the city of lights #2
tuesday 20th march
freaky weather today. woke up feeling very cold, partly cos we had to wake up early cos the company we're visiting - snecma - is located quite out of town. it started to snow (yes, snow) even as when we walked to the bus waiting for us..
the unexpected weather caused jams to form, even on the large expressway.. not sure why though, maybe drivers are more cautious when the roads are more slippery. anyway it was a blessing in disguise, as we had more time to sleep in the bus to make up for our waking up early.
the company we visited that morning, snecma, (link), is a subsidiary of the safran group (both names are shortened acronyms of cheem french names, so i shan't bother mentioning what exactly they are). one of their business interests involve the production of rocket engines for the ariane series of rockets. before even entering the reception area, we had to surrender our passports for security reasons - those that forgot their passports had to sit in the lounge as they weren't allowed entry.. that was how serious they are with security. not surprisingly, photography was expressly forbidden (actually that happened to most of our other company visits), so that's why the following paragraphs would all be in text haha.
the visit started off with a briefing of what snecma's business activities are, not just in the rocket business but also in the aerospace industry; how they build rocket engines and test them; and the different engines built by snecma in the past 40+ years. one of their major next big things is the vinci engine, a new engine which is more efficient and powerful than its predecessor in order to power the flight of the heavier ariane 5 rocket. rockets get heavier simply because the payload - the stuff that needs to be sent up into space, usually satellites or supplies for the ISS - has a trend of getting heavier over the years.
we were then brought to a small museum of theirs showcasing the past and present rocket engines, starting from their primitive engines to the current vulcain engine. i can't comment on the engineering of the rockets not because i'm not allowed to, it's because i simply couldn't comprehend most of it. however i was very impressed with how rocket engines have developed over the years - the increase in complexity from the earliest to the most current rocket engines seems to me to be exponential.
after the museum visit, we were brought to their test facility, and shown how they test their engines before sending it off to another company so that it could be assembled into a rocket. all engines undergo 2 rounds of testing before it is certified to be fit for use. they were quite open about the successes and failures of the engines - we were shown movies of a successful test sequence and another that didn't go so well.. the guy who was bringing us around for the entire morning even explained to us why the explosion occured (something about a spark in the oxygen tank, not sure though haha).
we left snecma with a full stomach after a fantastic lunch at their cafeteria, and our next destination was eads, another aeronautical company. while snecma is involved in building rocket engines, eads was involved in something much bigger - assembling all the rocket parts from different contractors and assembling it into a full rocket. the rocket's so massive that it is initally assembled into three separate parts in paris, and then these three one-thirds are all shipped to the french guiana, where the assembly is completed and the rocket launched from there (rockets aren't launched from france as it's way too far from the equator. cheem physics dictate that it's much easier to shoot rockets up from the equator if the payload needs to be geostationary). however, the guide we had for eads was nowhere near as good as snecma's, not just linguistically, but also content-wise. nonetheless, the trip to eads was quite an eye-opener.
that night, we met up with our hosts back in ecp, and then we were brought to a restaurant called maison blanche in paris. i had a swiss cheese fondue and shared a plate of frog legs with rachel, and it turned out to be really filling. the melted cheese really went well with bread, but the frog legs didn't turn out as nice as we thought - frog legs from back home tasted nicer, imho. it was fun talking to our hosts, especially when we talked about the different education systems in their countries. the austrian girl told us that uni education was free in austria, and you basically could go into any course in any uni that catches your fancy. there are selection tests only for the more competitive courses. my host, guy, told us that there are french- and english-educated students in lebanon. interesting indeed.
we went back and chilled some more at their student-run bar, which offers a gigantic pitcher full of beer for only 4 euros. among about 10 of us, we managed to finish 4 pitchers. the beer was not that nice - there was hardly any aftertaste - but it was cold, and its sheer volume made up for any shortcomings =)
wednesday 21st march
the next day started with a breakfast in a meeting room in ecp - we had a chat with the deputy director of ecp, who told us what direction of the school is going, and would be going to in the next few years. they're very supportive of students going overseas to expose themselves to another culture, and also very open to bringing foreign students into the ecole centrales in france. they were so successful to the extent of being invited to open a branch of ecole centrale in beijing, and in fact many chinese students vie for a place in the rather selective school!
