villard de lans

Was already feeling much better on Friday, so I decided that if the weather was going to be good on Saturday, I would head westwards of Grenoble to the Vercors region to bike. And lo and behold, the sun finally came out on Saturday! And so off I went..

Took TransIsère number 5100 at about 10am to Villard de Lans, the main town of Vercors. Actually it is only 35km away from Grenoble, but I think that at least 25km of that distance is uphill, plus I didnt exactly know the way, so decided to take the easy way out. =P

all excited and raring to go before the ride

The ride began gently enough with the gentle downslopes, but it soon escalated to a all-hell-let-loose-scream-your-lungs-out theme park adventure ride as we hit les gorges de la Bourne. Les gorges de la Bourne, as the name suggests, is a gorge and we cycled on narrow roads just carved out of the mountainside! Most of the road was wet as the rocks were porous and water was just seeping out of them, so on hindsight it was pretty dangerous as we were like zipping down in excess of 40kmh. But I didn't care at that point in time! The view was too beautiful with waterfalls and all, and the descent was too heart-palpating to be concerned with minor issues like life and death! =P

What goes up has to come down, and the opposite sadly applies too. After that nerve wracking ride down the mountain, we began our steady but rather gentle climb up the many small villages scattered amongst the mountainous terrain. Our destination? Le col du Rousset.

taking a non-technical pee break after the gorges.. it was a cold day and this was the first of many to come!

the lovely carved-out-of-the mountain roads

long and lonely road ahead

hadn't planned on dying, but since it was on the way..

Reached Col de Rousset without much difficulty after about 2.5hrs. It was much easier compared to some of the climbs I have done, but I could still feel the impact of my URTI for the past week. My thighs were aching, my back was aching (although I suspect this is due to my stupid lumbar support-less mattress), and I had to resort to spinning up most of the time. As expected, the view was magnifique up there. And it was freezing cold too - There were puddles of snow along the way up! I took a quick lunch (and pee) break, and hastened down to warmer regions. But not without taking the obligatory photos first! =)

all smiles after scaling the summit. the men in the background came up on motorbikes!

brilliant views all round

from another angle

look at the snaky and waving roads leading up the mountain!!! o_O

And so that was my ride around in Vercors region. I'll most likely be heading back here as this route seems like an ideal training route for IM Suisse (oops did I let the cat out of the bag?) as it is roughly 90km per loop, and has enough uphills to simulate Heartbreak Hill and The Beast. Plus, its not too far from Grenoble so I can bike here as part of training! But first, I gotta find out how to get here! Damn.. =P

elangovan redux

Went for my weekly Conception Dimensionnement lecture today. As expected, it was another silence of the lambs session for me. Really regretted waking up so early for class; Could have slept in another two hours and it would not have made any difference! The prof spoke so fast and wrote so furiously on the blackboard such that it was almost impossible to follow him. Most of the time it was left either to copy what he was writing, or to try to understand what he was saying. Needless to say I often got lost in translation, and I had no choice but to copy without comprehension. And I thought prof Elangovan in year 1 was bad..

Luckily this is a non-examinable topic, and that is its only redeeming point. If not, I would already have dropped this module as fast as a hot potato! Anyway will try to capture my prof in action next week for concrete evidence, so stay tuned! =D

Anyway my parents sent some money over today. As I was feeling rich, I went out and splurged on a duvet set. The weather's getting cold here and I'm sick of sleeping in my sleeping bag as it retains perspiration and I wake up every morning literally in cold sweat! It cost about €62 in all, which is quite a small fortune for me. But at least I know that sleeping's going get much better from now on..

Tomorrow's Friday, the end of the week. This has been quite a bad week for me (bad weather, URTI, etc.), so hopefully the weekend will bring better luck. Till then, at least I have my new duvet set to count on! =P

heaven knows

- Rick Price

She's always on my mind
From the time I wake till
I close my eyes
She's everywhere I go
She's all I know

And though she's so far away
It just keeps getting stronger
everyday
And even now she's gone
I'm still holding on
So tell me where do I start
Cause it's breaking my heart
Don't wanna let her go

Maybe my love will come back someday
Only heaven knows
And maybe our hearts will find a way
Only heaven knows
And all I can do is hope and pray
'cause heaven knows

My friends keep tellin' me
That if you really love her
You've gotta set her free
And if she returns in kind
I know she's mine
So tell me where do I start
Cause it's breaking my heart
Don't wanna let her go

Maybe my love will come back someday
Only heaven knows
And maybe our hearts will find a way
Only heaven knows
And all I can do is hope and pray
'cause heaven knows

Why I live in despair
'Cause wide awake or dreaming
I know she's never there
And all this time I act so brave
I'm shaking inside
Why does it hurt me so

Maybe my love will come back someday
Only heaven knows
And maybe our hearts will find a way
Only heaven knows
And all I can do is hope and pray
'cause heaven knows

=(

stay-at-home tuesday

dreary view out of my window today

As you can see, the weather's not exactly at its best today. What's worse is that I have fallen sick again. =( Same ol' URTI and I must have gotten it while in class where it seems to be a pandemic with all the students coughing and sniffling daily.

