La Rochelle

I write this 2 weeks into my move to La Rochelle, so you're hearing a happier and more adjusted me at this point. The first few days were rough, considering I found that I had landed myself in a pretty provincial French town where I didn't know enough French at all to get by. It's one thing to move to a different city, and quite another to move to a different continent while trying to figure out all the logistics of moving in another language. It's a lot of change all at once, and I guess it has taken me a couple weeks to feel finally settled in.

During my two year program at Group Sup de Co in La Rochelle, I chose to live with a host family for the first couple months. I figured it would give me a good base once I arrived and also help me practice more of my French by living in a French household. I've heard some horror stories about host stays, but mine has been really amazing so far and my landlady is great. She teaches Italian at the language institute, so she knows how to ease me into the language transition and she also doesn't know any English (which also forces me to speak French all the time). I'm pretty much constantly looking up what I need to say beforehand, in order to get my point across when speaking to her in person later.

View from my bedroom window. I live in a more residential neighborhood away from the city center, and you can see how peaceful - calm - and provincial the town is.
La Rochelle is a small town, so there isn't any public metro system and people rely on the network of buses and bicycles. Just about everybody owns a bike. I live a few kilometers from school so I bought a bike my second day in town so I wouldn't have to wait for the bus to get to school every day. I found this second hand bike at an old warehouse store and it may not be much to look at, but I figured the older and uglier it looked, the less likely it would be stolen. Makes sense, huh? Evidently the average student gets his bike stolen at least 2 times a year, so I'm also hoping my massive bike lock will prevent that from happening to me. I've been zipping all over town on this thing since buying it. Definitely much better and quicker than the bus, and the ride is easy since the town is fairly flat.



La Rochelle itself has an old and important history. It's located in the Charente-Maritime department/Poitou-Charentes region of France. It was founded in the 10th century and became an important harbor in the 12th century. It flip-flopped from English to French rule, but was the largest harbor on the Atlantic coast with its merchants dealing mainly in wine, salt and cheese. It not only changed hands between ruling countries, but also between major religions. During the Renaissance, La Rochelle became increasingly Protestant.




Beautiful fromagerie in the Centre Ville of La Rochelle; Outdoors farmers market, takes place a couple times a week. I pass by on my way to school each morning and always end up buying a loaf of bread or fruit. I love being able to shop daily for my food, and everything is so incredibly fresh. There are stands for bread, fruits and vegetables, rows and rows of fish that has been caught earlier that morning in the sea, and stands of pates, tarts and meat...



One of the three towers that stand in the forefront of the La Rochelle harbor. The sunny day, by the way, is typical here. La Rochelle is famous for the incredible amount of sunshine it gets each year (average of 193 sunny days per year, which ranks it right up there with the Cote d'Azur).





Same port and castle views, at night. It's idyllic and charming. The whole port is lined with seafood restaurants, cafes, and little bars. There are always tourists in town, although most seem to be from other regions of France as opposed to other countries. So the overall experience remains distinctly French despite the presence of tourists every weekend.
There was an old car show near the Vieux Port last weekend, and they had a car from California there. I saw another car with New York plates, and it made me proud that my two favorite states were so well represented!

Salut, Paris!

I finally arrived in France and decided to stay the week in Paris before heading to La Rochelle. I have a couple friends who live in Paris, so I was lucky enough to stay with them and they made my transition to Europe so much easier. It's great to walk around and tour a city, but even better to come back to friends in the evening. I also met up with the Notre Dame Alumni group in Paris for the second football game watch of the year. Who knew I could meet up with college alumni halfway around the world?? It's a small group, and half of them were passing through on business trips, but it's nice to have the college family even in France.

