Velo, vers l'eau...(11/7)

Routing: (Geneva / Chene-Bougeries / Chene-Bourg / Gaillard / Annemasse / Vetraz-Monthoux / Cranves-Sales / Viuz-en-Sallaz / St Jeoire / Mieussy / Flerier / Les Gets / Morzine)

Yet another wonderful but tough journey, and in this occasion an energy-consuming but eco-friendly means to participate in a cycling trip along the trail of Tour de France. Stage 8 of this year's tournament kicked start the first mountainous routing near the Switzerland border in the Rhone-Alps region, where I could viably follow the itinerary and ride on the route from Geneva centre. In order to stay way ahead of the players, I started my journey early in the Sunday morning. With my heavily basic and lo-fi city bike (or proclaimed by somebody as a 'classic' bicycle), the journey commenced smoothly, and with an expectation to climb up the mountain, I tried to keep my pace at a stable and manageable manner to attempt my 5-hr anticipated ride and reach the summit before 13h. The scenery along the road was magnificently like an extended moving painting in real terms. I started to catch some other audience practitioners from Vetraz-Monthoux area. The jerseys other cyclists wore coloured the path and since a very long time I finally felt a sense of recognition about cycling, and then scattered cycling partners started to joined me to challenge the sloppy journey from Mieussy. As a joyful event, residence of the region tried their different means to show respect to the mountain climbers. Gardening red and white flowers were used to make decorative maillot a pois rouges along the roadside, in addition to other bicycle-related slogans and messages. The yellow messages on the slope illustrated the French style of cheers and notions. Supporters arrived and set their beings with caravans, sun-bath towel, umbrellas, ringing bells, picnic tables etc. on both sides of the route, and every time when cyclists passed by them, a whole-heartedly expression of appreciation was given to the sportsmen, and then the spirit of Tour de France was passed to the next level on the slope.
The very sunny weather heated up the road, and it was a tough up-moving exercise for all the amateurs. I struggled much to raise my every level of altitude from the basic step, but a collective move became much of a motivation for cyclists and people with a bike on the way to carry on the hardship and perhaps still a self-esteemed glory-to-be. With my additional loading of the SLR camera, the unbearable lightness of being viewed by Kundera became a gorgeous flying move perceived by me. I added my weight to the reversed gravity and at the end of the tunnel, it was totally beautiful being on the summit. My parents called upon a stay on the top of the summit, and this was a metaphorical existence I have therefore breathed and sensed.

The French way of propaganda in the sports activities is lovely. A publicity parade hosted by the lane-long ad-wrapped vehicle troop commercialised the tournament in a receptive manner, and the freebies intensified the festive mood of the audience. Subsequent with the accidents occurred in the first half of the race, the champion arrived at Morzine at around 16h, and joined with the clamps and the praises, the day ended gracefully. The passion I found from the spectators in front of the TV report session lifted me a wind-breaking ride back to Geneva.

Cross-border flow...(4/7)

Track 1 of the cross-border journey:

Geneva - Cologny - La Pallanterie - Maisons Neuves - Douvaine - Sciez - Allinges - Thonon-les-Bains

Tour de vins...(20/9)

Les choix de Bourgogne...(18/6)

Les bleus tompent...(13/6)

désolé, mais on n'a pas une solution...

What's missing? (8/6)

The iron men, who else do you need?
source of photo: www.soccernet.com

Trezeguet @ HK Stadium...(22/5)

Heroes Smith...(4/4)

It is the exhibition of brouillons of Patti Smith, since her creativity shone in the 70's...La Foundation Cartier does not change a lot physically, as it is always the open-garden like cubicle with the warm sunlight penetrating into the media of human distance. I was in the passing-by of Patti Smith's work. Her notes on Rimbaud, her video of experimentalism in the 70's, the body language, and the meaning of human corpse in the setting of substance. She demonstrated in her early writing the vivid energy of rock'n'roll. The exhibition also showcased some photo and video work of Robert Mapplethorpe. Patti Smith worked on a few installations to play tribute of his death in 1989. The 4-wall room of chalking world of creativity is an admirable set up of the exhibition. The wordings reflected in the stenographic atmosphere of never-ending video projection. Some visitors simply mimed, a silent spoken beauty.
Patti Smith played Smell Like Teen Spirit in a filmed occasion. Her voice reminded me of Nico. Drawing out the memory is also the day of death of Kurt Cobain. It was 14 years ago...time flies. In the tranquil evening, my room is filled in the moody performance of Patti Smith's Hero live in the Meltdown Festival...time stays still, the Parisien Belle Epoque.