after the chat, we were brought around ecp to have a look at their labs and sample projects of the postgrads there.. was overall rather ok, but i much preferred company visits with cheem engineering =)
we ate at the school canteen, which costed only EUR 2.75 for a full three-course meal. cheap! after that, we decided to make a trip to town. good thing the rain stopped then, that's why we managed to cover quite a section of the city just by walking.
our first stop was notre dame - in fact, we passed by notre dame a couple of times more later, as seen by
this (taken in the afternoon)
and this (taken at night)
notre dame seemed more commercialized than ever - the last time i visited it was 1.5 years ago, but i don't remember the presence of many stalls WITHIN the cathedral selling souvenirs. yes, earning money's important, but don't let it destroy what the place is supposed to be used for - a place for worship and quiet contemplation. german cathedrals seem to do a much better job than their french counterparts in this aspect.
we then walked out of the cathedral, debated whether or not to climb to the top of it, and split up into two groups which would be meeting up again at the louvre in the evening. the group i followed decided to walk from notre dame to the louvre, taking in the french scenery on the way.
the back part of notre dame.
roadside stalls selling comic books and other assorted books.
the magnificent river seine.
while stopping for a moment to buy crepes, it hailed on us! cameras were whipped out to record the moment.
after the hail stopped, rain fell on us. crazy weather indeed.
we reached the louvre an hour too early, so we decided to take a random bus for a random number of stops. our stomachs then prompted us to get off at a place which had lots of restaurants, and eventually we had our dinner at a fast-food restaurant (to save money haha). we met up with the others back at the louvre, went down into the museum to get our tickets, and then parted so that we could see what we wanted to see, making the best out of the three hours we had there.
as you can see, the painting culture in paris is alive and well =)
our hosts actually came down to paris to say hie to us, and then bring us to an irish bar to chill out. we left the louvre around 10pm..
.. but before we left the louvre, couldn't resist taking night shots of the louvre.
after chilling at the bar (i remember trying to explain why we could speak so many languages, and why our english could be rather "succint" at times to one of our hosts), we took a train back to antony. chris, vk and i decided to take a look at the nearby kebab shop cos we were hungry, and thus split from the main group who were walking back. the kebab shop didn't have much to offer because it was quite late already, so we left the shop empty-handed and empty-stomached.
to make up for it, we decided to take a different route back to ecp, and proceeded to horlan ourselves for quite some time.. took us about 40 minutes of walking to cover what was supposed to be done in 15. it was quite fun, as we were arguing and cursing chris all of the way for being the genius in losing our way. reached our room rather late, so didn't do much after bathing.. that's why i had a bad hair day the morning after.
thursday 22nd march
we visited another school - ecole des mines (link) - and it was rather similar to the trip we had around ecp. we were shown the current projects of the postgrads there (which i felt was rather dry), but it was more than made up for with the trip to their museum of stones. the museum was even when geology was in its infancy, and because it existed so early it was able to procure hundred thousands of stones from all around the world. the person who showed us around, who is the husband of the curator and a professor emeritus of the ecole, was really enthusiastic in explaining stuff to us. he explained how the stones are grouped together, how stones of the same type may have different colours, and how these beautiful crystals are formed in the first place. wonderful tour indeed.
we then split up for lunch, i ended up eating at a kebab shop (which was suprisingly filling) and then going to the musee d'orsay alone as the other 4 in my lunch group were more inclined to walk around in the city.
musee d'orsay has a extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, and i found out that i quite like these paintings. some examples include:
monet's (impressionism) and
van gogh's (post-impressionism)
can't rmb who drew this, but i quite liked pointilism too. it's considered to be post-impressionistic.
i met up with some of our group in the orsay museum, and then we had to leave by 4:30pm for the eiffel tower as we had an "eiffel underground tour" arranged for us.
while walking to the eiffel tower..
of course we saw the imposing eiffel tower..
