Post Vacation

To the people who were wondering if I had really bought my nephew a Robosapien, here's photographic evidence. Here's a photo of my 6 year old nephew posing with his new toy. He is capable of playing with the basics, though I didn't teach him how to programme the thing. Hopefully, he'll be able to figure that out himself.

I did not have steady Internet access because I was staying over at my sister's place. My sister had recently moved into a new house and my parents had moved in with her. So, it didn't make sense for me to stay alone in my parents house. I merely returned there every few days to check my emails and download some stuff.

I didn't like the fact that my bosses kept emailing me. In the first week of my "vacation", I replied their emails. However, I decided to leave them totally alone in the second week. So, I stopped them bugging me for a while. I still haven't told them that I'm back yet. Hopefully, this'll buy me an extra few days for me to settle down.

I've moved into a new room (belonging to Queens). I'm currently living in a very strategic location in town. It's located right opposite Grafton (quite literally across the road). So, it's very convenient for me to just buy stuff. They've not finished installing the new kitchens yet. So, I won't be able to do much cooking for at least another week. Living here, I believe that I'll be cooking a lot as it would not be convenient for me to go to college for meals.

Sigh, I've still got to move stuff back from my lab. I think I'll call for a cab and get the cab to transport my stuff over to my new place. I got a 6 seater cab to transport my stuff from Magdalene storage to my new place. It's just too far for me to cycle from my lab to my room, with all the stuff that I've stored there. It would make so much more sense to just call a cab. See, I've not quite fully settled in yet.

Weekend Mayhem!

A weekend of mayhem indeed! I have just gotten home from the 2007 Imperial Meet at Bisley. I had a lot of fun shooting. I shot in 6 matches and had to do two re-shoots. So, all in all, I shot 8 matches. With an average of about 30 rounds fired per match, I can safely say that I discharged quite a fair number of rounds. Where do I start with this blog.

Let's start with accommodations. Our accommodations were supplied courtesy of our team captain's (Liu Cheng) lab partner. We ended up spending two nights in a 6-person tent. The tent was fairly sturdy and easy to set up. It kept us dry even with the wet weather weekend. As you can see from the photos, some people were not so lucky. When we first arrived, we actually saw a tent, under waist-deep water. We specifically requested for a camp site located on higher ground. The Oxford people complained that they had a river running down the front of their tents.

Next, we shall move onto food. We became regulars at Jenny's, which was a small shop located behind most of the club houses. She sold basic burgers and stuff. However, she does a mean egg and bacon roll for 2.70 quid. It is a hearty breakfast for the hearty shooter. It is frequently busy. For lunch, we often had it at one of the pubs, which serves baguettes. Then for dinner, we would end up having some decent food. For two evenings, we had our dinner at the London & Middlesex clubhouse. On the second evening, we actually went off to Staines (near Heathrow) to look around. We ended up having Nandos instead. Cheng was nice enough to treat us to dinner!

Moving on to equipment. We brought enough Gallery Rifle Small Bore (GRSB) for each of us. However, we ended up with only one working Gallery Rifle Centre Fire (GRCF) as we couldn't get another one fixed. So, we ended up borrowing one rifle from Oxford. As for ammunition, we kept running out. However, we just kept buying them from the NRA and kept shooting them. Fun!

Following on, we'll come to the matches themselves. I had a lot of fun. I would think that my favourite weapon is the GRSB. I find that I can shoot fairly well with that rifle. Plus, I like the machine. It's just so simple to use and straight to shoot. The GRCF was a pain to use. I ended up hurting my fingers on it a bit. But that's normal with the GRCF. Then comes the pistols. Although I've not shot any weapons since December, pistols was where it became most apparent. Where everyone else was scoring 45+, I only started with a measly 30. However, with each round, I became better as I zeroed in the pistol. I even managed to score my highest score of 47 points in one of the rounds. Cool!

Finally, comes the people. The organisers were all very nice people. They were all so obviously gun enthusiasts. Some were even clearly ex military. But everyone was so nice. I guess when you're surrounding by hundreds of people packing goodness knows what, it pays to be extra nice. There were plenty of elderly chaps who took part in the various competitions. One of these people, Allan, knew Guy from when he was knee high. He took the effort to show the ropes and shared some tips on how to shoot better. Xueni got a lot of attention from everyone, as she was the smallest sized person on the range and frequently had problems handling the larger rifles.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. How could it be otherwise, when you get to fire off live rounds at random targets and meeting all sorts of interesting folk. Enjoy the photos!

