Yesterday i went for a walk at night near the Botanic Garden, and by chance i had my camera with me.

Easter is the occasion to have a 4-days week end in Australia. Our fist plan was to go up north, but a rainy forecast and a 6 hours trip made us change our minds. In the end i called the local dive center and they had a free spot for the Advanced Open Water certification. On saturday and sunday we dived 4 times, the 29m deep dive was particulary interesting, and we also did a brilliant night dive on tuesday night. This one was really my favorite !

I am not a big diver, i only have 14 dives in my logbook, but it really is a nice activity. I am still wondering if i will take the Wreck diving course…

I came back to France for a month on holidays in february, and decided to visit my brother who is working in Brussels since early january. I hadn’t seen him for 2 years, so it was definitely a good occasion to discover the european capital as well.

Brussels is in fact quite a small city compared to the role it has within Europe, but it really is a lovely place with heaps of restaurants, night life, and of course architecture. I took a few pictures, but by wandering in the streets you quickly realize that almost every building is quite old and bears its own history.

I had a few weeks of holidays to use before the end of my VIE, and no friend available to tour Australia with me. My friend Jacques who works in Japan had told me a few months back that he had bought a brand new snowboard, and he was eager to try it on the japanese slopes, which are famous for the unbelievable amount of powder snow they get each year.

A simple phone call to Jacques made my mind, i booked a plane ticket to Japan and took 2 weeks of holidays in january. The program was pretty simple : head off to the best ski resort in Japan for a week, then explore some other part of Japan i hadn’t visited the other week.

Our ski destination was Niseko, located in far north Hokkaido, it gets an amazing 12m of snow each year. The best snow i’ve ever had for sure ! 1m of powder on the 3rd day left a grin on my face for the rest of the week.

On the second week i went to Kyushu in the south to seek higher temperatures. Nagasaki is the place i liked the most, full of history, it is a magnificent city.

This was my second time in Japan and i felt like coming back home. This amazing country will always surprise me in many forms, but i can’t deny i really love the place. I hope there will be a third time, for the snow again maybe…

As always the full album of photos is on Flickr.

Three weeks ago i was again on holidays, this time on the west coast of Australia. With my friend Yann we rent a camper van and went up north from Perth to Exmouth.

The coastline is really wonderful and has many stunning views to offer. Just before Exmouth we stopped in magnificent Coral Bay, a small settlement on the border of the Ningaloo Marine Park. Snorkeling is easy as the reef is just 50m from the beach. Exmouth, on the other side, is quite an ugly town, but is the gateway to good dive sites.

As always, my photos are on Flickr, and here is a petite selection of my favourites.

Just came back last week from holidays, wonderful trip with my family who came to visit me. Two weeks from Uluru to Darwin, exploring the Kakadu, then Cairns, the Daintree Forest and the great barrier reef, ending in the magnificient Fraser Island. The trip was awesome, seeing my family was a gift, and i captured most of those memories with tons of pictures.

For my 25th birthday, all of my friends offered me a gift that thrill : go diving with sharks ! The sharks we are talking about are the grey-nurse sharks, pretty big, they can be 3.5m long, but they are not man-eaters. The dive was 30 minutes long, and all of my friends were watching me from inside the 5cm thick glass tunnel. There was also some huge stingrays, and the whole experience was really enjoyable. Thanks everyone for this wonderful gift ! As usual all the pictures and the video are available on Flickr.

Last sunday we were at the Ryde aquatic festival for a Dragon Boat race. I was competing within my company’s newly founded team. Guess what ? We won !

For the full album, click here.

I wanted to write this post earlier but i was pretty busy finding some new flatmates, and at work too.

The last time i went to the slopes was in January 2007, and my season was shortened because of my injury. When i knew i was going to work in Australia, i packed my snowboarding clothes, with the firm intention to try Australian or New Zealand ski resorts.

This winter i didn’t have time to go to NZ just for skiing, so we decided with some friends to give a try to the Snowy Mountains. Located south-east of Canberra, barely 5 hours drive from Sydney, the Snowy are the highest mountains in Australia. We went there twice, on the 15th and the 30th of August, with around 10 people each time. I was really surprised by the resorts, Thredbo and Perisher. They have numerous slopes, and some of them are pretty steep. And it’s strange to ski between Eucalyptus instead of Pine trees. Here are some pictures i took on the second week-end, as usual the whole album is on flickr.

Ce matin, au lieu de faire une grasse matinée, je me suis fait embrigadé par un ami pour aller suivre un cours de cuisine française à la Paris International Cooking School.
Sujet du jour : Sauces, bouillons et beurres composés.

Le chef était français, et comme nous n’étions que 2 élèves nous avons pu parlé la langue de Molière pendant toute la durée du cours, soit 5h. C’était vraiment très instructif de travailler avec un véritable chef dans une cuisine de restaurant, avec tous les ustensiles adéquats. Par contre je me serais passé de la découpe des carcasses de poulet et de poisson a 9h du matin !

Je ne vous fais pas languir plus longtemps, voila le menu :

- Oeufs pochés sauce bénédicte -

- Darnes de saumon pochées façon chaud-froid -

- Filets de poulet sauce chasseur -

- Pommes de terre au beurre provençal -

- Choux de Bruxelles sauce Mornay -

- Crêpes Suzette -

Le repas était un véritable délice, j’ai particulièrement aimé les oeufs pochés, le beurre provençal et les crêpes Suzette. Voila un petit avant-goût de nos réalisations de la matinée :