Peru : Ballestas Islands

En français
The next day we get up early and have a nice breakfast before going to take the boat to the Ballestas Islands. We are not going to go on the Islands, just turn around them to observe the animals. On the way we see the Candelabro carved on the rock.
On the Islands, we can see penguins, seals, and birds : pelican, cormorant, vulture... as well as some starfish. We can say that the Islands are really black of birds, it's like fields full of birds all around and the birds are flying everywhere above the boat.
The seals are also swimming near the boat and lying on big rocks near us, that's really amazing.
At the end of the tour, we go back to our dormitory to take our stuff and start the road again to Nazca.

Peru : Paracas

En français
The next day we took our little bus again to go to the "bus station" I would more say the "bus man" in fact, to take our big bus to Paracas. We were planing to go there visit the Ballestas islands and continue our trip further south.
The bus was driving along the panamerica road and we get down at the crossing with the road leading to Paracas. We were supposed to wait for a taxi to come but nothing seemed to arrive so we decided to walk to Paracas and do some hitch-hiking. We were finally taken in by a little van which lead us to Paracas and the people started to give us information about hotels and same when we arrived there. The only thing we wanted to do was to take the boat to the Ballestas islands so we went straight to the harbour. Unfortunately the visits had already finished for the day, the boats only going to the islands in the morning. But the man there had a dormitory where we could spend the night to go to the island the next morning with the first boat.
That's what we did. And we spend the rest of the day walking in the little village of Paracas and eating the local delicacy (More Cebiche)

Travel table of content

Peru : First day in Lima

En français
We arrived in Lima early morning and decided to take the bus from the airport to the flat of our friend from couch surfing.
At first it looked really strange, no bus stop, bus real buses, just little vans coming to the street and a man going out at their door yelling where it is going. Also taxi driver telling us that we are in a very dangerous place (which is not true).
But we know the number of our bus and manage to get it. The bus smells incense and that's funny to see the man at the door at work. Sébastien spend half of the way talking with the bus driver. After about one hour driving we are left near a big round about and just have to walk to get to our friend's house.
That's really cool there and it's really nice to take a shower. After that we go to visit the city center and the historic part of Lima and we try our first meal of Peruvian food, that is Cebiche, raw fish in a lemon sauce, delicious.
In the afternoon we go sight-seeing in the city with an other friend Sébastien met on internet. We spend some time in the most touristic part of the city Miraflores and we see the Pacific Ocean.
Travel table of content

I'm in Japan

En français
I took the plane from Belfast to London then from London to Roma then from Roma to Tokyo and I arrived yesterday in Japan.
It was a pretty long trip and a bit tiring as well.
When I arrived I discovered my office, my new flat and the area around the university. My flat is so close to my office, that's really amazing, I've never been anywhere where I was so close. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to fine anything that close when Sebastien is going to join me. It's way too small for the two of us. It's also really close to a shopping centre and to the bus/train station.

Here, everything is new to me and I'm struggling a bit to get anything I need.
Hopefully that won't last too long and I'll soon be in a daily routine to be able to get back to normal activities.
I am extremely grateful to Heisig and anki for giving me the knowledge of about 1000 kanjis so far that have proven itself extremely useful.
When I got down from the bus I got a bit lost. I was sleeping all the way, and not really awake when I got down. Hopefully someone told me to take some escalators and there I found some map putting me on my way, all in Japanese of course.
I started to read Harry Potter in Japanese last night. I think I'm going to know all the katakana and review all my hiragana that way in no time. Some kanjis are also writen with furigana so I'll also learn the pronunciation that way. I feel like it's way easier for me to communicate if I write some kanjis than if I speak.
Then I slept all day. I'm a lot jet lagged and feel a bit like an owl. I haven't seen anything by day time yet.
I really need to be able to communicate at least for daily use as soon as possible.
I went to the shop and I couldn't read most of the things written on the products. That's really frustrating. I still managed to go around find and to get what I needed. But then I couldn't understand what people were telling me when I needed to pay. I was probably looking like an idiot.
Hopefully tomorrow someone is going to help me with administrative stuffs so that will soon get better.
When I got myself a camera, I'm thinking about starting a new blog about my life in Japan.