Swedish Femmes

Food, furniture and femmes. That was the 3 main things that I took away from Stockholm. I've already blogged about food and furniture below. Now, it's time to talk about the blonds.

Yes, it's true. Everyone here is blond. Almost everyone anyway. The Swedes come in all shades of blond, from the auburn-ish shade to platinum blonds. Almost every 4 of 5 people are blond. Blond hair is supposed to be a recessive trait. I was told by my medic friends that this means that they'll be ultimately bred out.

The blonds here come in all shapes and sizes. From the tall slim blond to the short flabby blond, both male and female. But Rob and I concluded that most people here do not have a problem with their weight, unlike in the UK where they are soon to make it illegal for parents to feed their children too much food. It must be all the fish in the Swedish diet. So, let's just say that the first couple of days was fairly interesting.

After 3 days there, I kind of got tired of the blonds. It gets a little boring after a while when everywhere you look, you see a blond. This makes me wonder if they're all real blonds or did they dye their hair blond. If you are 1 of 5 who isn't born blond, it would make you the odd one out in school. So, some people may just fake it to fit in. But I also saw a lot of them who had dyed black hair, which is too black to be real. So, maybe the locals are getting tired of being blond themselves and trying to look exoctic, with their pale skin, coloured eyes and black hair.

So, this ends my three blogs on Stockholm, Sweden. If you like tall lanky blonds, ergonomic stylish furniture or salty tasty food, Sweden is the place to be.

PS. More pics here:

Swedish Furniture

Another thing that struck me about Sweden is it's stylish furniture, found everywhere. It is no wonder that IKEA is such a big Swedish name. Let me start with the furniture at our hostel.

Surprisingly, we didn't see a single IKEA in Stockholm although we are quite certain that they are located somewhere as we did see an IKEA building on our way in from Skavsta airport. Our youth hostel was furnished with IKEA furniture. Although fairly spartan, it has it's own style.

Unlike most of my visits elsewhere in Europe, there are benches and chairs everywhere for people to rest on. So, even though we did a lot of walking, there was plenty of place for rest. Every museum and mall that we visited used different furniture. It seems that there is no such thing as a generic chair in Stockholm. They are all universally stylish though, usually fitting the style and colour of the building they're in.

Park benches here are unlike park benches elsewhere. The benches are all stylish and new, which makes me think that they must replace the benches with the latest designs each season. They are not from IKEA.

Even McDonald's is too stylish. We visited McD's quite often for some light snacks. They are filled up with semi-circle and long rectangular tables. There were also at least 3 kinds of chairs there that fit each different kind of table. We watched the Real Madrid match on a widescreen TV in McD's while having some cheapo 10 krona sundae.

As for the airport, the benches are not the generic kind that you get elsewhere. They are brightly coloured and very stylish as well. Although I'm not sure quite how comfortable they are as we didn't have much time to stay in the airport. Rob and I had some problems during check-in and immigration as they were implemented some extra measures for UK bound flights. Some nationalities were subject to further checks. Malaysian passports were among those affected. I asked what was wrong and was told that they had some cases of forged passports. Personally, I think that it's just a standard excuse. The British immigration were never as thorough with their checks as they were this time.

So, my conclusion is that Swedes like stylish furniture. I can understand why IKEA furniture is designed in Sweden. They've got much more competition here for people's behinds.

Swedish Food

Food, glorious food! Swedish food is actually very good, certainly much better than English food. I've always felt that it was important to taste something local when on vacation. So, when we checked in at our hostel, I asked the nice receptionist where we could get some good food nearby.

She asked me what kind of food and I said local Swedish food. This launched her into a set of disclaimers about how Swedish people do not really like to eat Swedish food. She says that they usually prefer to eat foreign food (we have already noticed the numerous foreign restaurants in town). But I wanted to try local food, so she marked out two restaurants on my map and recommended the one that she usually visits.

The, I asked her what's considered Swedish food. This launched her into another set of disclaimers about how Swedish food is just normal household food and not any special cuisine. Normal for a Swedish household, maybe, but not normal for me. She recommended that I try Swedish meatballs, salmon, herring and something that sounds like seal, which consists of raw fish in various sauces taken with potatoes and cheese.

On our first day, we didn't have the time to go hunt for local food. On our arrival, we visited an American style restaurant where we I had some very good ribs for only 90 krona. This was a good start. Then, for dinner, we were pressed for time and ended up getting fast food. On the second day, the 3 of us were wandering on another island and decided to go to the restaurant that the receptionist recommended.

