Blog All Title

For the French version of this post, click here.
To go to all my French posts, click here.

Hey everybody!

Quite difficult to post on this blog regularly! I think it's difficult for me to keep some moments free so as to take up some time to immerse myself again in my memories, but they're still there! and it's still very enjoyable to think of all those good times again, and to think of everyone who was there at those very moments!
I still have trouble getting used to living again as I used to, in France, but I think the main reason for that is because my life is constantly moving on!! Barely did I get used to living in Châteaugiron in French Brittany, that I have to move on, to think of what I'll do and where I'll go once my internship will be done!

I've been thinking of writing such a post for a while, so, to change a bit from my tourists posts :-), here come 2 posts about unforgettable memories, parties that happened while I was still in Australia, during my 2nd session!

First Wednesday night

The 1st wednesday night of my 2nd session, cos as you all know, wednesdays are kind of students night in Wollongong... The bus takes us to Glasshouse, but we often end up at Cooney's, bigger and greater.

You can see me with Reiko, Naomi and Naoko on the 2nd picture, then you can see a bottle of Cointreau!! on the shelf, an alcohol from my French home town (Angers)!!! I definitely didn't know it was that much known outside of my French town!! And then are a few pictures with Reiko.

Commencement dinner

Big event in Autumn sessions where everybody has to be well dressed up, and for which there's a big photo of all residents that'll end up on the wall with all others in the TV room.
On the pictures we can see the French guys: Fred, M-ric and Phil then myself, Ian and M-ric, Naomi and Reiko, Dixon and me, Reiko and me, Chinese, Hongkese and Japanese girls, the dinner table, Emi, me and Kate.

Artsfest

The Arts' festival where some people were really talented!! Some of them had really beautiful voices!! At this festival, everyone could come to sing or play any musical instrument.

Angus the guitarist on the picture has really the Australian surfer hair style I think!!

Naoko's birthday

Birthday of a nice Japanese friend, Naoko's birthday was the 1st time we had a big birthday card made up mainly by the Japanese from Weerona. Those cards are really impressive and nice!
Group's photo, Naomi and Naoko, Luisa (my Colombian neighbour), Naoko (who was celebrating her birthday)

Kate's birthday

Birthday of an Australian girl Emeric and I went to. Costumes required: Bogan (see Emeric) or Bollywood (see myself :-)). Brogan corresponds to the Outback Australian way of dressing up, plaid shirts and leather hats required :-)

Mid-session party

Big event of Weerona College for the middle of the session. We had to come dressed-up as golfers or Tennis players.

Shave for Cure

Event for which we could shave our head and donate for people affected by leukaemia. Temporary hair styles were quite impressive!

Rap night

Rap party... I remember Emi teaching me a few dance steps (I don't remember which kind of dance it was, hip hop?) But I didn't dance a lot at that party, or at least not rap dance!

Hypnosis

Big hypnosis show!!
At first I wanted to go on the stage because I was wondering if they could hypnotize me, but there were so many volunteers that I let all those people go rather than going myself! And after that, with hindsight, I think it was finally a better idea, all the more as it enabled me to watch the show which was at times quite funny! I remember that I liked for instance when a shark appeared whereas they were all thinking being fish, their reactions were really funny :-) It's impressive all they did or believed under hypnosis or with autosuggestion... to be very hot or freezing to death, to be a belly dancer, boxers, part of a big orchestra, to think the person next to us smells irresistibly good or on the contrary rather bad, or to be embarassed realizing the bad smell comes from us!, to be under the control of a voodoo doll, to be an alien, or to be an alien translator...

Sushi-crèpes party

A day during which I learned how to prepare and roll maki sushi, since the time I wanted to know how to do it! :-) I discovered at the same time a lot of new ingredients I didn't know! The not-yet rolled sushi is the one I did :-) Reiko offered us some Sake from her region as well :-), and we taught the non-French people how to toss French crèpes, or should I say Emeric did, because actually as for me I wasn't very good at tossing crèpes :-)

For the French version of this post, click here.
To go to all my French posts, click here.

After a night at the hotel we (Emeric and I) head to the downtown streets that we saw quickly the day before on our way to the hotel by taxi.
It's impressive, it looks like the Chinatowns of big western cities, but here, this Chinatown never ends!!
The shops and restaurants signs written in Chinese are everywhere!! Fortunately a few well-known signs (for western people :-)) with our alphabet appear at times such as a 7 eleven sign as you can see on the far left-hand side of the 2nd photo. Couldn't be better as we arranged to meet with Karina in front of a 7 eleven near a subway station, but we still need to find the good one :-)...

There is a lot of small yellow and red buses and the modern buildings mix with the old ones in the shopping streets. We walked past a fruit market as well.

Then we take a footbridge to reach our subway station. We get lost a bit but we take that opportunity to have a better view of the streets.

