Around Lyon

Yesterday’s weather was really very good. The best I have seen so far. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. It was a magnificent day to go out walking! In the morning, I toured around the school campus…. It was quite uneventful… I mean how exciting can a school campus be. I caught the main points of what Francois and Xavier were saying, but as usual they were talking too fast.

The dog that followed us along the tour ard campus

the beautiful weather i was talking about

A mildly disturbing poster i saw along the way. Imagine if u see it at night and den when u turn the corner the auntie pops right out and wants to stab u, a la Pyscho

In the afternoon, when we were gathering to go to town area, I saw some Asians and I was so happy that all 3 were from NTU!! 2 were Singaporeans and 1 from China. It’s good to hear Singlish again! we toured around the nicer parts of Lyon, namely Bellecour and Vieux Lyon. Touristy stuff but hey… I am a tourist of sorts too. Made a big boo when I asked Manuel if the Hotel de Ville is still a Hotel, then he told me its actually the Mayor’s office…. Ok big boo boo. I am sure this was mentioned in French classes before but I probably wasn’t listening.

Some fountain at Place des Terraux

View of Vieux Lyon from Place de Bellecour

The other river that runs thru Lyon: Soane

The Basilica from the foot of the hill

Another church at the hill

The gang... the guy and 2 girls on the right sittin down are the pple from NTU!

Bellecour and the Hotel de Ville area is like the Orchard Road of Singapore. Quite nice la, but I mean I cant afford all the stuff they are selling anw. Den we walked up the hilly streets of Vieux Lyon and we could actually see the French Alps!! (and apparently Mont Blanc but I think was too blind to see that) Its not everyday that u get to see so far cos of the weather so even Xavier was getting all excited like a boy.

Can u spot the French Alps in the far horizon??

Vieux Lyon, literally Old Lyon is like the medieval part of the city which is built on top on a hill and it houses THE building of Lyon, La basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière à Lyon. Inside Vieux Lyon are cobbled streets and shops that reminded me of the Europe I know, cos the part I am staying is really too modern and for the everyday people so it was a good feeling. There were also some Roman Amphitheatre there you could get a better view of the city below.

Note to self: next time dun tie my scarf that makes me look like an auntie or a big present (said Robson)

At the top of the hill, we had some flan which Xavier bought at Bellecour and we had a little picnic. By then it was nearly sunset and u could really just absorb and take in the scenery and the things that are around you. And flan is only available during this period and it’s a pastry made of like apples or frangipani. (dun ask me, I also tot frangipani is poisonous… or maybe frangipani in French is not the flower we know). And inside they hid this little piece of ceramic and if u find it, you get to be king for one day. They bought 3 flans and guess what, I friggin found 2….. but then I was so embarrassed I didn’t tell them I found it. They just thought that someone accidentally swallowed it (not a good thing). Haha I guess I was just too paiseh. Again. Otherwise I could be king for 2 times!! Haha.

And this is La basilique Notre-Dame de Fourvière à Lyon. Nice right? The light lit up when we reached the top so it was extra pretty. And u can see the streets of Lyon from up here too!! The whole evening was just very magical la, with the mini picnic and the view of the city. Next time someone comes to visit me, this is definitely one of the must dos!! And it’s completely free!!

Trees that remind me of the Whomping Willow!!


The view of the city below. This picture doesnt do justice to the view thou, you got to see it to believe it

The Basilica from the side

And from the front. Super pretty

After that we went to a small café at the bottom of the hill and talked some more. We were talking about studies and stuff. The Mexican girls asked me why I chose to be in engineering when I seriously hate it with all my guts. And it really stumped me…. Cos I am actually quite good at writing essays. Infact, this sem, all my top grades come from my writing modules. I guess I am just seriously aimless and dunno what I wanna do with my life. Like I believe in just making enough money and survive and then use the money u earn to do stuff that u really enjoy. Like traveling. And when they asked me if I had to do it all over again what would I do, I said I will probably go arts of something.

