Welcome to London

After the last words, I am sure you are as touched as me but now, a new adventure starts and it's time for me to introduce my new drop zone...London. Indeed, I've signed for a year in the University College London (UCL) which is quite impressive if you compare to the washing-machine design of my previous (well i am supposed to be still linked to it...) school in Lyon.














The beginning was quite interesting since I managed my arrival as I could...that means the situation was a bite stressfull...even more for my parents...what did I do?...in fact nothing...which was the problem...I was supposed to attend to the first induction meeting on Monday at 10am and...i arrived without room for the night...on Monday at 9am!

Well, If you are thinking that I was a lazy guy, I must stop you right now...the situation was: despite my emails, calls or even fax, I was lucky enough not to receive anything...NO informations at all...but, happy end...I arrived directly with my backpack to the office and I took one of the officers to hit the other one (sorry if my jokes are close to a direct translation from french :D)...but they told me that they knew they had never replied even if they answered positively to the phone...oh...in this case no problem...why should i worry??














Anyway, at the end, they gave me a room with the address only...then my mission was to find this adress, of course outside of the only map I got, and to come back for the meeting...in less than 55 min...

With my wonderfull orientation skills ^_^...I found the building...so far...I put my bag inside the flat and I came back...simply running...but they were waiting for me...so nice...after some words...the really purpose of this meeting was figured out...a small buffet for all the Space team...














Then I got almost 10 days without anything to do...well when I say anything...I don't tell all the administrative problems which can appear like bank, room fees, duvet set since the room was without any blanket or sheets (this kind of information would have been nice to plan before)...and so on. I took time to go to the British musuem which is a complete mess but you can go as often you want...














At the end, I am in Camden town in a flat with a guy from Thailand and an other on from Cyprus, both postgraduate students like me. The flat was really dirty but after a complete shampoo, it's quite ok and my room is big enough to occasionally host one or two "extra" people.

Now, I must say a word about Camden town. In fact I discovered that this city (10min far by bus or 35 min on foot) is famous for its market and...for its punks! Well the area is funny during the day and quite convinient for living; but the night could give you some "cold sweats". Anyway, I think it's almost the same everywhere in London...people are more or less crazy in some way and we were always said to be really carefull all time long...so let's see what we can do and let's try to enjoy this place...














Oh by the way, I forgot to tell you that London is also this fabulous weather every hour, this pic is from my kitchen and you are supposed to see all London :D :D :D

Last days in Japan

I am back (and in English because I must satisfy all my fans all over the world…:p) to tell you the last moments of my Japanese trip.














Firstly, I was lucky enough to enjoy something that only few 外人 (gaijin) have done…to stay for a night in a traditional family house! The house, I should say a 100 year old temple, was the place for 4 generations who were living together!














The Tomoko’s grandfather (92years old) went to his rice field by bycle like everyday and managed all the house life. All the family was having diner on the floor, and I tried some specialities from Kanazawa, as, for an example, some fermented square sushi…really good.














With the uncle and children, we went before diner near the sea for the traditional honsen to see the sunset…so relaxing…even if all the poor local Japanese guys were looking at me since there is no tourist in this part of Japan! The floor was quite hard for sleeping but you can’t resist against the warm bath effect (honsen).
This trip will be an unforgettable memory…














Then, you can see pictures of the ultimate company diner (my farewell party, I shared with Joanne and Jason…T_T) and the last CheapCheap with the last beer…














To end properly the story, we didn’t sleep at all during the last night in order to enjoy the last of the last moment…the taxi picked me up at 6am…I hid one luggage to trick the boarding since I was pretty heavy…I sat down near the exit door (perfect for my legs) with, I need to admit it, very wet eyes…














my brain was running 100km/h fast to integrate the mountain of memories of this part of my life which was ending (and its 7000 pics!)…but I hadn’t enough time to even hear the security aircraft information…I was already sleeping…

Thanks Japan...

Thailand

As you might already know, I went to Thailand almost 3 months ago. I am not going to tell you everything but only a really brief summary and some pics in order to give you an overview of this wonderfull country.














This trip had been planed in a really short time (well...it hadn't been planed in fact ^_^)and we arrived at the airport around 11pm without any hotels or rooms for the night. But thanks to a low season for tourists, we found quite instantly something for the night.














We spent 3 more days in Bangkok before taking a crapy (but so cheap) bus to reach Huan Hin between Pukket and Bangkok...we also visited the amazing city (village??) of Ayutaya, the temples of which are quite different from the ones of Bangkok (Kmer style in fact)...














The contrast with Japan was terrific when we came back...a feeling of cleanliness spreads inside you but you just start to regret the nice weather you had, compare to the current typhon season of Japan.














I must also indicate all the food you can find in Thailand...mainly if you got your vaccinations before...well...we didn't have time....but I am sure it would be better ^_^...anyway I managed to try some hot coconut curry, really good, but which remained me later that our poor european stomach doesn't have all these needed bacterias....














...after one week and 3kg less...I enjoyed my last times in Japan and started to plan how i could put 2000kg of luggages in one tiny bag...