New Year's Eve in Paris

For new year's eve 2004, I spent it in Paris. You can say it was special, but I do wish some of the more familiar faces could have been there, but it was fun none the less.





Couple of us arrived in Paris about 9pm, and discovered that the metro was free for the entire evening. First stop was the street Champs-Elysées which starts at the Arc of Triumph was already decorated with pretty lights, making the street as bright as in daylight.



We then marched our way to the Effiel Tower, which at the time was had a gold high
light, and from time to time the entire tower sparks for about 2 minutes. It got so crowed that the people were almost shoulder to shoulder. Most of them are visitors just like me.



We waited for a while then made our way to the Concorde, where the Louvre is. It's also where the fire works will be held.

We waited, waited, and waited for the count down. Finally it came.






Although, the actual fireworks was pretty standard. There was no amazing stunts or fireworks off the buildings which what were I expected.

After the new year hit things got a bit out of hand, and I have to say I didn't quite enjoy the rest of the night. The city went wild and there were traffic jam and drunk ppls everywhere. We tried to find a restaurant or a club that we can go to but all the clubs charge ridiculus entrance fees. Chaos and disorder were only appropriate as the description. So poor us wondered on the street until 6 in the morning to catch the earliest train back to Compiègne.

Although the last part of the trip was not really pleasant but I suppose just being able to be able to spend that first second of the new year in such a city had already made the whole thing worth while.

Budapest Day 5

Our last day together in Budapest :(

We started out the day with a visit to the PALVOLGY STALACTITE cave in Buda. The cave is a lime stone cave which was discovered in 1904. Apparently, the city was still covered by the sea, and later the sea retreated, leaving behind the stone cave. You can even see the fossilized sea shells on some of the walls. It was an interesting journey indeed.



For lunch we tried some Hungarian pancakes, which were bascailly crepes except prepared especially with Hungarian twist. I ordered a salty pancake with pork stew and a sweet one with apple fillings. Great stuff!



We then went back to the Castle district.



A small castle

The last thing that we did was the Buda castle labyrinth. This was sort like a underground maze created long long time ago by the people living there. The atmosphere was emphysized by the oil lamp that they give you before you go in.

At the dinner time there was a moment where I can't decide whether I should go to Prague with them the next day and lose my tickets to Paris. I was on the virge of just buying the ticket until it hit me that there are alot of work to be done in the next coming upcoming two weeks. Sucks..

So that was it, my trip to Budapest. It was definitely a great experience since Eastern europe has got such a distinct character that is not found in the west.

Budapest Day 4

Today it was the first day that everything was open so, we woke up early and hit a local market for some souvenirs and Hungarian food.

In the afternoon we went to the famous Gellert thermal bath. It is rated the "most" elegant bath. It's cool to be steamed for 5 min and then jump into a pool of water of 18 degrees. You get a temperature shock but it feels strangely great when the entire bath is finished.

At the night we went to see a Hungarian folk dance and music show. We got lost a bit but it was alright. The music was awesome and the musicians were obviously extremely proficient at their instruments. Some of the high-lights were the duel between two violinsts, and a solo performance by the xylophonist.

Pictures soon.

Budapest Day 3

Today everything was still closed. We continuted to explore the city, this time we hit the citadel on the top of a mountain just beside the castle district. It was used in world war 2 to defend the city.

More pictures when I get them.

I the citadel Ori bought a cool magic box. It's a wooden box about the size of your fist. In order to open it, you will have to know the machanisims behind it. I think it's a nice gift.

We then went to the national fine arts palace, and stumbled upon a French art exibition. It was cool because apparently some of the art work from the Louvre were there.

Budapest Day 2

After waking up relatively early, and feeling rested up, we went out to explore the city even though most of the tourist places are closed.



A typical building in Budapest.

We wondered around the city a bit, and then we hit a giant Basilica.




It was nicely constructed and inside was even more impressive, with giant marble columns and gold plated walls. It's the most expensive looking basilicas that I've seen so far.