And then we talked about the different education systems of our countries. Apparently in Finland, the government pays u to study… so everyone at the table was like “ok I wanna be Finnish next time!!” And the Mexicans pay 4 times as much tuition fees as a Singaporean. So I guess we are quite lucky as Singaporeans. And den we talked about the weather. This is one of the warmest years of winter so maybe I wun be able to see actual snow falling so that’s a big big bummer. And in Chile, earthquakes happen so often that they dun care about it anymore… they jus continue to do their daily stuff.

At nite we all met in Luis’s room, that is actually below mine, for some drinking. MY FIRST DRINKING PARTY!! Haha. Talked a lot of nonsense. At one point everyone was talking in Spanish so me, Andre, Tutti and Andre’s roommate Antoine were like staring at each other cos we dunno what the rest was talking about. It was quite hilarious!! And later we all took out our IC and started comparing…. And they are super confused as to why I have 2 names, one dialect and one pinyin in brackets… I had to repeat the story like a hundred times to different people, and the fact that most of us were tipsy and drunk didn’t help at all. By the end of the nite, they were all like “so can I call u Cheong/ Chye/ Cheong Chye Tan/ Chen Cheong Chye/ Tan Changcai/ Changcai Tan?” or various other permutations…. Haha then I said “call me whatever you want!” hahahha

One other girl Sylvia (I think a senior) said she learned so much from me as an Asian in one nite than from her roommate cause she says her roommate is a superboring Chinese. So I am glad I helped to break the stereotype there, and upped the hip quotient of Asians in general. HAHAHA. And I got to drink for free!!! I am such a leech.

Yeah so anyway today I am just nuaing in my room, cos its raining outside as usual. So I took the time psyching myself up for class tmr. It shud be quite exciting! More abt that next time!!

Ma Première Soirée

Alright so, i had my first evening out. Every since i came to Lyon i almost nearly slept before 10pm... dunno because of jet lag or because my inner mammal needs to hibernate but yeah.

So anyway, i had my welcome tea thing at 5pm. I was a bit late and when i came in i realised i was the only friggin ching chong china there. And i was a bit offended cos after their presentation they asked me (only) if i understood what they just said. I'm like "erm yes". SO INSULTING. i know my french is very bad but i could at least catch the main points. And we were off to a bad start...

but as the saying goes, we shudnt judge a book by its cover. And that is so true cos they were actually all very nice and sociable and most of them can speak english as well. We've got a couple of Brazilians, 2 Chileans, 1 over-enthusiastic Columbian, 3 Mexican babes, 1 Finnish girl, and a guy that i never tok to at all (now i noe he is Andre from germany). Most of them said that by the end of the day their English will probably be better than their french since most of us spoke english the whole time. Even the 2 french hosts had to speak english to accomodate us sometimes. haha.

for the dinner, Francois, one of the french guy invited his China fren to join us so i was quite happy cos i can tok to him in chinese too!! He's Zhou Ze and he's doing his Shou Shi (i have no idea whats that in english... Masters?) and he arrvied 4 months ago so his french is quite good too.

Me being me, the whole nite i didnt really talk a lot. cos i dunno what to say at this kinda occasions. so i was basically listening the whole nite, trying to figure out what everyone is saying and chomping on pizza (we only ate like at 9pm... i was famished to say the least). Its like a mini United Nations. I spoke to the Zhou Ze in Chinese, sometimes Francois will speak with us as well cos he is like s friggin linguist (he noes French, English, German, Sign language and a little bit of Chinese).... den i spoke to the Mexican girls in English and they were mumbling spanish within themselves. And the Brazilians, Chileans, Mexicans and Columbian could basically understand what one another is talking about. Xavier, the other french host, was speaking in English with the Finnish girl. SO yeah. it was quite a sight.

Francois, Enthusiastic columbian (i think he is Costa??) in stripes, Skinhead Chilean Joseph Miguel, Mexican girl Martha in pink, Finnish girl Tutti in Black

Isabela and Alexandra from Mexico whom i sat opp the whole nite

Mr Zhou Ze

Guy i didnt talk to in the centre, Xavier with the thumb on the lips, Christiano and Fernando from Brazil and Luis from Chile who lives in the same residence and studies the same fac as me...

