Firework Festival in Tokyo during Summer

This post will simply be mostly photos on two (maybe three if you count the one that I didn't wait to see the actual firework) firework festivals in Tokyo that I attended during my internship in Tokyo with the UTRIP program. There are festivals basically every weekend for the whole month of July and maybe couple more in August. I recommended everyone who has a chance to visit Tokyo during this time to attend one of the festivals. The enormous size of the events will surprise you even though they hold the events every weekend.

Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival 2014, near Tokyo Skytree

Big Reunion After Ten Years for SG in Tokyo

This is the first post from Tokyo, Japan. But it is not an usual post from the new city since this post is not about what new things I found in the city, but what old things I have forgotten during the last ten years when I left Saint Gabriel's College. 

Tanabata Festival on the 7/7, near Asakusa

It was a quick notice but four of us meet together at Asakusa for the Tanabata festival which is a festival about the story of two young people who can meet each other once a year during the 7th of the 7th month because of the separation from the Milky Way. The festival itself is interesting with all strange stuffs scattering around the festival such as Tamagoyaki (Japanese Sweet Egg Omelet) for 100 yen which was surprisingly good and people dressing in Yukata. But the main point of this post is not the festival, but about the reunion after ten years and thousands of miles away from where we met each other before.

A Common History for Nationalism and Role of Public Education

How can we unite people with different races, languages and values to create a unified and harmonious nation? 

Imagine bringing in people from different nations to live together in one place and say that from now on you all are a part of this new country. Chaos is what comes to my mind from this situation. However, this is exactly what happened many centuries ago when people try to create a nation. So, how could they do it? 

One possible answer is "Nationalism." They created a strong centralized administration to create a common history for all people in the country to share. Similarly, when you have a high school reunion, what bring people together is their common experience in high school that they want to share with others. By inventing a common history, the government basically makes us feel like we have a reunion all the time.

Champ De Mars from the top of the Eiffel tower.

Last post for Paris: Why do I love Paris?

I thought 10 weeks in Paris will be a long time, but in fact it was not that long for me. I feel like I just got to know the city. I just started to know what the city is like, what the people are like, what the language sounds like and where to go when one has free time. I experienced this feeling for the first time yesterday after my last final exam here in Paris, but it was also the last day that I can experience it. 

But time never stopped running, and now another chapter of my life is slowly coming to an end while the next chapter is coming soon.

When I got here, I don't think I will ever say this, but I do want to say it now. "I love Paris." There are more than just touristy places that everyone seems to post online to share when they come to Paris. Here are things I like about this city and the time that I am here.

Public transportation
It seems like everyone love this fact about how efficient public transportation is in Paris, how little time they have to wait at the metro station to catch a train home, how fast it is to get from one place to the other and how easy it is to find metro stations since there are everywhere. If you walked in the city and started to feel that you got lost, the next metro station will be right in front of you and you can just catch the next train home without much thinking to do. And I really like public transportation here for these same reasons as well and it just makes it is much easier to get to know the city like I could not have done anywhere else.

Musée des Arts et Métiers Metro stop

Also, there are many little details in the metro station that are worth looking at. And perhaps because of this, that I never hesitate to get the next train and go to different places that I have never been before. 

Being a Thai Person in 2014

I have not been home for almost a year now since my last time visiting home in 2013 and did not plan to go home for another year.  But because of our current technology, I have received lots and lots of news about Thailand while I am abroad especially from Facebook when my friends shared articles online. Being removed from the country made me looking at the current event with a different perspective. This is not because I want to, but because I do not have the same context and information as a person who live in Thailand has. My foreign friends often ask for my comment about the situation in Thailand, but the answer that I always gave is simply 'I don't know much about a situation.' I wish I could give a better answer, but I simply can't. Here I would like to share my feeling about the situation.

Rattanakosin Exhibition Hall I visited last time I went home (Summer 2013)

Disneyland Paris: Time Machine and Consumerism

This is my first time visiting any Disneyland. At first, I thought I will be too old for this type of amusement park when you get excited by seeing Mickey Mouse walking around the park, but my friends kept saying that no one is too old for such a thing. So, I decided to give a Disneyland a try.

Disneyland Paris: the entrance

Four surprising things I found in Florence

Even though I consider Florence as the least well-known city that we visited in Italy when you compare it with Rome and Venice, I found many more interesting things about Florence than other places. It may also be that I did not know much about the city, so everything is surprising to me. And I would recommend anyone to visit Florence if you have a chance to come to Italy. 
1. Lots of places about Galileo 

Museo Galileo, Florence, Italy