semaine 5

After 2 weeks of (pseudo)study and partiels last week, week 5 was a welcome relief for an already very study-weary me. And so for the first time in the new year, I headed down to Centrale Ville on a Saturday night.

Met up with Feng Xue who had come down to visit, and we went for fondue at arguably the best fondue restaurant in Grenoble, La Fondue (full marks for creativity). This was not the first time that I have eaten fondue, but it was definitely the first time that I had paid so much for melted cheese (€21 per person).

Oh well, dining out in France is never a cheap experience and I was already bracing myself for the price when Guillaume (not the Tutu), Feng Xue's friend suggested La Fondue. At least dinner was fun, and the pubbing after that was even better! I guess not going downtown for 3 weeks had made me more "appreciative" and aware of what sleepy little Grenoble has to offer. Hee.

L-R: some PRC friend of Feng Xue's, Guillaume, Feng Xue, Cristelle, me

after dinner

at some african pub

The rest of the week, other than being very fulfilling training-wise, has been full of soirées de départ every night. Somehow everybody seems to be leaving around this moment, be it the end of their exchange, or for an internship somewhere else in France. Hence the drunken last gatherings to remember the good times, to bid our farewells, and to cling on to the last few moments of togetherness. Bah.. I am becoming so sentimental! =P Some photos of the past few nights (sorry some of them were taken with my handphone so they look real bad):

tomo-chan's Mambo Monday

Tueday Tango L-R: Daniela, Stefano, Eleonora, me, Constantin

rest of the folks

L-R on Wednesday night: Ahmed, Olcay, Eleonora, me, Anouck

ERASMUS!!!

Last but not least, my lovely neighbours Thao and Hieu gave me a microwave because Thao is leaving on Saturday for her internship in Caen (Boo hoo..), and she will not be bringing along her microwave with her. So now I have the convenience of zapping up microwaved meals anytime! (sorry Eugene.. hee) But most unfortunately they do not have M&S (I just love their microwaved stuff!) here in France, and so I'll see what food I can get here which is microwaveable. Heh.. Another useful addition to my arsenal of culinary equipment!

sitting pretty in the corner

Alright, going to watch Love Generation now.. For some reason I've been pretty hooked onto retro Jap dramas from the 90's. Must be the subtle influence of Tomo-Chan. Hee.. I shall leave you now with a quote for the new semester:

"If Winter is already here, can Spring still be far behind?"

=P

mes entraînements du semaine W-23

21 lundi: Nager 1km (PU)
24 jeudi: CàP 5km (Domaine Universitaire)
19 samedi: Cycle 70km (D1090 - Saint Marie d'Alloix)
20 dimanche: CàP 11km (La Tronche)

En total: Nager 1km, Cycle 70km, CàP 16km

le retour de la Barberess

looks like the Barberess has struck again!!! o_O

en fin

Maintenant c'est le matin de ma dernière épreuve. C'est un matin tranquille, et il me semble que je suis le seul personne à Grenoble aujourd'hui.

Après 21 semaines du cours (et vacances) très occupés et engagés, tout terminera après 1545. C'est le jour et l'heure que j'ai déjà attendu avec plaisir depuis longtemps, mais je me trouve maintenant qu'il est arrivé trop rapidement: Je n'ai pas encore finir mes révisions! =P

C'était un semestre tellement exigeant et difficile, car j'ai pas seulement dû à s'habituer à la vie et à la langue ici, j'ai aussi dû à s'adapter à un système d'éducation et des méthodes d'enseignement vachement étranges. Tout n'était pas facile, mais de tout façon, je crois que j'ai déjà fait tout mon possible, et je n'ai pas des regrettes.

Semestre 1 2007/2008 - Vous me manquerez surement.

enshmg 1A 2006-2007

tak boleh tahan

Little, if not no progress for revision.
Got completely trashed at the pool today.
Feel like I'm coming down with something.

And nobody to talk to.


Argh.. How I wish that Friday would come sooner.

mes entraînements du semaine W-24

15 mardi: Nager 2km (PU)
17 jeudi: CàP 11km (Meylan)
18 vendredi: Nager 2km (PU)
19 samedi: Cycle 56km (D1090 - Le Touvet)
20 dimanche: CàP 21km (La Bastille)

En total: Nager 4km, Cycle 56km, CàP 32km

On a related note, Saturday's bike ride was with my new Profile Design Fast Forward Carbon seatpost. The previous pure-road configuration was much too "slack" for me and I also felt that I was stretching too much forward to reach the brakes (ok I have short arms..). So I decided to kill two birds with one stone and got myself the seatpost. First thoughts was that I felt much better with some lower back pain eliminated and power output being greater and smoother although I will probably need a couple more rides and many more miles to adjust and confirm my bike position. For now, things are certainly looking up for my cycling though! =)

au revoir

Farewell to my Singaporean friends who have already or who are going to leave Grenoble. Although we did not really get to spend a lot of time together, you guys have undoubtedly made my life here a little more interesting, and I am glad that we did, in one way or another, get to know each other better.

