Japanese Toilets

Im back! im back at the blog and sitll at Narita, but I wanted to let you know that I went to the toilet!

I know, people go to the toilet, its an act that we do everyday. But not everybody goes to a japanese toilet everyday, and that is the special part about it. How could I have forgoten about japanese sophisticated toilets?!?! I went there and suddenly the lid of the toilet started to open on its own! Wow! i sat down and the seat was heated ....niceeee! not to hot not to warm...i didnt have to freeze my but as I was shitting. Later the thing flushed it self automatic but there was a button in case I wanted to give more power to the flushing water. The lid closed automatically as well. Oh man I had forgoten that this past summer when Miquel would say he was going to the toilet we would not expect him back for the next 5 minutes, and i guess that went for any memeber of the family...all the available buttons in japanese toilets can make you go insane. I mean, i ended up just now making a video and god knows how many pictures of the toilet itself. And i think it really has nothing to do with my father selling toilets...nah, it definately has nothing to do with that! Its already pitch dark, now theres only 2 more hours of wait! 2 american airlines and 1 eastern china airplane have parked infront of me....soon ill be in my Qantas flight, which I hope will be better than BA. BA doesnt give you a little "toiletry bag" and the food isnt as good as qantas...Qantas at least gives u a menu and a snack bag in the middle. In fact qantas was listed in the "top airlines" voted recently in i forget which website (sorry!)...

Hmmmm im still wondering How could I have forgoten about japanese toilets and their warm seats? Ill upload the japanese toilet video once im home! Looking forwards to remeeting my aussie friend outside, she must be exhausted!

-- Also, I knew i was in japan when I passed the duty free area and all you could hear was " irashaimasennnnn, irashiamasennnnnn" whahahahaha. And of course they asked me in japanese something and i looked at her like " HUH" and she said "where are you flying to" "oh, sorry.. Sydney"..."ahhh so desne..Sydoney"... yes Sidoni for japanese!
So see you all at sidoni in 12 hours!

Update from Tokyo

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am back into the blog! And its Holidays! :) So now im updating from Narita Airport in Tokyo. Im here on a 9 hour transit stop from London. I should be home soon( the 9 hour wait plus the 10 hour flight) though as from here I fly directly to Sydney. I have to say im very exhausted.

7.30am alarm clock rings -why is it ringing?im on holidays. Oh yeah, im flying home today.
7.45am francesca calls - im taking the bus to the station, ill see u in the train station.
8.00am miquel calls - 15 minutes and we are leaving okay?
8.15 am we put warm water on the ice that there is on the glass of the carr
8.18 am amazing sunrise! if only i had my camera (tsk its in the rear seats)
8.22 am leave campus
8.30 amarrive at station and get mine and miquels luggage while he parcs
8.34am Monika and Francesca are already there, i buy the tickets
8.45am train comes and leaves....
8.53am we arrive at Massy Palasseau, time to change trains...
9.00am we are at Antony..bye bye to Francesca and to Miquel who almost miss their stop.
9.30am I randomly meet Marlene in the train
9.39am Monika gets off - Bonnes Vacances
9.40am Marlene realizes she is going the wrong drietion and jumps off
9.45am the train just stops and i start to get nervous
9.50 am the train is still stoped
9.55 am the train is running
10.00 am the train stops again
10.15am we still have 10 train stops to go
10.30am "ladies and gentlemen, the train will skip all the stops in the middle and go directly to the airport" yessssssss!
10.40am arrival at airport!
11.00am finally do autocheck in, change seats and head to business lounge
11.10am the business lounge has no working computers! GRRRR!!!
11.30am Start to get calls non stop: Miquel,Alexandra,Dad (good flight good flight) and then good news, we set an interview for when ill be back with a company :)
12.00am Time to board the plane
12.05am Before bording i have to pass another security and ppl start to cut line...how beautiful.
12.10am I wait sitted for everybody to board. What is the point in making a 10 hour queue if afterall you will all be in the plane!? I love to sit and watch ppl board the plane and make lines, once everybody has gone in then i stand up and board the plane...
12.25am We depart
12.50am (london time) we arrive at heathrow.
Im so thinking about other things that I go from terminal 4 to terminal 1 for my next flight. But because im distracted i take another bus back to terminal 4 and then i realize im back where I was and have to take another bus back to terminal 1. I have to pass controls in every terminal, so I end up rushing to the plane and board on time. The two hours I had of transfer have ended up in me running in circles in Heathrow. I can finally definatively state that I know the airport terminal 1 and 4 pretty well :)
14.25 am Depart of flight. And the adventure begins.
I turn to my right and there is an older woman sitting. Just to make some chat i say "we have a long flight infront of us", to my astonishment she replies that she is going to Sydney. Aha, so im not alone! They took her off her direct flight from London to Sydney so now she is also coming to Tokyo and having to wait 8 hours... She talks to me about her life. Super active 73 year old who wakes upa t 5 everymorning to go running and then swimming. To the other side i have the aisle and then there is a pretty tall guy. Once we have started to fly the guy tries to pull his sit back but the bitch behind him puts her knee to prevent him moving. He gets irritated and kindly asks her to take her knee out. Her reply is nothing more than "if you want more space you should get yourself a business ticket". The guy seriously has no words, i look at him with a look that lets him know i think the woman is a super bitch and i feel sorry for him. "Madame look at me, im big, look at yourself. Please let me put my sit back"...she continues to be arrogant as she has also previously been to the cabin crew when they told her to sit down and she replied " you leave with a delay and then you tell me to sit down? i think we can do whatever we want if we are laeving late...". Everytime that i stand up to drink water and walk around the airplane in this 10 hour flight my 73 year old australian neighour joins me. And she starts to have chats with everybody, so suddenly we meet many more ppl who are also going to Sydney via Tokyo. Funny! The woman is the one who is initiating all the chats. Specially by going up to everybody and going "good day mate".

"im portuguese but i live in sydney"
"im spanish but i live in paris and my famlily lives in sydney"
"im french but i live in london and im going to visit someone in sydney"
"im australian but i came to brusels to see my brother and im going back to sydney"

The point is we are all going to Sydney...and we all hope to get there in about 34 hours...
Everybody is sleeping, even the tall guy who doesnt fit in his chair, but of course I cant. I watch a movie, i look at a bbc documentary on india, i listen to music, i even put an audio book as im convince that will make me sleep, but nothing works. Finally I wake up, i have slept! Yes, for 1 hour only.Out of the 10 hours i only sleep 1 and it is the final hour when the lights are almost open.
The old woman who was super active starts to feel sick, we disimark and i say "bye see you in the later flight"... i head to the business lounge at Narita. The place is nice,but it lacks food, however im having this free internet. It also has showers and since ive never taken a shower in a business lounge and im swety and tierd i decide to go for it. Wow! The shower place is huge, i feel like in a hotel. Wow Wow Wow...this at least compensates for the lack of food. People are sleeping in the lounge, but its pretty empty. Theres about 4 of us who are here since 11 and who are waiting for the 8pm flight to Sydney. The people that I met in the plane im sure they are all outside sitting and hanging around. I take some pictures with my nikon, i walk around but nothing is new and im tiered. I still got 1,000yen left from last summer which i spend on somethign to take home and which I hope the australian customs wont keep....

And I forgot to mention, BA said the "welcome to tokyo" message in Japanese,English,Spanish and CATALAN! Why catalan, i dont know! When we left london they said it in Japanese, English and French, but in landing they said it in Catalan and now the best is that it wasnt a tape, it was really someone speaking :)

Im waiting to get home...soooooon! and now im going to try and sleep (im purposely drinking some rum and coke..see if that helps, im jetlaged and tiered!)
Goodbye from Narita!
I wish i could have walked around Tokyo, it would have been nice. But Narita is far from Tokyo and I didnt want to get lost in the city. So before having any problems I rather just stia nd wait here together with all my friends that came from London!
See ya later mates!

Picture of the Day

The attraction of death. This takes place in India and everyyear various drivers and watchers die.


