Lyon

this is my third post in a row today. but i thought that since i got the time to blog, why not?? i am now in grenoble, France. School has NOT started for me yet. for the past two months, i have been attending language classes with the university and now, i am on a two week break before uni starts officially.

Anyway, it was very nice meeting up with xw and many many nice singaporeans in grenoble. visiting their place makes me appreciate my place much more. no.1, cos i didn't get the transport pass, we have to climb up the hill to her residence everyday. yeah... it is good exercise. i need to shed those kgs i put on in germany. no.2, her room is more suited for 1 person. but we make do and accommodate. i am so used to sleeping in the sleeping bag now that i can KO for immediately, for 7 hours straight. no.3 her hostel internet connection is siao. cannot use half the time. so, we study. yes. STUDY. no.4, no toilet bowl. so, train thigh muscles. but then again, Grenoble is in a very very perfect location. Near to italy, Switzerland n Spain. I will post on Grenoble another time.

We went to Lyon on sat, and here are the pics!!!

Siew Sze and Letch.. NUS students on SEP to Grenoble also.. we took the same train to Lyon. they did their immersion in Lyon last year and so were going back to visit their hosts.

Some random car exhibition we passed by..
Apparently, Lyon is famous for their murals. In French, murals are called Fresque. so, the two of us spent the whole day hunting these murals down. Impressive art. After looking at them for the whole day, we were getting confused over which buildings were real, and which were fake. Spot the differences!!!
We went on a traboule trail... following the yellow n green lion thing. They were secret passages that went thru buildings, used to smuggle Jews during the second world war.

After the traboule adventure, we saw this pretty layout of some restaurant table..
n yes. looking at the map again.we finally got to this stop.. a tram dat brought us up to the hill top. we were panicking cos both of us are scared of heights.. but it was tunnel all the way.. not fun one.

n this is the cathedral right on top of the hill..

i saw this stall selling chestnut on the street. reminded me of singapore... oh yes. there's chestnut paste in france too. PRODUCT OF FRANCE. it taste like kaya. shall blog abt it next time..the mini eiffel, the cathedral on the hill top and the river cruise. we met a couple in the tram up to the hill. they were from new york and were explaining to us that they were going to cruise along the river for a few days. we were like orh... yeah. but we didn't know wat it was abt. until we saw this.

xw asked me how much i thought it would cost to go on this ferry. i said i had no idea.. then we saw it pass by... WAH LAO!!!! it is a hotel ferry lor!!! sunbathing upstairs on the deck, and inside each window is a hotel room. faintz...

yeah. so this is the last pic. xw n i at the hill top, with lyon in the background. not very magnificent to us cos xw stays on a hill top and we see the whole of grenoble everyday. hahah...
yes. finally i am done with post updates. better get started with my cover letter. i have to write a german one. someone help me.....

Munich-Oktoberfest

We woke up at 0415 so as to catch the 0558 train to munich from stuttgart. it was the first time i saw sunrise in germany. it was a pretty sight.

after meeting up with choi kwun at the train station, we proceeded to our campsite. we hqd to cross the expressway to get to the campsite..

and presenting our accomodation in munich. tents!!! small ones tho.. siwei n ziming shared this. choi kwun n i shared this..

n cj n erwann's ginormous 2-man tent.

It was near noon by the time we reached the Oktoberfest grounds. First look when we got out of the tram station.

There were crazy rides... which we didn't take... (scared of heights ma.. wat to do??) And most of the pple were dressed in the costume. very very pretty girls.

This is the horse carriage with all the beer barrels. the guy and the horses were huge.

more crazy rides...

The view of Oktoberfest. Beer tents, pple, rides. And how can we miss out on food??? we hqd the 1/2metre long bratwurst.Pork Knuckles..in a bun, in my mouth, in my stomach.

And not to forget... special 1litre beer mugs. A random table of pple sitting outside... Look at the amount of beer...

and we tried to get into the beer tents like these pple. stood at the line for 2 hours... but didn't manage to enter. the trick is to go early. siwei was almost dying
and next to us was this pretty girl from austria. we wanted to know how much those traditional costume cost.. hers was 700€.

And this is the traditional costume for the men. In the end, we went outside to get beer. 0.5l glasses...

Group pic!! it was the best time that day. to sit on the grass n relax.

BBQ for dinner!!!! and it was Choi Kwun's birthday too!! Nice round up to our trip.and yes. i HAD to try on the dress. looked retarded, but not that bad lah hor???? please don't puke.

Liechtenstein

i thought it was time to blog about liechtenstein... was there on 15th august with the summer school.. so yes. it is very long ago.

it was heir national day on 15th august and so, all the roads were closed and stuff liddat. that was why we arrived at 9am in the morning. and then we sat in the hills and watched the service and ceremony. but it was merely songs to us cos we didn't understand anything in swiss german.

standing in a line, u have the royal family.

the castle that the royal family lives in.. they had free food and drinks for everybody. bread, pretzels, carlsberg, soft drinks, packet drinks..... singapore can nv do this. sure go broke one.. cos got too many pple.

i had my first beer in liechtenstein.. and as it can be seen, it was very very warm that day. my legs were burning.

I find it a,azing how Liechtenstein is so small and yet, still has a capital: Vaduz. anyway, Vaduz is like in the valley and the other towns are ard the mountains. the viez is very pretty in Vaduz. in the pic, u can see a church, with hills in the background.. by the way, Vaduz is like the size of Clementi?? i think it is smaller tho.

and these are some random pics of houses and scenery in liechtenstein.

and cos it was the state's national day, there were fireworks!!! at that time, it was still summer. so the sun set abt 8 plus 9. we had to wait till 10pm before it was totally dark and then the fireworks to be fired. it went on for half an hour to the extent that my neck was aching at the end of it. but the fireworks were very pretty...