Let me first say that I ended up spending more than 200 krona on dinner and ate till I was bursting. It was totally worth it. Rob and I both felt that the most memorable part of the trip was our dinner at Kvarnen. For starters, we had raw herring in four different sauces. The fish was very fresh and we had it with two kinds of cheese and some potatoes. This was an excellent starter. Then for the main course, I had some homemade meatballs. Let me just say that they taste nothing like normal meatballs. It was soft, tender and juicy. Rob had reindeer meat and that was very good too. Dinner was just great!

Then, on the last day, we ended up having a buffet for lunch. It was mentioned in Ray's guide that there were a lot of cheap buffets in Stockholm. This was most certainly true and we had a massive Asian buffet with sushi for only 79 krona (including drinks). We all ended up skipping dinner as we were on our way to the airport by then. I've not eaten anything since then, not even today. I'll probably make myself a late lunch later.

Before going, some of my friends had told me that there is nothing special about Swedish food. I personally think that the restaurant recommended by our receptionist was good. Swedish food is quite good even if it is a little saltier than normal. Might be because the vikings used to eat nothing but salted meat and fish!

Imperial War Museum, Duxford

The Imperial War Museum at Duxford is part of the series of museums in Britain, dedicated to the preservation of military and war history. I have always wanted to visit. It's located several miles outside of Cambridge. But I've never actually made the trip here until now. I decided to come visit as I had some free time after TechLinks. It is my first visit to an Imperial War Museum. It is unique among the series because it is still an active air field with many of the old aircraft still flight worthy. The planes are taken out for show flights each day to recreate the noise and feel of it's heyday.

Duxford is an air field that served as an official RAF airstrip for 53 years along with it's sister field at Fowlmere. As it is right outside Cambridge, it used to be the home base for the University Air Squadron, which was founded to encourage the students to learn to fly in order to supply the RAF with sufficient reserves.

During the Battle of Britain, Duxford played a major role as it housed many squadrons including most of the foreign squadrons from Poland, Czechoslovakia and America. It also served as a test base where the latest aircraft were flown against older allied and captured enemy aircraft. I will always remember Churchill's quote: "Never was so much owed by so many to so few".

While I was there, I came across a lot of interesting aircraft. Unlike other war museums, Duxford houses mainly aeronautical exhibits. It is spread across 5 aircraft hangars and 2 exhibition halls. The aircraft are both located in the hangers and outside on the field.

While in one of the hangars, I ran into a couple of senior citizens. We were watching a video on the history of Duxford and they were reminiscing on actually witnessing the events on screen. This made me wonder about what it was like to have lived through the Blitz. And I wonder what these people think about Britain today, which has squandered much of it's power in the last few decades. I'm sure that these people would have many interesting stories to tell, if given the chance to.

There was also a special hall dedicated to the American Air Force. It is dubbed the American Air Museum. It houses all the major american aircraft of the 20th century including the BlackBird and SuperFortress. It was exciting because I've never managed to see these particular aircraft, up close, before. There aren't many places in the world where the BlackBird is available for the public to touch and feel.

Oh, in case I forgot to mention, I've always liked military aircraft. I can still remember that my dad once brought me to see an aircraft exhibition at the Sungai Besi air base. I can also recognise most of the popular military aircraft of the 20th century and recall their main features.

The last hall was dedicated to non-aircraft. It is the Land Warfare Hall, which is dedicated to land warfare. It houses the Royal Anglian Regiment Museum, Cambridgeshire Regiment Museum. It also features the Normandy Experience and the Forgotten War. With much of Britain's focus on the European theatre, the Forgotten War exhibition highlighted the main bits of the Pacific theatre. It even includes bits on Malaya, as can be seen from the picture, which highlights the official laying down of arm of the Japanese in Kuala Lumpa at the end of the war.

All in all, it was a very emotional and educational experience. For some reason, I always get emotional when visiting war museums. I just hate the idea that "war is old men talking, and young men dying". There are no winners in war and everyone loses. I guess, since I am living through fairly precarious political times, I have become particularly sensitive to the idiocy of war. I fear that today, "war is rich men talking, and poor men dying".

Paris Day 7

Since this was our last day in Paris and we didn't have anymore official visits, we decided to have a late morning. We went out at 10am to visit the Les Invalides, which houses the tomb of Napolean and the army museum. The tomb was fairly impressive. It was huge, well designed and splendourous.

The army museum was very informative. We only managed to catch the sections on WW1 and WW2. I learnt a lot about french history during this period. The french were at the height of their power around WW1 and did themselves proud. However, they failed to modernise and were crushed by the germans during WW2.