Luckily I have a free day today so I'm just chilling out at home although I have to head out later to settle some things. The bad weather and my sickness also gives me a golden opportunity to study a bit now, so when it gets better I can go out and train again.

For now, I'm just glad to be home with my petit déjeuner. =)

bread + nesquik = bliss

joyeux anniversaire d'un mois

Today marks exactly one month of my stay in France, so I feel obligated to post this entry in French.. =P

Aujourd'hui est le 24 Septembre, exactement un mois de mon arrivée en France. Et comment je vais? Je crois que pas mal! Ma résidence est la meilleure, j'ai le wi-fi chez moi, le temps fait beau, je peux faire des sports, le cyclotourisme me fait plaisir, etc. Vraiment, je n'ai rien à se plaindre! =)

Mais, mes vacances ont fini et les cours ont commencé. Bien que les profs soient gentils et mes cadres de cours soient amiable, il est difficile de m'intégrer dans la système Français. D'abord, la système d'éducation ici est très différent entre la système à Singapour. Même si nous sont étudiants de génie mécanique, nous étudions des choses complètement différent! Par exemple, les études ici sont plus pratique que les siens à NUS. Alors, je suis souvent perdu dans la classe! Il n'aide pas que les profs parlent très rapidement et leur écriture sont fouillis. =( Deuxièmement, tous les élèves de la 2ème année ont été bien intégré entre eux-même, alors il est difficile de leur joindre soudainement. En plus, il y a de barrière de la langue aussi. Quand les jeunes parlent, il est souvent avec beaucoup de l'argot, et il est très difficile de comprendre tous.

*soupirer* =/

Dans d'autres domaines, la vie va bien. Je suis parvenu à m'installer dans une routine quotidienne, et ne vous inquiétez pas de moi. Seulement un mois a passé, j'ai encore 9 mois à réussir, et je dois essayer! =)

lac laffrey

After spending near to 7 hours on the bike yesterday (I went to visit some bike shops after the randonée), I really was not in the mood to go for a 1.5 hour run this morning so when my alarm clock rang this morning at 730am, I just shut it off and went back to sleep. But I woke up again at 9am, because I had a rendezvous with Letch and Andi to Lac Laffrey!

This was quite a impromptu trip and I only decided on Lac Laffrey yesterday evening. At first it was only me and Letch but Andi (!!!) decided to tag along. Spinale could not come as she had her lab report to complete (what's new). We met up at 1015 to get some picnic stuff and we went to the gare to catch the 11am TransIsère bus.

The journey there took about 45mins and I was "entertained" by both of them gossiping about anything and everything in the world. I was quite thankful when we reached our destination because that meant that I could have some peace and quiet.. Heh. =P Laffrey is just a small quiet village, just like how many of France's villages are, but it is famous of its lakes, the largest of which is Laffrey. Lac Laffrey is the eighth largest lake in France, and if I am not wrong, it is a dead lake, which means that the only source of water is from rain and not from river tributaries.

Wasted no time in getting there as we were famished and we wanted to settle down by the beach to have our lunch. Plus we only had 4 hours as we had planned on catching the 1632 bus back to Grenoble. It was a short walk down, but when we got there we were not disappointed:

stunning views of pristine lac laffrey

another view
the bus stop where we alighted

There was a big group of ENISAR students already there so we settled down at a quiet part of the beach and had our picnic. It was truly lovely. Ham baguettes, cherry tomatoes, fruits, chips and wine. Really felt damn French! Thereafter Andi and Letch started gossiping again while I tried to nap. =P

pebble paved beach

the three of us

lunch (not including the toes)

feeding the ducks as well

So after a rather brief nap we tossed the frisbee for awhile and headed out on a pedalo. Brought back memories of Annecy last year. It cost €10 so I guess it was pretty reasonable. Hmm.. Nothing much to describe here but I'll attach a 360-degree panaromic virtual tour of Lac Laffrey for you here. =)

360-degree tour of lac laffrey

showing how it's done

Andi

Letch

et moi!

