Chasing After Rainbows

Places visited: Montparnasse Binvenüe, Montmartre, Marcadet Poissonniers, Bastille (line 4, 12, line 5)

Having used my Kindle 4 for half a year already, I enjoyed reading on it. Well, apart from not being able to read in some dark places due to the absence of built-in light, but being able to read under room light without hurting my eyes, or bright sunlight outdoors, which are primary advantages over an LCD screen, are big advantages. Well, the problem with reading my stories on my blog is that it requires a constant internet connection if you were to read more than one part of it. On top of that, neither the desktop nor "mobile versions" (iOS and Android versions actually) offer a comfortable experience of reading because the text is just too small, and zooming in doesn't re-flow the text and requiring to pan around, only to start over when heading to the next page. So, I am proud to announce that I will be making an e-book version of all of my stories (except the 5th story). To make this accessible, I will also include a QR code so that you can use your smartphone to ...

The first day attending Mizuho's Middle School department has just ended. Due to high demand from other departments and the public, staying at the school's dormitory is discouraged to those born before the "evolution" and know someone related who is also born before that time,  or those who can reach the school within a short time with any transport. Of course, I have my own car, so I'm not staying there. (The concept of family is relatively unknown and non-existent to those born after the evolution, and existing ones are being naturally degraded to something like a group of close friends among existing ones. Well, how exactly do you see a family if everyone in it are now young girls wearing mostly the same outfit behaving alike instead of men and women of various ages with distinct differences?) Because of Mizuho's massive size and the lack of ground transportation infrastructure (apart from rail-based ones), getting to the car park where my car is p...

Places visited: Venice Marco Polo airport, London Bridge station, Vauxhall station, Westminster palace (Note: this was written on day 29, so details might not be in detail until i have image reference. Day 11, and days 14 through 16, are currently skipped) The last day in Venice, and also the first day (second if you count as transit to Paris) in London. Having a morning flight means that my time in Venice that day is just limited to travelling to the airport. The streets were empty, though as we got closer to the bus terminal (Plaza Roma), there are people walking around to get to work. Not clear which direction as Venice itself is a maze: even narrow passageways can be a major route with many possible routes, and random dead ends. The Venice airport took quite a number of minutes to get to from the main city area. The interior looks like the kind I would expect of an European airport actually. As Italy is part of the Schengen zone, flights to other European countrie...

Places visited (Day 12): Château de Vincennes, Gare de Lyon (via Vallorbe, Switzerland) Places visited (Day 13): Santa Lucia (Northern Venice) (Note: this was written on day 27) Day 12 The last day in Paris, and also where I would make my way to Venice. Because I was so cheap on expenses, the owner told me that I had to clean the room, or pay €20. Knowing how strong European European currency is, that is quite an amount in my home currency. So where do I go between check out and boarding the train? Well, there is this place I always walk past, but never went in, to a place called Château de Vincennes . (Pronounced as sha-tou-deh-varn-sen ) It's an old castle, but I didn't know the significance of it until I read that some well known authors were imprisoned there. Spent about 3 hours there. Where to next? Well, there is this big library near one of the station I went past days earlier (don't remember the name, but it interchanges with RER C and Métro lin...

Place visited: The Louve (again) (Note: this was written on day 24. Some details might have been forgotten.) Not being fully satisfied with the earlier visit (it was crowded), I decided to take another visit to the museum. This time, I had to pay the admission as it wasn't the first Sunday of the month. On top of that, I am not eligible for the student/youth discount, which is reserved for EU citizens. So, having there before, I kind of know where the other other entrance is, and what station to get off. The other entrance is not far from the subway station and then follow the underground shopping arcade that has an Apple store. There should be an inverted pyramid that lets light from outside in. (Guides and maps shows the entrance as the side of the nearby arch, visible from the glass pyramid main entrance, at ground level that goes below the ground.) It was hard to take a picture of the inverted pyramid without someone posing in front of it. Not much to ...

Places visited: Musée d'Orsay (RER C, line 14) (Note: this was written on day 16, 17, and 19, so some details might have been forgotten until I get to download pictures I had taken that day. Images and additional text added on 21 July) So finally somewhere new: Musée d'Orsay. I knew where it's location was because I did walk along there in the middle of the night some nights earlier, which was this massive building that, up until around the 1980s, was a train station. Because of how late I went out, I went around to find a place to eat beforehand. It was this fast food place called Quick near the Pompidou place I went to days earlier. Where to next? It was either the Musée d'Orsay or visiting the Lourve again. I did not explore everything on the last time I was there. Where we went affects the route to take. Out of random, it was the first choice. Because I did saw an RER station right outside the station, and the station near where we were having both the...