L’attraction de la mort, en vrai : ce cylindre de bois aux lattes branlantes attire chaque année de très nombreux spectateurs au carnaval de Jammu, en Inde. Deux voitures et deux motos y tournent perpendiculairement au sol, grâce à la force centrifuge. Mais cette performance est encore plus dangereuse qu’elle en a l’air. Plusieurs jeunes pilotes y perdent chaque année la vie, de même que certains spectateurs : la balustrade est en effet impuissante à les protéger d’une éventuelle éjection des véhicules.

Have a look at more pictures Today's Recommendation
http://www.lefigaro.fr/lefigaromagazine/2007/12/07/01006-20071207DIAWWW00474-arret-sur-image.php

Im drained!! I woke up and headed to breakfast, followed by a walk to the train station. Finally the pompidou museum to see some modern art. Modern art can sometimes be entretaining, afterall its up to you the interpretation that you make out of it. However, today it wasnt that great. Im wondering if it was cuz i was starving and I could only think about food or cuz the stuff was just awkward. In fact im not sure Alex or Carlos loved it that much either :) The best part was an exposition there was on architecture, that was worth it, but by then I was so starving I could only sit in the pink sofa....We then started walking under the rain, and met Miquel for lunch at Quartier Latin. Hmmmm...mexican! We had our hopes up, we believed the rain would stop...but that obviously never happend. We walked again and got even more drained until the train station (not even that far). Finally frozen,with super wet feet and in the middle of the darkness (it was past 5pm) I arrived in my room....and I still hear the rain outside. Too lazy to study right now, will do that after dinner,tommorrow and the day after :)

In the attitude of doing a countdown to get downunder --> summer!!! And yet unfortuantely everybody is counting to go home and back to their lives...but afterall I have no place to go back. I can go and remeet some friends in Spain and start a new life on my own in my house, and move around Barcelona with my map. Tell my cousin to move in :). I can start a life in France, move somewhere...Who knows! For now just maintaining all doors open and trying to figure out what I will do on the 9th of February. Cuz where in earth am I meant to go back to?!?!

----keeps raining, this seems to be the tradition of saturdays. However, nothing has been as bad as NL, not as cold, not as windy, not as rainy. Missing patat and stroopwaffels.

Today's Recommendation http://amis95.blogspot.com She has won prizes and been on the radio, she is the oldest blogger on earth. When she turned 95 her stingy grandson got her a blog as a present. Her life memories and comments can be found in this site :) Get to know the oldest blogger and her life!

Last post 2nd of December! Its been a small while! So to compensate and because yesturday was St.Nicholas I hve decided I will recommend you a link for every day that I havent been here.

First of all the coolest one. Probably some of you already knew it, but I had no clue this existed. Today's Recommendation 1 www.igoogle.com Basically you can costumize your google page. Put as many gadgets as you want, put a theme that changes with the wether of the country/place you are at. So here is how mine is looking up to now.
For the days that you are in need to escape, to take a backpack and Get Lost you can watch the video's that lonley planet TV offers. So today's recommenation 2 http://www.lonelyplanet.tv/Clip.aspx?key=7F517EB535E42270 there are 7 different parts. Two backpackers found they had a video function in their camera and did a short home made movie of their travels through Asia, see Laos,Cambodia,India through 7 short videoclips.

Are you Zap or are you Zen? Let me introduce you to the IdTGV. We had a presentation from them the other day in class. Its a TGV which takes you from Paris to the south of france, and in april they are opening their new line to Lyon. About 1 of these trains operate per day,sometimes even two. You got two ambiances teh Zen which is a 100%silence or the Zap where you can rent dvds, play music, discuss and it has an entire differente ambiance. So travel get to know ppl and form part of the online communitiy with ID TGV's which is today's recommenation 3 http://www.idtgv.com/165i.html

And if you want to keep traveling and discuss travel questions then why not just go to the lonley planet thorntree and ask anybody your questions. Or answer those that you need. I love this place...its a great area to get comments by experts on your area of travel. So today's recommendation 4 is http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/index.jspa

And one of my discoveries of this week will be today'srecommendation 5 http://www.slideshare.net/ I still havent explored it too much but this is meant to be the world's largest community for sharing presentations on the web, and as they like to reiterate it's free!!


So tommorrow Im heading to Paris to do some iceskating,cultural visit and have some good fun :D And then dive again into work work and preparation of my two coming up interviews! With the night arriving, people leaving the campus and me having just recieved a nice phone call I now leave you to explore the world wide web .... Have a good weekend!Bon Weekend!Bon cap de setmana!Buen Fin de Semana!

....Repetició del meu Fotolog al meu Blog..... Perque avui vull somiar :)

Me voy...

Que penso fer?? Doncs ho tinc molt clar.
1.) Acabar la carrera
2.) Fer practiques
3.) Fer la tesina
4.) Buscar una feina i dir a la empresa que si realment em volen que s esperin 1 any que jo vaig a fer la meva volta al mon d 1 any....

Recordeu quan vem seure en aquelles amakes a discutir les nostres voltes al mon? Doncs jo ho tinc molt clar, no puc estar sempre al mateix lloc i penso pirar....Bhutan, Nepal,Birmania,Illa de pascua, desert de atacama, gambia,uganda,kenya,egipte,turkia,iran,qatar,oman

A veure amics o a coneixen de nous...penso pirar...perquè jo estic feta per caminar i no per seure en una cadira amb un ordinador. Així doncs escolteu be perquè en un futur llunya podríeu rebre noticies meves de noves destinacions i nova vida, nous viatges....
La vida solo se vive una vez i jo ho tinc molt clar, jo no soc de poble. Dídac confio amb la teva participació a part del meu viatge (per ara tot son somnis...) Però si he lo grat tot el que volia fins ara, per que no això??!? Encara que nomes siguin 6 mesos. Mindrot amb tu confio que m acompanyaras a la part de europa del est.

......sueña, es lo unico que te mantendra vivo.

CDG life or death?!

Its finally sunday night. And I say finally cuz i finally have some time for myself, to do what I want. Most of the weekend has been consumed by working on assignments, cleaning cloths, working at the university restaurant and sleeping till "late" (9am). So what do I really want to do now that I have "free" time? You should know by now... I was just googleing a webpage which I havent seen in a while and which will be

today's recomendation http://www.sleepinginairports.net

This is quite a handy website. In case you have a very early flight and thus you dont want to pay 40 euros or more for your taxi. In my case I have been told that there is a risk of french greve (strike) on the day that I will leave Paris, so I thought I would have a look at this site. I already knew this site from before but I hadnt visited it in a long time. It gives you people's opinion on airports and sleeping in them. How secure it is etc...

The truth is that I haven't been in Paris CDG since god knows when. However, remembering past times I remember it being an old,desorganized,chaotic,ugly airport. Basically,one of those airports where you just dont want to be at. Talking to fellow travelers only reinforced my ideas. I went to this website with the hope of finding some revealing information. With the hope that CDG would be placed as an excelent place to sleep before embarking on a 24 hour flight...However, the results where quite unshocking and depressing...

What you can look forward to in Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport:

• bucket seats with armrests
• cold metal benches
• no seats at some boarding gates
• hot and humid
• washrooms smell
• staff are rude and unplesaant
• frequent announcements
• filthy washrooms
• noisy
• homeless people
• frequent announcements
• a few couches in transit area
• WiFi

So basically, there is WiFi but I dont have a laptop with me to be able to take advantage of the only good thing the airport has. My dream would be that a friend would drive me there, that a sweet gentelman from BA would come and pick me up at the car. They would take care of my luggage and leave me at the business lounge. When I would board my plane they would offer me an upgrading to business class, and when I would do my transfer in Heathrow I wouldn't have to do all the Quees to get to Terminal 4. Later in embarking the B747 (cuz im hoping it will be one..) I dream that I would be able to have a chat with the pilots who would show me their cabin like when I was a kid. I would ofcourse get an upgrade to first class cuz nobody flies in xmas and planes are empty. Lastly, in Tokyo I would meet the CPO of JAL who would offer me an internship position. After more than 24 hours I would reach home - Sydney. A boat would take me to the opera house. From there there would be a red carpet to my appartment.

Back to Earth, Lets hope there isnt a strike.

Bisous.

