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Saturday, March 6, 2010

"Attic Mirror", part 8

It has been a while since the last release of a part of Attic Mirror. Sorry for letting you wait so long. I hope you still remember the story and will continue to read the rest. More is coming soon until the first draft is finished. I hope that I stayed consistent enough even if I had stopped writing for longer than I wished.

Also I started to edit Demon Soul and I wrote a new ending as the previous one was a bit too short and lacked details. Some parts will also be added in the middle of the story. Stay tune to hear about the evolution toward publication. As the previous one was a bit too short and lacked details.

I also started to work on some new novels and the first drafts will appear soon here.
One is about the Bayards' kids, the adventure will take place in the magic world with lots of magic and new characters it's called "The bayards' house".
A second one is a vampire story which tell the past of Viorel from when he lost his memory in Transylvania until his arrival in the family you already know. This one was a training for NaNoWriMo and is well advance but requires a lot of historical research that I don't really have time to take care of write now. I think I will call it "Vampire heart".
A third is another vampire story with Viorel, Dylan and Daciana which happen on a short time scale. I also involves other vampires. One that will be part of "Vampire heart" and some brand new. It will be called "Sun Kiss".

I'm also thinking about other novels but for the moment nothing had been written about them.
So I'm not saying anything for the moment. And I'll let you enjoy Attic Mirror part 8.
All Novels Draft 

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Back to part 7
Forward to part 9
Back to part 1 (beginning)



Thursday, March 4, 2010

Japan : My first (part 1)

En français
So since I'm in Japan and that everything is pretty new for me I have a lot of first time. That's why I'm calling this post "My first" and you are going to see a lot of my first.

My first Japanese party

On the first week-end of I was pretty tired and so even if I really meant to go out on Saturday I stay sleeping all day due to jetlag.
But the evening was much more exciting.
The lend lady of the residence (I'm staying in student accommodation called the "international house" with lots of international students) told me to come to the party and introduced me to the others. I was really dead and didn't know much what to say but everybody was nice to me and there was delicious food.
Since I had two more parties. In three weeks that's a pretty cool number of party I guess. And they are also becoming better and better, probably because I know more people now and can get more involved.

My first time in a Japanese train


So my supervisor wanted me to have a good week-end and told me about places to go. I didn't go on Saturday but I went on Sunday. I walked to the train station and took the train to Shinjuku.
I didn't know how the machine for the tickets work, they just have number that you have to choose. But he already told me that it was 230 for Shinjuku, so I had no problem.
The train are really clean compared to what I have seen in the subway in Europe. It was really cool to go that far, Tokyo is a pretty big city, Chofu is not that far from Shinjuku and there is a lot more to discover.

Later the next week-end I when out with the people from the residence and I learned that the map above the machine actually show you the price of each destination. So now I can go everywhere.

My first Japanese restaurant

The Monday following I went to the restaurant with my supervisor and the other postdoc I'm sharing my office with.
That was a traditional Japanese restaurant. We had to remove our shoes at the entrance and to lock them in a little box we then went to a room just for us and we sat on the floor with our legs in a hole bellow the table. That was really cool. In Japanese restaurant they first give you some tea and a glass of water. That is really cool.
I love to go to restaurant here, I went to several, all different for the moment, in the style and in the food. I can't really tell you what I eat in detail. The first time was Sashimi after I had soba noodles, tempura, ramen and organic food.
All I know is that there is always side dishes and that I love all of it.

My first たこ焼き

When I get back to the dormitory that day, there were people looking for me. They had decided to make たこ焼き and wanted me to participate. That was really cool, we were talking and cooking the たこ焼き. Someone was making the paste and someone cutting the たこ and I was helping with turning it in the machine with chopsticks.
I really like たこ焼き, probably more than I normally would because they had organized this little party just for me.
 
Travel table of content

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Christmas Amigurumi : The frog

En français
I made an other Christmas Amigurumi for my friend Reka in Hungary. At first she thought I was joking but she still told me that she likes frog.
I didn't really like the frog pattern I already have so I created new ones.
I'll publish them later while making one for myself. I didn't write them down so I need a bit to refresh my memory.

Monday, February 15, 2010

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.




Sunday, February 14, 2010

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

Friday, February 12, 2010

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



Thursday, February 11, 2010

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.