After the basilica, we went again to the castle district and saw the awesome night view of the city from the other side of the river.

For dinner we went to this nice game food place, and I had some awesome wild boar stew. It was a bit sweeter than normal pork. A first for sure.

Budapest Day 1 -

The christmas Trip had started with me travelling to Berlin Germany to meet Vince and board the Easyjet plane to Budapest. After about 1 hour of flight and some long needed chatting, we arrived in Budapest. Ori and Richard were already arrived and we had no trouble finding each other.

The next step was to get into the city and find the hostel. The problem was the automatic bus ticket dispenser only accepted coins and that no one among us had any Hungarian Forint coins to buy the bus ticket! After some difficult conversations in English with the bus driver, he let us stayed without tickets. We got to the metro station, got some tickets with the help of a local lady who knew English, and finally boarded the metro to the city center.

The city is distinctively eastern European. There are beautiful scalptures on almost every single building. ( I will post pictures soon because I used Richard's CF card, and he is travelling to Prague and Vienna, so most of the pictures wouldn't be avaliable until at least mid Jan. )



At the hostel

Unfortunately, pretty much everything was closed at the time. We just wondered around the city after it got dark. The city Budapest is actually composed of two separate cities separated by the Danube river. One is Buda and one is Pest, and there are 3 or 4 major bridges linking the two cities. The views along the river is
just breath taking. The parliment is built on a hill, and they light it up really nicely during the night.



After we got back to the hostel, we exchanged Christmas gifts. I got Vince a french brand scarf, Richard a book on the origion of different kinds of beer, and chipped in for Ori's Ipod. Ori and Richard got me a authentic Swiss Army knife! yeah! and Vince got me a nice sweater and a winter hat. Thanks guys!



This is me opening a bottle of wine with the knife.



Cheers!


However, everyone was hungery as hell after a long day of travel. We went out to try out luck again, and guess what, we stumbled upon a chinese restaurant that opens all year around! Who can say no?



good stuff...

After the dinner we went back to the hostel and called a early night.

Merry Christmas Everyone

This will be a very special christmas for me. I will be spending it with Ori, Vince, and Richard in Budapest, Hungry. I am looking forward to see the good old friends, and the scenary of eastern Europe.

Right now it's all about packing...

Keep you updated.

Titre de Séjour...

I am finally legal to stay in France...

Last wedsday me and my fellow Canadian Jeremy went to Beauvais ( The capital of the Picardie region, where all the administrative work are handled) to get our definitive "Titre de Séjour".

We woke up early for the trip, 5.30AM, to catch the earliest train to Beauvais. The original plan was to take the train to Creil, and change the train to Beauvais. However, mais be because none of us got enough sleep last night, we boarded a dirct train to Paris that came 2min early. It wasn't too too bad since we can take a train from Paris to Beauvais as well, just not as direct.

At Gare du Nord something unusual had happened. We were waiting for the train by the heating host in the gare, then suddenly a Asian lady came up to me and showed a piece of paper in my face. The paper was a photocopy of a tourist map, roughly indicating the cities of which she wanted to go. I was confused at first what she wanted. I tried to speak french and english to her but from the blanked look in her eyes I knew she understood none of it. I only had one more option left, chinese. She was surprised to see that I spoke chinese and then started to tell me that she was really lost and she wanted to go to Vienna in Austria, and she looked at me and I was the only asian other than her in the gare so she just asked for help. After knowing exactly where she wanted to go I was able to get the information from the ticket booth and explain to her what to do.

The next scene was kinda comical. She then wanted me to buy a phone card for her. We went to the Tabac store in the gare and I ordered a phone card. Without hesitation, she pulled out a stack of 100 euro bills out of her pocket (They are light green apparently, I had never even seen them before) , and asked me "Are these euros? Can I use them here?" Boy, lady, at least know the currancy before you leave.

On the train to Beauvais Jeremy was telling this was the moments where knowing multiple languages shines through. Even if you dont really use it often after you have learn it, it will still be useful and help you out from time to time. I guess he has a point.