The parking infront of the builduing has started to get packed.More lights are turned on in the builduing infront of mine, and I'm sure the cafeteria will be packed today. Its sunday and tommorrow a new week begins. Musicovery.com has spend the day with me, together with my slides of "promotion de ventes" and an online french-english dictionary. What would I do without my phone to make free calls from room to room, I dont know. A relaxed weekend. Small escape to the big city behind the forest- Paris....

Arrive to go see the Catacombes, closed for reparation till February. Try and take the metro, not working. Lots of walking, but a nice relaxed walk around the Jardins du Luxembourg, Marche aux Puces, lunch at monmatre (not to break the tradition...) and exhaustion. My 2.97 euro forfait dinner at RU...Why is the chicken and the fish so dry? Getting all the week leftovers? Buff...Looking forwards to monday where I hope the food will be a bit more fresh, or not. Daydreaming again about Bhutan,Nepal my job as a releif logistics agent and an around the world photographer.

Whats next, I dont know? Right now enjoying the day, cuz afterall this is an amazingly relaxed placed to be in for 5 months, surrounded by lots of students, intresting courses (sometimes ;-) ) and no real worries. Who wants to face having to write a thesis?Findin a real job and not having wendsday afternoons off?Not me.

Today's Recommendation http://www.freerice.com/ Quiz yourself in english vocabulary (all levels)! For every word you get right, WFP will give 10 grains of rice. Help save the 25,000 people that die every day due to hunger. Pass the word on.

So after a "nice" dinner...and the nice goes more for the company...florian,miquel,alexandra than for the food in itself which after almost 3 months nonstop starts to feel repetitive, I AM BACK.

Lets make a short list of WHAT HAS HAPPENED in my world in the past weeks...

1.) 1 entire week in Barcelona. Now, that hadnt happened in years. Except for xmas and summer I hadnt been in Barcelona during the school months for longer than 3-4 days. So it was nice. Not so nice not to have gas in the house, which lead to no showering (no hot water),no cooking (no gas), no heating (think covers in bed). But both Horejah and Irum flew in from Amsterdam so we were able to have 5 days of nice touring and then I had 3 days for "family" visits...

2.) A day in DisneyLand...I thought its Eurodisney once u arrive there is a big Disnelyland sign. Whatever, a fun day acting like little kids and once again with good company. I forget, we probably choose the coldest weekend ever to go to Disneyland.

3.) A two day visit of my parents to Paris. . .

4.) And "multiple" visits to Paris, La defence, Invalides,Monmatre for the Xth time and lunch at the Maison de Catalogne...

And honestly, I cant think of any more events that have taken place within the past weeks.

The end of the world. Lets build an online community and launch an emarketing campagin!

Unbelivably but true its been more than a month since my last post. What have I been doing? Nothing and a lot. Have I had ideas on new postings? Yes. Have i had the time?Sometimes. Have I posted something? Obviously not. So here I am typing some text. I dont have much time, I have to go eat in 10 minutes but lets see what flows through my neuros today.

I still havent gotten any internship, I have to keep applying to more companies, or consider if I take the one I got accepted to. Life is full of choices (....new finding? No!)

For the rest in exactly 4 weeks Ill be home. Before you ask, home this time means. . . . . . SYDNEY. Yeah, summer,beach,surfers,manly,kangaroo,opera house, and ill get burned as a shrimp. What a suprise. Im going all around the world to get there. Okay not really, im NOT doing another world tour, but Im going to have to change planes 3 times to get there. On the way back Im having to sleep a night in Tokyo, but Im not going to complain about that. 17 years without going to Tokyo and in less than 6 months going there 2 times.... Woho!

I have been in this jail for quite a while. Well I like to call it a Jail cuz i cant just walk out of campus whenver I want. Need to take a train and Change in Massy or in Versailles and then you finally get to Paris. In fact life would be good if the trains would be direct and fast. I dont think Im asking for too much. . . Or even better if there would be no strikes. Today after more than a week the strikes finally finished. Miquel had already planned to take me somewhere with his car so that I could get together with Alexandra mentally sane this weekend. I really wanted to leave this campus at least for 1 day.

Lets get positive, its great to have lunch with people and to be "forced" to have lunch and dinner with them cuz like this you are never alone. In fact you become a heard of animals that eats at the same time due to the relatively restrictive schedule of the cafeteria and lack of many socializing places. Its good to be in a place like this cuz you never feel lonely. Being in an apartment in the middle of the city on your own would not necesarily be much cooler. However it would let you experince Paris by night much more...even if just for a walk around Paris.

My french? Hmmmm I dont speak much. I should speak more. But I would say its improving. The people and teachers that I used to think spoke superfast I am more than used to their speed. Still would like to take a french course if I could, but of course I cant cuz i have too many classes and they are right on the time when the french courses are. Add to it the comments from everybody both French and Non French "Hec gives no importance to languages, and languages courses are not very well taught"... So motivating.

Overall really enjoying my time over here. Im leaving for 16 days in xmas.... but upon my arrival all the internationals will be gone. Either cuz they are all having more than a month vacations or because their courses here will end. Sadly I think my weekends in January might be much more boring. But my guide Miquel, to whom I only have to pay 1cent everytime he shows me Paris will be around. The french obviously tend to leave very often....leaving the campus extremly desserted on the weekends. In a way it shows u the weekend is here, so you are more relaxed. There is nothing as great as going to eat in the cafeteria on friday night when there are no ques or people pushing you. Sunday night you hear french all around, the place is crowded: The week is ready to start again and people are back.

I wish I could be dreaming of where I want to go soon : Nepal,Mongolia,Bhutan,Myanmar, Uganda... but currently I got a few other priorities to set...

Today I recommend : musicovery.com --> Something useful had to come out of the marketing classes. Check it out! Choose your ambiance and dancing style and you will have your own interactive webradio with no ads :)


---- Hey! I typed quite a bit in 6 minutes! Im fast man! :) ( Im not throwing flowers at myself!)

To be continued in the future...

Me. Jouy-en-Josas.Lu et approve.23.11.07. 19:07. Pitch Dark outside. Sitting in my room with my Toshiba and a Candle.

Oh! I never ever made an entry in Japan! I was there for 1 entire week and no entry...shame on me! I have a headache at the moment, so I dont want to have to look up all the stuff on the internet (names etc.. shamefull I forgot the name of many places..).

So far Paris is treating me quite well. France is quite restricted due to strikes...once someone starts strinking in this country everybody does...the trains are on strike. You can still go to Paris,but some lines are cut. However,life in the campus remains the same. Thursday night parties...this one wasnt so good. Restaurant opening for short times. Doing some presentations, working at the "dish washer" of the university restaurant, speaking more catalan than french...

This saturday I decided to stay in. Basically everybody left to Paris but I decided to concentrate on some insleeping and homework. Last saturday I did a bit of discovering Chatelet and the 6th arrondisment. Loved that area, relax, less touristy, nice gardens. Of course Alexandra and I stoped at a well known place where they sell macarons (this typical sweet thing that comes in all possible colors..) and also into a suposately famous bakery for our afternoon Pain Au Chocolat! Oh and let me not forget we did some shoe shopping too! I should be keeping up with this blog as much as I did during the summer!! Like this you could have all the detail reports on Paris! During the week nothing exciting, first exam at HEC. Most of the pics are still in my camera, so I leave you with a small image of the Campus at dawn...

...radios berguedanes..

Volia fer referencia a un article que m ha arribat avui de RadioBerga, el qual podeu trobar a

http://www.fotolog.com/sera_un_dia/32079583

No tinc paraules....us enganxo l article i la foto.

