Vichy water

Let's blog about Vichy!

Marion and I took the train from Lyon after work on Friday, while Julien and Camille took their trains from their respective towns, both changing to the same train in Paris. Whereas for Marion and me it was a simple 2-hour journey, for the boys it was a different story...

Anyway, to avoid confusion I think I should make something clear: there are two Camilles this time (unlike in Troyes). One is Camille P, a girl, the one who invited us to her place. The other is Camille D, a guy, who, uh...didn't invite us to his place? lol Anyway, you get it, he's the other one. So, depending on the context, I won't always write their initials...like when I expect my readers to be smart enough to figure it out :P

Camille and Alexis (her boyfriend) came to the train station to meet us. It was a ten-minute walk to her house, so we went there before coming out again to meet the boys' train. But their train was delayed in Paris and they ended up arriving one hour and 15 minutes later... (they were supposed to arrive at 9:55pm)

So that was it for Friday night. Camille's mother and brother weren't in when we arrived, and were leaving at 4am Saturday morning, so we only saw both of them for a while that night, after we came back from fetching the boys.

On Saturday morning Matthieu arrived from Clermont-Ferrand to spend the day with us...he joined us for breakfast. After breakfast we went out to buy bread for the day...we walked through a park to get to the bread shop, stopping at a pavilion where there was a water source: Source des Célestins. Vichy is famous for its water sources that have curing capabilities (is that how we say it?)...tourists come to, well, get themselves cured. (sounds funny...lol)

Anyway, this source is the only one in Vichy that is bottled to be sold.

the entrance to the pavilion (the name's on top)

about the source

drinking the miracle water
from left: me, Julien, Marion, Matthieu, Camille, Alexis
photographer: the other Camille

the others and the source (I was lazy to ask them to pose, since they were also lazy to pose...unlike some other people I've been on vacation with :P )

Really, these people don't like posing. Marion doesn't even like taking the same picture twice (which happened a few times since each time we took a group photo, I wanted to take one with Camille D in it, and he wanted to take one with me in it...) It is so unlike some people who, at the slightest hint of someone taking photos, would turn around and make a pose... (*wink* *wink* Alex, Hsin Shen,...)

Okay, enough digressing. We walked away from the pavilion in a different direction from where we arrived...

another view

After buying the bread, we went home (well, Camille's home at any rate) by another route instead of going back through the park, making a kind of circuit. (we did that both days) Yi was arriving at 1pm++ (can't remember the exact time, though I kinda think it was 1:25pm), so we sat in the living room for a bit.

around the table, drinking iced water (poor Camille had to make a whole lot of ice cubes that weekend...it was so hot)

the other people who couldn't fit into the first photo

After fetching Yi from the train station (she was supposed to come with us from Lyon the previous night, but she had to meet some Chinese officials who came to INSA on Friday night), we had a barbecue.

chipolatas on the grill

everyone standing in the shade...or what little of it that's left (the shade was larger earlier where Julien and Yi are standing...I was there until I went to get my camera)

I was taking the photo from the steps leading out of the kitchen, in case you're wondering. (which is why I'm towering over everyone all of a sudden. lol)

Camille in charge of the grill

We had a dish of ratatouille (a French vegetable dish, but a different kind, not the classic one) and some taboulé (couscous salad) to go with the sausages. After lunch we went out again, in search of more cures :P

This building housed the original thermal baths. But not any more...
(you can only see the people by zooming in, I forgot to take a photo already zoomed in)

Camille D took this photo...by the way, I believe he took it before I exchanged places with him and took mine. You might notice how when Camille's in the photo, everyone tried to push him out...into the ground :P

walking away from the original thermal baths (by the way, it isn't written anywhere what they were!)

Then we went to where you can find all the cures of Vichy (okay, I'm not sure about the "all", but it sure seems to be so) There's a turnstile where you pay (I think you insert coins) to get in. You can see the names of the different sources on the blue plaques (I didn't take photos of all of them).




