Music Festivals

Yes, lots of talented people in the world. It's summer and the weather is getting better compared to when we just arrived. Music festivals everywhere. It is amazing!

Live bands either playing outdoor, at the park, at a historical monument; in a castle, in a bar, outside a cafe. You can find a lot that has free admission and some of course comes with a price. Usually the free admissions are very late at night and the one you pay can be costly especially paying in EURO instead of BND.

(pronounced as)

We went to a few. It was really good and we really had a great time. Here are a few pictures of when we went to Viennes (Vyen) to enjoy some music entertainment. Just outside the cafe. We ordered something to drink and had ice cream. They are people dancing and just enjoying the music. Nice huh? This is only one of the few photos we took. Wherever we walked towards to and around each corner, there are musicians playing and at the cafe shops. Just music everywhere.

As you can see here is a historical monument that was built during the Roman empire and was used as a place of worship. I am just so amazed at how well they have preserved all the buildings here. Roman empire.............................

that was like DONKEY YEARS AGO.. and it is still standing. With the original foundation and original stones that were used to build this.

France really have lots of beautiful places to visit and really pleasant to walk around.

As you can see, there are lots of people... just enjoying the good weather too. It was still a little bit cool when the wind blows so we have our jacket close at hand.. since I'm still not used to COOL COLD weather I had my jacket on ALL the time..

This is a cafe, just in front of the Historical monument.

There were live bands playing here too.

Here we are indoor. They are playing Jazz music. We managed to get ourselves nice seats. Good view. Almost first class but we definitely had the VIP seats. We had to wait for quite sometime though b'cos this one was free which only means it starts late... midnight music.
See our seats are alot more comfy than those below. On top of that we got a better view.. HOW ABOUT THAT???

People are waiting patiently for the musicians. it started about 1/2hr later than scheduled.

Ahhh, they finally arrived. They were GOOD..Jazzy music.

Aurelie and Alex were with us but they couldn't take it and they snoozed off while waiting for the musicians to take place. Finally, they went back without seeing the musicians on stage! All the waiting.. well, she is working and had work the next day. Sooo....

Well, we stayed a few minutes here and then we went to another place to listen to CUBAN musicians that played Latino music.. with salsa, samba, cha cha.. there everyone was dancing. The atmosphere was really happening..There I took off my jacket and it was nice and warm. We danced and then we left. Voila, our night in Viennes.

In this photo we have another live band in a cafe/Restaurant
called James Cafe. This cafe is famous for the live bands that plays here. Live bands have to go through audition too..

Here we have to pay for this entertainment. 16 Euro each but with a drink included. This band plays Blues-Rock music.

This band plays in international music festivals.. After their trip here they went to Luxembourg to do a concert there too.. so you can imagine how good they are.

J.W.Jones is the main leader a singer and a guitarist. His band consists of a keyboardist, a drummer, a saxophonist. They are all very talented. Three of them are from Canada except for the saxophonist. He's from Europe.

While they were still playing, they change musical instruments.. One will go and play the drum and the drummer changes places with the keyboardist and he plays plays the guitar. They do a rotation except for the saxophonist. In this photo, there is also a Harmonica player.. He's actually the sound technician. A man who actually works in the cafe. :) He was an invited guest to have the opportunity to play with a band. He was also good.

Although when he went up with his Harmonica..It reminded me alot of my father who played 2 songs with his harmonica for us for our wedding. hehehe... good memories. Puts a smile on my face.

Here we took an opportunity to take photo with J.W. Jones himself. Never know one day he might be really famous right??? hehhehe.... They were having a break and when he was heading back to the stage, he sat down not far from us and I took my chances.

It was a really good night and I particularly had a good time cos the guy spoke mostly english and his songs were in english too! So in a way it was almost like a concert especially for me.. and Johan.. hehehehe.. :) Privileged English Speakers.. for me it was worth the 16 Euros.

Here is another live band when we went to visit Mamy and Papy Foray in Perrone. Not far from their village they had some live entertainment.. one man show, comedian, musicians.. This was organised by the village, Lournard.

It was interesting and a normal thing for all the villages to do. Some of the entertainment you've got to pay and this music spectacle is free. They were playing some kind of special music. It's like a mix of jazz, country and rock at the same time.. hmmm... well I'm not a musician so can't really comment on this. It's nice but not my cup of tea.. So I didn't stay too long.