LA XIXI TORNA A CATALUNYA!!
La terra dels bocarons, les olivetes, el pa amb tomàquet, el sol, la gespeta i la bona vida!! jaaaaaaaaaajajaajjaaaaaa!! Ja és oficial! i el poble català esta eufòric amb aquest anunci, des de terres parisines, tant i tant esperat!! Pobles, viles i ciutats ja preparen la gran festa del Catxondeig'07 per tal de celebrar com és degut aquesta històrica efemèride!! Les catalanes i els catalans surten a engalanar carrers i places, i a preparar ballarugues de les bones per la seva arribada, que esta prevista pel dia 27 d'aquest mes. Ahir, per exemple, a la plaça de la Patum de Berga es van congregar centenars de berguedans i berguedanes per demostrar públicament la seva alegria tant bon punt van saber la gran noticia, diuen que la festa ha durat fins ben entrada la matinada i a acabat amb aldarulls per culpa reaccionaris que no estaven prou informats. A més, l'alcalde ahir en ple extraordinari va proposar que el té sigui beguda oficial i els Pets sonin pel fil musical de la ciutat durant les 24 hores del dia. Es va aprovar, evidentment, per unanimitat.

Això és tot,

M.M.

Radio Berga

Catalunya.

There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

The Beatles- In my Life

Photography in Laos

I just look through the camera and press the shutter, and its the kids, the grandparents, the families, the lonley man, all of them who are not aware that im capturing the miliseconds. Thats why i liked my Sony Camera so much. Small and handy, can be easily hidden and opened, take the picture without making noise and move on.
Generally I take too many pictures, i find it amusing the expression that some people have in their eyes. When its time to go through the pictures I go too quickly, just rotating them and not looking at the details. A few days ago I found this picture that I took in the Bolevan Plateau in Laos. And I realized I had never gone into the details of all the pictures I took that day. That was a fun photographic day, so much fun that both my batteries ended up dying...We went village by village and market by market looking at the different living styles. I remember these kids quite well. The one in the middle playing with his tape which later fell, the girl in the right smoking and smiling ... They are probably still in that small town which I cant remember its name.

This is so not fair. As a punishment to the behaviour of certain people thursday night, all my builduing has no warm water nor heating during the ENTIRE weekend. Thanks god i got my own heating. No Comment. We deserve some more normal conditions. Are we meant to have a cold by monday? Its cold,really cold...

No trobo una cosa i la he estat buscant i buscant i buscant..ara continuare la recerca, pero aquesta foto ha fet que la recerca fos mes lleu... Que fots amb gots tant grans??? Aiiiii BERGA FOR EVER :) Aquest cop ens ensenyaras les salomons i podrem pujar al pis?

Pa quando la prossima?

Studing in French takes a while longer than in English. Currently reading Les Marques, capital de l entreprise with an online translator infront of me and a dictionary by the side. Topic intresting but 15opages for next class in french is not amusing...and for marketing the luxe a case in french. Working with a super nice girl who speaks french at the speed of light, so im going to have to ask her to slow down or I wount get a thing... Preparing cases and studing that is what took my entire day. Together with some technical issues, bathroom is cloted and they need to come fix it or i cant really wash my face there...horrible! Also trying to find a job on campus, contacted the boss of the resaurant to see if I can work there...(not fun,but good money).

Last afternoon I went to Jouy en Josas with Alexandra, on our way uphill we found the door of the "shortcut to the town" closed, so we had to walk all the way around (15 minutes longer)...luckily we had no heavy stuff with us. I took the opportunity to go to the patisserie to buy myself a typical pain au chocolat. Currently also bussy updating CVs to find internships, buff! And today signing up in the associations of the university..... No Comment! Oh and planning my xmas holiday. Yeah, another trip :) Probably destination Doha,Qatar and somewhere else ...

And I was forgeting to mention that today Alexandra, Marlene,Marc and I had lunch at the chinese restaurant of Jouy en Josas. This time we got the privalege of getting a ride there its good to have catalan friends with cars :) No specific comments will be made on the restaurant, I will look for one in Versailles next time. Picture from the restaurant where Marc was starting to get a bit desprerate after the bartender ignored him everytime...he was a ghost, hilarious ...until he got up and went to give them the money...

Oh, and after luch short stop int he supermarket to buy a bottle of bailys.... Im not trusted enough so the bottle is saved at Marlene´s room..

Tommorrow night, Thursday Party on Campus plus dinner with the people of my class...woho! Together with 6 hours of classes during the day ( mentally getting ready)...

This was my aquisition in Tokyo.... better prices than in Europe impossible, and finally a chance to take even better pictures. Nikon lenses are meant to be one of the best... must just improve the technique. Im too used to carry the small camera which is always handy for hidden pictures .... Time to go capturing the world and the sights of the people around the world, to capturate the moments and the exactacy and problems....time to press the shutter!

My new baby Nikon D40x...

Un jour à Paris!

Hier nous sommes allees a Paris...and now im changing to english before more people complain about the language of this blog. Yesturday i woke up at 8.30. Wow, a sunday at 8.30! By 9 i was having breakfast in the cafeteria with Carlos,Sonia,Alexandra,Marta,Marta,Miquel etc...so we were meant to leave by 10 but that just didnt happened. Finally we arrived at the Jouy en Josas train station and waited for an eternity ( note to self for the third time : MUST LOOK AT SCHEDULES BEFORE LEAVING!) In Versailles (only 2 stops further) we had to change trains, got the right train...by then Minda who had left uni 30 minutes after us had already catched up with us. Everyone went to see the tour eiffel etc...but Alexandra and I headed to Monmatre, a beautiful neighborhood where you find the Sacre Coeur and the Moulin Rouge et tout ça... We did a lot of walking up up hill, up steps up streets. They were really beautiful with traditional shops. The worst of all, the tourist crowd. Yeah, I was one of them ...and walking with a map and my new nikon baby i couldnt seem more like a tourist...but it was a great day. In a way the tourist crowd made me feel like i was in the middle of Staromeska .... However the cute architechture, small alleys, narrow streets, specialized shops, and cafes made the neibourhood beautiful. The sun was once again shining so that added to the day... The way back to the uni involved another odissy, but we made it right on time for the cafeteria food opening times (7-8) you surely dont want to miss ur slot...And in the evening being quite dead,relaxing movie night in the room and then time to sleep...classes today started at 8..buah!

Plese note that a night at MoulinRouge with Show and Dinner costs 175 euros...there are a couple of cheaper shows but nothing gets cheap. Also, I found the location of moulin rouge not to be attractive. I thought it was going to be in a small alley but it was in one big boulevard...and it didnt look as "traditional" as I was expecting it to be...

I still have to learn how to use my Nikon in manual mode...i know how to do it, but i dont know exactly what should be the right apperture&shutter speed to put for every type of picture, thus if I go doing tries everytime i take a picture it takes too long. For now just working with "automatic" making some pictures not that great.

First of all I finally have a mobile phone. To get a mobile phone i had to present a photocopy of my passport, official statement that i live in France, Bank Statement, and a cheque or a bank card..buah! And then wait wait wait till they got the mobile phone and the sim card ready. For 1 euro i got an LG chocolate phone, so now i have a cool new technological phone. Im still in love with my old Nokia, but well im switching to LG now :) If you are in france you better be fashionable..hahaah jk! But yeah i love the color of my new phone. Miquel and Marlene also got the same phone but in black. So now i can send 500 sms per month plus talk 1 hour per month for 20 euros. Cant complain...There is also a french law that if u leave the country the contract MUST be stoped as the operaator isnt able to offer you their services. So afterall everything is great. Plus vodafone has great roaming and when ill be in Spain ill be able to call for quite cheap prices. So after a wasted friday where all i did was go to the supermarket. We headed to a party in Paris..in an awkward place. We were meant to be VIPs but it felt more like we were in a ranch. We left our rooms at 6 buses left at 7.30 got to the place at around 9, starving! Bearly any food until later....and then the good music only started at 1, but 1.45 we left... Not bad but not the best party in my life. So life in the middle of the forest remains calm....a bit to study and and internships to search for...buff!Cant believe THE SUN IS OUT STILL!!! NL suxs compared to this :D but I do miss the dutch ads :(

So I started the classes...all french and us the 4 foreigners, fede,francesca,miquel and I...Luckily im (up to now) understanding all that the teacher sais, even though he speaks at 400 words per minute. Will see how things progress... One of my courses "marketing research" (yuck) is in english, so that is great!!! Everyweek the schedule changes, but i have officialy holidays from the 26th of october till the 4th of november :D Planing a trip for at least a couple days during that week!! :D Some classes begin as early as 8 am and some finish as late as 7:30 pm..tsk!!!