Père-Lachaise Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Paris and a major tourist attraction as well because of all the famous people buried there. When it was first opened several centuries ago, it was considered too far from city center to attract burials. So as part of a marketing scheme to increase funerals, the administrators moved the tombs of several famous citizens to their cemetery. Sure enough, soon everybody wanted to be buried at Père-Lachaise. Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Frederic Chopin and Edith Piaf are just a few of the famous ones here.
The famous burial sites are numbered on a sign as you walk into the cemetery, and you can either buy a map of the cemetery layout or take down the numbers of grave-sites you want to see. Or, you can just follow the mobs of people as they make their way inevitably to Morrison's or Wilde's tombs. I personally thought it was more fun to just wander around and check out the tombs that weren't surrounded by tourist groups.






(Below) In front of Palais Garnier, also known as the Paris Opera House. Even the dreary day can't detract from the beauty of this old building. It is now used mainly for ballet performances since the was a new opera house was constructed at Place de la Bastille.



I felt very Devil Wears Prada-ish this week in Paris! It was Fashion Celebration Night on September 7, and the fashion and couture shops along Champs Elysees and Avenue Montaigne had an opening night to showcase their new designs for the year. This was the first time an event like this had happened, and concurrent opening nights were taking place in all the major cities around the world the same week. Here in Paris, it was an amazing experience. The couture houses seemed to be trying to one-up each other by serving better drinks, or better food, or attracting more models to show up to their event. So in the end the whole street was completely packed with people trying to get in, and the bouncers were blocking the doors as cameramen ran from place to place.

I'm not really a fashion person and I don't know most of the famous people and definitely wouldn't want to lead the lifestyle, but its amazing to see what goes on in this world. My friend works for Chanel, so we stayed in the Chanel shop for most the evening. It wasn't too crowded (on account of the bouncers moderating people flow for most the time), so we were walking around and sampling the macarons and champagne until suddenly a swarm of people rushed in. And who should be there but...Karl Lagerfeld. Karl is considered as THE man behind Chanel fashion, and he was there with Chanel model, Baptiste Giabiconi, and his fashion entourage.



It's a cruddy picture on the left here, but you can see how packed we were inside Chanel! Cameramen were shoving people around as they tried to get every breathing second as Karl walked into the room. The up-close shot of Karl is on the right. He has been a designer for over 20 years, and is a continual presence in this scene



Baptiste Giabiconi, talking on his cell phone (left); In the picture on the right is a member of Lagerfeld's entourage -- the guy at the top of the stairs. We thought he was another model, but turns out he's only the chauffeur...he's definitely the best looking car driver I've ever seen

With my friends Gwen and Marie-Laure, in Chanel

Jardin du Luxembourg - it's beautiful now that fall is coming around. And it's also one of the spots I hadn't seen in my previous trips to Paris, so I took a day to wander around the gardens and sit outside. They have tennis courts and running trails around the gardens as well, and the massive palace at the front is the Luxembourg Palace (which houses the French Senate). The palace was originally constructed in 1611 by Marie de Medicis, who wanted a place that resembled her palace in native Florence.





And because you can't leave Paris without checking out the Eiffel Tower, it's only right I throw in a couple pictures of it here...

Snorkeling at Maeda Point

I just got these photos, so I'm throwing them on here a bit out of sequence. One of the other interesting things I had the chance to do out in Okinawa is snorkel. Being an island, snorkeling and scuba diving are popular activities of course. And luckily you need no certification or real experience in order to snorkel and Okinawa has some amazing spots to see all kinds of fish. Maeda Point is unquestionably the most popular and well-known dive spot in Okinawa. You park your car in the dirt lot on the top of this cliff, grab your gear, and climb down a steep set of stairs straight into the water. It's essentially a drop off right into a network of coral below, which makes it very easy to get up close to all types of fish.



Here are just a couple of the fish we got pretty decent photos of. Sometimes they blend so well with the coral you have to concentrate in order to see them. The fish below (with the 'spines' sticking out) is a beautifully striped fish but also one of the most venomous fish out there. Their stings aren't fatal but they can be painful









And that's it for Okinawa, everyone. As I write this, I'm sitting in France and I'll keep you up-to-date on how things are going here in western Europe. Talk to you soon!