During WW2, the french were a split people, with some on the side of the Vichy government, which was under the choke of the germans. Others, were rallying behind Charles de Gaulle, to fight, resist and drive the germans out of France. Many of these people were from the colonies and outside France. I also learnt that the BBC was instrumental in helping the resistance by constantly broadcasting messages of hope and 'personal messages', which contained secret encoded messages for the resistance. Wonderful.

By the end of the visit, I could begin to understand why France is so anti-war in every way. The french people truly bore the brunt of WW2. They suffered the most in terms of lives lost as well as monetary damages to infrastructure. They have seen the worst of war and certainly do not want to see it happen again.

We were so engrossed by the museum that we had lost track of time. So, we got back just in time to see everyone getting ready to leave. Good thing that I had packed up earlier in the morning as we didn't have any time left to spare. So, we quickly travelled to Antony and from there, onto Gare du Nord to catch our Eurostar back to London. Check in and customs was quick and easy. The french customs officer was cool enough to say 'Terima Kasih' to all of us.

On arrival in London, we voted to go to chinatown for dinner. I brought them to the malaysian restaurant there and everyone had a wonderful meal. We even got to show JiaHui how distorted Sporean food really is. ['Hokkien Mee' is not yellow!] I have to say that C&R has yet to disappoint me so far. Now I know where to go for good malaysian food in London.

*** photo: military church, where hangs the flags of armies that napolean conquered ***

Paris Day 6

This was our last day of official visits. We visited INRIA, a prominent French technology company. I had just come across an article about them in the papers the previous day. In particular, we visited their automated vehicle lab.

It was a very informative visit. We didn't waste any time with presentations and were immediately shown the car. Then the questions just started to flow non stop for a couple of hours. The engineer was really nice enough to answer all our questions.

I learnt a few interesting things: (1) they use dedicated microcontrollers to control subsystems of the vehicle (2) they use standard protocols and parts to build their subsystems (3) the main controls of the car run on a Linux 2.2 kernel (4) they merely use a Windows PC for the user GUI. I guess it would not be good for the car to have it's driving system BSOD while on the road.

We were shown several methods that they were currently working on to get the car to recognise it's surroundings and navigate it's surroundings based on live telemetry. We were also shown how the cars could talk to each other using wifi or other wireless networking work. The engineer explained how they have gradually changed from a purely robotics lab into a full fledged ICT lab.

After the visit, we were treated to a four [yes four!] course lunch at their cafeteria. Needless to say, we had our fill of food. Then, we went to the Palais de Versailles, which was supposedly the most beautiful palace in Europe. However, when we arrived, much of it was being refurbished. There was construction everywhere. I guess they're getting it ready for spring/summer. So, it wasn't too impressive to me.

Then, we randomly dropped by the Paris Opera. On the way, we came across a free, self cleaning, toilet. Yes, we became extremely amazed and JiaHui and Chris tried it out. People were staring at us, a bunch of crazy asians, giggling, laughing and taking pictures outside a public loo. The french certainly have many good ideas on how to do things.

As all the tickets for the show at the Opera were already sold out, we couldn't catch any show. We then broke up for dinner. Some of use went back to Antony to grab a bite. Our group decided to return to the cheese fondue place for dinner. Yummy! Then, we did a little bit of souvenir shopping and went back.

*** photo: jiahui being excited by the automated public toilet ***

Paris Day 5

On our fifth day, we started off with a visit to another school, Ecole Superior des Mines (ESM), which is another top school in France. We started it off with a tour of the various research labs, which were located underground, curiously.

After that, we had a very nice tour of the Stone Museum housed within the school. Our tour guide was a very passionate and experienced professor who showed us the major highlights of the museum. He started by showing us cassiterite, which is the native ore for tin, because most of us were from Malaysia.

At one point, he showed us how geologists classify crystals and stones by using it's (1) common name (2) chemical composition (3) crystalographic orientation. He then showed us diamonds. There were a few really large looking ones, which was cool, until I noticed the word "fac simile" under them.

He finished by showing us man made crystals, which are chiefly used in the electronics industry as many of us on the visit were electrical engineers. He also explained to us how the same crystal can have many different colours, by simply having dopants in them. Very cool. I never really thought of gate and field oxides as quartz.

After the wonderful tour, we were on our own. As we were already inside central Paris, we split up into groups. Some went to Musee d'Orsay to look at impressionist paintings. Our group decided to go 'hollanding', which is to say, randomly take a bus and see where it takes us. We ended up at the Invalides area and got to see lots of interesting stuff.