Marlene has taught me to drink who knows how many liters of water per day which is making me run to the toilet every 10 minutes. I guess its healthy,plus it has made me walk around uni to discover every single corridor in search of a toilet...found a couple in very hidden places..

In the meanwhile i opened two bank accounts, one cuz i needed it, and another one cuz they were giving you 155 euros for free for using it. Read the small captions in the offer and it seemed fine so once i get the 155 euros im gona close the account :D I still dont have a french mobile, as to have that i first need to recieve some papers from the bank which i didnt get. Frustration. So tonight barbecue at the lake, yesturday shows made up by students and drinks at the bar, tommorrow Mindas party in Versailles, friday night club in Paris...Its hard to get a rythm here with all the partying of the last few weeks...but things should get a bit more quiet in the next.

So far the library in this uni suxs. Small and noisy, cant study there. The level so far of one of the courses seemed very low....but hej, its just the first class. We will see how things go. The food of the cafeteria is nothing extraordinary, relatively repetitive. The meat is always quite raw and the fish quite dry..but its cafeteria food so what can u expect?

No sabia que hi habia tot un moviment per ferme tornar a BCN...

Què hi has perdut a París? Saps que Barcelona mola mil vegades més que París (i Sant Cugat ja no diguem) i el Pi d'en Xandri ni et comento, i la cantonada dels dos carrers de ca nostre no és pot expressar en paraules!Podríem fer milions de truites de patates amb ceba, podríem anar al Joan Pros a comprar gelats, podríem anar a l'Altaïr plegades, podríem culturitzar-nos (i el més important fer intercanvi de culturitzacions), podríem recuperar gespeta i hores d'estudi, podríem anar a Manlleu, a Berga, a la Patum, podríem celebrar el 23 d'abril plegades i Festa Major de Sant Cugat!, t'estalviaries calers en economia domèstica... però el que és més important de tot... gaudiriem dels menjars gratuïts del poble plegades!Mil i una raons més per elegir Sant Cugat i no París.

----Mindru

I Xixi torna de París (o de mig del bosc on et trobes jajaja) torna a Catalunya, enlloc més del món trobaràs la nostra gresca, el nostre caliu i sobretot sobretot el nostre pa amb tomàquet, acompanyat d'una bona truita de patates o d'un bon bistec adobat, d'aquells per llepar-te'n els dits!

---- Marià


wau...potser si s adereixen mes de 10 persones torno...hahaha pero espero que com a minim em vingueu a buscar al Prat.

Paris

Paris,Paris,Paris....wow! Last nite was my first nite out in Paris and what a great city. Being here actually feels like being in Barcelona. Up till now i have had sun everyday...how amazing is that!! To continue the city is bigggg full of cars,people in the streets, big trees like in BCN and lots of food places open till late. And now add this to it, the city reminds me of Prague. Cablestone streets, churches,bridges, A RIVER!...So Paris is basically the best of Prague and the best of Barcelona together, I guess it couldnt remind me more of home. So so far a magnificent city! I have discovered almost nothing,but i love it! Yeah, in a few weeks i might be complaining about the french and about france, but this city seems impossible to be despised...

I did a bit of a cultural visit a couple days ago with Marlene and Miquel. I have to say that the uni is not sooo far away from Paris if you are lucky to get the trains on time. We missed two trains and thus it took us 1.45 h to get to tour eiffel, but on the way back we made it in 45 min..not bad!! The city is good, unfortunately Im not behind the bar anymore and thus have to be spending this year,which is quite impossible when you are not saving..tsk! I cant believe they didnt have Lonley Planet France/Paris in cambodia,cuz now i must go in the search for a new one...

Classes are starting next week, so these are my last days of holidays. Cant exactly complain after an around the world trip of more than 3 months...looking forwards to the start of classes and meeting new classmates. For the moment I have been hanging around with all the exchange students (Cems,Double Master, Normal exchange) that appear around my builduing...its cool. I dont think I had spoken this much Spanish or Catalan in the past 10 years. Always sorrounded by all nationalities but Spanish/Catalan its completely awkward now to live two doors away from catalan people....!!! The uni seems to have lots of parties...every thursday there is a big party, and today its the big one. I have heard the library is ridicolously small and that you cant study there. Thats not that handy as I dont really want to be sitting in my room studing all the time,specially since walls are thin and you hear every individual that walks through the hallway.

And Im listening to dutch radio relatively often, hahahaha im losing my dutch though :( But its always funt o have an update on the verkeer (however thats meant to be spelled...) of the Randstad and on the weer...! :)

So yeah I still havent seen Paris...and I do attend what they call HEC PARIS...My university is officially in the middle of the forest. If i hadnt said it its 20 min walk uphill from a town which only has a church,2 banks,a post office, a bakery and a train station...We dont have a common room which means parties happend in the hallways of the residence (not nice when u must study or want to sleep)...but its cool to bump into the same people all the time. Did I say that the uni restaurant made for lunch today the same they made for dinner..TSK.. by june I will officially be exhausted of eating cafeteria food...yuck! Plus they only open about 1 hour per lunch 1 per dinner...! But besides all the complaining life is good, enjoying my last summer beers and last days of holidays as I see how some have already begun classes. Getting to know more and more people and geting extremly confused as I hear and "talk" catalan,spanish,english,german,french,italian daily...this happens when the CEMS ppl live in the same appartment as you do.

Currently wondering who is in the party downstairs, so loud and im tiered, hopefully I fall asleep soon ....Next week I promise an update with how a class taugh in french is, and how my french class mates are. HEC is a very elite school in france, making its students belive that cuz they are in HEC they are the kings of the world..we will see how my classmates turn out, for now I have already met Fede (italian),Miquel(spanish) and Francesca (italian)the only 3 other foreigners that I think will be in my class...

New Home - Paris,France.

Wow!! I cant believe I left this in Singapore....after Singapore i had a 20 minute visit in China (running transit in HK) and then headed to Tokyo...then NL and since yesturday I officially live à Paris! Ulalalala too much to catch up on a blog. Japan definately deserves an entry and will soon come...but for now Paris.

First of all my good bye from Holland was very intresting, i didnt remember that mariastraat had so much alcohool stored in their house, trully suprising. Also being 5 and the last day 6 girls in a flat can be an experience.... As well I was well unaware of the disco that Irum had hidden in her room...but seems like things have changed a lot since the Womans have all formal jobs and are finishing or have just finished their internships. You can already imagine how things went if i mention that the last day in NL was spend in Ikea...but we had a nice celebration in Fiddler too...dinners and dutch traditions were involved in all days....

Paris, well i love to say i live in Paris but lets face it i live in Jouy en Josas.... No, sorry I live uphill from Jouy en Josas...but jouy en josas is a nice small town, tranquil and beautiful. Nobody would say this is close to Paris. Its basically 5km from Versailles...In fact by public transport it seems to take a long time to go to Paris they say about 1 hour...to be seen and soon reported. Well i officially dont have a kitchen, dont even have a shared kitchen or fridge, so I must eat all the time in the school restaurant. The restaurant opens from 7 to 9 for breakfast 1 hour for lunch and 1 for dinner...so better not mis the eating slot! The room is big, and im happy as I had to bring all my things from the Netherlands... A lot! Even unsufull things....but who knows when ill need them..i just dotn think im going to live again in NL so no need to leave things there. I still left a few behind that I shall pick up soon. So far the people ive met are quite nice so im not all alone, a lot more must come this week so lots more to know... Cant complain about the campus either, nice. Unforutnately there are only 3 toilets for the entire floor of rooms :S But everybody shares a shower and Ive got my own, so ive been lucky! Everybody has a balcony and I dont...but Whatever! :) So far only been to Versailles and just for a walk, had to take a train...you start valuing NS once you see the trains here but must say that so far so good...

aurevoir!

Singapore

This is my last post from Singapore. Currently at Changi airport...what i call the "international airport"...LOL...how in earth could Singapore have a domestic airport?I was so dumb that today when the taxi driver asked which terminal I was going I answered "the international one". He looked perplexed, so I said "hold on Ill check"..."ahh, terminal 1 please..". What a geek a country which is a city cant have a domstic airport!