Final stop: Tokyo

Sorry for the delay in blogging, people. It's been a busy past week and internet connection has been haphazard at times. I just spent a rather tortuous time in Shanghai airport on my way to France (as you can tell, my traveling track record has been less than stellar), but I'm back on track and ready to introduce you to Tokyo!

Angie and I stayed at the New Sanno, which is quite possibly the BEST hotel I've ever been to. It's the military hotel in downtown Tokyo and offers really affordable hotel stays for all military people and their families. But this is no Best Western -- they've got a mini pachinko (casino) in their lobby, beautiful restaurants, a little shopping center, pool and sauna...you name it. Funny part came during check in: I was sitting with the suitcases while Angie went up to the counter to check in, and the concierge hesitated slightly as looked at us and said, "We don't allow two people of the same sex to occupy a room together here...can I get you another room for the weekend?" It took us a couple minutes to realize that she thought we were a COUPLE. I guess it goes with not looking at all related, but she only backed down after we said NO absolutely not, we're sisters.
I think it's a military thing.


Tokyo's weather was perfect, so we decided to hop on the Sumida River boat cruise. The boats are called suijo-bus, and they look kinda like school buses on boats.


Besides being on the water and having the chance to see the city on both sides of the banks, this cruise is also neat because you pass underneath 12 unique bridges as you wind your way up north from Hinode Pier to Asakusa. They are a mixture of old and new architecture, painted a variety of colors that remind me of Crayola crayons.

Loading deck at Hinode Pier

Sitting on the cruise deck
About 45 minutes later, we docked at Asakusa port where we headed to the famous Asahi Beer Hall (also known as the Flamme d'Or, or jokingly the "Golden Turd"). It's one of the buildings of the Asahi Breweries headquarters, and was designed by the French designer Philippe Starck. Its inverted pyramid shape is designed to mimic a beer glass, and compliments the neighboring golden beer mug-shaped building housing the Asahi Breweries offices.
The famous 'Asahi Flame' is supposed to represent both the 'burning heart of Asahi beer' and a frothy head

Across the beer hall on the other side of the river, is the immensely popular Buddhist Sensō-ji Temple. Legend has it that in the year 628, two brothers fished a statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, out of the Sumida River. And although they tried to put the statue back into the river, it always returned to them. The chief of their village recognized the sanctity of the statue and enshrined it by remodeling his own house into a small temple so that the villagers could worship the Kannon. Construction was finished in 645, making it Tokyo's oldest temple. It is crowded with tourists and devoted locals year round, and the entrance to the place is lined with food and souvenir shops.







Tsukiji Fish Market is, quite simply, amazing. I love food markets, and this one is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood markets in the world. It handles over 2,000 metric tons of fish a day, ranging from little sardines to humongous tuna. It's a real auction in which fishermen bring in their fresh catches of the day and shoppers vie in a massive bidding for all the goods. Used to be that tourists could come in and watch the auctions when they started at 5:00am, but as of a couple years ago you can no longer watch unless you get a special permit beforehand. Evidently they were bothering the proceedings of the auction so they kicked the meddlesome tourists out. But you can go at a more reasonable hour and see the fish in the market stalls and get sushi for breakfast.


We weren't doing the 5am wake up call, but we did get to Tsukiji around 7 in time to catch the busy market. The sushi we had was some of the best I've ever tasted



Last stop was famous Tokyo Imperial Palace and the Higashi Gyoen (Eastern Gardens). Most of the residences are no longer open to the public, but you can walk around the gardens inside. The East Gardens of the Imperial Palace are on the former site of Edo Castle, but the only things left today are two guardhouses and a defense house. The other buildings were destroyed by fires in the 17th and 19th centuries. So while we could take some neat pictures from outside the garden walls, there wasn't much else to see besides the expansive garden. It gets much prettier when all the cherry blossoms are in bloom, but I missed that showing by a couple months.

It's amazing to see these ancient buildings in the middle of huge modern skyscrapers

Poem of the day

A thoughtful poem that a friend sent to me the other day:

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1911)