Adventure in Nigloland

Okay, I have decided to put up some recent photos among the older ones. ('Cos otherwise everything will be posted too late)

Two weeks ago a group of us went to visit Julien in Troyes for the weekend. Since we're all doing our internship in various parts of France, we went there after work on Friday, either by train or by car. From Lyon there were five of us going, so we went by car. Alex drove (why do I always seem to manage to be driven by an Alex? :P )...the journey took a little less than 4 hours.

(Troyes is read "trua", like the number 3 (trois) in French)

I didn't take any photos the first night, only started on Saturday...this was before breakfast on Saturday, I believe Yi was in the bathroom an Marion wasn't up yet (of course she was awake with us making noise and moving around, but since there was only one bathroom anyway...why get up earlier than necessary?)

Wenxiang and Julien ready for breakfast

Antoine reading a comic (not those kids' ones like Doraemon :P) recommended by Julien

With the seven of us (did you manage to count the seven? :P ) there were four others...two couples who decided to get a hotel room instead of squeezing into Julien's place with us. They joined us for breakfast (the night before we had decided on 9am, I believe), and after breakfast we set off for Nigloland.

There were eleven of us so we had to go in three cars (the seat-belt rule is highly reinforced in France). Yi and I went with Alex and Sabrina (like from Lyon), while Marion who also came from Lyon with us went with Damien and Julie, the other couple, and Julien (the host if you've forgotten), and the other three were in Camille's car.

And somehow our host ditched us ( :P ) after giving each driver the address of Nigloland. And we ended up turning around in little village lanes...and with the help of a GPS and some iPhones (I think) we managed to find the park...it was tucked somewhere in the little villages. While looking for the place, at one time there was absolutely no phone signal in the area...when one of the others (in the car that didn't get "lost") tried to call us, she ended up on each of our voice mails...

Anyway, the reason we had to go turning around was probably because we took the wrong exit out of the highway...it seems that there was another exit further on that had easier access to the park.

(By the way, when I said our host ditched us, it was just that he was in the car that didn't get lost :P )

the other car when we were at the toll

So finally we reached Nigloland (it's a family theme park, you will see), just a few minutes later than the others, actually.

Nigloland!

inside the entrance

souvenir shops (a restaurant is just beside it, on the left)

the train station to take the mini train for a tour around the park
(it's just opposite the souvenir shop)

posing time (I guess some of them were posing...I gave them sufficient warning)
By the way, the green thing is a dustbin, I had to include it to have the station nicely framed :P

The train arrives!

A warning for us to sit still in the train...which we didn't exactly follow...

Camille taking photos...

...of me taking photos

our carriage

racing cars...okay, "racing" cars :P

some floating thing, I believe

There were even deer ^_^

outside

Those were taken from the mini-train...the following were from when we were walking around afterwards.

The Canadian village...the park is actually divided into a few villages, but the only village name we kept coming across was the Canadian one.

wigwams...with ponies going around it (mechanical ones...you can see one in the photo)

the pirate ship

In a fit of craziness I decided to get on it (after checking that it didn't turn people upside-down). But it was still too much for me...I am never doing that again :s

Then there was the Canadian river (why on earth do they call it a Canadian river? What do we call it in M'sia? It's that thing where you get into a sort of boat and slide down a water slide, landing with a splash at the bottom) where we got absolutely wet (and cooled down a bit in the hot day), and where Camille decided to incur my wrath by splashing water on me. He will never forget it to his dying day... >:E (okay that smiley is supposed to be a devil baring fangs but I'm not sure whether most people can see it...)


This was the only place in Nigloland where we took an actual group photo...with one person missing each time (since we need a cameraman, eh?)

From left: Alex, Sabrina, Julien, Marion, Camille (in front), Antoine, Yi, Julie, Damien and Wenxiang
And yours truly the photographer this time.

And the main attraction of the park (a rather recent one, I think), which they call the Grizzli, illustrated with the grizzly bear in the middle.

It went up to the end, came down...

...went over this bump, and did about the same thing on the other side.

I didn't dare to go on it (especially after the pirate ship, even though later they said this one was less scary), so I took photos of the others instead.

