A Tale of Two Cities - 2nd City

Paris, the city of romance. Throughout our visit, we kept checking with each other:

"Do you feel romantic?" and the constant reply was "No" despite me trying to play all those French tunes in my mind.

Anyway, first, we travelled around Paris using the carnet which we bought in 10s and saved us a whole load more than getting the Paris Visite. It also forced us to walk rather than take the Metro for short distances. Cute tickets, very small.

We stayed at this hotel called Hotel Albouy, which was simply great because it was very near the Jacques Bonsergent metro, near a water fountain which saved us loads by filling up our bottles day and night and located along a quiet street. Staff there were friendly and spoke English, this was a real bonus for us.

Plus this room had a window which overlooked some French balconies.

Upon dumping our bags, we headed off to Sacre Coeur. It was so hot that day but I had a Nutella crepe. Check out the size of the the tub of Nutella! It was 5kgs! Every crepe shop in Paris had at least one of them displayed at their counter. I was SO tempted to buy one home and Nutella myself out.

Sacre Coeur is so beautiful! This place reminded me of the movie, Amelie. We walked around the area and explored a little of Montmartre.

Next day, we went to the Louvre. The weather forecast was 36 degrees Celcious. Crazy! We got in without much problem since we bought a museum pass (real handy if you want to cut queues for certain places).

This was the handsome relief that greeted us at one of the entrances, of a man poking a sharp object into his eye. Fun.

Then there was this statue that was surrounded by so many people. Alamak, can't remember what she's called but the audio guide mentioned something about the position of her legs, how she is surging forward which makes the statue so dynamic.

So in the span of seven hours, we covered as much as we could but only skimmed the surface of the art. Mona Lisa was swamped with such a large crowd that wouldn't melt so this was my very hurried snap of her amidst the pressing crowd.

 

Thought this was quite an eerie statue. It ended up as a coffin for the guy who carved it or something.

Since Ron suggested we try the hot chocolate at Angelina's located near Louvre, we walked under the punishing sun, with sweat streaming down our faces, heat radiating off the pavement as we sought our cool refuge at the trendy Angelina's.

Sitting down, I tried ordering some macaroons by pointing to the menu and attempting to read the flavours in French while the waiter patiently nodded his understanding. Pausing over a particularly difficult one, the guy said, "Go on, your French isn't too bad", I shot him a look, not knowing if I wanted to kill him for making me go into the third flavour and mutilating the pronunciations or hide my embarrassment. And I ordered my hot chocolate, yep, despite the sweltering heat outside. He must have thought I was crazy.

BUT! Boy, was it yummy, thick and rich! Ooo, how I'd love to have another cup right now. Sigh.

Warmed up from the chocolate (as though the heat outside wasn't enough), we headed off to Champs-Elysees towards the Arc de Triomphe. Unfortunately, there was something going on there with a band that played continuously so we didn't get to climb the place.

From there, we walked to Eiffel Tower. After four hours of queues and only spending about half an hour actually sight-seeing (we missed sunset as we were still in the queue), we rate this as the most overrated tourist spot. Plus it didn't help that it was a hazy day. So not worth the wait.

Day three saw us heading to the Pantheon in the morning. Saw the tombs of Voltaire, Braille and Marie Curie. Felt it was a bit too plain considering the grand structures we've been seeing so far. Still, it was an impressive building.

Then we walked to Notre Dame. Again, the queue to climb it was tremendous but this time, it was worth the wait.

It had menacing gargoyles like this one that looked like it'd like to bite your head off...

Then it had cute ones like this gargoyle looking out into the bustling city with his tongue sticking out.

And this one must be Malaysian, perpetually eating.

Pausing for a quick lunch at the Latin Quarters, we then headed to St Chapelle.

And since it was Thursday, it was late night opening for Musee d'Orsay so we walked along the Seine River which unfortunately reeked of urine. In fact, as we were walking, there was this guy in front of us relieving himself under a bridge while his hot date waited for him. Instantly, we turned to each other and asked again, "Do you feel romantic?"

Loved the interior of Musee d'Orsay. However, by that time, I was a little museum-ed out. Still, we enjoyed seeing famous paintings like van Gogh:

Monet:

Whistler's Mum, made famous by a Mr Bean movie:

And THEN! This painting caught me completely off-guard. I mean, we were looking at serious art stuff, paintings, sculptures, objects and then bam! This was prominently displayed in a room of sniggering males. I had to quickly snap this because KS was so embarrassed to be seen near it.

After making full use of our Museum Pass for the day, we headed for a French dinner in the Latin Quarter, Le Petit Prince, recommended by Ron. Oh. My. Gawd. The duck I had was absolutely delicious! I must say I can't remember duck being cooked other than roasted here in Malaysia but this one was completely different, tender slices soaking in a melon sauce. Oh man, my mouth is watering just thinking about it! Sorry, no photos as I felt a little embarrassed at being so different from the crowd of fairly well-dressed diners.