.. but we also saw this - the ps3 was to be launched midnight of the next day! (ie in ~7 hours' time)
we were first brought underground of the tower to a small museum displaying how, when and why the tower was built, how it escaped its original fate of being demolished after 20 years of it being built, how it helped in the war effort by being the best place to transmit messages to and fro etc.
found this outside the underground passage.. yes, the label tells you what sound will be produced when you press it.
we were then brought up to the first floor by lift (cutting the long queue too haha) and then brought into this small area which showed how the lift mechanism worked. interesting.
we could see the foot of the tower from up there, and the long queue that we managed to escape as we were on a tour =)
we then walked up to the second floor, and despite the cold (cos of the wind, as we were very high up already), all our cameras were out taking photos.
we started taking photos when it was bright..
.. until the sun set. and that's why paris is called the city of lights.
went to pigalle for dinner, ate fried chickens and fries in an indian restaurant with two big flat screen tvs showing bollywood movies. laughed ourselves silly at the antics of the actors and actresses in the movie =)
main reason why we were in the red-light district. notice the long queue in front of moulin rouge, for reasons unknown =P
after that, chris, jh and i decided to check out the ps3 launch, so we made our way to the launch..
.. but it was a massive flop. hardly anyone was there!
we then decided to head back to ecp, but to do so we had to take the rer c line and change at a station for rer b back to antony. when we reached the rer c station near the eiffel tower (and the ps3 launch), we discovered it was closed, but there was a bus bringing us to invalides, which was still on the rer c line. upon reaching invalides we caught the train to st michel notre dame, where we were supposed to take the rer b back to antony.
but we discovered that there weren't anymore trains upon reaching the station.
and we found out that we were locked IN the station itself.
we tried to lift one of the metal doors open, and in the process managed to create enough noise to alert one of the personnel about our presence. with a key, he freed us, and we were plunged into the heart of paris at 1am.
walking around, jh noticed that there were night buses, and by chance one of them goes back to antony. we were saved!
but the story doesn't end there. we managed to overshoot our stop by 3 stops, and when we got down from the bus we had to ask a policeman (why was he there at that kind of time, i have no idea) for directions back to antony. after walking for about 20 minutes, we reached familiar ground, and another 20 minutes brought us back to ecp..
and that was why we only had like 5 hours of sleep that night.
(continued in #3)
freaky weather today. woke up feeling very cold, partly cos we had to wake up early cos the company we're visiting - snecma - is located quite out of town. it started to snow (yes, snow) even as when we walked to the bus waiting for us..
the unexpected weather caused jams to form, even on the large expressway.. not sure why though, maybe drivers are more cautious when the roads are more slippery. anyway it was a blessing in disguise, as we had more time to sleep in the bus to make up for our waking up early.the company we visited that morning, snecma, (link), is a subsidiary of the safran group (both names are shortened acronyms of cheem french names, so i shan't bother mentioning what exactly they are). one of their business interests involve the production of rocket engines for the ariane series of rockets. before even entering the reception area, we had to surrender our passports for security reasons - those that forgot their passports had to sit in the lounge as they weren't allowed entry.. that was how serious they are with security. not surprisingly, photography was expressly forbidden (actually that happened to most of our other company visits), so that's why the following paragraphs would all be in text haha.
the visit started off with a briefing of what snecma's business activities are, not just in the rocket business but also in the aerospace industry; how they build rocket engines and test them; and the different engines built by snecma in the past 40+ years. one of their major next big things is the vinci engine, a new engine which is more efficient and powerful than its predecessor in order to power the flight of the heavier ariane 5 rocket. rockets get heavier simply because the payload - the stuff that needs to be sent up into space, usually satellites or supplies for the ISS - has a trend of getting heavier over the years.
we were then brought to a small museum of theirs showcasing the past and present rocket engines, starting from their primitive engines to the current vulcain engine. i can't comment on the engineering of the rockets not because i'm not allowed to, it's because i simply couldn't comprehend most of it. however i was very impressed with how rocket engines have developed over the years - the increase in complexity from the earliest to the most current rocket engines seems to me to be exponential.
after the museum visit, we were brought to their test facility, and shown how they test their engines before sending it off to another company so that it could be assembled into a rocket. all engines undergo 2 rounds of testing before it is certified to be fit for use. they were quite open about the successes and failures of the engines - we were shown movies of a successful test sequence and another that didn't go so well.. the guy who was bringing us around for the entire morning even explained to us why the explosion occured (something about a spark in the oxygen tank, not sure though haha).