In the evening, we were given the back-door tour of le Tour Eiffel. It was wonderful as we kept going into places with 'do not enter' signs on the door. We got to see the underground bunker, which used to house all the telecommunications equipment. We also got to see the internal water lifting mechanism that powers the elevators.

As dusk began to creep up on us, we decided to walk up to the second floor of the tower. From there, we got some nice evening pictures of Paris. After that, we got a group picture and ended the tour of the tower. Some of us then proceeded to go to visit Moulin Rouge, while others went home. I would have to say that the red-light district in Paris seems too commercialised. People were queuing up to enter the Moulin.

As this was the night of the official PS3 launch in Paris, Chris, Yijin and JiaHui decided to go catch the launch. According to them, it was fairly disappointing and from media reports that I've read, it was a flop, with the Xbox360 stealing the show from them. The three of them had a real 'hollanding' trip as much of the Metro was closed and they had a lot of trouble getting back.

*** photo: crescent moon within the structure of eiffel tower ***

Paris Day 4

This was a rather relaxed day as we were visiting Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP), where we were staying. So, we could catch some extra sleep. We started off with a great breakfast at the Deputy Director's office. There were the usual pastry and also wonderful brioche. My goodness, the French really know how to make good food. The Deputy Director was kind enough to give us a talk in English. He gave us the unofficial talk, which was very interesting.

I learned about the French education system, which was modeled after the Chinese system of national entry examinations for universities. Ecole Centrale is the second school in line to pick their candidates. This meant that they got the best students in France. They are also very open to the need for students to gain foreign exposure. To encourage this, they have 'exchange' programmes with various countries, from the US to Indonesia.

They are also very proud of many of their alumni. Every great French engineer seems to have graduated from ECP. Names like Schlumberger, Eiffel, Michelin, Peugeot and other people were from there. One thing that caught me about the ECP is the establishment of a student run consulting company. This student run company does little translation and research projects for various local French organisations.

After the talk, we were given a tour of the various labs of their structures, materials and aero departments. The tours were a little short as we were running late. However, there were many interesting experiments that we got to see. I've learned one thing from these lab visits though. All PhD student labs look exactly the same. Every PhD researcher is instantly recognisable. Haha!

In the afternoon, we were supposed to have visited another French giant, Bouygues. However, they had cancelled our visit. And so, we ended up touring Paris instead. We visited Notre Dame, which was beautiful. I noticed something very interesting here. The confession box was an interview room, rather than your classical wooden box. The churchgoer sat face-to-face, across the table, from the priest. Very modern and interesting.

I also got to seem some fairly interesting bits of regular Paris. There were little stalls set up all along the Seine. At first glance, these stalls looked like dumpsters. But when they are opened up, they contain all kinds of cool stuff for sale, typically art related. Some people bought some French manga and comics. Wonderful.

In the evening, after a quick dinner at Quick, we visited the Louvre. It had discounted tickets after 6pm and opened till 10pm. So, we all split up and went touring. Our group decided to cover as many of the highlights as possible. We just checked off as many of the main exhibits listed, in the guide, as possible. Some of us even got goosebumps after viewing some of the artwork there. After the louvre, we ended the day by meeting up with some of the hosts and going to an Irish pub for a drink and to chat.

*** photo: psyche revived, possibly the most romantic sculpture at the louvre. ***

Paris Day 3

Our third day in Paris did not start off well. Some of us woke up late. However, the bus also arrived late [due to traffic]. Then, some of us did not bring passports along and were denied entry on our high security visit, which was a shame as the visit was excellent.

First, we visited SNECMA, a company involved in defence technologies. It produces telecommunications equipment for the military [through Sagem] and is the sole rocket engine producer for both civilian and military rockets. We were brought around by a very experienced engineer from the company, with an impeccable command of English.

Of course, we started off with a light breakfast of cookies and drinks. As we were running a little late, he gave us a quick overview of the company operations and rocket engine technology. Then, we were given a tour of the museum where we saw some very interesting prototypes, including the original rocket engine built by captured German engineers during WW2.

After that, we were brought to their testing facility where we were shown the testing room. We were quite lucky as there was an engine in the test facility that day. So, we got to see how the engine was hooked up and prepared for a test. As he was an engineer, he was very quick in answering all of our technical questions, of which there were many.