Next day, we headed to Versailles, which we nearly didn't go as we were quite tired by then. Thank goodness we made the trip because the chateau was breathtaking! The moment we saw it, our jaws dropped from the sheer size of it! Even by standing so far away, I couldn't capture the full width of the palace. What's even more amazing is that the building portion is just a small part of the entire estate made up of the gardens.

We whizzed through the palace since we were eager to see the gardens. Here' s the famous Hall of Mirrors and the ubiquitous tourists.

And here are some pictures of the gardens. The word massive isn't big enough to describe this place.

We spent a good deal of our day here, resting under the shade of these trees and enjoying the of the afternoon.

There were many sculptures too. Here were some lined up towards the chateau. More photos on my flickr.

After all the hard walking, we enjoyed our dinner alfresco style. By then it was getting chilly so it was perfect. Er, we had a lot of Italian food in Paris, somehow. Guess it was something familiar and it was something we could understand from a French menu. Spaghetti? Tomate? Cabonara? Aha! I know what that means!


Paris is great, expensive and surprisingly a little dirty with the uncollected dog poo and urine smell in quite a lot of places which kind of marred the experience. Still, we were very sad when we had to return to London.

A Tale of Two Cities - 1st City

Gosh, I've been staring at this page with an absolute blank mind. How to do sum up an exhilarating whirlwind of 13 days of doing all things touristy in London and Paris?

Okay, so here's what I'll do. I'll put some storytelling photos here while the pictures which you probably can rip off somewhere on the internet will be posted on my flickr.

First off, this is the plane (with the Raiders Livery) that took us on our 14 hour journey from Kuala Lumpur to London, courtesy of AirAsia for KS and me! (Photo published by permission from Ong Keat Siong)

The express that took us from Stansted Airport to Liverpool, also courtesy of AirAsia. Passed by fields of brown wabbits, horses and sheep along the way.

Our comfortable room at St Giles off Oxford Street, situated very close by to Tottenham Road Station and smack bang in the middle of London city. Also courtesy of AirAsia for our first three nights. :)

Our very English breakfast every morning at St Giles. Fantastic grub to kick start every morning. Unfortunately, I thought the white stuff at the 11 o'clock of my plate was some kind of egg salad. Wrong! It was some weird cheese. Guess what was the only thing left on my plate that morning.

The first few things that caught my attention was the many many shows London has to offer. Here's where I found where Jason Donovan is currently whiling away:

The other thing I noticed was the wonderfully detailed and intricate architecture of the building all around London.

So on our first day, we went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of guards. Boy, were we excited when we first spotted the still guards as we approached the palace! There were two of them and I guess they must have been photographed quite a bit that day.

Unfortunately, while waiting for the Changing of Guards to start, we scorched ourselves under the withering sun as we watched the tourist crowds swell. As soon as something started to happen, all arms stretched out with cameras/videos, creating a solid wall of limbs and obstructed our views completely.

We gave up after a bit and walked off towards Westminster, Big Ben and House of Parliaments.

We also went to the Sherlock Holmes Museum along Baker Street. Must jog my memory again about his adventures.

Other places we went was the British Museum which we spent four long hours just cause we got the audio guide and attempted to listen to every single description. Kiasu lah!

Of course, our trip was punctuated with the reason why we were in London in the first place, the U2 360 Tour! That one, I'll blog about separately.

So after a rock and roll concert, the next day we went for a Baroque performance at a church called St Martin. When we told this to the AirAsia guy who followed us, he swiftly and politely said, "Wah! You guys are very... versatile!"

Anyway, St Martin has a crypt. A crypt that is currently being used as a restaurant. Seen here are the patrons who are sitting on top of graves and sipping their tea and scones. I heard the scones are good but I just felt weird even standing on the floor with engravings of "Here lies the beloved So-And-So who died in the year..." let alone sit and eat something. But that's just me.

This is the inside of the church, taken during the break during the performance. They didn't just play the Four Seasons, Air and Parchabel's Canon, they played a whole load more. The combination was perfect, cool evening night, baroque music which I am not familiar with. I was half asleep by the time it ended two hours later.

Other places we visited were the Natural History Museum (I LOVE LOVE LOVE the building!). Here's one with a Hogwarts staircase.


Saw dino bones for the first time! Boy, were we excited!


Went to the V&A Museum, Tate Modern (the museum that we spent the least time in since we absolutely didn't understand that type of art), The Royal Albert Hall (ooo! Siti Nurhaliza performed here before!), Hyde Park, London Tower where an entertaining Beefeater (or Yeoman) by the name of Steve entertained us with wit and gross tales of the deaths that happened there, Camden and Portobello markets.

