Ardèche

Each year, my company organises a company weekend. This year, we passed a weekend in Ardèche which is about 600 km away from Paris.

At Ardèche, we did a full day of kayaking down the gorge of Ardèche. I was glad that my partner, Mehdi, and I had good coordination and had no problem paddling down this 25 km journey. The mountains are impressive though I would prefer the scenery of the Delaware River in United States where I did 9 days of canoeing few years ago. Still, the lavender fields are impressive. There are fields of violets. Pretty!

I would definately visit this area again. It is very picturesque and there are many ruins to discover. Little towns and nature as well.

A hot saturday

France is hot this summer. Even with our fan at the highest speed, there is no cool air but only warm air circulation. But compared to Singapore, this is nothing. However, the french are not used to the heat and a dozen lives had already been claimed by this heat.

I guess this heat was announced as an international news in Singapore because my mom advised me to drink more water, stay indoors and blah blah blah. Mom! I lived in sunny Singapore almost all my life. I am more heat resistant than the french here. And I am a grown up. I know how to prevent myself from dehydration.

I am kinda glad of the weather cos I get to wear my summer clothes more often than I did last year. I remembered that I only wore my sleeveless blouses for two weeks back then.

I just went to Chinatown to buy some essentials like mee hoon, green chinese vegetables etc. And guess what I saw there. Durians!! It is the season again. Whole durians are selling at 6.50 euro per kilo. I have no experience in opening durian so that is not an option. Durians fruits are selling at 18.50 euro per kilo. This is too expensive. I started to think about my coming trip to Singapore and resisted from buying the durian. I promise to eat all I can in Singapore. Finally, in order to calm my taste buds, I ended up with a durian ice cream. Price: 0.85 euro.

When I reached home, I cooked mee siam with the pre-mixed paste from Prima Taste. It was really simple to make. It reminded me of my primary school canteen's mee siam. 50 cents for a plate of mee siam. Just mee hoon and gravy. Just yummy.

Baghdad Burning

It has been months since I started to read this blog regularly. There is even a book published. Please do give it a read. When will Baghad stop burning?
I sincerely hope that one day, she can bring a close to this blog. In order to achieve it, we need to create awareness about the situation in Iraq. It is beyond me. But if you can do something about it, please do.

France in semi-final and the french went crazy

When France beat Spain to go into the quarter-finals of the World Cup, cars on the street started honking and waved the french flags. People were heading down to Champs Elysees to celebrate.

When France beat Brazil to go into the semi-finals of the World Cup, cars on the street started honking and waved the french flags. People were heading down to Champs Elysees to celebrate.

The difference was, there were more people this time round for the semi-finals celebration. This time, Seb and I were at Anca's place watching the game together. As the game ended at 11pm, Anca offered to send us home. We drove along the périphérique of Paris to get to my place as she lives in the south of paris and we in the north.

There were cars and cars heading down the same direction as us. The exit to Champs Elysees is one exit after ours. The traffic was slow. Everyone was honking for joy, even Anca. People were waving french flag, algerian flag (Zidane's origin is algerian as his parents came from there), and portugal flag. France versus Portugal in the semi-finals.

That's not all, people went crazy. They sticked out half their bodies out of the car windows and sat on the window ledge. There was even extreme cases when people sat on the roof of the car. One must not forget that these were moving cars and though traffic was slow, if the driver jammed on his brake, these people could easily get thrown off and be hurt seriously. There were even cars driving recklessly cutting on the shoulder of the highway to over take other cars. Motorbikers without helmets, a driver on a convertible standing and waving while driving with one leg on the steering wheel. Boys running on the highway and at one point, pulling down their jeans to show off their boxers.

These people were drunk in excitement by the fact that france is going into the semi-finals. They totally went out of control and they were heading into Champs Elysees to party and get drunk further.

When we reached home, it was very late. Traffic was never so bad on a saturday night on the périphérique. France semi-final will be on this wednesday. Seb and I had decided that we will avoid going out this wednesday and this weekend nights. I am sure you can understand why.