Im sick, or something is wrong. Dont have much energy and lots of headaches. Our luggages have both lost 2 kilos and I cant figure out why. Maybe we left things at shabs house? Hmm no idea. As far as i know we only left Miquels pink socks and pants. Its all my fault, i put my new red Angkor Beer shirt in his washing which made all his white stuff go red. Yeah, Yeah i know you shouldnt mix color and white... (whatever!). So he had to through out a bunch of his socks...oops! Tonight the roles had reveresed, he didnt sleep at all and I had a very nice night. Except for him waking me up at 3am to tell me he had lost all his money. When I woke up at 6 we found his money nicely placed in the place where it always was...what a relief! Hahah Miquel hasnt been allowed into the lounge this time. He always comes in as a guest but this time not. Anyways this lounge is definately not as nice as others so i think he isnt missing out on much. He is probably sleeping somewhere else in the airport.

Regarding Singapore its been a nice visit, but both of us were really exhausted. Yesturday we headed to my families center "vivo shopping mall" ..woho! Then we took a monorail to Sentosa island. Sentosa was nice, its like a resort island where you can waste all your money. Well we didnt go on any ride or have any great lunch but it was nice to see. I remembered sentosa quite differently. Sentosa is always under reconstruccion so they were builduing more and more attractions for tourists. What stroke me is that there were quite a few beaches. Really nice beache actually, white sand, palm trees...but the view was of huge ships and the port ...trully the last place you want to go to! Horrible!It felt really fake. We decided to make our way back to mainland by the cable car. Maybe not a good idea since we are both a bit afraid of hights. Specially Miquel who ended up closing his eyes for most of the way...the cable car was very very high. We also saw the Raffles hotel, which has beautiful gardens inside and passed through orchard street (big shopping mall where I got all the newest prada and gucci complements :P). On our way back we took the metro and walked what we thought would be a short walk. 1 hour later (after a 5 min. stop at the supermarket) we arrived home, exhausted...no comment. I then had a six feet under marathon and thats all I watched...

And now im heading to my last destination...last of this trip :( I cant believe september 3rd is approching, it felt so far away and now its almost here. Im heading to Tokyo (via HK..:) ). Im quite excited about it! I lived there from 1989 to 1990 and then went back to visit in 1992...since then ive heard a lot about Tokyo, ive heard my dad talk non stop about going back, but we never could. Now we are going. My parents are already there, and his friend is lending us his second appartment so we got free housing :) We will be there for 1 week, traveling around Japan. We already got our rail passes so we can travel all over japan with almost every train. Im so excited, i cant believe im going back...Cant wait to see the inmense city,japanese tv and all those famous spots i have been seeing in the pics of when I was a child, although I guess everything will have change a lot. And i really want to go to Ginza. The downpoint, its going to be sooo expensive. I think im going to want to buy so many small cute japanese things, but it will be expensive. Also, this week is when im going to regret having forgotten all my japanese...but hope to pick it up a bit.

Im happy we are changing planes in HK just cuz HK airport is one of the best of the world...so i feel like seeing it again! We do have a short connectionso I hope they work well with their logistics and our luggage makes it to Narita Airport!

Hope ( lots of hoping in these last paragraphs). I get a bit better to enjoy Tokyo at its most!! And I hope i survive the heat! After visiting my old home, Tokyo Ill be coming back home to NL, to face the reality of moving again to a new home in Paris ...

This is what i was talking about... Singapore and its laws, these are among others...

Smoking is not allowed in public buses, taxis, lifts, theatres, cinemas, government offices, and in air-conditioned restaurants and shopping centres. First-time offenders face a maximum fine of S$1,000. Smoking is allowed in air-conditioned pubs, discos, karaoke bars and nightspots.

As an extension of the "no littering" mantra, the import, sale and possession of chewing gum is banned. You are also not allowed to bring in chewing gum for your own consumption. In short, no chewing gum whatsoever.

To maintain the clean and green city, there are strict laws against littering of any kind. First-time offenders face a fine of up to S$1,000. For repeat offenders--it's a fine of up to S$2,000 and a Corrective Work Order .

The death penalty is mandatory for those convicted of trafficking, manufacturing, importing or exporting more than 15g of heroin, 30g of morphine, 30g of cocaine, 500g of cannabis, 200g of cannabis resin and 1.2kg of opium

Singapore, 24 August 2007

Dear People,

Did anybody know that this existed???

Logisticians without borders!! Their mission statement is: To provide significant added value to Relief Agencies worldwide through the provision of volunteer logistician services including the sourcing, solicitation, purchase and provision of required logistics equipment, services and relief materials.


Yours ,

The logistics geek

Hello from Singapore... Ahh!It seems like the exahustion of the past month(s) has fallen on me. We arrived in singapore and we had 4 free hours as we waited for shab (he is housing us :) ) to get home and go have dinner. The best idea I came up to was to lay in the bed and relax,while miquel wanted to go out...this clearly shows that im not well, im exhausted. We just stayed at home... I was meant to sleep but ended up spending the 4 hours watching my first cds from cambodia, namely six feet under which is great! Then instead of going out i ended up going to bed...that was my first night in singapore, very very very intrseting as you can see.

At least today we headed to little india and to Arab street....what can I say about this city. I guess that its the cleanest of all asia, you cant spit in the floor,you cant throw gum in the floor. Everything is controlled, actually you cant even cross the streets if there is a red light...freaky! They are quite serious about everything. In my entry slip it clearly sais that anybody dealing with drugs will be threaten to death....scarry. Anyhow this country which is as big as a city, and a small island is a cosmopolitan mix of arab,indian,chinese and i guess singaporean people. Its strange how things change from one street to the other as you move from little india to the arab part... When we arrived at the airport i was dunted by the hard task of looking for Shab. The description i got was "Look for an indian guy". Alright...the airport was full of indian people. So then I was told " he looks brasilian"...how in earth is an indian/brasilian guy meant to look? Well finally he appeared and we found him due to his real madrid tshirt (bad choice of clothing for the day..!!). Did I even mention that we flew for two hours from Bangkok to Singapore on a 747, and we even got first row sits :D Awesome... Apparently the 747 was doing Hong Kong,Bangkok,Singapore,Hong Kong...seems like its a very famous route cuz it was full.

We went for dinner at McDonalds at 8pm and this is the awkward thing about singapore. Mcdonalds at 8pm is full of kids with their school uniforms. Wouldnt you expect kids to go home?No, it turns out that afterschool they just go to mcdonals and study study study and study. And indeed, thats what they were doing, books and notebooks open and studing. Awkward! I went to a place full of electronics today to ask how much a Nikon SLR would cost as im quite intrested in one. Well the service was shit,but the prices great...so it seems that i might come back to singapore soon for a good SLR camera, who knows! They were seriously cheap compared to europe.

Malaysia is right here and you can get there by bus car by crossing a bridge. So the bus we took today from the center to our house had a sign saying that you must have your pasport with you if you go to a certain stop. Quite funny to have a city that is a country and to see signs that tell you to carry your passport. There seems to be quite a lot of people that live in Malysia and cross the border everyday to come to work here or study....how fun can that be.

Thats all for now folks :D

Still waiting in the airport. Was ment to edit my previous post, but how am i meant to do it if the entire blogger is in Thai?Its hard to understand what it sais so ill just create a new post... Really want to get to Singapore, and get some sleep. As always didnt have too much last nite as im flying today... I tried reading my book and im still wondering why everybody loves so much Life of Pi, i dont find the magic in it and im almost finishing it by now...

Actually we got to the airport so early.But it doesnt matter im in the lounge with my free food and internet (which ill soon miss :( ) This airport is immense and it took us a while to find our lounge. Walking distance in this airport are crazy. It surely is a nice,huge,full of shopps and modern airport but you should get free wheel chairs to move around. Last time i was here it took me ages as well. An airport definatively not reccommended for elderly, unless they want to do their last marathon....

We finally left KoSanRoad behind and all the backpackers. Grr!It was cozy being with backpackers and all organized for backpackers. But it kind of drove me nuts as well...specially when you see so many on their party/drinking holiday, which i dont specially like.