So anw, everyone couldnt really pronounce my name. Before coming i actually wanted to be known as Hubert (say ooo bear) since thats really my name. Not some funky name i gave myself. But in the end i just told them my chinese name instead cos i am quite proud to be a chinese (unlike a certain Ziyi Zhang). Most of them end up pronouncing my name as Shong Shy. Oh well wat the heck. fine by me.

We walked all the way back from the restaurant to Insa which took abt 40mins?? I nearly died but i didnt sweat at all and the weather was quite shiok. Spent most of the time talking to Miguel (cos his french sucks as well so english was the prefered language) and Xavier, who spent a semester in UK so his english is quite zai for a french man as well.

I end up realising that i am the oldest there... the rest of the exchange student were like 20 to 22... and they arent racist. at all. Latin Americans can pick up French faster cos apparently its almost the same... hence the abundance of Latinos and Latinas. and erm.... everyone speaks english. english ROCKS. (PS i promise to speak more french after the french course. i SWEAR)

A failed attempt at taking a pic of The Opera house. too cold my hands shaking.

So all in all it was quite a successful first gathering of the international student. And i just finished walking a tour of the campus. Later going to walk ard Lyon.... Lyon by day hahaha. Ciao!

Parc de la Téte d'Or

Actually feel like nuaing at home today... funny i said home cos althou its nice, its not really a home. anw, went out to buy summore groceries cos i forgot all about my toiletries yesterday.... smart right.

Walked around the neighbourhood a bit... not extremely exciting. Walked all the way to Parc de la Téte d'Or which is a huge ass garden which is about 20mins away on foot. and of all days i chose to wear my leather shoes cos its rainy and i dun wanna wet my nike even further.... but the heels nearly killed my legs...

Ok so yeah the garden actually has a mini zoo in it... but most of the animals are like friggin hibernating so there were only a few stuff to see:

i think if it snows this place would look like Narnia

Yeah. nothing much happened today. waiting for school to start so at least got something to do. later in the evening got some welcome tea thing and dinner for exchange students so i will be going to that... which mean i have abt 1hr plus to nap before leaving. Au revoir!!

More Pictures!!

Ok i must say i am very impressed with the internet connection here.... its even faster than the one in NUS.... maybe cos now got lesse pple using since it's the holidays.

Today i woke up very early, around 6 plus again cos my roomate, althou nice, snores like a pig. so i woke up, ate some yoghurt for breakfast while watching some stuff that i dled before coming. Went to bathe and went out to the direction des residence to get my l'attestation de residence.... which basically means the proof of residence. i am quite proud of myself cos i could actually understand and communicate with the admin with few "huhs".

on the way out i took some photos of the place:

View outside my residence lobby

My residence

from another angle.... actually there are only 2 columns of rooms that have balconies if u notice. i am lucky to be one of them.

my first picture in france!!

some wierd building with chimneys near my place. will ask my roomate wat it is soon

the tram which i have to take most days to go to town area. i havent been paying as religiously as i shud cos i wanna save money. haha

Public bicycles called Velo V.... the are a lot of stations ard Lyon so u can just pick it up at one place and park it at the destination. Cool right?? Singapore shud have this thing.

ok so anw i went to meet Valerie so that she could bring me to Ikea and some supermarket that is in the suburbs (think the new Ikea and Giant and Courts at Tampines, only much further and bigger) So yeah, bought some furniture and adhesive hooks and stuff. i also bought a filter to filter my water, althou i found out later that pple just drink from the tap. But i guess i better dun play play.

After i came back i unpacked the stuff i bought and took some photos. Here they are:

View from balcony

My room!!

My room, but closer.

The small kitchen with the filter flask i bought

Toilet and bathroom

Bathroom, up close and personal

The above said roomate!

for some reason i very paiseh to ask him to take picture den i took without his permission... and i damn smart forgot to off the flash.... WELL DONE LA. but he was fine with it. i also paiseh to ask Valerie. But i guess i will do that soon.