slacking off at the back

And so anyway after the Pedalo ride we went in search of Napoleon's statue because this was the place where he famously uttered the words

"s'il y a quelqu'un parmi vous qui veuille tuer son général, me voilà!"

which means "If there is anyone amongst you who wishes to kill their general, here I am!". And so the French Revolution was started and the statue was erected here in honour of him. However when we reached we found the statue and its environs to be in pretty bad shape so we photowhored a bit more.

the real thing

the impersonator

three of us encore

walking back

Anyway we caught the 1632 bus as planned, and I went over to Condillac for dinner. It was a fabulous day doing simple stuff with nice company.. Just the simple things in life I guess. =) Yawn its been a long day and I have school tomorrow, so I'll just end my entry here.. Dreading having to go to school tomorrow now! =X

la randonée d'espoir 2007

This was supposed to be a race report, but due to some bad placement of arrows/signage, this has to be changed to a cyclotour report instead. =/

Heard about this event about two weeks ago when we went to Pinsello to buy CF's bike. Decided to go for this as I thought that it would be a good way to break into the local cycling/tri scene, plus get to know the cycling routes here better. So at 7am today I rolled out into the cold and headed to Domène, the town where the race was supposed to start, with CF. Although the temperature was not really very cold, the windchill caused by cycling was sufficient to cause my fingers and ears to freeze. Dunno how am I going to bike in Winter..

So anyway we still managed to make our way to the registration point in spite of the risk of hypothermia. I was surprised when the Race Organiser recognised me and asked me if I was the one who called yesterday, until I realized that it was fully due to my bad spoken French. Haha.. How funny. In any case he was quite impressed that there were two Singaporeans who came to participate in this rather small and community-level race, and he announced that on stage and the other participants who were around applauded politely. How lovely.

Left the Depart at a little after 8. Due to the technical problems I faced yesterday (loose bottom bracket), I was not able to pedal properly, and I even had to stop pretty frequently to tighten it. To make matters worse, we took a wrong exit at a roundabout and got lost. We only realized that we were lost when we saw no other people along where we were cycling, so we had no choice but to backtrack. Eventually we found our way but it seemed pretty clear to me then that the race was over. The markings (orange arrows) were not very visible and infrequently placed. Most of the time I was chasing down peletons, getting lost, chasing more pelotons, and then finding that I was lost again. Even some of the French pelotons that I followed got lost, with riders splitting up at road junctions, each preferring to go their own way. Haha.. What a weird event!

Chose the 90km event over the shorter 56km one as this one promised to be less punishing. The 56km one had 2km of vertical climb! And yes my course was pretty rolling as compared to my other personal rides for the past two weeks. It felt good to be able to get on the dropbars and just hammer away. It felt good to be in my familiar rolling terrain. =P

Eventually after about 95km of riding (5km of getting lost) I crossed the Arrivée with an aching butt due to the super rough and uneven roads. There was a buffet assortment of fruits and bread so I filled myself up. There was an event t-shirt too - Not bad for just €5 registration fee! =P Clocked a total of 120km today door-to-door. =)

Here are some photos taken today, courtesy of CF.

race site in the morning

race map

le depart

my brain getting fried again

row of bikes

me and my hard-earned tee

photowhoring as usual.. =P

la rentrée

My first week of school is finally over, and amazingly I survived it! =P

La Rentrée is the return of the French academic fraternity from their Summer holidays, and is a pretty huge thing in France, where time seems to stand still every June to September. Anyway last week was La Rentrée, but there were still no classes because La Rentrée only meant back to school, not begin to study n'est pas? And so my lessons started only this Monday.

First day of school started auspiciously enough. I had Cotation Fonctionnelle et Techniques de Production, and the professor taught tolerancing and dimensioning, things which I had already learnt in NUS, so it was no trouble understanding him, except for a few minor matters. Second day was better. I had Automatique Sequentielle and I was pretty much in revision land as the professor touched on Boolean Algebra. Man.. Now I know how those PRC scholars feel when they go for lecture in Singapore!

Things started to go downhill on Wednesday. First was Automatique Sequentielle again. This time, things were not so easy. Learnt about number systems and coding, both of which were foreign to me. Then came a tutorial session - Travaux Dirigés. The class was so noisy and the prof spoke so fast and wrote so cursively such that it was impossible to listen/read/understand anything which transpired between him and us! However the worst was yet to come.