Here's another historical monument. A castle with fortresses and dungeons and all... nice.. An actual castle. Medieval time. I'm really bad with history so my dates are not accurate.. I will need references before I put any dates here.. All I know is that this castle is during the Medieval time.. :) Not too far from Peronne. This was done during our weekend visit there.

If you look carefully below, there are people there who are practicing for a concert. They were singing Accapella.. and BOY their voices were incredible. Very soothing and it carries out so beautifully. We would have loved to see the concert that night but unfortunately we had to return to Lyon that day.

All the information regarding live bands and concerts that will be playing during the week are published in the newspaper and even online. All kind of music..for all kind of people and whatever you feel like listening to.. All sorts of places too.

You can find something to do everyday if you wanted to and if you can afford it. Will need to drive to the places though and of course here the petrol is really expensive compared to Brunei's price. So depending on the distance.. it can get costly.

Finally another information updated on the blog.. something for you all to read.. :)

The French Family Tree

An overview of the family I'm married into... :) So when we mention them, you know what they look like.

I will highlight some words and try to spell them as how it should be pronounced as. TRY TO

Above we have Maman Foray(ma-more) means mum and Papa Foray.The parents in law.

Here is Aurelie (oral-lee) , sister in law who just got married on the th July 2007 to Alex. The famous 777. There were lots of weddings in France too.

So now Alex is part of the extended family. The family just keeps growing cos he's got a big family. Italian with a French status.

The wedding was beautiful as you can see.

Notice the bears and the red heart on the car??? The same one I used on our wedding day too! Been well recycled. We are waiting for the next in line. Thank you to our sponsor, Rachael Tan/Keasberry. :0)

Here are Papy (puppy) Foray means Grandpa and Mamy(mummy) Foray means grandma who lives in Peronne (pay-ron) , that's like about 2 hours drive from his home. It is north of Lyon.. heading towards Paris.

This is one of the very few pictures we have of Mamy smiling, she hates taking photos so there's not much of her smiling.

See this handsome man with the famous french look??? This is Papy Tanchon (ta-shon, something like that). He's in the light blue suit. This is Maman's father.

Next to him is his brother in law and the lady is his sister. In a way, granduncle and grandaunt.

Ahhh more here.............

Front L to R : Papa (Gilbert),Victor, Christine, Me and Aurelie.
Back L to R : Denis, Emaus, Johan and Alex.

How we are related to this family? Christine is Papa's sister, married to Denis and their two kids Emaus and Victor. Aunty, Uncle and Cousins. They live 10km from Mamy and Papy Foray



Papa has a brother, Alain but we haven't got a chance to take a photo with him or his family.


Maman ( Marie - Christine) is the only child in her family but she has lots of cousins and other relatives on her side.


Well, here we have the family. The direct family. If I start putting other relatives, it will take forever. Besides, I don't have all their photos.

Le Tour de France

TIGNES, mountain resort where we went this week end. The main goal was for Flo to see the TOUR DE FRANCE, the biggest cyclng race in the world followed by millions of people through the world.

As you can see, snow is still present so we took advantage of that to ski at 3000m high on the eternal snow! Snow was good and the sun was back!

Flo had some troubles to get back her moves and she ate some snow on the first slopes but after having to taste the snow few times, she managed to control her skis and go down on her feet (photos to come soon)!

At first, we were following the stages comfortably seated on our armchair watching the big screen by the lake of Tignes with the sun shining and the white mountain as a background.

By 3pm, things were getting more serious! We welcome the "caravane publicitaire", all the sponsors of the Tour de France are coming before the cyclists to show their band or products. They all try to be very original in their design in order to attract people's attention as this car promoting Panache (equivalent of Brandy/Shandy). For about 1h, you get to see that and try to collect gifts that they throw to the spectators. It's good fun! We managed to get few caps, some stickes, few packs of Haribo sweets, some key chain, water bottles and so on....

