Maybe you are wondering what is going with me, if I am still alive, if anything has happened to me since nothing new has come up on this page. Or maybe you don't and just think I am lazy or that my life in Singapore is boring. Actually over the past week or 2, I have been (trying) to study, get over with my reports, and be clear for the second half of the semester.

So I have been writing about interesting topics such as the lovely social security in France, the impact of the American current account deficit on the term structure of interest rates, or even the difficult matter of option pricing. If you want further info about any of these, just ask me, and I can send you my lovely reports. Or maybe you simply don't even know what the topic is about or don't give a **** about my academic researches, which I must confess are not the most fascinating occupation, but nevertheless interesting for me.

We are now Thursday evening, and as every other Thursday for the past 2 months, my life as been busy with getting up late, breakfast, lunch, and other getting the last things ready to go to Vietnam tomorrow night.

Vietnam?!!!?? Yes Vietnam.

Next week is recess week for students of NTU, so of course, all (most) exchange students are going abroad (or out of the city as far as Singapore is concerned). Some lucky people chose Thailand as a destination, they will be able to enjoy the lovely view of tanks and military tents in Bangkok, although it seems quite safe now. Most local students or other international students (basically Chinese) are not so lucky and will stay in our fantastic campus to work on their final year project, such as Yefei, my roomie and most likely all final year students. We exchange students, whose life is more relaxed than local students, will wish them good luck and go exploring neighbouring countries.

So Baptiste (French frog), Andrew (Aussie kangaroo), Erik and Omar (Mexican gringos), and myself (...) will be leaving on Saturday morning to Ho Chi Minh City in Southern Vietnam for one week, and travel throughout the Mekong Delta, and hopefully enjoy a loooooong Vietnamese massage. Just chillin'.

Keep an eye on this page in about 9-10 days, it will be flooded with a whole lot of new photos and adventures....

Hasta luego cabrones

According to my Risk & Insurance Professor, this is what would happen to 2 men and 1 woman left on a desert island depending on their nationalities:

One Italian would kill the other to have the woman,

The two Americans would have the woman together,

The two French would kill the woman to have each other,

The two Germans set up a strict weekly schedule for sharing the woman,

One of the Thais would rent out the women to the other for 2 bahts a night,

One of the Philippinos would kidnap the woman and ask the other one a ransom,

The two Singaporeans would wait for government instructions to know what to do with the woman


Welcome to the world

As I am only a beginner at blogging, I am still discovering the various functionnalities this website offers. I have changed one setting concerning the comments you can leave here, anyone is now allowed to write what he thinks of this page, good or bad, without registering. So just feel free to write what you think about this page, if you have any suggestions to make it better, if you want to meet me (?), or anything else, tell me.

But please leave your name so I know who I am addressing.

That's all folks!

Daddy and Nicola (my elder sister for those who didn't know) arrived in S'pore last Wednesday. After having shown them around the very centre of S'pore under the rain and having dinner at the son of my parents' neighbours in France on Thursday we decided to go to Malacca for the week-end, Nicola and Daddy then continuing the North towards KL, where they should right now. I had to be here today on Monday because I had a "quizz" in my Derivative Securities course, and I could not miss it, because studies should of course come before anything else, isn't it?

So we decided to meet at their hotel on Saturday around 9 so we would
have at least half of the day to spend in Malacca. Unsurprisingly, when I got to the Royal Newton Hotel, they were not ready, still having breakfast. So we left the hotel around 9.45.

We then took a taxi to the Woodlands checkpoint, located in the northern part of the island. We crossed the S'porean exit point, took the bus to cross the bridge to Johor Bahru, in Malaysia. As should be done, Nicola ad me entered the queue to go through Malaysian customs, and Dad went around because as a Chinese citizen, he needs a visa to enter the country. 10 minutes later he called to help him understand what the officer was explaining. He was actually saying that it was impossible to get a visa at this checkpoint and that we had to go through the second one to have it.

So we took a bus back over the bridge, to reenter S'pore. On the S'porean side, I crossed the border with no problem because of my student pass, but Nicola and Dad had a problem which made us waste another 30-45mins: the officers didn't quite understand the paper the Malaysian officer gave Dad saying he had been refused entry, and Nicola had the exit stamp from S'pore, but no entry stamp to another country, and the officers couldn't understand how it was possible...

We finally got through, took a taxi to the other checkpoint in the very Western side of S'pore, found out that it wasn't possible to cross it on foot, took a bus and MRT back towards the center, and took another bus which would allow us to cross the border...so tiring.

The final delay was getting the visa for Dad which took more than one hour, although they had told us 30 mins were enough. But I managed to arrange three places on a bus directly from the checkpoint to Malacca, saving the trip to Johor Bahru and then to Malacca. We arrived at the Mimosa Hotel at about 8.45 pm, more than 12hours after I had left the campus that morning. We went to get some food in the center and found Chinatown overcrowded because it was the evening open market and also a music festival in the streets that week end. Very enjoyable atmosphere, very joyful, but as usual, business is business. On Sunday we visited most of the town, which you can see on the photos, very small place Malacca, but very good for spending week ends in my opinion.

My final adventure this week end was getting back to the campus on a truck with locals who were glad to take for the ride, because I was unable to find the MRT station near the place where the bus from Malacca had dropped me.

That's what traveling is about, good and bad experiences. That's why i like it.





Children performing air guitar near the live music during the Malacca music festival






Malacca main square








Crowded streets on Saturday night

As most of you guys know, I am a pretty lazy person, so I always need a little delay to update my page when something happens. If I could do something to help I would, but I think it is already too late now.

So I just wanted to show you some pictures of the WOMAD festival we went to last Saturday in Fort Canning Park, Singapore. I was delighted when I heard there would be such an event around. I really miss all the live music I could find last semester in Poznan.
Before entering the park, we went to do our shopping for picnic at the local Carrefour, got some French baguette, French camembert, French cider, and various other food and beverages.... So we managed to have a nice meal sitting on the grass, which I had not done in a long while.

An intersting fact about that evening is that is was wearing my "Polska" (meaning Poland in Polish), and 2 groups of Poles, one from Warsaw and one from Gdansk came to ask me if I was Polish. Both groups had brought some Polish with them, it was such a pleasure to taste Zywiec and Warka beers again. I was wondering if would ever meet any Poles during my stay here, now that's done!

The main artist of the festival was Jimmy Cliff from Jamaica (I suppose you all know I Can See Clearly, the song from Rasta Rocket), who perfomed really well. We also saw a concert of Chico Cesar, a Brazilian latino singer, also really good. There also was a band of drumers who invited people to join in the rythm, and after the Jimmy Cliff concert, one of the stages turned into an open air dance floor, so we stayed there dancing on reggae-latino-various music, until about 3 am and then went for some local food.


Chico Cesar and his guys










Jimmy Cliff










Dancing all night long