And i am facing a dilema of what i shud wear everyday... cos i dun sweat. AT ALL. so i am tempted to wear the same thing over and over. cos i very lazy to wash also. Den i see Valerie almost everyday so i dun wanna give her the impression that i am dirty... cos i am not. seriously. SIGHHH.

So yeah nothing much now. Shud be eating my first maggi tonite since i have been spending too much already i think. Then tmr apparently got some welcome tea thing in the evening. Hopefully its tmr cos they said 6th friday... when friday is really 5th so i have to go down and see got anyone or not. hehe alrighty now. thats all folks!!!

PS: blogspot sucks... its messes with all my format.

HARROW EVERYBADYYYY!!

I have internet connection in my room!!!! Holy Guacamole!!! ok anw here's the lowdown on the past 2 days!!

Flight to Lyon: Air France sucks la seriously... the leg space was like non-existence and the service sucks. I mean, when i asked for a glass of water, they were like "oh it's over there, help yourself". Nothing particular interesting happened, all I could remember was saying "please shoot me" 100 times during the 13hr 40min flight to Paris.

Den at the Paris custom, i experienced the monstrosity that is the French Administration. They were taking like their own fucking sweet time. I was supposed to board my next flight at 650am but i was still stuck at the customs at 7am when the flight was supposed to leave at 730am. So me being the gan jiong spider became.... very gan jiong. but there was nothing i can do but pray. Pray to all the gods that they wud hurry up clear the hoards of black pple in front of me. Den at around 710am i finally cleared the customs and i ran like nobody's business to the gate, only to find out that the flight has been (freaking hell) delayed. so basically i gan jiong for nothing.

Flight to Lyon was alright... i just slept thru most of it.... i only remember sitting next to a man who looks really dodgy with beard like Santa Claus and was wearing a sorta girder like thing. For a moment i tot maybe he is a terrorist hiding some bomb thing under that girder but nehhhh, i rather just sleep.

Day 1: I got to Lyon in one piece and everything was fine up till now. I even remember telling myself "oh god u are so smart". But i guess the powers that be decided to play a joke on me and like make my first day a complete and utter disaster.

When i reached the airport, the girl (Valerie) who was supposed to pick me up (but didnt cos she had some last minute medical appt for her residence permit... but i knew before hand so thats fine) smsed me if i still need help getting to the the school. i said i shud be fine but i would appreciate help with the luggage if she was free the rest of the day. So i met her at Part-Dieu station at 11am and we went to eat lunch together after that.

Ok lunch was awkward to say the least... but it's such a small world that she knows Yingming who i lent my econs notes to, and RONGWEI!!!! wtf!! its such a small world!! ok but yes, there was like awkward silence and all. Ok den after that we took the tram to my school, which looks like a freaking ghost town. And it doesnt help that it was drizzling and wet and cold. By then my hands already very tired. 35kg of luggage is NOT fun man... gives the term excess baggage a WHOLE new meaning.

The tram ride to my place showed a very dodgy and ghetto Lyon that i didnt expect. i mean being the 2nd largest city of France, i would expect it to be like... Paris, but it wasnt like that. So i was a bit disappointed. but Valerie said my place is a bit out of town so its like the Lyon equivalet of Seng Kang. den HORROR of HORRORS, the building i was supposed to check in to wasnt opened!! but i didnt know it wasnt open because it was lunch time or because its the term break. so me and valerie waited and chatted summore.

she was telling me about her experience... she's an EDB scholar and doing her prep/bridging classes learning french for the last 4 months. When she first arrived, she had 45kg of luggage and zero knowledge of french. She was telling me all sorts of horror stories about the first few days... like everyone was treating her rudely cos she dunno how to speak french and all. and i was starting to get a bit worried myself. Den she was given shitty accomodations and she had to complain to the admin but she didnt noe what she was saying half the time. And turns out that she knew how to speak english but just didnt want to (cliches proven to be right).

She also told me Derek (another scholar but in the 3rd year now) once told her "i would be lying if i said it wasnt difficult at first... i cried like a lot of times my first year here" i mean ok, a guy crying. I tot i a the only guy in the world who can cry on cue. OMG this is not turning out to be wat i expected. But i mean i was still hoping for the best.