The day was relatively smooth, we got our titre de sejour after about 5hours of medical exam. On the way back to Compiègne, exact the same thing happened. There was another chinese lady who was lost and wanted to go to Paris! Jeremy just started to crack up after I started talking in chinese with that lady.

Lesson of the day: Learn as much as u can, u never know how it will help you out, or how you would be able to help others.

Nadia's birthday!

Nadia is this french girl in my numerical class. Yesterday was her birthday and couple of us planned a little surprise party for her. She was of course overwhelmed with joy!

Check the albums for photos.

Are you tired?

A little test of posting pictures in my blog, as well as showing a little bit of what I've been doing.

The program is used to observe the fatigue of your biceps muscle. The experiment is to pull a strain gauge at constant force for 2min. Your biceps are attached to electrode sensors that will capture the EMG (electromyograph) signals of your muscle and analyse them. The more your muscle fatigues, the lower the MPF( The mean power frequency, which is a specific frequency, where in the frequency domain, the sum of the energy below it equals to the sum of the energy above) of the EMG decreases, while your actual total EMG increases.

The program is built in HP Vee Pro, a visual programming language like Labview and Simulink of Matlab.

Birthday Edition...

Well, 22 hits.

I don't know, the past year hasn't been exactly smooth. Travelled quite a bit, but at the same time many of my shortcomings are exposed as well, but I guess you learn as you live.

In retrospect, I think it was more or less a fruitful year. I should give myself a pat on the back for the achievements, and also a push to correct the short comings that I have, then keep walking forward.

To those who are going through a rough time right now...

"There's a hero
If you look inside your heart
You don't have to be afraid Of what you are
There's an answer If you reach into your soul
And the sorrow that you know Will melt away

And then a hero comes along
With the strength to carry on
And you cast your fears aside
And you know you can survive
So when you feel like hope is gone
Look inside you and be strong
And you'll finally see the truth
That a hero lies in you "

I mean it, to all the people including who are going through a hardtime right now. Exams, relationships, whatever it is that is hindering your way.

You just got keep going, don't let the stress or problems slow you down.

One old french phrase is "Qui veut peut" - who wants can.

Wondering

Has any one seen or heard of "Envelope with flavours"? Like when you lick them, they supposed to taste like orange or apples or honey?? If not, I would like to invent them!

Image, instead of having that nasty glue taste in your month after you seal off a letter you are left with a refreshing taste of peppermint. I mean it definitely puts you in a happy mood after you write the cards and seal them off! It gives you the incentive to write another one, the more you write, more of your friends will receive them and as a result you will receive more cards and you will feel happy and write more cards...

It will just make the whole world a better place wouldn't it!?

I think there is a market for it, wouldn't you agree!? Either that or I am just going out of my mind :D

For Dora who is getting married!

Dora:

I can't attend your wedding, sorry. :P
To be honest, this is the first wedding wish that I ever made,
so what should I say?

One appropriate phrase is hard to find,
so let me just wish you guys:

"Live happily together ever after!"

sounds a bit childish but in my mind,
that's the description of a happy marriage!

---

That's what I told to one of my biomed class mates Dora, she's getting married next weekend but I can't attend her wedding. She's a UPenn student who met her soon-to-be husband who was a UTC exchange student at UPenn, and now she came over to France to study and to live with him.

To my great surprise after I wrote it, those phrases rhymes after you read it out by the punctuations. Haha, My mind must has been subconciously influenced by Julia and Mel's birthday poems!

Radiohead

I was asked yesterday to be the guest of a UTC school radio show on Monday. The show is about an hour and half, and I will have a conversation with the host to talk about life as an exchange student.

It will be a cool experience just to be featured on a radioshow, and see how they operate it. Have to prepare some material though.

The bill went away...

I sent an email to Cathy monday, and apparently I wasn't on her block list so I was registered for the courses. She sent an request to the registar's office for it to be removed and today I checked again it was gone! Can always count on her!