltering under the same tree for a while. The rain again stopped not long after we got back to the car, so we went to take photos with the bridge we had crossed to get to the parking lot:


According to Alex Goh, this bridge is a hundred years old (or more? I'm not sure...). So hey, I guess it's worth mentioning.

Stay tuned for the rest of the trip...this was the first place we went to, and we were welcomed with lousy weather (albeit a nice view), so wait for the next "episodes" where the weather is more cooperative!

(and as was the case for the Greece trip, I'd like to thank the others for their photos; the ones I put here are a mix of the best I could find to illustrate the trip!)

I'm so jealous of people who can read in moving objects

During the internship, I took the metro each day to go home. Most of the time, it was with Bakary, Fernando and Guillaume, unless if one (or more) of us decided to stay an extra hour or something. And they often read in the metro. But I can't, so I sometimes get bored and take pics. :P (okay, it was only twice...)

I don't know what to do with the photos...so I'll put them here. (as usual..this has kinda become my dumping ground for photos lol)

In the first pic, you have Guillaume (with the hat) and Fernando (facing away). Fernando's usually equipped with several issues of free newspapers (we can get them every morning, there are at least three different ones being distributed), from the same day or earlier, while Guillaume often comes with a novel. Then there is Bakary in the second pic, reading a paper as well. He reads less often than the other two...but there I think it was the first time the three of them were reading at the same time (or at least the first time they were doing that when it was convenient for me to take photos) so...I took pics :P



We usually sit together in the first metro we take, but after changing lines the second metro is usually rather full, so we just squeeze into whatever space there is. The photos above were in the 2nd metro, but the one below is in the first.

This time Rodrigo left with us so I sat with him (he was opposite me) and the other three sat together. Out came the reading materials again, so I snapped another pic (only Rodrigo noticed) Unfortunately Guillaume was blocked...from where Rodrigo was, I'd have gotten a better shot of the three. But I didn't want to make him an accomplice, so I didn't ask him to tke the pic :P


Sorry for the paparazzi pics, guys. :P (don't think they read my blog though...)

Pics I wanted to share...

...but put off for a long time.

Exactly how long? You'll see.

First up, a photo I took when I went for my second internship interview at Bosch. Can you spot the reason I took the photo?


It was actually the Korean flag...I was wondering what it was doing there. And towards the end of my internship (in May or June) there was a British flag instead. I think most of the time there's only the French flag...and as someone suggested (I noticed the British flag as we were leaving the company after work, and pointed it out to the others), they might put up other countries' flags when visitors from those countries come to the company.

This is the first of the photos I wanted to post but didn't (up till now), and it was taken last December.

And this next photo was taken on the way back after work. It was the first day of my internship (I know that thanks to the date the file was created :P ) This is - drumroll please - Marc Robini, ASINSA Maths professor and heartthrob (according to the other girls' description). Me? I say it's a pity he shaves his head.


Sorry about the finger, but I was taking the photo discreetly. Too discreetly...I couldn't check that I wasn't blocking the lens. I wanted to show it to the other ASINSA girls, but...as of now, I don't think I've shown it to anyone. Procrastinator.

Oh yeah, this guy remembers me ;) I had TD (tutorial class) with him in second year, and I've been told that he did some classes in GE (my current department) as well. I've only seen him once in GE...it was this year (I mean 4th year) once when we were outside in the hall during a TD break. He came walking past, and I think I just smiled and nodded at him 'cos I wasn't sure whether he'd remember me. But surprisingly he greeted me with a "bonjour", making my friends who were there say "who was he talking to?" lol

Why do I still remember that? Dunno...but whatever. We all love Robini. ♥ ;)

Next up, helicopter pics!

These are from the Thales visit. I mentioned that I was hoping they'd send us the group pics, but I guess they're not going to do that. So these are the only photos I have. This helicopter was just inside the entrance, for decoration. Not sure whether it can still fly...



I tried to take another photo of it from the bus as we were leaving ('cos as you can see, I couldn't get the whole helicopter in from up close), but I couldn't get the timing right, it was blocked by a wall.

There are some other pics...but I think I'll keep them for another post.