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Green house

There is this house that I pass on the way to Jiqiong's place...it's pretty "special" in the sense that plants are growing all over the walls...with only holes for the windows and door! I wonder whether anyone is living there...and whether this was coincidence or design!


I've been back in Lyon since Monday...a whole week before the start of classes. So now I'm spending this week "leisurely" cleaning my room and renewing my titre de séjour. And I had to fall sick as well...I have a cold which the doctor says is a common virus that's going around a lot now.

So I had to be welcomed back to Lyon with rainy, cloudy weather, AND a virus! -_-

Whatever. So here are a couple of photos from my summer hols in Kuantan. (I might put more later, I'm not sure which are actually worth posting...)

A cute little mouse in Megamall:

A cat eating yong tau foo in a food court:

For those who don't know yong tau foo, it's something (usually veggies or tofu) stuffed with minced fish or meat. Here it's a piece of chilli stuffed with fish...so the cat's trying to pull out the fish! It still hadn't managed it when we left...but then it found the food when we had almost finished eating.

Koala prints

Just a little fact to share, since I haven't posted lately.

Koala bears and humans are the only animals with unique fingerprints.

Whoa, really? What about those primates?

(got it from here)

Will the real egg please stand up?

On the 22nd of July 2009, there was a partial solar eclipse. My little brother was in school, and somehow he found out that eggs could stand up on that day. We (and by that I mean my family) had already seen photos of this phenomenon in the newspapers more than once, but we had never yet succeeded in doing it ourselves. So on that day, my little brother called home excitedly (okay, I'm not sure whether that word is true, but he's got to be excited to call home from school, right?) to tell our mother to try making an egg stand up. The "time" when it works was supposed to be over in a few minutes.

So my mother placed an egg to stand on the floor. And it worked.

Ta-dah!

She initially thought that the egg would topple over in a few minutes, but wonder of wonders, it didn't. It stayed standing (blocking the path as it was) till my little brother got back from school...and then he got out another two eggs and stood them in the living room. Here they are:



They were a little harder to stand, though...it seems that the "strength" had weakened...my mother said that the first got into standing position more easily.

But the eggs that managed to stand stayed that way for well over a day...we don't know how long they would have continued standing, since they had to be returned to the fridge, for fear that they would spoil.

And then here are a couple of photos with Pikachu "guarding" the eggs, just for fun :P



How often do you see a Pokemon egg? ;P

Milkman vs. Mailman

Simply a video I'd like to share:



Hope you enjoyed it!

On the road

I called this trip to the south-east of France a road trip, for lack of a better name. It was hard to come up with a suitable name for the trip, since it wasn't a trip to one place in particular. Instead, as you can see from my previous posts, we went gallivanting all over the south-eastern region of France, trying to cover several places of interest.

Alex called it the south-east of France trip, which was more appropriate to describe the places we visited, though we didn't really cover the whole region. I was doing my internship at the time, so I only had the weekend and I had to be back in Lyon by Sunday night to be able to go to work the next day. Alex and Kai Lun had finished their internship (but not Goh), so they could leave on Monday instead. (or continue their trip, as Alex did)

The last place we went to was Avignon, mainly because I had to take the train back to Lyon from Avignon. So we didn't have much of a choice...

I didn't really visit Avignon, just walked a little about the town and snapped a few photos. But those will have to wait; first I want to show you the photos we took truly "on the road", in the middle of nowhere. And we saw a lot of sunflower fields.



And guess what? Guys love sunflowers ;P




I didn't take any photos like this...'cos those sunflowers were rather...uh, furry...NOT nice to hold! (unlike cuddly soft toys...)

We saw some lavender fields as well...but unluckily not a single one we could get nice pictures of! This one, for example, was too far away from the road.

See the patch of purple?

This field is beautiful, but the photo was taken from the car, since we couldn't stop there.


Now it's time for the few photos I snapped in Avignon. Just a few buildings...

Palais des Papes (Popes' palace; Goh said that this is the popes' holiday home...if I remember correctly :P)

Cathédrale Notre-Dame des Doms

Hôtel de Ville (town hall)

And a couple from Alex... I just had to steal these pics to put here...even though they were taken after I left. It's something we don't see often!

The sign says "beware of cat". How often do you see that? ;)

And here's the cat...scared? :P

Alex also took some photos when he was in my room in Lyon...check out this view from my window:


It's the same view I've taken countless times...but somehow the colours are so...alive! Guess that's what differentiates a good camera from a run-of-the-mill one...

And he took a photo of my St. Lary squirrel, which absolutely love :D

I meant that I love the photo...but I love the squirrel too! ;P

To end the south-east of France "series", here are two lovely sunflower photos, courtesy of Alex:



Lovely, aren't they? ^_^

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.