Did i ever mention that the last day in Cambodia we were "forced" to go with our backpacks on motrobikes since the minibus wasnt showing up...after having told everybody during the trip that i did not like motorbikes i was forced to get into one not to miss our bus. And woho it was quite cool. Although i must admit that i told the driver to go slowly and he was going slowly saying "no worry..i see its frist time on motrobike..." wasnt first time,but it was in Cambodia and that is soemthing else... So fine, my next South East Asia trip will involve more travels on motorbikes.

Oh! Very intresting in cambodia everything goes with Dollars. The bank would not change 100 dollar bill notes. They would only accpet the 50 and 20 dollar ones. Basically 4,000 riel is 1 dolla. So 1,000 is 25 cents. Prices are generally quoted in dollars and you pay in dollars and then the small things or the cents parts are payed in Riel! Strange but true..we were astonished at the beggining when a big bank did not want our 100 dollar notes.

Also all our buses were always from Korea..and here comes the worst, everysingle bus ride in cambodia had a tv. A tv where they would put a karaoke super loud cambodia cd.. 7 hours of full volumue karaoke can drive you nuts, even if you have your mp3 at maximum volume. We did sing for 3 minutes while cambodia people in the bus glanzed at us and smiled..and then came the rest of the hours trying to avoid the karaoke... At least most of the buses in cambodia had AC,something that lacked in Laos...

And in case you travel this part of the world, be aware. Night buses seem not to exist in this country..so whether you want it or not you will be forced to travel by day and waste your time from place to place...

And once you come from Cambodia and Laos..make sure you have some money left for your arrival in Bangkok cuz Thailand will feel extremly expensive!!! What i spend in Laos in 5 days was spend it thailand in 2.5 days..horrible :( And in laos i got so much more out of the money....

Food in laos is cheaper than cambodia...but transport is all monopolized and thus prices sky rock...

Cheapest room ive been to 50 cents (dollars) per night per person in Don Det.
Cheapest internet 25 cents (dollars) per 1 hour of internet
Cheapest visa thailand -->Free!
Most beautifull place --> impossible to decide..
Food that i have eaten the most --> (it was quite full of western food everywhere) but definatively had too many banana/pinapple shakes and panckakes...and got a bit fed up of fried rice.
Most relaxed people to talk to --> the monks, cuz they understand you quite well and are very friendly...and Rural people who just want to say Hi and Smile.
Most beautifull country --> Laos! Tranquil...a place where a smile and a sabaidi will get you very far...bargaining exists, but nothing too hardcore. Maybe they have just boosted prices by 2 dollars. Unlike in thailand where they go ahead and triple prices. hey, im serious even didac now thinks Laos is better than Cambodia.... :)
Annoying tourists --> Keep away from big groups of english tourists that are dressed like they are going to a disco while they are in the middle of the mountains.... And be carefull with the big patriotic israeli travelers. Also be aware of those that buy all their travel clothing in a high trend shop (catala:rollo,coronel tapioca) in their country before leaving. They will be wearing a t shirt that costed them 40 euros while they could buy it all in the local country for 2 dollars. You can easily spot them, they are acting like showoffs and being mad at everybody and everything.
Souvenier not to forget --> Photocopied books that look bran new,cds,dvds, and then all the wooden things like buddhas that might break on the way home (i didnt get any woho!) etc... Oh, bracelets and scarfs.... and most important a fewT shirts with the brand of local beer and to compensate for your layed back holiday and keeping in mind that you do have a job or job interviews when you are back dont forget to get your own tailor made suit in Bangkok... :)
Next destination --> Happy I did not go to Northern Laos and Myanmar so that I have a reason to be back :)

p.s. when you go to bed if you decide to rely on your friend to put an alarmclock i suggest you check that the alarm clock is set at the correct time. For instance 00:30 rather than 12:30!! Also make sure that your room has at least a fan unless you want to die in the middle of the night.

Didac and Anna are gone to catch the qantas flight that comes from sydney and goes to London and then barecelona...we have one night left ...Then heading to singapore. Last time i was there i was 6 so long long long time ago!! Really looking forwards to the cosmopolitan city where people cant even spit or through gum in the street...waiting for a big big change!!

once again..internet credit ending.

Hello from bangkok...cant believe we are here. Finally in a city that appears in the weather news in Cnn and BBC...finally in the hub of south east asia... It feels awkward to be here and have crossed the border. We have had a 7 hour trip. The border crossing took 1.5 hour but we finally made it. ONce we crossed i thought i was in another planet..it seemed like we were in a first world country. ANd that is mainly cuz the road from Battambang to Poipet (cambodian border city near thailand) was an awfull road. After crossing we took a miniban and the highway was amazing....all paved!!! No dust!! No crazy driving!!!no honing! Finally after 4 hours we entered this imense city. It seemed as if we were entering barcelona. Full of highways lights, lights in the highway!! And huge adds....Its hard to believe that Laos and Cambodia are sooo close and yet sooo different. That we have "left" all those people behind and those cities...just awkward. Specially awkward since we are in KohSanRoad the backpacker sanctuary of Thailand. This is a street made for backpackers. I think thats all ive seen since i have arrived in this area...in a way really horrible. Its like vang vieng in Laos or Lake side in Phom Penh cambodia....

IN our last nightin battambang we went to see a pagoda...it was closed but full of monks who were looking at them. We ended up sitting with them and chating with them for a good 30 minutes..they were so nice and open..some were really shy..just wanted to practice their english. They told us to join them in their praying so we were invited into the temple to see how they preid....

Tommorrow a day of shopping and to urism in bangkok and then heading to singapore!!!! I so want to go back to cambodia and laos..but i know that when time comes to choose a destination i always choose a place that i havent been :(

INternet credit ending!!!!!

...And now already in Battambang...Yeah, havent updated for while.We have been in Siem Reap for 3 nights... We were forced to buy a 3 day ticket to see Angkor. They have a 1,3 or 7 day ticket. 7 was clearly too much and 1 clearly too little...so no option. We saw Angkor during two days...Both waking up very early. Specially the second night when the electricity went off and the fan stoped working. I was awake by 5 and rumbling around the city till5:45 when my tuck tuk come to pick me up to see angkor. The heat was trully horrible...the sauna got worst everyday that passed by...Angkor was really nice. Very huge. The first day we went to visit some temples far away by tuck tuck. We spend from 6 am till 1pm in various temples...leaving us trully exhausted. We had to climb up a few and it was hotttt...The second day we visited the famous Angkor Wat . Lazy Anna and I went there by tuck tuck....sportive miquel and didac rented bikes...And biked for 7 hours!! We amazingly met in quite a few temples...! The people from our hostel were very nice..it was like a student flat. There were like 10 young tuk tuk drivers living there...And they took care of everything and had their night joints and watched tv. I was watching a soccer game last nite withe them and Miquel..quite amussing.

Angkor was also full of tourists,but less than i expected. I reallyliked the trees that were entretwained in the rocks...the ruins were quite nice. If anybody goes i specially recommened the Byon and Angkor Wat as the two must see...Pictures to come up soon!

I officially have a record number of pictures...so whoever wants to watch them better be patient.Tommorrow destination is Bangkok...to do a last visit and get ready to catch a plane to Singapore.

They say the boat trip from Siem Reap to Battambang is one of the most beautifull of the country. But we came here by bus...thourh a road that took a while to get through...buah!Horrible...Next time must take the boat!

So today we went from the coast till the north of the country. After a 10 hour ride we are finally in Siem Reap. Only 8km away from Angkor. There are no guesthouses in Angkor so allt he tourists stay here. As you can imagine we had a super intresting day in buses today. I think we are doing pretty well with our creativity in terms of game creation. I think we have played to sing songs, to guess mysterious characters, letter games,card games, sunscreen games.. And in addittion we have attempted to communicate in cambodian with cambodian people but that last one was definately not a success. We thought we were going to arrive in Siem Reap at around 7pm and at 5pm we see a bunch of ppl running through the street by the bus. All with signs all knocking on our windows. It was clear we had arrived. All the tucktucks wanted us to go with them. This is the thing they are very intrested in getting you to a guest house where they might get a commission...And even more they want you to hire them for the 2 or 5 day visit of Angkor. So we got down and ive never been followed by more tuck tuck drivers than this town. First step was getting our backpacks..already an oddisy. Then with didac and miquel we were trying to decide which tucktuck out of the 100 to take. They were standing 50cm from me and i couldnt hear them. Everybody was shouting prices and guesthouses names..it was nuts. I started cracking up..the situation was funny. Finally we said DIDAC is deciding...so a large majority went around him. At the end we got two tuck tucks one for Anna and Miquel and one for Didac and Me. Finally we were out of the mess.