Maybe you can spot the two other people who didn't go onto this attraction either (with some help from the group photo :P )

Some of the others wanted to play bumper cars...but it was only for those between 0.9m and 1.4m tall. We went there anyway...we couldn't play but we spotted some interesting seats.

Cars? Seats? Carseats?

another one

It even has a number plate!

my turn :P

And there was this attraction that seemed awfully harmless...until I sat down in one of those "apples".


So I escaped while I could...and stayed on land to take photos of the others instead. -_-



Then we went to the ferris wheel. It went higher, but it was safer...I mean, you're inside a cage!

from the ferris wheel

another one...

The bluish thing going round and round is the bobsleigh...I didn't go on that one either. It was because right after the bumper car place (I think) we went to an attraction called Spatiale Experience (a lame attempt at using an English name) which was a kind of Space Mountain, and which shook me all over the place (I felt shaky when I got out). The worst about it was that it was inside a huge tall building, and we had no idea what was inside. It was pitch-black inside, so we never knew what was coming next. If I had known I doubt that I'd have done it...

Anyway, the space mountain thing was one of the few attractions where those under 1.4 metres tall had to be accompanied by an adult. After the scare in there, when I saw that the bobsleigh had the same rule, I decided against doing it...

Okay, after that little digression, here are the others in the ferris wheel (there were eleven of us, so we had to take two cabins...)


By the way, I just realised while writing this post that I didn't take a photo of the ferris wheel from afar :/

There were also some fake animals in the park (as opposed to the live deer).

Elephants on an island. I liked these...they could move! They were part of the safari attraction, I think.

T-Rex!
(This was taken through the fence of the park...we didn't go to that part of the park, just passed it while walking between the car park and the entrance.)

So that was Nigloland...we didn't do all the attractions, after that we went to a lake somewhere between Nigloland and Troyes (I can't remember how long we took to get to Nigloland...maybe 45 minutes?) But that's for another post...as well as the visit of Troyes' town centre that night and the next day.

Of respect and cleanliness

This post has been some time in the making. But only in my mind. It's like when you think of writing something, but you don't have enough time at the moment or you aren't in front of the computer. So you shelve the idea for next time, and the next time just gets bumped along to another next time...

When I was in 2nd year, there was a Vietnamese guy in my class called Tu. It was pronounced "toe", and for some reason (which I never quite understood) the French in my class were highly amused by this. Every time his name was mentioned, they started making "toe" sounds, like "toe, toe, toe" with a tone that sounded like "toink toink toink" (at least that's how it seemed to me...I have no idea what they meant it to be)

As for me, I found it highly disrespectful. I mean, you're making fun of someone's name, for goodness' sake! I don't know whether Tu felt that way, because he never said anything about it and kept a smile on his face at the joke, but I believe he looked a little exasperated sometimes.

Once I mentioned to one of the guys (who did that "toe toe" thing quite often) whether he didn't feel that Tu could be offended by their joking around with his name. He seemed astonished by the thought of it...he said "I like Tu a lot!" Which I suppose meant that he wasn't trying to offend. But that doesn't keep Tu from being offended, if you know what I mean.

On another note, a few months earlier I had asked a few French friends over and made kuih kodok. While passing the plate of kuih around, I moved some of them with my fingers to push the hotter ones aside. As I did that I noticed Albin looking at me curiously... I didn't really understand why until later, when Céline picked up a hot (just fried) piece of kuih and almost dropped it...I told her to put it back and take another one instead, but she replied, "I can't put it back, I've touched it!" I was like... "Er...okay." -_-

Anyway that gave me a little food for thought and I came to the conclusion that the French only touch food that they're going to eat themselves because THEY LICK THEIR FINGERS TO CLEAN THEM.

Which I am going to have to explain as well. I'm not sure whether it's the same for everyone, but for me saliva is dirty. I think it is what I've been taught. You do not put your fingers in your mouth. If you eat and then you lick your fingers, you wash them afterwards. I think that's generally the case in Malaysia (correct me if I'm wrong). But the French will lick their fingers after they've eaten chips, or chocolate, or something. Just so that there's no more food (like salt) left on the finger. And after that they're good to touch whatever else.

Except other people's food. So maybe they feel that saliva isn't dirty, you just have to keep yours to yourself.

I used to be surprised when I was the only one going off to wash my hands, or looking for a tissue paper to wipe my hands after sharing a snack. But now...I just try to be discreet about it.