Although we had to pay for our own lunch, it was fairly cheap. I picked up another three course meal for neary EUR 6. Those of use without passports were allowed to join the rest of the group for lunch. I didn't want to ask how they had spent their morning as I saw Chrissie crying when she was told that she wouldn't be allowed in.

Then, we scooted off to our next visit, EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space) at Les Mureaux. Surprisingly, security here wasn't as tight and everyone was allowed in. There weren't any electrified fences here, unlike at SNECMA. Unfortunately, we were given the tour by a marketing type, who couldn't answer our technical queries. However, we were lucky enough to see the assembly process of the Ariane 5. There were three rockets and separate stages of assembly, in the line, during our visit.

At the end of the visit, it was already late and we met up with some of our hosts, who brought us to Saint Michel for a nice meal. This was my first exposure to cheese fondue. Oh my goodness, it was extremely sinful but good! We went to a restaurant at Rue de la Huchette, where they had this weird tradition of smashing plates on the road to show how cheap they are. The dinner was so filling and cheap that we had trouble mopping it all up.

*** photo: cheese fondue!! yummy!!! ***

Paris Day 2

We started our second day with a visit to Schlumberger in Paris. The very first thing that we did when we got there was to have a light breakfast of wonderful French pastry and drinks. Real croissant and pain au chocolate don't taste anything like the kind we get here.

The visit itself was fairly interesting as we received the standard company presentation and tour of the facilities from a marketing engineer. You could tell that she knew what she was talking about. During the tour, we got to see different steps in the process of fabrication and test of various drilling equipment.

The highlight of the trip was the demonstration of a special type of cement that they had developed, which uses solid additives to control the viscosity of the cement mix. Figuring out how it works occupied much of the rest of the tour. This was an indication of how things were to be, on the rest of the trip. When you stick a bunch of engineers in a room and show them something interesting, they're bound to try to figure out how it works.

We then got a special face-to-face session with one of their technical directors. He used to work in KL and he was quite happy that there were a bunch of Malaysians on the visit. We got to ask him a lot of technical questions related to Schlumberger. I learnt several things from him: (1) Linux was used everywhere except on desktops; (2) Embedded software plays a very crucial role in their application sphere; (3) They use self developed data links for their drill equipment, which is perfectly understandable.

After that, we got a free lunch on the company. Although we were allowed to have anything we wanted from their cafeteria, most of us only picked up a simple yet nice three course meal. Then, we were dropped off at Ecole Centrale, where we began our first private tour of Paris.

We all bought ourselves a Carte Orange, which is a week travel pass for use on all Paris public transportation. We made full use of the pass throughout the week. We visited Montmartre, Champs Elyses and Arc de Triomphe that evening. This was the day that we discovered that Preethi was probably the only Indian tourist in Paris. She got a free crepe from a Sri Lankan crepe seller. This was not to be her last freebie.

*** photo: random street artiste at montmartre. i thought that his paintings were really good. ***

Paris Day 1

Where better to start, than at the beginning. After the havoc with Eurostar on the previous day, we were set and ready to go to travel to Paris on Sunday. We were all looking forward to getting there after sitting around waiting for a whole day.

We ended up taking the 10am Eurostar to Paris. So, those of us who were left in Cambridge, woke up early on Sunday to catch the 6am coach to Victoria. From there, we made our way to Waterloo and caught up with the rest of the group there. I was fairly surprised with the Eurostar check-in process. It was fairly similar to flying. Baggages were scanned and passports were stamped. Then, we were on our way.

After arriving at Gare du Nord, we got some lunch at a random restaurant in the area. Then, we caught up with the people who took a later train than us. After that, we got some Metro tickets and were on our way to Antony with the RER B. Everything went smoothly.

On arrival at Antony, we were greeted by some of our host students. Then, a whole bunch of them came down to help us with our luggage. They helped the girls lug their luggage up the 15 minute walk to Ecole Centrale. We were quite surprised that the hosts were mainly international students, just like our group.

After reaching Ecole Centrale, there were some complications with our accommodations. The original plan had us bunking with our hosts. Some of our girls had problems with the idea of bunking with random guys. However, the administration was against us double bunking in a room and we ended up getting some guest rooms instead.

As we had a little bit of time to spare, the students brought us to the nearby Parc de Sceaux, which was made for the King. I have to say that the parks in France are all very nice. They are all very symmetrical and have nicely trimmed hedges and trees. One funny thing that I noticed was signs along the pond warning people of thin ice, when the water wasn't frozen at all.