we left snecma with a full stomach after a fantastic lunch at their cafeteria, and our next destination was eads, another aeronautical company. while snecma is involved in building rocket engines, eads was involved in something much bigger - assembling all the rocket parts from different contractors and assembling it into a full rocket. the rocket's so massive that it is initally assembled into three separate parts in paris, and then these three one-thirds are all shipped to the french guiana, where the assembly is completed and the rocket launched from there (rockets aren't launched from france as it's way too far from the equator. cheem physics dictate that it's much easier to shoot rockets up from the equator if the payload needs to be geostationary). however, the guide we had for eads was nowhere near as good as snecma's, not just linguistically, but also content-wise. nonetheless, the trip to eads was quite an eye-opener.
that night, we met up with our hosts back in ecp, and then we were brought to a restaurant called maison blanche in paris. i had a swiss cheese fondue and shared a plate of frog legs with rachel, and it turned out to be really filling. the melted cheese really went well with bread, but the frog legs didn't turn out as nice as we thought - frog legs from back home tasted nicer, imho. it was fun talking to our hosts, especially when we talked about the different education systems in their countries. the austrian girl told us that uni education was free in austria, and you basically could go into any course in any uni that catches your fancy. there are selection tests only for the more competitive courses. my host, guy, told us that there are french- and english-educated students in lebanon. interesting indeed.
we went back and chilled some more at their student-run bar, which offers a gigantic pitcher full of beer for only 4 euros. among about 10 of us, we managed to finish 4 pitchers. the beer was not that nice - there was hardly any aftertaste - but it was cold, and its sheer volume made up for any shortcomings =)
wednesday 21st march
the next day started with a breakfast in a meeting room in ecp - we had a chat with the deputy director of ecp, who told us what direction of the school is going, and would be going to in the next few years. they're very supportive of students going overseas to expose themselves to another culture, and also very open to bringing foreign students into the ecole centrales in france. they were so successful to the extent of being invited to open a branch of ecole centrale in beijing, and in fact many chinese students vie for a place in the rather selective school!
after the chat, we were brought around ecp to have a look at their labs and sample projects of the postgrads there.. was overall rather ok, but i much preferred company visits with cheem engineering =)
we ate at the school canteen, which costed only EUR 2.75 for a full three-course meal. cheap! after that, we decided to make a trip to town. good thing the rain stopped then, that's why we managed to cover quite a section of the city just by walking.
our first stop was notre dame - in fact, we passed by notre dame a couple of times more later, as seen by
this (taken in the afternoon)
and this (taken at night)notre dame seemed more commercialized than ever - the last time i visited it was 1.5 years ago, but i don't remember the presence of many stalls WITHIN the cathedral selling souvenirs. yes, earning money's important, but don't let it destroy what the place is supposed to be used for - a place for worship and quiet contemplation. german cathedrals seem to do a much better job than their french counterparts in this aspect.
we then walked out of the cathedral, debated whether or not to climb to the top of it, and split up into two groups which would be meeting up again at the louvre in the evening. the group i followed decided to walk from notre dame to the louvre, taking in the french scenery on the way.
the back part of notre dame.
roadside stalls selling comic books and other assorted books.
the magnificent river seine.
while stopping for a moment to buy crepes, it hailed on us! cameras were whipped out to record the moment.
after the hail stopped, rain fell on us. crazy weather indeed.we reached the louvre an hour too early, so we decided to take a random bus for a random number of stops. our stomachs then prompted us to get off at a place which had lots of restaurants, and eventually we had our dinner at a fast-food restaurant (to save money haha). we met up with the others back at the louvre, went down into the museum to get our tickets, and then parted so that we could see what we wanted to see, making the best out of the three hours we had there.
as you can see, the painting culture in paris is alive and well =)our hosts actually came down to paris to say hie to us, and then bring us to an irish bar to chill out. we left the louvre around 10pm..