Another "event" that kinda illustrates this was during the fêtes consulaires in Lyon. There was food prepared for the booth visitors to try, and one of them was kuih ketayap. (it's a green pandan roll with coconut filling) We cut it into pieces to place on the tray for people to try them, and one of those who came from Paris (from Tourism Malaysia) mentioned that we were supposed to use gloves. She said that in Paris, if we didn't use gloves no one would touch the food!

(If anyone has an explanation for this "strange" behaviour, let me know...)

The weirdest theft

When I came to work this morning after the weekend, I noticed that my two pens were missing their covers.

Then this afternoon, I was using my pencil (a mechanical one) when I flipped it and two pieces of lead fell out. The eraser at the end was missing. Probably since this morning as well...

What kind of practical joke is this?

(I leave two pens and a pencil on my work desk, since they were given to me at the lab. I used to leave a stack of post-its there for the same reason...until it disappeared one day.)

Brussels, land of waffles

Finally, more than two months after the trip, I'm going to write about Brussels.

As I have already mentioned in a previous post, we took the train there from Paris. It was the Thalys.

my parents looking at brochures in the train to Brussels

We didn't really have any special sights to see in Brussels, apart from the Manneken Pis and Mini-Europe. So we just went walking...

some building

some other building

in front on that building, there was a kind of park

Look what I found :P

St Catherine's cathedral

The Bourse (I think)

Does anyone know what this is? We were walking along when we saw it in front of a coffee-shop (or was it a restaurant?) It was like a sort of underground house, with the top part sticking out of the ground, and I took the photos from the side (the glass wall).



Then we arrived at the Grand Place, the most famous (and probably biggest) square in Brussels (which was reproduced in Mini-Europe)

And this is why I needed a new camera:



Can't even capture the town hall properly -_-






That was all around the square (whew! lol)

on a small road leading away from the square

a good-luck statue

Everyone wanted to touch it...including my father.
(It was so hard to get the photo of the statue with no one near it!)

I touched it too...we all did. But it still didn't change my luck -_- Fraud! (or maybe it was my lack of faith. lol)

Lots of lace

Check out the butterfly!

Yummy stuff...and look at the bottom of the photo!

a chocolate mouse (no, I don't mean brown :P )

and an edible camera (it even comes with a memory card!)

Tintin

Someone pretending to be a Van Gogh statue to make money. (One of them is real. Erm...I mean fake. I mean a statue. I mean...a real statue. And the other's a fake statue. You get the drift. :P )

And finally, the pissing boy.


For those who don't know, this boy supposedly peed on a bomb fuse to put it out, thus saving the whole city. (By the way, I just did a search on it and found that it's also called "le petit Julien" in French, because the boy was called Julianske)

In case you're wondering why he's dressed that way...

Then we followed the crowd into this little lane...


...and saw Manneken Pis's girlfriend, Jeanneke Pis.



This statue is a more recent one...without the historical story :P

By the way, I never knew waffles were a Belgian thing until I went to Brussels. There are lots of shops selling waffles along the road towards the Manneken Pis. Here's one:


According to my brochure, these are "tourist waffles". Apparently the locals only put sugar on their waffles. Duh...why?

close-ups

And yes, we bought one (we're tourists, aren't we?) They give you the waffle with a small plastic fork...and I tell you, it's really hard to cut with just that :s The one we took was with strawberries and whipped cream...hah, WW, aren't you wishing you had come? :P

Anyway, the waffles were bought on the second day after returning from Mini-Europe (that will be another post). It was a good thing (well, kinda) that we passed the Manneken Pis again, because this time he was without his costume (my mother was complaining about his costume the previous day, she was saying that it spoilt the statue)

Manneken Pis undressed

Oh, and a little anecdote before I end this post... (writing about it so late, you'd better not expect me to remember a lot of anecdotes, so welcome them when you can :P ) The directions to our hostel was to get out of the metro at De Brouckère, then look for a Coca-Cola sign and take the road next to it. But upon coming out of the metro station, we saw no Coca-Cola sign...so we had to look for the street name instead. Then another time we got out of the same metro station, but from a different exit, and we saw it:


The first time we got out too close to our destination to see it. lol


Here's when we were closer to it...you can see the M sign for the metro, and the road to our hostel is right there.