After the walk, we were treated to a nice Chinese buffet at a nearby restaurant. It was the best food that I've had in a long time. Even the Chinese restaurants in France have better food than the ones here. I had loads of 'siew mai' and 'har gao' as well as lots of other good dishes. According to our hosts, it was paid for by their budget. However, we saw each of them paying EUR 15 extra for each of us. Until now, we're still not sure if the students paid for our dinner or not.

Finally, we retired to our rooms and got ready for our second day. We were all just glad that we finally made it to Paris and that we had very nice people as our hosts. It was a good start to the holiday.

*** photo: some of our hosts and us at the dinner table ***

Back from Paris

I got home from Paris last night. It was a very fun trip overall, although there were some complications along the way. I got to learn about many interesting things that I wouldn't have, if I had not gone on this trip.

Over the next few days, I will be blogging in detail about each day. But for now, I will first give a summary of the trip. It started of with a minor shocker, when I met my supervisor on the trip as well. I didn't realise that he was going on the Paris trip. It was not only awkward for me, but also for a lot of the other students as they mostly knew him as well. Interesting.

We were paired up with engineering students from the Ecole Centrale Paris, which is one of the best engineering schools in France. And with engineering being one of the top course choices for an education, these students are supposedly the cream of the crop. However, just like us, they were mainly made up of foreign students, which was perfectly fine. I never did manage to discover who my 'host' was, but it didn't really matter.

Throughout the week, we visited many companies. Some of the companies we visited were of such high security that some of us, who forgot to bring passports along, were not allowed in. It was a very interesting tour though, as we got to learn a lot about some defence technologies and JiaHui seemed particularly excited about them.

We managed to cover most of the major tourist spots, on our own, in the afternoon and evenings. We typically got home at around 1am or so for a quick shower and then some needed sleep before getting up again the next morning for another company visit. So, I had spent most of today recharging my batteries.

*** image of trocadero from eiffel tower in the evening ***

This is Frakin' Retarded

Our eurostar train has been cancelled. It seems that there was a fire along the line last night, close to some gas cylinders. And the firemen need 24 hours before they can clear the route as safe. So, all trains in and out of Waterloo have been canceled until 5pm this evening.

So, we have decided that YiJin and Chris will go down to London this morning, to try to settle with eurostar. They will try to book us into the next available trains out of London. If they can get us tickets for tonight or tomorrow, that would be excellent.

If we cannot get tickets for this weekend, YiJin has suggested that we take a 9 hour bus ride to Paris instead. Personally, I'm not looking forward to that especially since the price of the bus ride and the price of a flight out (Monday) is almost the same. So, I might consider the plane instead. However, that would mean that I'll skip one morning in Paris with the group. But what can we do, this is unforseen circumstances.

By our original plan, I should be getting on the bus, the start of my journey. We were scheduled to arrive at Paris later in the afternoon, to check into a hostel and then have some fun out tomorrow. However, the whole plan is now shot. We will have to see what YiJin + Chris can do for us in London.

Haiyar, this is such a spoiler to my wonderful evening last night. Well, that's life. There is always good and bad. Hopefully, we'll get booked into the next train out of London and we can continue with our original plan.

UPDATE: Eurostar is now operating on a first-come-first-served basis for their trains. So, we're all going down early tomorrow to queue up for the first available seat out of London. They aren't even sure if their lines will be open this evening.

Chamonix Day #8

This was our last day at UCPA. We were allowed to ski in the morning as we only had to return our equipment later that afternoon when we checked out. So, we decided to go upto the slopes to get some 'action shots' of us skiing. Besides that we got some group shots as well. After all that, we decended into a good snowball fight. I was initially immune as I was with the camera. After storing the camera and tripod away, I joined in as well and got a lot of snow under my jacket.

After that, Chris, YiJin, and Daniel went up to try some red slopes while YiFan, ShuangNing and I decided to go back and pack up. Then, we spent the whole afternoon occupying the PS room (along with the PS2 machines) while waiting for our transport. Then, it was off to Geneva airport and back to Cambridge. It was an excellent holiday. I'd recommend anyone who'd like to try some skiing to go for the UCPA hostels and take up their package. It's cheap, with good instructors, excellent food and an all round perfect time.

Now is time to get some more sleep and charge up for tomorrow!!

Chamonix Day #7

This was our last full day of skiing. However, some of us were already quite tired. YiFan decided not to ski today. ShuangNing and I only did half a day before coming back. As the snow on Le-Tour wasn't that good yesterday, everyone went to Brevent today. We tackled a couple of new blue slopes and decided to call in the day. By the end of the second blue slope, I was too tired to even make proper turns and ended up crashing into soft snow a few times. However, straight line speeds were cool as the slope was quite steep.