I must admit i slept quite a bit on the bus..but the road was narrower than the privous once we had been in. Lots of traffics. The driver kept honging and we moved from right to left of the rode as we tried to avoid cars,bicycles and motorbikes. If we didnt crash it was a miracle...We took a bus from the beach to Phom penh and there we switched...the switching also invoved 100tucktuck drivers attempting to take us to a guest house in phom penh! Well so this trip is almost coming to an end. We might stop at another city or we might go directly to Bangkok...

If I was an author i would have probably used the dark clouds from the morning to get the reader ready for what was meant to happend at the end of the day.

We finally got a day today where we could wake up late. And we have a tv in our room so we can get up to date with the news and even watch National Geographic Channel. After waking up late and geting Miquel off the tv we headed to the beach...it was quite late by then. The beach was relatively empty, the sea was a bit rough. People were still swiming and im sure I could have swam too but it was quite cloudy..very cloudy actually.We sat down and it started raining so we moved into one of the multiple beach shacks. We were consantly being followed and asked to buy bracelets,skirts,massages etc etc etc...I bought one bracelet. By now my arm is officially full of breacelets. green and yellow, pink and black, white, pink,yellow black, blue and white and gree black and yellow...love string bracelets and they are so cheap here..

Well the day went on and on and I moved back to the sand as it wasnt raining. I suddenly saw a bunch of ppl congregating in a spot in the beach and less people swiming. In our area there were maybe only about 2 tourist swiming.After a while they realized something was going on and they also got off the water. I didnt know what was going on,but i could only predict that someone was misssing. Lately ive been watching a lot of Surf Petrol in aussie tv so i figured everything would be fine. In the tv show about real problems in aussie beaches ive never seen anybody die... A skijet was going around the water looking for someone....After a long long long time everybody started running to a spot. All of this quite near from where we were. Didac started to walk,miquel followed and then i did. I was with some cambodian people who also went...Luckily i didnt see any person. But someone must have been laying int he middle of the people. ppl were waving at the skijet to come back...The cambodian ppl told me that a little kid had fallen of the skijet and had been missing for a long time. The waves had brough his body to the sand....After a while they took him away...and everybody followed. It only took 5 minutes for people to jump back in the water. I had been tempted to swim as the water was quite warm...but by then it was the last thing i wanted to do....

And tommorrow we are leaving. The beach isnt really my thing. Next place..Siem Riep to visit the famous AngkorWat!

First of all...and very important key knowledge.

LONELY PLANET is a Guidebook..in my opinion one of the best!!So make sure you buy lonley planet when you travel...or routard (i dont get comission!)

hello again from the cambodian sauna ...oh man this is a sauna!!! i havent seen a toilet today and i have drunk so much...At least we have a fan in the room..actually two. This internet is painfully slow...cant even open the mail. Frustrating. So today has been a cultural day, royal palace, killing fields of khmer rouge. Also visited the prison and some other temple..After a cultural day we ended up in the russian market again. I ended up being the craziest of the four so i bough...Lonley planets

lonley planet Japan --> its huge!
lonley planet New Zeland --> massive!
lonely planet Singapore --> smaller...
lonely planet Myanmar -->small and must go there soon
lonley planet south east asia -->actually miquel bought this one
lonley planet europe --> well we are meant to share it

also bought entire season of six feet under and coupling...
and ankor beer t shirt

ohhh im forgeting..got two dvds more.
And we had a luxurious italian lunch today...wonderfull!We were in need of it....sooo delcious. In the meanwhile we rented a tucktuck for the entire day...The tuck tucks here are very glorious. Two seats are uncofortable but the other two are like couches...side and with cushions. Like in the typical french indochina that you see in movies. Fantastic!
And tommorrow we are heading to the beach!! Thats all folks!

indeed i would have loved to buy more lonley planets. specially france, but they only had italy!

ulalala Hello from Cambodia! So since my last blog a lot has happened, we have gone through paradise thorugh a never ending road trip to cross the border, met many more idiots and ended up in exhausted and in bed by 8pm. We are currently in phom penh the capital of cambodia and have spend the afternoon in the russian market. Ive been forced to buy pants as they always break and i bearly had any left. Also bought the entire seasons of sex in the city for 12 dollars and a bunch more of cds..unfortunately the market was closing and we have to rush out of here. Well well,cambodia is what i came to south east asia for, some kind of organized chaos. Motorbikes transporting things, 4 matteresses, 100 chickens. Cars and trucks and tuck tucks dont stop when they need to turn its just a matter of pasing by the cars in the opposite direction. When we got off the bus we had an invasion of ppl..tucktuck tuck tuck where you go madam, madam wait, ...this reminds me of india and mostly of vietnam. Its another world that Laos...its hard to believe laos is so close by and so different.

Anyways after leaving Pakse we heaeded to Don Det, which is in one of the 4,000 islands in laos. There we got rid of our last kips...it was like being in paradise. We were in a small islands. Paying 50 cents per night in a bungalow with not many facilities. The island only got electricity insatled in 2006 and it was very scarced. So basically it was a world of hammocks,beerlao,renting bikes,sunset boat tour and relaxing. We spend till 2am in the hammocks and then went to sleep and during the day we biked and had lunch..The lunch took again two hours to prepare we were sooo hungry that after lunch we ended up sitting in the hammocks for who knows how many hours...Beautifull day.

The next day we went to Cambodia, to Kratie..and none of us knew what was expecting us. Oh lord...we left Don Det by boat...this wooden boat. Ill post pictures of boats here cuz they are quite not the ones you would have in mind. Once we reached the otherside i had some issues to jumpof the boat but made it without falling into the mekong...Then we had to wait 1 hour for the minibus. minibus came, after 5 minutes we changed minibus. After 5 minutes we changed again. The worst of it all is taht we were travelling with some showoff asswhole german guy...very annoying. We then made it to the border. The road at the beggining was okay. And when we had 6km left we had to take an unpaved road all muddy and it took us 30 minutes to go throuigh it. Finally at the boarder we payed 2 dollars and were allowed to pass. The border was a wooden shack in the middle of the forest. With the policeman laying in hammocks and playing games...we walked a 100 meters to the cambodian side where they were also laying hammocks..Payed 2 dollars and passed in a bus which had no ac or nothing. It was an awfull bus. The worst of the worst. After 1 hour we had to take a boat. And they wanted us to pay more..so we all refused and payed. Then we had to wait 1 hour. Then we were finally taken to Kratie! Finally in kratie we left our stuff took a shower and quickly went to visit a famous stupa. We then had dinner adn we were all exhausted. I think nobody could even talk. At 8pm we went to bed and fell dead. Its just so hard to wake up late here all the time the latest we have woken up was 8. Tours and buses start sooo early!! This morning we took a bus at 7.15 to phom penh! It was a bus full of cambodians and a bout 6 tourists. But it was full of rich cambodians..And guess what we finally had AC!! Oh yeah!! After a 7 hour trip we reached the capital of cambodia had lunch and headed to the russian market to buy fake dvds etc :D

We got to be much more carefull here, so many more tourists, so many more ppl trying to jump on us. But its full of lonely planets at cheap prices. Its quite awesome!

btw did i ever mention that on our way from luang parabang to pakse we found in our bus some gusy with machine guns??It was not really nice nor cool...Here everybody speaks english its much more awesome. We are currently in the backpacker zone of phom penh...realxed,hammocks,music and backpackers...Quite awesome. Oh lord and this is a sauna, a true sauna ...i hope i survive the days i got left.

SO much more in mind i had and all if orgot sooo bye bye