About 1h after, the first cyclists were arriving! It's the big moment that evreyone was waiting for. There was thousand and thousand of people to encourage those champions n this though mountain stage. Everyone was trying to recognize the Yellow Jersey (leader of the Tour/the one that was winning at this point) or someone they like or someone from their countries. Next to USA, French, Dutch German, Czech, Belgium, Danish, Italy, Spain...people from all over Europe to see that! IMPRESSIVE! Flo would give her coments on that

!

After the race, we attended a rock concert on the beach soccer field waiting for the fireworks. In the mountain, when the sun is hiding (at 10pm), the temperature dropped suddenly. From 35°C in the afternoon,drops to 5 or 10°C at night. You exchange your shorts and sleeveless top for your big coat and your bonnet!

Next time, we will give you more details of how and where we slept during those days...it was original and we will have few more photos to feed your eyes....A BIENTOT

Des photos du mariage de ma soeur/Photos of my sister's (Aurelie) wedding

Hello everyone,
We are all fine! My sister's wedding is over and all went very well. It was a beautiful wedding. We finished at 5am so you would understand if we didn't have time to update our blog!!! We are still recovering. However, you can see some photos of their wedding on our album photos and leave some comments that we will forward to them http://lesaventuresdeyoyo.spaces.live.com/

Bonjour à tous,
En francais, le mariage de ma soeur s'est tres bien passe! Tres fatigant tout de meme et nous nous en remettons doucement. Ce qui explique le retard dans la mise a jour de nos infos! Vous nous en excuserez mais vous pouvez voir qqes photos du mariage de ma soeur sur le lien ci-dessus et laisser vos commentaires!!!
http://lesaventuresdeyoyo.spaces.live.com/

A tres bientot

FloandYoyo in Dubai

HEllo Everyone,

Here we are in Dubai! We almost never reach it! It has been a hectic start of our new adventures! First, our Air Asia flight Brunei-KL had been retimed twice. We were suppose to fly at 6pm and we only took off by 9.45pm! Then of course, as a low cost, they are very cautious for luggages and they gave us a bit of troubles (well we were quite overweight) but we managed to pass everything by using the quota of light travellers!!! (Need to be thick face to ask the other kind passangers to check in our bags under their name :) )

Then at the Brunei customs, I had a bit of trouble! I just made a new passport but with all the rush of the past weeks, I forgot to go immigration to endorse the new one so our life was hanging to this phone call that the officer gave to her boss....dring dring, dring dring....it's ok, they can go. PHEW safe.... Then we had to rush into the plane as we were the last one.

Although we were on the plane, we have to wait for a stressful 2 hours to see if we will reach on time to KL airport as our connecting fight in KL was at 2am! Check in time was at midnight. We land at 12 midnight, pass immigration, wait for our luggages (it seems ages), bought a ticket at the taxi counter and run with our trolley...Get into the taxi, "International Airport please, flight is at 1.30am."

The journey to International airport is supposed to be 20min, we did in 10min, 150km/h on the airport road! By 12.45am, we were at the airport...Phew Emirates counters are still open, we can check in and relax a little bit!!! Then everything went smoothly. Emirates flight, food and entertainment are FIRST class! No problems with our check in luggage, we even checked in all our hand carry.. almost 60kg for both. No extra charge.. how about that??? (Flo was extremely happy with the entertainment service with a personal touch screen, I didn't hear much from her since she was really into the entertainment.)

All was good till Dubai custom again...They wanted to check on my CD. (we brought alot with us with all the pirated CDs you can get in Brunei. Cheaper than in France. Flo had to bring her stock of English films. :) Keep herself entertained. ) They asked me if my CD were sexy! I said not but the officer took all my DVD with him with a cheeky smile and went to survey my DVD! After 30 mins, he came back and said it's OK, it's not SEXY (he seemed a bit disappointed)!

Then we could finally got out of the airport. It was 5am and we had to wait for our friend Melik whom was still asleep! He arrived at 6.30am and drive us to his appatment then drop us at the beach!

WOH Nice beach! white sand, very clean, blue and warm water! But by 9am, the sun

was burning so much already! By 10am, we were out, couldn't even use the public shower, water was too hot! Can't even walk on the sand...the temperature was already around 40°C!

We went for breakfast in an airconditioned restaurant and get a taxi back home to have a well desserved nap and wait for the temperature to drop before doing anything else!!! To be continued...