Especially to Andi, Eugene and Shaowei, your presence will definitely be missed at Barnave. I'm sure canteen food will never taste the same again back in Singapore without me! =P

À bientôt!

the day that you stop running

is the day that you arrive.

mes entraînements du semaine W-25

8 mardi: Nager 1.5km [Piscine Universitaire (PU)]
10 jeudi: CàP 9km
11 vendredi: Nager 1.5km (PU)
12 samedi: CàP 12km
13 dimanche: Cycle 56km (D1090 - Le Touvet)

En total: Nager 3km, Cycle 56km, CàP 21km

race schedule 2008

As the old adage goes, "Fail to plan, plan to fail". Furthermore in France, I do not have the luxury of just driving up or tagging along with my friends when I race; Hence the need for a sound game plan for 2008.

Taking into account my hefty school workload and other travel plans, it looks like triathlon has to take a back seat this year. Nevertheless, I still plan to do at least one Ironman and one marathon, at least for the fun if not for the challenge. =)

Alright, let's have a look at the main races for 2008:
1. Marathon de Lyon (27 April)
2. Challenge France or Triathlon de Narbonne (25 May)
3. Ironman Switzerland Zurich (13 July)
4. Desaru Pengerang International Long Distance Triathlon (TBC)
5. Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon (TBC)

Assuming my race season opens with the marathon in Lyon, I only have slightly less than 5 months to come up with a 42.195km run. Which means I'll also be resuming my training log to help me track my workouts and to enable me to better plan my training programme. Of course, the countdown will be towards Ironman Switzerland and as of this week, there are 26 weeks left.

Currently, I am as close to Ground Zero as one can get: Bonking after 15km runs, a non-existent front crawl stroke and almost 2 months of zero bike mileage! Looks like I have a long way to go!!! o_O But at least I've gotten the most difficult part, planning, out of the way. All that is left now is just plain determination and focus to see the plan through.

Doesn't sound that difficult after all, right? Anything is Possible! =P

perspective

Spotted at Prince George's Park Residence (PGP) in NUS:

If lift breaks down you may be trapped. Please use staircase to avoid missing your exams.

Boy am I glad that they had the foresight not to build lifts in my residence here! Unlike the students at PGP, I can wake up in peace everyday knowing that I will not be able to miss my exams, much less die, if I am stuck in a lift! =D

dPain/dt

my usual approach is useless here.

year of the potato

Its official!!! All hail to the potato as 2008 is the year of the potato!!!

every root has its day

It gets even better: We even have a song! Haha.. I am so humbled by this sudden display of gratitude! To quote Wikipedia, the unassuming root plays an important role "in providing food security and eradicating poverty", and that 2008 is the year to acknowledge "(the) contribution of the potato to defeating hunger".

Alright, altogether now:
"So pick up your feet
And put'm back down
It's time for a powerful
Potato countdown"

=P

the theatre of dreams

Spent most of New Year's Eve (NYE) cooped up again in another Megabus for 9 hours as I thundered towards my final destination for my Noël trip - Manchester.

Nothing much to blog about NYE except that we (Andi and me) checked in at our hostel and finally received the match tickets which we bought online 3 months ago. Great! Before coming here, my greatest fear was that the tickets would not arrive or arrive late and we would not be able to watch the match. So that was one obstacle cleared. However to my horror when I opened the envelope I found out that the tickets were for short side seats instead of the alongside (better view and thus more expensive) seats which we had paid for, and (momentarily) I thought that we were going to be seated with the away fans! I was super pissed at that moment but I knew that there was nothing I could do about it. It was not so much so of getting short side seats that I was angry about. I was angry because I had paid a obscene sum (and many times more than the original ticket price) to the online shop, and yet they did not even have the integrity to contact me about the change of tickets! Worse still, they could send me an email at the time of purchase telling me that the ordered tickets had been purchased. *fumes*

But this is not a post/rant about the dangers of online shopping. I probably will have another post on this to expose the risks and tactics of online vendors, but now I will continue on with the rest of my Manchester trip. All you need to know at this point in time is that all's well that ends well. =)

