A weekend in Lyon

So it's just been a couple of days since I've been back in France, and needless to say, I'm finding it just slightly difficult adjusting back to our daily routines, having to go to the office, and all that...

Actually, while we were in Japan, we'd signed up to participate in the JLPT exam (JLPT stands for Japanese Language Proficiency Test), which just so happened to be taking place in Lyon on the first weekend after my return. So, time to pack the bags then and hit the road for Lyon! (great excuse to check out Lyon again, one of my favourite cities in France).

Our hotel was a rather unexciting chain hotel called Le Campanile in a rather charmless suburb of Lyon. So after checking in, we jumped on the metro, and headed into the town centre. We spent the morning walking around in the lovely old town, checking out all the cozy-looking restaurants (many of them Bouchons, traditional Lyonnaise eateries). We settled on a nice-seeming restaurant in the old town, where we had an unsurprisingly delicious French meal! Nice change to get back to French food, after 4 months of Asian grub.

We spent the afternoon randomly walking around town - we've been to Lyon a couple of times already, so didn't feel an overwhelming need to go to any museums or similar (well, we were planning on visiting one the next day, actually). Lyon was pretty busy on this Saturday, with some sort of festival going on, involving a lot of students putting up various spectacles in the streets. Some police demonstrations going on as well....

For dinner, we decided to try our hotel's buffet restaurant - not one of the best ideas we've had, I have to say. The buffet was unsurprisingly unappetizing, so I decided to order something from the menu instead - pizza. It was definitely the worst pizza I've had for years - and that's saying a lot. One of those Micrwave pizzas you can get at the supermarket tastes better! A bit of a fail then...

The next day was our Big Exam Day. But before that, we decided to check out a fancy museum they've recently built in Lyon, Le Musee des Confluances. It's quite a masterpiece of modern architecture (if you are into strange geometric shapes made of glass, metal and wood, which I obviously am then, since I rather liked the building!). The museum itself is pretty interesting too - it's apparently a science centre and anthropology museum.

I loved the place - this is how modern museums should be like. Basically they've found the right balance between what traditional museums used to be like, yet using modern technology where appropriate. And most importantly, it's a place where you learn a lot - which to me is the most important thing when it comes to museums like this. A much more interesting museum than for example MUCEM -  the new museum in the port of Marseille.

And the Japanese exam, then ? Well, given that we were doing the N5 exam (the lowest level), I would've expected it to be easier, given our 6 weeks of intensive studies in Tokyo. Actually, I found it a bit tough, so fingers crossed, results are out end of January....

Anyway, nice to be back in France! ;-)