Europe tour Interail 2006 : Going to Narvik

En français
We arrived in Kemi still in Finland at 6 am the next day. We were supposed to take the bus at 9.30 am to Haaparanta in Sweden but we missed it as we didn't realized that the time table and the bus stop were not at the same place. We were not the only one and I managed to find the bus stop so that we could get the next bus at 11.15 am. We had to help the driver to take the post out before going on the trip. He was just talking Finnish to us as if we could understand it and that was pretty funny. We arrived in Haaparanta one hour later. It's a city just at the border between Finland and Sweden. We took a second bus going to Luleå then another one to go to Boden. We took the time to walk a bit around the cities while waiting for the bus, seeing more lakes. Then we took the train to Kiruna. While in the train we will cross the imaginary line called the Arctic Circle which is pretty cool, we have never been that close to the North Pole. In Kiruna as the other are trying to get to hostel, we decide to camp in the train station. The automatic doors closed around 9pm and we are kind of stuck inside but I could still open the windows to let inside 2 Hungarians who didn't find any place in hostels because everything was full. A guardian will come in the middle of the night, after explaining to him that we are waiting for the train early in the next morning he decided to let us finish our night on the bench.
Europe tour Interail 2006 : Introduction 
Travel table of content

Europe tour Interail 2006 : Turku, Tampere

En français 
We arrived in Turku at 7.30 am but this time we knew about the time difference. We decided to go to the railway station looking for the train to our next destination and we also walked  to Turku's Castle. I think I will remember Turku as the city of the ladybirds, they are all over the place. We find out that we will take a train then change for a bus from Kemi to Boden in Sweden. We decide to go further north first and leave at noon for Tampere. We walked in Tampere seeing the Orthodox church, the lake Näsijärvi and the attraction park. Finland is a country full of lake, where ever we went we saw some, we learned later after some research that there are more than 180000 of them over the country. We took our train for Kemi in the evening.
Europe tour Interail 2006 : Introduction 
Travel table of content

戀愛地圖 / アバウト・ラブ / 関於愛 (about love)

En français

戀愛地圖 / アバウト・ラブ / 関於愛 is a Taiwanese and Japanese movie from 2005 in three parts, telling three different love stories.
The first story takes place in Tokyo. The road of a Taiwanese student crossed the road of a Japanese painter, he decides to let drawings on her window.
The second story takes place in Taipei. A Taiwanese girl is building a bookshelves in the middle of the night, she call a Japanese guy she met at a bar to her her make it stand up.
The third story takes place in Shanghai. A Japanese student arrives to live with a Chinese shop owner and her daughter. He is waiting for a letter from his girl friend. The girl is trying to understand Japanese.



This movie describes with simplicity the relationship between people avoiding the cultural barrier between people from different country to only care about the individual for who they are. Another dimension is added by the fact that the characters are trying to understand each other even though they don't speak perfectly the other language.  In each case one of the character is broken hearted front the previous relationship. This movie shows how people can come back to see the blue sky.

Casting :

陳柏霖 as Yao
范曉萱 as A-Su
伊東 美咲 as Michiko
加瀬 亮 as Tecchan
李小璐 as Yun
塚本高史 as Shuhei
市川 由衣 as Yuka

Cinema, Manga, Animation Content

Europe tour Interail 2006 : Stockholm, capital of Sweden

En français
When we arrived in Stockholm, we started to figure out a way to go to Narvik in the north of Norway. The first plan was to take the train and cross all Sweden from south to north to get there. However, the only train that go there was not included in the interail pass. We found the alternative to cross to Finland with a boat and to go up Finland instead, taking the boat half price with the interail pass was much cheaper than to pay full price for the train.
We then walked in Drottninggatan, a famous shopping street leading to  Gamla Stan (the old town). Having stand hours working on a Swedish textbook where the action was taking place in Gamla Stan I felt a bit home when we get there. We saw the parliament and the Royal palace Kungliga Slottet, in Yttre Borggården, we watch the change of the guard under the rain. The guards were on horses back and playing music, that was more impressive than in Oslo. We then start looking for the rune stones, I knew they were some from the textbook. I still think we were lucky to find it. We walked south to Södermalm and the big avenue Stadsgårdsleden near the water to go to Vikingterminalen to take the ferry. From the boat we can see the other islands and the Gröna Lunds Tivoli park. We will spend an other day in Stockholm when coming back from Finland.
Europe tour Interail 2006 : Introduction 
Travel table of content