As I said earlier, I was pissed but I knew that there was nothing that I could do to rectify the situation, so I did the best thing I thought at that time - Eat dinner. =P We initially wanted to get ourselves some KFC but we decided to save that for supper so we went for some more pub grub instead. As I said in my earlier post, I luuurve pub grub! =D

chicken tikka masala

Being NYE, the streets were pretty crowded on a Monday night. We explored Manchester by night and soon, we were hungry again (must be the cold night air), and there was no way we could usher in the new year feeling hungry right? But alas, KFC was already closed at the early hour of 2100 and so we frantically looked around for some source of nocturnal nutrition. Finally, we managed to find a bastard offspring of KFC - Allen's Fried Chicken. Are they related or not? Read the label on the photo and judge it for yourself!

the manchester eye

all you ever wished for!

Compared to the earlier events in the day, the countdown itself was not much of an event: We settled for more booze in a pub and we watched as celebrities on the TV counted down themselves silly. Tranquil.

01/01/2008. The day of the holy grail. As a Manchester United fan since young, I have always been united behind them, be it the 1999 treble winning year to the time when Mark Bosnich let in that embarrassing own goal to confirm United's then pathetic form. So it was only a matter of time that I finally paid my homage to them on the first day of the new year at the Theatre of Dreams.

Everything was still pretty dull when we started our walk to Old Trafford. However it got more and more exciting as we neared the stadium and we started to see more and more fans walking along with us and cars driving past with fans cheering inside. It was all so surreal: Was I really going to Old Trafford?

Then I saw it. In the distance, but unmistakable. The Theatre of Dreams: The stage for many a great player to display their skills, the place where dreams are fulfilled, and also the venue when hopes are dashed as well (their's not our's.. =P). Immediately we hastened our pace towards our mecca and the next few hours were spent shopping (I eventually bought a jersey), grabbing lunch, and hoping for good seats in the stadium.

Kickoff was scheduled at 1500, but we entered the theatre a good 45mins earlier. I think we may have looked foolish in the local fans' eyes as we scuttered around taking photos and generally trying to take in the entire scene in front of us. We must have looked like blushing schoolgirls as we could not stop gushing at the marvelous sights in front of us. Surely, this cannot be true? But who could blame us? Such is the power of soccer, and anyway it was our first time there! In the end our seats turned out not to be that bad too as we were seated in the front row right near to the goal post. It afforded us a view and a degree of closeness that I have never felt before at any of my previous soccer matches. And about the view, it was really not that bad as we still were able to see all the way to the other end of the field.

the Theatre of Dreams

with my newly-bought jersey at the megastore

stadium overview

getting all excited before the match

I guess there's no point in me explaining the match (Man U against Birmingham) details to you as the feeling of being so close to the action is indescribable. What I can say is that the final score was 1-0 to the Red Devils, the goal scored being just right in front of us. Andi and I took a couple of videos, but sadly we missed capturing the goal on tape as it all happened too quickly for us. If you have cable, do watch the replay of the goal as we might have been caught on video! If you don't, here's some DIY footage right from the heart of the action! =)

so close..

players being introduced


united setpiece


ronaldo freekick


tevez having some fun with the defenders

full on action

ronaldo

goal celebration

Time always seem to pass quicker at live matches, unless I guess if your team's the losing team. =P Before I knew it, 90mins had passed and United had (routinely) secured another 3 points. After the match, Fergie was quoted as saying that the atmosphere was "like a funeral" Obviously he was referring to a Chinese funeral: We must have been as noisy as the wailing and crying that is usually associated with one. Furthermore I was there, so could it have possibly been quiet?! =D

And so with the end of the match also comes the end of my Noël adventure. Its been at two weeks of non-training, at least €1000 spent, and millions of kilojoules of energy expended, but in the end I think it was worth it. I've seen the things I wanted to see, done the things I've wanted to do, and experienced the diverse experiences which until then I had only read or heard about. So now that my dreams have (sort of) been fulfilled, I should feel re-energized; Time to refocus and head back to my books for the upcoming exams.

Or can I? =D

one last shot

scottish splendor 2

Reached Inverness after a relatively short bus ride (4 hours) and we met up with Eugene's cousin Moh Heng who is working in Aberdeen. Amazingly her housemate is no other than Scott Neyedli, the winner of Ironman UK 2007 and 1st British finisher at Kona!