Lost in the middle of this Chinese city, something looking French suddenly appears!! A French restaurant!! The French cuisine seems indeed quite reputed abroad :-)

Then we met Karina as planned. Karina is a former Weerona College tutor who lived there for 4 years. Emeric and I knew her from our 1st session in Weerona which was on the contrary her last session there. Talking about Karina she's also on a picture of a previous post of my blog (the Formal post). She knows Hong Kong very well as she lived there for 15 years. And she came back to Hong Kong to work in psychology after finishing her studies in Australia. It seems quite hard to find a job in Hong Kong because they want you to speak very well Cantonese for most of the jobs!!...

Matty G. (an Australian from Weerona doing studies related to the movies) told us that he buys a lot of his movie CDs in Hong Kong each time he stops over there because it's very cheap. That's why we asked Karina where to find such a DVD, VCD... shop and we were not disappointed at all!! There was a lot of recent movies in DVDS and VCDs and for not more than AU$ 4 or AU$ 10!! As you can guess we bought a few ones there :-)
On our way we stopped to be taken in photo between two lion stones, one of the Chinese symbols with the dragons.

People working in the streets look funny in their outfit with their hat and towel :-)

Karina had us noticed the big difference between government and private accommodation.

We took the ferry in the Hong Kong bay where we saw a nice Chinese-looking boat.

Then we head to Karina's car and had at the same time a splendid view over the bay. These high buildings all in a row in front of those green hills leading to inland China are impressive, they are not concentrated just in an area like the CBD of New York City or Sydney, they are all along the bay!!

Post to be continued with a drive in the heights of Hong Kong soon.

Hello everybody!!

At last, I'm back with an Internet connection and very happy about it!! It took me quite a while to get my access to Internet from my French apartment, but now, it's OK. I'll start again writing new posts in this blog very soon, certainly by the beginning of next week! This week I will free up some space on my hard drive, sort my pictures and get back in Australia in my mind to resume what I began in my previous posts!

So let's keep in touch,
Nicolas!!

----------
Bilingual post :-)!
(Next page is the French translation)
(La page suivante est la traduction française)

Pages: 1 2

Indeed I've just closed my Internet account and I'm back to the cybercafes as in my first days in Australia to have access to Internet now!!

I don't know if my friends from Australia will go and see my blog once I'll be gone, because I didn't give the address to a lot of people (yet). But in case I'll write bilingual posts from now on... and I'll see.

I was a bit disoriented today!
Indeed this morning I couldn't sleep from 5:30am to 7am because an alarm went off I don't know where! Then at 7am then, when the alarm stopped, I fell asleep. And then my mobile phone rang at 7:20am, I thought then it was the alarm from my mobile phone, which I turned off, but not at all, it was Seven Seas (the company to send the cartons by ship) who was already there!! (They were supposed to arrive not before 7:30am even though it was a guide time... Emeric wasn't in his room, he was at breakfast as we thought they would have been rather late than early, so I dealt with them alone).

Then, tired, I went to bed again around 10:30am, and when I suddenly woke up at about 1:20pm, thinking it was 1:20am, I thought: oh, great still before 5am, I can go on sleeping. Indeed the soccer match France vs Togo is next night at 5am and as it may be the last of France (that has to win by 2), I'd like to see it as I didn't watch any match from France yet. But then I realised that it was 1:20pm and not 1:20am!! And that I'd better get up as I have a few staff to do today!!

For my come back, my plane will land in Paris on Wednesday (28) at 8:45am. Then I will spend the day and sleep (on Wednesday night) in Mennecy near Evry (91000) where I'm born, coz so far I've never had the opportunity to visit this place, so we thought it was a good idea with my parents to have me visited it as we'll be in Paris!! Then on Thursday we'll head off to Rennes to have an overview of the place where I'll spend the next 6 months and then I'll be back in Angers after a whole year abroad!! On Friday first I planned to visit some flats but finally I won't as soon as Friday, so I'll be free on Friday and Saturday!! On Saturday evening though I'll be at the graduation ceremony-dinner of the Eseo. And on Sunday my sister and Aurelien will come to see me in Angers. And on Sunday night, I'll be back on the road up to Cesson-Sevigne near Rennes for my internship that'll start on Monday!!

Cath up with ya later guys!!
Happy to see you soon for those I haven't seen for a while.
Sad to leave those that are still in Australia...

Nicolas.

----------
Bilingual post :-)!
(Next page is the French translation)
(La page suivante est la traduction française)

Pages: 1 2

I mean --> My nice Japanese friends!!!

This is the title of a small video I did a few days ago!

To download it, click on the following link... LINK.

REIKO, NAOKO, NAOMI, EMI, SHUICHI... I'M GONNA MISS YOU A LOT!!!

I have so many good memories with all of you!!

Nicolas.

----------
Test of a bilingual post :-)!
(Next page is the French translation)
(La page suivante est la traduction française)

Pages: 1 2