The weather has turned much colder today, but what has warmed the TLP team greatly are the new friends we have made, and the new experiences that we have had in the last few days.

This morning, a few of us cycled from our apart-hotel in Part Dieu, to our workshop in Terreaux! It was a refreshing ride along the Rhone, and we couldn’t help but pause along the way to take in the exceptional morning view.

Once we reached our workshop, however, it was work from the get go – our target for the day was to complete 200 windmills! Everyone put in lots of effort to complete their respective tasks, and to then put each windmill together. It was thanks to the team coming together as ONE that we were able to go beyond our target today! Go team!

We’d like to give special thanks to two of our new friends here in Lyon, who have helped us greatly in the last few days. Didier, our festival liaison, has been most gracious towards us since our arrival. We are truly impressed by his efficiency and helpfulness, and he has been very patient with our various requests.

Rachel, a Singaporean based in Lyon, not only took us out to the Vieux Lyon markets the day before, but she even volunteered her time with us at the workshop today! We greatly appreciate the hospitality that both she and her husband, Patrick, has shown us. Merci to all!

Later in the evening, we headed out of our workshop to Place des Terreaux with our flower windmills for a bit of fun and fresh air. It was quite a sight indeed, seeing the blue lights glow in the square against the twilight sky. The windmills caught the attention of quite a few young ones in the vicinity, who watched from a distance.

 (photo by Rachel)

We eventually ran up to these awe-struck children and gave them a windmill each. It was a fun and heartwarming sight to watch the kids run around the plaza with their windmills spinning in the cool evening air, and big smiles on their faces. We also seized the opportunity to have a chat with their parents, to share more about what we’re doing in Lyon, and to invite them to our workshop during the Fete.

“4 million people will be here this weekend,” one Lyonnais gentleman informed us when we chatted with him, “It’s incredible.”

What’s also incredible is that with another million people, we’d hit the current population of Singapore! It’s still hard to imagine what that is going to be like, to have such a multitude of people crowd the brilliantly lit streets of Lyon this weekend.

But for now, the work continues – with more bottles to be cut, and more windmills to be done. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our sculpture, so that we can have it installed in time for the festival opening!

Another exciting initiative that we’ve got going here is Lyon’s response back to Singapore! We started our ‘Bonjour Lyon!’ greeting exchange with the youth from *SCAPE saying hi to their Lyonnais counterparts, and now we finally have the chance to have them respond! We look to get more pictures up in the next few days.

If you (yes, YOU reading this blog!) in Singapore would also like to contribute a greeting to the people of Lyon, do take a picture and send it our way! It only takes a few minutes to write a message and snap it! Post it on the TLP Facebook, and voila! We’ll share it on our page!

Check out the following pages for examples of messages:

SG to Lyon - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.303127223040770.71282.112484602105034&type=1&l=7446270e1b

Lyon to SG - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.254851167909984.61664.109124855815950&type=1&l=ea1f254a07

SO much more to come – so stay tuned for our updates!

-Michelle

for The Living Project