We tried several of them...some by leaning in across the barriers (Camille brought a glass along with her to fill the water in), and some by asking the people who were inside... (Camille did that for us...as host, she had to show us what Vichy was about... :P )

the Grande Grille source
The name comes from when they put a grill to prevent animals coming to drink it (info courtesy of the blue plaques :P )

we hung around this source while Camille went around getting the different cures for us

By the way, all the sources tasted a bit weird (apart from the Célestins). There was one (the last one we tried) that was the worst, according to the others...but I found it just the same...

towards pedestrian streets
We didn't go in that direction, but we did go there (at the end of these streets) the next day

the opera (though if you look, you will see "casino" written on it instead...)

the front view

Camille trying to stop me from taking a photo of the building, so I took a photo of him instead. Bad boy!

the others posing in front of the opera

this time I thought of taking a zoom

the photo Camille took (actually I think he took it before I took mine...which was why they had to change poses between the two, to have different photos)

a close-up of the "casino"

and here you can see that it's an opera (the banner)

After that we sat down for a drink.

nearby tables...see who's their sponsor? Support local products! lol

a church
Some of the others were saying that it was ugly. I kinda liked it...and what's more, it's a change from all the same old churches.

I've always liked optical illusions on walls ^_^
The others didn't even see a reason to stop walking...there they are, walking beside the building.

this is what it is (hehe, you can even see a bit of my reflection)

Then we went to the train station to send off Matthieu. We were there a bit early, so we decided to wait outside.

We headed that way...

...from here.

I just found this building kinda nice

a fountain!

And what do you get, when you have a hot day, a fountain, and 3 little boys? guys who are not exactly what you would call serious?

You get guys playing in the fountain.

This is where the fountain went down (totally stopped) and Matthieu walked through it. Just as he was nearing the other end, the fountain started again, making him step back quickly...

And this is harder to see, because I didn't get an early enough warning. They were going to dash through the fountain, and I already had my camera ready, but they suddenly dashed through without letting me know :s Well, you can see them behind the fountain if you know they're there...

The guys checking out how wet they'd got after going through the fountain.

Then we went back into the train station. While waiting we commented on how it was a "particularity" that the train was on time...especially after the lateness of the boys' train the previous day. And I should mention that another guy, Antoine was supposed to come to Vichy as well, but his train was canceled, and for our visit to Troyes, another guy couldn't make it because his train was late and he would have missed his connecting train. So...we weren't exactly happy with the SNCF at the moment.

à l'heure = on time

Anyway, I put that on Facebook...and Catherine posted another photo for me:

this was in Lyon...I'm not sure when she took it, must be during one of the strikes
retard = lateness/delay

So that was our Saturday in Vichy...that night we played UNO after dinner, before going to bed. As for Sunday, that'll be another post...

(Thanks to Camille D for some of the photos, there'll be a few of his in the next post as well. We were the only two who were taking photos...)

Thoughts on 3D

So...seems that I'm on a kind of blogging spree these days. After promising lots of posts and not getting around to it, I have finally posted up all but the trips with my parents. But that needs a whole lot more work, so it'll have to wait a bit...or a lot :s And in the meantime, I'll try to stay up-to-date on the other posts...

Anyway, as I mentioned in the banana cake post, I went to Vichy last weekend (which I will write about). Then it was back to work for two days, and Wednesday was a public holiday (French national day). We went out on Wednesday...but I'll write about that after getting the other photos. This morning I worked from home, and I would probably have stayed home all day if I hadn't needed Matlab. I used Matlab a lot at the beginning of my internship (for my whole internship, actually), but not I'm writing my report so I don't need it all the time. So tomorrow I'll most likely work from home all day...especially since my tutor isn't even around, so it's not likely that he'll want to see me.

Tuesday night we went to see Shrek, it was in 3D (they didn't have the 2D version). Had to pay 2 euros extra for the 3D technology, and 1 euro for the glasses (they're reusable). The movie was good, but the 3D didn't really add anything to it. In 2D it'd have been just as good...