What a small world indeed. For a non-triathlete, Moh Heng sure knew lots about the sport, undoubtedly due to Scott's influence! And so we spent the night talking away just about every single facet of triathlon and the Ironman, something which I never thought I would do, at least while on vacation! What a pleasant surprise indeed to have someone understand your passion. =)

Next day we rose pretty early in anticipation of our Great Nessie Hunt. Caught the Jacobite tour bus which brought us to the tip of Loch Ness, and there we transferred onto a boat for a 25min cruise down Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle, or rather, the ruins of Urquhart Castle. Once a medieval stronghold in the past, what's left of it still stands rather splendidly on a headland overlooking Loch Ness. Also, the sun was out again for a second consecutive day and so it was great to be out.

Loch Ness is neither the largest lake (Loch Lomond) nor the deepest (Loch Morar), but it is certainly the most well known due to whatever lies within: The Loch Ness Monster aka Nessie!

nessie (she's a little bashful you see.. =P)

Nessie was apparently spotted as early as 565AD by the Scottish, and there are still repeated sightings of the beast year after year. However, it chose not to surface on the day we went (perhaps it was because it was a Sunday) , and so our day at the lake passed by rather normally. I wanted to investigate the existence of Nessie, but the prospect of missing the last bus and spending the night out in the cold dampened my spirits, so we settled for more mundane stuff like sightseeing and taking photos. Hee. =P

first views of Loch Ness

three of us on the boat

Urquhart castle

from another angle

at the top of the tower

the pot ness monster

parting shot

Ended off the day with some pub grub washed down with booze. I love pub grub!!! It is (relatively) cheap and reliable. Where else can you get this in Europe? =D Hmm.. Lazing about after our meal, I could only think of the phrase "we were tired but happy" which I used all so often during primary school. Perfect ending to our short (and almost perfect cos we could not spot Nessie) stay here at Inverness! =)

sunday roast

saying goodbye to Inverness

scottish splendor 1

Reached Edinburgh all woozy headed and hunch backed. The reason? A 9 hour overnight Megabus ride from London all the way up to Edinburgh. Looking back, it was amazing how I managed to survive that horrible bus ride in those chicken coop-like conditions. I guess one pound travel made it easier to sit through the ordeal. =P

Luckily I felt much better after some food and a cuppa and so we (Eugene and me) headed out to the Edinburgh Castle after dropping off our bags at our hostel. The day was short and so we had to make the most of it. Walked up the "Royal Mile", nicknamed appropriately so because of the castle, to get to our destination. In my opinion, the Edinburgh castle has to be the nicest castle I've seen so far! Unlike most other castles/palaces which are usually on level ground, the Edinburgh castle is situated on a rocky outcrop. Also, it looks and feels like what a proper castle should, with its moats and tower walls. However it also has to be the priciest castle I've been to also at £10 a pop (no student concessions).

first views of the castle

beautiful view from the top

cannon

British flag flying high

me and ol' grandpa kilt.. =P

down the Royal Mile

carnival at central edinburgh

Went for some dinner and shopping after the castle and rounded off the night in the most suitable way possible - A ghost tour. Apparently Edinburgh is one of the world's (if not UK's) most haunted places and so we took to frolicking around its (supposedly) haunted sites after-hours. In the end, no matter what Eugene would like to say, I still think that the most haunting part of the tour would be the price - £7. Heh! =P

the most haunted part of the tour - the till =P

Day two was reminiscent of my great Stockholm walk, except that this time we trekked for a much further distance. About 12km, to be exact. But the sun finally peeked through the clouds after a rainy day the day before so it was kinda nice to be outdoors. Our initial destination was Leigh, which is a coastal town, but we ended up walking all the way to Portobello beach! Nothing much to blog about the beach since it was just one huge stretch of sand, but here are some nice pictures of the day!

at the boondocks

Leigh

first rays of the sun

Portobello beach

feeling like i was at the end of the world

By the time we headed back to the city, the first signs of dusk had already started to show. We grabbed some dinner, then we went off to watch the Hogmanay celebrations. Apart for its fringe festival, Edinburgh is very famous for its Hogmanay (Gaelic for last day of the year) celebrations. Apparently each part of Scotland has its own Hogmanay celebrations and Edinburgh being the capital has one of the grandest and best celebrations. In total, there were supposed to be 4 days of celebrations, but since I was going to leave that night, I was only able to partake in one - The torchlight procession.

sunset

before the procession

procession begins

Wow it was pretty cool with all the Scottish warriors, bagpipe music and blazing torches. The atmosphere was akin to a Salem which hunt, just that I am sure that there were no menacing thoughts that night. We didn't join in the procession as the torches cost £5 per stick, and we had to catch a bus up to Inverness anyway at 2015 and there wouldn't have been enough time for us to complete the procession and head to the bus station. But that still didn't prevent us from having fun just soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying ourselves! =D