Sales boom

I have been trying to sell off my fan and my microwave oven since three weeks (maybe four) ago. I put up a notice in my residence, and even asked my friend to put an announcement in a Chinese forum. For two weeks (maybe three) I didn't get a single call...then on Monday I got a call from a girl who asked whether I couldn't lower the price. I had said 10 on my announcement, she asked for 6. I said I maybe 7 or 8...and asked her to come and see the fan. I was pretty desperate at that time...that was the first call I had received since putting up the announcement a few weeks ago! But she was hesitating quite a lot and kept saying she wasn't sure whether she would come...whereas I kept asking her when she wanted to come. lol Anyway...in the end she said she'd call me if she wanted to drop by.

Then that very night, another person called me. At first I thought it might be the same person it was earlier, but turned out it wasn't (besides the first girl had a slight accent, so I think she was probably a foreigner...and I don't think the French bargain that way :P ) Anyway, I told this second caller that I had to wait and see whether the other girl called back; I had already asked whether she had called me earlier, so she knew there was another person interested...and I didn't want to seem so callous, selling it to her right away when someone else had called me earlier. So she said that if the other person didn't call me back, I could just drop the fan over to their room...the 703. Those who know my room are probably having the same reaction I had. That is next door! lol I even asked her to repeat the room number...just to make sure I hadn't misheard.

In the end I sold the fan to my neighbour later the same night, since she (they, actually, they're a couple) was willing to pay the 10 bucks, whereas for the other girl I would surely have to give a discount (and I wasn't even sure she would call back, which, actually, she still hasn't done) And I was pretty desperate to be rid of it, 'cos a friend had left me her fan and microwave oven, with this in mind: She would have a place to put her stuff during the summer, and I can sell mine off earlier. A good partnership :P So I had TWO microwave ovens and TWO fans in my room...and now one fan is gone. (still two microwave ovens :( )

Anyway...today I got another call at 7:19pm asking me about my fan. This time I had to say "sorry, it's sold", and I was telling myself that I had to mark it as sold on my notice downstairs. But then, less than two hours later, just as I was going to type a post about this (which I wasn't sure of posting yet) I got another call (at 8:46 if you wanna know). This one went "Ah non!" when he heard that it was already sold, adding "it's hot!" Yeah, well, that I know... And he also added "You don't have a second one?" Haha...I told him "Yeah, but I'm using it!" I also heard someone laughing in the background...which was probably why he was so merry about it all. People probably don't do jokes like that if they haven't got an audience...

But seriously, these few days are super-duper hot... I feel like I reach melting point each time I walk to or from work. At home it's better 'cos it's shaded and I have a fan (without it it'd be hell!) So you see, it's the perfect time for selling fans. So juniors, my advice is, during your final year, borrow a fan from someone's who's left for the summer, and sell your own at the beginning of summer. :P

Now for my microwave...what, don't tell me people only need it in winter?
:P

Series of firsts

Including the one in the previous post.

Anyway, when I was walking back from work, there was a small van waiting at the traffic light beside the INSA-Einstein tram stop, stopped in the shade of a tree. With a space in front of it before the next car. So I guess there are people who do that in France as well... :P

Just as I was thinking that, the light turned green and the van moved forward (after the car in front of it had moved, mind you ;) )...and from the opposite direction came a bus. In front of it, instead of the destination, was written "mon dernier tour" (my last round) Then the display changed to show "bonne retraite" (happy retirement). There were even several red balloons tied to the front of the bus...so this is how TCL celebrates its retiring bus drivers? :P

Wrong place, right time?

There was an old guy (okay, not super old, but rather old, if you know what I mean...with white hair) sitting on the little patch of grass beside the entrance to the Blaise Pascal parking lot when I came to work this morning. He was sitting there reading...a magazine or a paper, I don't remember which. It wouldn't have been so noteworthy if he wasn't sitting on a type of folding chair (at least I think it's foldable, it looked clothlike to me), wearing a wide-brimmed hat (not unlike a straw hat)...dressed in a shirt and shorts, exactly like some old guy relaxing on a beach.

Except that this isn't a beach. It was just a patch of grass, at the edge of a parking lot...in the shade. (at least that last part makes sense. lol)