Had Conception Dimensionnement on Thursday. Not only were the course contents new to me, I also had difficulty trying to catch what the professor was saying because he did not use a microphone, even though he was lecturing in a lecture hall! I think I gave up halfway trying to comprehend, and just started copying down random notes because I was lost in this sea of confusion and frustration. Anyway did I mention that I was sitting in the front row?! The French must all not be listening, or they must have excellent hearing skills.

So today was Atelier Ingénerie again. Today I had more discussion with my group and I volunteered to be the bibliothécaire, which is someone in charge of arranging and keeping all the documents in the course of our project. I hope that I can contribute meaningfully to the group instead of just freeloading off the rest.

Ok will tell you more later - I have a bike ride early tomorrow morning and I have to go sleep now. There were some problems with my bike earlier and I spent quite some time trying to fix it. Not sure now if my bike is fully good to go now, but I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best! =P

OH NO..

What have I done... =O

sunny sunday + asian food festival

They say make hay while the sun shines.. And so that is I have been doing. Not literally making hay, but out training while summer is still here. The weather has been perfect here for the past week, so I have been out swimming/biking/running/frisbee-ing quite a fair bit.

Today met up with some of the Singaporeans to toss the frisbee around the field. Ended up playing ultimate, which was a little more than what I had bargained for. After all I had planned to go for a LSD later in the evening! In the end I cut short my LSD to a 1-hour run. I just ran along the Isère until I reached the next town, then I ran back. Although I dun think that I did 12km as planned, I was happy to be out running and getting my Sunday long run out of the way. =)

Went over to Condillac for dinner. The Condillacians and Rabotians were apparently organising some kind of Asian food fest! And I seriously was not disappointed.. Just look at the spread!

andi's indonesian mee soto

clockwise from left: sushi, mee soto, more sushi, mee soto again, rendang, and fried rice!

gâteau au chocolat!

waki

maki

last but not least.. SASHIMI!!!

the people who made it all possible

the girls posing with mr. maki

me with spinale in a spinal pose

err.. apparently this is how you eat maki in France.. NOT!

the pot with a pot of fried rice.. =P

Argh.. Now I have a stomachache due to indigestion. But oh well you have to pay for the sins of eating too much good food!!! =D

mise à jour 2

Another major update.. No time to blog last week as I had to settle some major academic stuff PLUS school finally started on Friday for me. =(

ANYWAY..

Thursday was the Forum de Sports at INPG. For sports fans it was the major event of the year, the time when you can sign up for your favourite sport (for a fee of course) or just check out new ones. Hence for me, it was a must-go event. The forum was scheduled to start at 10am so I made my way there at about 950am. Surprisingly there was already a super large throng of people waiting to enter the hall (think COMEX in Singapore)! And I thought the French were always late!

massive queue

me whilst waiting

Anyway 10am came and the doors opened (their punctuality another shocker for me), and we went in. It was totally packed and I had trouble navigating around.. There were already long queues for the more popular sports like Skiing and Tennis. I didnt sign up for anything that day but I think I should be signing up for Tennis (50Euros) and GUC Triathlon (95Euros). Craziness man the prices.. But that's the only way I can get to practice my sports! o_O

Friday.. Was Andi's birthday! Went over to Condilac in the evening for the fête. The idea was to spring a surprise as usual but I think Andi was already expecting something. Heh. Anyway everybody came and we had quite a good time hanging out in the kitchen, eating and drinking. Even got some of his floormates to join in the festivities! And so it was an enjoyable evening at Condilac, where all the SGreans colonised the place.

group photo.. go to Andi's blog for the uncensored photos!

How come I never get such surprises comme ça? Maybe I guess it due to my birthday which always falls during the school vacations and hence I do not see any of my classmates. Bah.

Went to Decathlon to buy some tennis shoes in the morning today. I guess I was quite lucky and got the last pair of the ones on discount. Then I went cycling in the afternoon. No Alps were planned for today and instead we went cycling around the banlieues of Grenoble. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, we found another mountain nearby - Mont St Martin, and so we went up! This one was a shorter 5km climb, but it was every bit as tough as the Alpe d'Heuz which we scaled last week! Some information about this can be found here, where its known as Alpe d'Huez's little brother!

So after dinner we cooked dinner. Andi and Spinale came over and we cooked nasi goreng! Hmm I must say that it tasted really good. Should have brought over more of these msg-filled culinary delights!

Ok just leaving you with a couple of pictures of today's ride. Going to sleep soon.. Going to run tomorrow! =)

on the climb up

brillant views of St Martin Le Vintoux and its environs

reaching the top

mingling at the top with a couple of old folks who went up in a car =P

there was a farm too and we went in to take a look. anybody knows the french version of baa baa black sheep?