In the afternoon, the three of us went out shopping in Chamonix. Daniel wanted me to get him a Kandahar shirt, which I did. Also, we had decided to get Jean-Michel a bottle of wine as a sign of appreciation (he's the smiling gray haired dude in the picture). We ended up picking a 30 euro bottle of red wine. When the shop keeper first told me that good wine was expensive and showed me an example of the price, I just told her 'pas probleme'. So, she helped us pick up a nice bottle.

Later that evening, we presented our instructor with the bottle of wine during our parting drinks. We spoke a little about the different things between Malaysia and France. We also learned the reason why French people do not speak English. Jean-Michel was really happy when he got the wine and held onto it like a little kid. He also gave us his signature 'Yahoooo'. We shook hands and that was that. He wanted to give ShuangNing a little peck on the cheek but she was too shy. Too bad for her.

Chamonix Day #6

Today, I had a great time skiing. I took on the blue slopes and survived!! In the morning, while everyone else was visiting the peaks, I took an hour out to practice my skiing on the green slopes. Once the problem with the boots was solved, I could make all the turns without any problems. I travelled several hundred meters down the green slopes, while turning left and right, without any problem at all. So, I decided to join everyone for the blue slopes in the afternoon.

The first run through the blue slopes was interesting. The initial bit was fairly difficult due to the steepness of the slope. However, on my second run, I managed to complete the whole blue slope without falling down at all. Although at one point I did do something really stupid that almost got myself hurt badly.

I was resting in the middle of the blue slope as I was a little tired. So, I lay down on the slope and stared into the sky. However, I didn't realise that I was lying down after a small ledge. So, people coming from above me wouldn't be able to see me. Suddenly I heard someone curse, looked up and saw this snowboarder trying his best to brake. If he had chosen to fly off the ledge (like most boarders do) it is likely that he wouldn't have stopped in time. However, he did. I apologised to him, got up and continued skiing on my way.

In the evening, we had a live band to entertain us. Actually, every evening, we had different activities to do as well. The hostel organised salsa, dancing, karaoke and other activities as well during the evenings. So, we were all kept fully occupied. Really worth the money leh this holiday.

Chamonix Day #5

I took the day off from skiing as I had a lot of problems with my boots and it was taking a toll on my energy. So, I decided to go take some pictures instead. The weather forecast for the day was 80% sunshine. So, I decided to go up Aguille-du-Midi to take some pictures. The scenery was breath-taking. Seriously...

It took me about an hour to get there. At the bottom, I was told by the screen that the temperature was -5C. Good thing that I brought along all my ski gear with me. The rest of the group went up there the next day without their ski gear in -9C temperature. Needless to say, they didn't last long up there. I spent 3 whole hours up at the peak taking pictures. I met some other tourists there and shared some idle chit chat with a couple of japanese girls and a british family.

Although I did feel the cold at the top (who wouldn't with gale-force winds at -5C), I decided to get as many shots as possible while I was up there as I did not intend to return there over the next few days. I took more than 100 pictures of the scenery. This was where I learnt the importance of setting up the correct aperture size for depth-of-field effect and setting up the proper while balance to get nice pictures.

That evening, I decided to see Jean-Michel to get my boots changed. I ended up with a pair of boots that fitted perfectly. They didn't hurt my feet at all and didn't hurt my shins either when I rested against them. They were also just the right size to prevent my heels from moving when I buckled them up. So, I was raring to go the next day.

Chamonix Day #4

Today was the first day that I had trouble with my boots. I had changed them the evening before and the new boots were killing me. I could hardly even stand straight without pain shooting up my spine. So, I could hardly do much on the skis. Every time that I tried to turn, my feet would scream at me. Even the simple task of taking the button lift up the green slope caused me so much pain that I had to take a couple of minutes break whenever I reached the top of the slope. However, I did try my best to persevere but I gave up at about 3pm and called in an early day.

I was plesently surprised when I got back to the hostel. Not only did they provide us with a picnic lunch and buffet breakfast and dinner, they had also provided us with some interesting stuff for tea. Typically, they'd serve hot tea accompanied by some sweet carbohydrates. We had to cook our own waffles on this day. On other days, they provided us with cakes and such. They also regularly gave everyone a sugar dose with some apple crumble and melted chocolate. The bar would also regularly sell the drink-of-the-day. As you can guess, all of us had probably put on some weight as a result of this ski holiday.