Den halfway while waiting, lady luck came in the form of an Ah Tiong called Wang Xing Jun!!! We asked him if the office is opened today, he said he dunno also, but he offered to let me put my big luggage in his room first den we can go to other offices to see if they can help me. When i went to his room, i nearly fainted. His accomodation was god damn atrocious. Macam like some hostel from china. valerie even told me "please if u get this kinda of room. change it. it is so depressing. Its worse than the first room i got." i also say... i wud DIE if i get a room like that.

den we went around looking for other offices but turns out they were all close as well. i nearly wanted to faint and take the next flight out back to singapore. Valerie offered to let me stay the nite at her place and the china guy very nice la. he told me to let me leave my big luggage at his place so i no need to bring ard. But all my clothes are inside so i had to bring it along. So yes... a new fren found... and Mr Wang here helped redeemed the reputation of ah tiongs worldwide.

Valerie's place is in town so its like damn nice. She said she quarrel with EDB until they let her stay in a 500euro per month room, all by herself. Below are some of the pictures of her area.

One side of the Rhone river

the other side of the Rhone river

Some Ferris wheel at Bellecour

The streets of Bellecour... the Xmas decorations are still up so its very nice!!

Some street stall

Streets at dusk

So yeah, walked ard a bit, and as if my day wasnt bad enuff, she told me more horror stories. So by then i was damn sad already. It still felt very surreal that i am in a cafe, outside pouring and wind blowing and she was there going on and on. I was crying inside already. The walk home was damn cold. I was literally shivering while talking to her. and it was only 8degrees.

At nite when i slept, i dreamt a lot of stupid dreams. then in the end i woke up at 615am. went to shit (cos i never shit the whole day), trying not to wake her up (cos i very paiseh to be shitting in other pple's house. dun ask me why) den i tried going back to sleep after that. But i cant... den i just started thinking wats going to happen on the next day cos sunrise is coming soon and i am really dreading it. i didnt want to think anymore cos i very worried. den i cannot control already. i went to the toilet and cry. freaking cry like baby. i cant remember really crying since.... no waitaminute. i cry quite often, just that no one knows. ok anw, like damn qi liang like that la. sit on toilet bowl and cry until 715am den tried to go back and sleep again. but cannot sleep so just lie on the floor, stare at the ceiling until 8 den we both wake up.

Day2: was soooooo much better. i smsed derek, who was on holiday with his girlfren to help me call INSA and ask if they were opened. AND IT WAS!!! but i had to accompany Valerie to collect her residence permit thing first. But thats fine. i am just so damn happy that its open.

So i went to collect my room key, went to tell the person i have arrived. spoke like my first true sentence of french to the admin, who was surprising very nice and understanding. Valerie was also very surprised that they are so nice... she said in her 4 months here those are the nicest french pple she ever saw.

So yeah cleaned my room, unpacked, went out to buy some groceries and now i am in my room. using my roomate fren's password. ( i wun get mine until monday)

My roomate is very amicable and frenly. He is 22 from brazil doing EE den he can speak english so thats FANTASTICCC!!! i sharing room with him and another french guy stays in a single room. he went home for the holidays so he wun be back anytime soon. den got toilet and bathroom adn small stove and fridge and get this..... i get a balcony. all for just 224 euros a month.

Anyway i will take pictures of my room some other day after i finish packing. this is all for now. i very tired want to sleep!!! bye bye!!!

some shopping centre that i went to do grocery shopping. GOT CARREFOUR!!

My family at the airport

My dunman frens and their respective spouses

My CE frens. thanks for the card bitches.... appreciate it

Dancers!! thanks aili for the cap!! i will put it to good use! and its brown!! yay! thanks!!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Ok the day has finally arrived... i am leaving Singapore in about 11 hours and i am starting to majorly freak out.

Anw i will be updating my blog as regularly as possible and i will be putting my contact details on the right hand side column when i have them ready. Yeap.

That's all from me peeps. Happy New Year and see ya guys in 7 months!