L'amour de beaute...(4/12)

Hong Kong is not that bad in a sense, as it is just only not the best in the world. Following the stage at Place Vendome in 2004 to tribute the 200th anniversary of love to the beautified conquer land of Napoleon, the exhibition 'Napoleon in Love' took place in Chaumet Hong Kong at present...
Not be it a small scale exhibition that has discounted the value to watch such display featuring at the Chaumet flagship shop in Central area, but the seriousness and the rarity of exhibiting items that differentiate the exhibition from other similar displays. Chaumet has long been well-known as THE jewellery house for the kings and the nobles, and the collection of the centuries' antique pieces reveals a classic development of jewellery fashion in the previous centuries. As a shadowplay of the history of modernisation, these antique jewellery pieces remark one of the most retro-full sources of nostalgic sentiment us the people long for. The bits and pieces of the exhibits of the mini show lead me to another Paris Calling. La belle epoque!

Palette of the night...(6/9)

1. Santa Bernardita Chardonnay 2006, Curico Valley, Chile
2. Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc 2005, South Island, New Zealand
3. Haras Elegance Chardonnay 2003, Maipo Valley, Chile
4. Antoine Lamarcque Cabernet Sauvignon 2003, France d'oc
5. Bolla Valpicella Classico 2004, Veneto, Italy
6. Rosenvale Shiraz 2002, Barossa Valley, Australia
7. Paul Jaboulet Aine, Crozes Hermitage, les Jalets 2003, Rhone de France
8. Hetszolo Tokaji Aszu 3 Puttonyos 1996, Hungary

Colours of Nantes...(18/5)

Glad that the French May has chosen Jacques Demy as the highlight of the year's cinematique world...The director is one of my very favorites. His cinema world is usually affluent and picturesque. I picked Lola and Peau d'ane as the two movies to watch this time. Lola was a black and white film. This was the first long film made by Demy. Without the colourful pastoral of images, Lola was an expression of Demy's belief of the meaning of movie under the French new wave era. The script was beautifully written and the editing was impressive. The film was taken in Nantes, the hometown of Demy. The passage in the Arcade was an eternity in Demy's film world. When I saw the scenes in the movie, I was amused by the classic pick of the setting for a Lola-istic devotion of first love. I visited the Arcade last year and unlike the much development and regeneration of Nantes, the passage lived in its gorgeous materialistic being of the last century. The long shot of Roland walking by the side of port was a prelude to Demy’s parapluies love in Cherbourg. The movie simply outlined the speech of Demy in his film making life. Peau d'ane, on the other hand, is a post-musical work of his great stories in Cherbourg and Rochefort. Colours remained a winning formula in this work. Truly get away from the realistic world when men devoted their attention to space exploration and development after landing on the Moon, Demy made a tribute to the fairy tale story. The film was also a golden demonstration of his value of the moving images in his greatest times of creation.

Still Paris...(17/4)

Still the same Paris, and it was still the blossoming season with inflated desire of freedom and options. I was passing by, under the whitening sunshine of a daily closing moment. The breath was fresh enough to move on.

Pont-à-Mousson...(7/1)

Here I was, this time by chance, on the road of regression, and I located the bridge. It used to be conventional, and cars just passed through... There was no noise, while the town was so calm. Calm as it was the river, the Moselle enjoyed its belief of quietism, at least at the moment. People were only creatures of scattered pastel on this oil on canvas. The image looked silky, while beauty diluted into a multi-focused distance of glittering beams. It was there, as of it were. Fascinated by its existence along my arbitrary direction of way and ways, it has been a destination where I would like to visit and understand. Since the 19th century, the town has taken advantage of its origin as a cast iron and steel supplying base and accommodated the PAM s.a. being a major supplier of the manhole cover in France apart from its other drainage and construction businesses. The manhole cover design is nice in France and other countries in Europe. I collect the design and some of them are kept at http://zirhc.blogspot.com/2005/08/did-you-bid-lid-id58.html. Apart from the regional design with specific design, emblem, slogan or abbreviation on the manhole cover, those of PAM simply mark with the name of the town – Pont-à-Mousson (or better say the name of the company), but it is this little bridge across the Moselle that links up the many missing puzzles on the roads in France. Before further determining what is below the cover, the cast iron logo gives you already a source of inspiration...monsoon? deconstruction? doxa or para-doxa?

The end of a night in Toulouse...(25/11)

This was the colour covering the dreams. People use to have a false perception about the colour of the clouds that hold a dream...

Never would it be white except a dream of blankness. When the dawn comes, it segments the sky into layers of perspectives, a contemplation of the completion of dreams. When people are separating from their consciousness to each other, they meet in dream of wonder and ponder. The eye lids are the cloud of immortality, and they protect the ultra light from the quietness and pause. Under the lids, the retina receives the glory of thanks a dream colours. The sky of dawn in Toulouse was lovely to me, and unlike the one in Biarritz, it erased the unnecessary foggy tragedy the pair of eyes have to suffer. The exploitation of functionality is a massacre to elite, and the door of wisdom harmonises an awakening sky in the collage of colours. It weights.