.. but before we left the louvre, couldn't resist taking night shots of the louvre.after chilling at the bar (i remember trying to explain why we could speak so many languages, and why our english could be rather "succint" at times to one of our hosts), we took a train back to antony. chris, vk and i decided to take a look at the nearby kebab shop cos we were hungry, and thus split from the main group who were walking back. the kebab shop didn't have much to offer because it was quite late already, so we left the shop empty-handed and empty-stomached.
to make up for it, we decided to take a different route back to ecp, and proceeded to horlan ourselves for quite some time.. took us about 40 minutes of walking to cover what was supposed to be done in 15. it was quite fun, as we were arguing and cursing chris all of the way for being the genius in losing our way. reached our room rather late, so didn't do much after bathing.. that's why i had a bad hair day the morning after.
thursday 22nd march
we visited another school - ecole des mines (link) - and it was rather similar to the trip we had around ecp. we were shown the current projects of the postgrads there (which i felt was rather dry), but it was more than made up for with the trip to their museum of stones. the museum was even when geology was in its infancy, and because it existed so early it was able to procure hundred thousands of stones from all around the world. the person who showed us around, who is the husband of the curator and a professor emeritus of the ecole, was really enthusiastic in explaining stuff to us. he explained how the stones are grouped together, how stones of the same type may have different colours, and how these beautiful crystals are formed in the first place. wonderful tour indeed.
we then split up for lunch, i ended up eating at a kebab shop (which was suprisingly filling) and then going to the musee d'orsay alone as the other 4 in my lunch group were more inclined to walk around in the city.
musee d'orsay has a extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, and i found out that i quite like these paintings. some examples include:
monet's (impressionism) and
van gogh's (post-impressionism)
can't rmb who drew this, but i quite liked pointilism too. it's considered to be post-impressionistic.i met up with some of our group in the orsay museum, and then we had to leave by 4:30pm for the eiffel tower as we had an "eiffel underground tour" arranged for us.
while walking to the eiffel tower..
of course we saw the imposing eiffel tower..
.. but we also saw this - the ps3 was to be launched midnight of the next day! (ie in ~7 hours' time)we were first brought underground of the tower to a small museum displaying how, when and why the tower was built, how it escaped its original fate of being demolished after 20 years of it being built, how it helped in the war effort by being the best place to transmit messages to and fro etc.
found this outside the underground passage.. yes, the label tells you what sound will be produced when you press it.we were then brought up to the first floor by lift (cutting the long queue too haha) and then brought into this small area which showed how the lift mechanism worked. interesting.
we could see the foot of the tower from up there, and the long queue that we managed to escape as we were on a tour =)we then walked up to the second floor, and despite the cold (cos of the wind, as we were very high up already), all our cameras were out taking photos.
we started taking photos when it was bright..
.. until the sun set. and that's why paris is called the city of lights.went to pigalle for dinner, ate fried chickens and fries in an indian restaurant with two big flat screen tvs showing bollywood movies. laughed ourselves silly at the antics of the actors and actresses in the movie =)
main reason why we were in the red-light district. notice the long queue in front of moulin rouge, for reasons unknown =Pafter that, chris, jh and i decided to check out the ps3 launch, so we made our way to the launch..
.. but it was a massive flop. hardly anyone was there!we then decided to head back to ecp, but to do so we had to take the rer c line and change at a station for rer b back to antony. when we reached the rer c station near the eiffel tower (and the ps3 launch), we discovered it was closed, but there was a bus bringing us to invalides, which was still on the rer c line. upon reaching invalides we caught the train to st michel notre dame, where we were supposed to take the rer b back to antony.
but we discovered that there weren't anymore trains upon reaching the station.
and we found out that we were locked IN the station itself.
we tried to lift one of the metal doors open, and in the process managed to create enough noise to alert one of the personnel about our presence. with a key, he freed us, and we were plunged into the heart of paris at 1am.
walking around, jh noticed that there were night buses, and by chance one of them goes back to antony. we were saved!
but the story doesn't end there. we managed to overshoot our stop by 3 stops, and when we got down from the bus we had to ask a policeman (why was he there at that kind of time, i have no idea) for directions back to antony. after walking for about 20 minutes, we reached familiar ground, and another 20 minutes brought us back to ecp..
and that was why we only had like 5 hours of sleep that night.
(continued in #3)
