[Bloodshed after a skate scooter race amongst a few boys at the square. There was no sign of pain at all. This photo is from my first day of shooting at the Arles workshop.]

13th July: First time taking a course organised under Les Rencontres d’Arles. I’m taking a week-long workshop by Gilles Leimdorfer called “Explore and discover your own photographic language”. I guess that’s the beauty of photography – you never stop learning and you never really reach a peak in a way. It’s not like an academic exam where you can attain 100%; the process never ends for photography. I’m the only Asian in class and the only one who can’t speak/understand French. It’s times like this yet again that I wish I knew many languages. The photo above reminds me of how when I was young, I wasn’t afraid to try things, not afraid to fall down. Why do we learn to become fearful when we grow up?

14th July: My first time being in France on its national day. Apart from having the international photography festival and exhibitions during this period, this week also happens to be the world music festival in Arles. This morning was the first time I attended a free concert organised as part of Les Sud a Arles.

[Pants to Poverty held Pants Amnesty in the cold London rain in front of the Royal Exchange in a bid to to raise awareness about the highly toxic insecticide used in cotton in many developing countries.]

7th July: After reading my new friend Chris‘ blog post on the Londonist, I headed to the Royal Exchange to check out the scene. It was quite cool seeing this big group of people in underwear and it was my first time too. It’d be cool if something like that happened in Singapore. Yesterday was also my first time being stuck in Selfridges because it suddenly rained/hailed/sleeted in London?!?! I never knew the ceiling of Selfridges leaked so badly until yesterday.

8th July: Today is the first time I worked out at gym in London. Decided to sign up for and print out the free one-day gym trial membership for the Fitness First just 2 minutes away from my place. Did rowing, stepping and cycling for 60 minutes and felt much better after that. I hope it cures my insomnia because for the past 2 days I’ve been sleeping at 5/6am? I have no idea why. And today was also the first time I was asked this question at a job interview, “What is your favourite drink?” I was very amused by that.

[What tragic copy in Liverpool which already felt like a ghost town to me.]

3rd of July’s first time included going to Richmond and having coffee made by an excellent barista friend (whom I haven’t met for a year since I last was at uni in Singapore) and then spontaneously going for a dinner at the friend’s friend’s house. Basically it was dinner with one friend plus 5 strangers (but not strangers any more). I had super yummy Italian food.

[In NYC, sometimes owners are asked to curb their dogs. This little sign caught my eye and amused me.]

Yay, the days are getting longer and sunset is now about 8pm. Daylight makes such a big difference to me because I really like long bright days. My sleeping cycle is finally back to normal again, sleeping earlier and waking up earlier. I guess it helped that Prague was an hour faster than London.

[We went to Bake Shop in Prague just a little too late on the first day.]