What was more notable about the 3D was the commercials. There was this M&M's commercial where the two M&M's (ya know, the yellow and the brown one) were throwing M&M's towards the audience. That looked pretty real in 3D...I almost felt like moving away to avoid those candies! And there was a Haribo commercial as well (I remember writing about a Haribo procession before), where the sweets were floating all around...just in front of us. But the film? Nah...2D's enough for me.

And, as Mah said...3D hurts the eyes a bit (or is it the head?). It's like when some things seem so close to you...it's as if you're sitting too close to the television. I don't know whether it's just the feeling, or whether it's really bad for your eyes...

What else? I guess I'll stop here for now...but there'll be most probably another post soon. Stay tuned!

Graduation

I've graduated!


Okay, it was kind of a fake graduation...it was organised by MASAF, and we got a cert from JPA (a sijil penghargaan)

The ceremony was held on the 5th of June in Paris. They rented a boat that cruised along the Seine...

the boat

inside the boat (this photo was taken from the stage)

the guys from my batch (the girl is a year our senior)

the Pekom scholars from our batch (except the rightmost one, who's a year our junior)

Fzah at the non-grads' table...one senior and two juniors

my table

the cenderahati (souvenir) they prepared

table decoration

At the beginning, before going into the boat we had drinks and curry puffs on the...um, what do you call the top of the boat already?

with some of my batchmates (see the curry puff Mimi's holding? :P )

After that we went into the boat, found our tables (we got a card with our table number on it)...after some speeches we had our lunch. When we were done eating, we went outside again...by that time the boat was already moving along the river.

with Khairunisa (from Toulouse, who was at my table as well), ??, Anis (4 years my junior, who was in Angoulême as well), kak Seri (one year my senior, in La Rochelle before), ??, kak Asilda (3 years my senior), and ??
(please fill in the blanks for me if you can :s )

with Firdaus, kak Asilda...and I don't know who :s

with Fazli, Kenneth (also a Yeoh :P ) and Taufik

with (er...let's skip the first person) Yilie and Jun (who's graduating as well, but was in MFI instead of INTEC)

with Fzah, who's studying language (was, actually...she's really graduated, unlike me :P )

I was going to take a photo with Dinie, but then Fadhil and Taufiq wanted to be in the photo as well...

one left, but the other was still around

Same thing happened when I was taking a photo with Fifi...I think he was trying to push them away :P
(by the way, these four are from my batch but Telekom-sponsored)

Then they asked everyone to go back into the boat except for the grads. They asked us to stand at one end of the boat for photos...

the grads

...and then we lined up to go inside and get out cert. They only had about nine square caps, I think...so we passed them around :P

group photo after docking, just to let you see the number of people there (I think only one or two were missing, taking the photo)

They wanted to take photos of us throwing the graduation caps into the air, but with a limited number of caps, it wasn't exactly possible... Also, it was so hot that most of us preferred staying in the shade under the bridge :P

See the three cones high up at the back, with rolled up certs inside? That us :P (I was with Fazli and...I can't seem to remember who was the other person with us :/ )

Then we took photos in small groups...all over the place.

group photo for my JPA batch (I think the curtain background was for the boat's next customers, but everyone wanted to take photos with it lol)
Back row (the girls and one guy): Asmahanna, Iz'zati, Sia Ven, Mimi, me and Taufik
Front row: Firdaus, Fairuz, Fazli, Saipudin, Faeez, Hakim, Hafiezal and Akmal

So there you have it, the grad ceremony. After that some of us went to Starbucks, and I think someone took photos, but I can't remember who, and I haven't got the photos because I can't ask that person for it.

Sorry about the sudden flood of long posts...but hey, it's now or never! Still, there are more photos than words... :P

Thanks to Fiezal, Fifi and Yaacob Hasan (whom I don't know personally, but he seems to be the official MASAF photographer for the occasion) for most of the photos, and to Fzah for the photo of us together. As for anyone else who hasn't passed me their photos...just do it!!!