We reckon that's Albert plated in gold seated beneath a very Siamese-inspired shrine.

This is Steve, the highlight of London Tower since we don't know the history of England well enough.

One of Hyde Park's entrances.

We also went to watch "We Will Rock You", which turned out to be fantastic! We bought our tickets through lastminute.com which not only shaved off more than £12 from the actual price, it threw in a great dinner and gave us amazing seats! The show turned out to be very entertaining and really worth the while!

Anyway, for those who want to look at humans in photos, here's one of us camwhoring on the way back on the EuroStar to London from Paris.

Special thanks to my high school buddy Tsiang who opened her place in London for us, her sis Ying who vacated her room for us and slept on the living room floor while we were there and of course, to AirAsia who made this trip possible! Muah!

********************

Oh, and how could I forget, my Aunt May Lin took time off and took us around, feeding us Chinese and more Chinese food upon our arrival! She even took the effort to grab a bus schedule from the library, lent me her clothes since I was silly enough to pack half my luggage with autumn/winter clothes and lent us Oyster cards which made travelling around London so easy. She was really great!

After A Long Break...

I'm still struggling to put up the post on our London and Paris trip as the loading of photos is a pain. After 5 days of being back, we're still wearing off the effects of jet lag which comes in spurts.

Anyway, I've successfully uploaded some photos on my Flickr.

For now, we've got to go collect Ang Ku from the vet. She was down with jaundice while we were away and Jan has been fantastic, helping us out in terms of taking care of her and sending her to the vet. Poor gal has been miserable and didn't bother to acknowlege us when we went to visit her.

She will have to be a permanant resident with us in the PJ house so no more roaming around the streets of Klang on her own.

My Chemical Hair

Since I will be attending a wedding this weekend plus my trip to London/Paris is next week, I thought I’d splurge just a bit on doing my hair. Sometime early this year, Jan had done this thing called “relaxing” her hair, which is similar to rebonding, except that the straightening looks more natural rather than the flat effect rebonding gives.

The last time I ever had any chemical work on my hair was 20 years ago. That produced such a major disaster that it put me completely off any chemical so my hair has been virgin since. Still, Jan’s hair looked pretty good so I was willing to give it a go.

Since there is a hairdresser near my office who always promotes their low prices, I thought I’d give it a try. I mean, it should be the same everywhere, right? So I made my appointment and went on Monday right after work.

Disaster Clue #1:
They didn’t have a separate pricing for relaxing but only for rebonding. The guy assured me he would do relaxing but since it’s “about the same as rebonding”, hence the pricing would be the same.

Disaster Clue #2:
The guy assigned to me could not speak English. He conversed in Cantonese while I gave my instructions in English. As you can imagine, more than half the things he said I could not understand and I’m sure he couldn’t understand what I wanted either. Like a duck talking to a chicken.

Disaster Clue #3:
Halfway through, I asked what was the difference between the process of relaxing and rebonding and he answered, “they are the same”.

Disaster Clue #4:
My hair is now slightly past my shoulders and is now curling out. I didn’t want it to curl out so I indicated to him several times that I wanted it cut shorter. His answer? “No!” and he went off in a lengthy explanation in Cantonese (I think) on why it would curl out because it touched my shoulder. That I know but I don’t WANT it to curl out!

When I freaked out when he said he was going to use an iron, he KNEW he had a green horn in his hands. “Your first time? You never do any chemical on your hair?” loud enough for the entire place to hear him. My confidence simply crumbled to the floor and was swept away amongst the cut hair. I began to compare between visiting a dentist or doing my hair (since both give me stress and worry) and at that point, visiting a dentist won.

By the time he was done, I could only stagger out of the shop four and the half hours later (past 10pm, Dad wasn’t too happy with me being out in such a dangerous area so late), bewildered as to what had just happened.

So yeah, my hair is flat as a pancake and it curls out. Exactly what I didn’t want! Sigh. My colleagues have been kind and haven’t even mentioned the difference. Here’s my artist impression on how it looks like:

Next time, I will only visit a hairdresser who speaks English, which can be quite a challenge here in the Klang Valley. Now I have to wait for 3 days before I can wash it (good luck to those around me!). There’s still a lingering waft of ammonia about my person. I can only hope that it would have some form of bounce when I wash it.

Bon Voyage!

Today Grace and family migrates to Washington DC, USA. I am excited for her, Matt and the boys. The opportunities they’re going to have! Everything we’ve seen and grown up on American TV will be made real! Hahaha… just like how KS felt and connected when we went to Hong Kong.

Matt and Grace have been migrating from country to country since they got married in over 15 years but this will be the first time they’re shifting with the boys. They’ve been prepared the boys well enough though.

James wants to learn how to make rockets (the kind that really launches) and they apparently have a Rocket Club he can join. The mere thought of joining a Rocket Club is simply something we never thought about, growing up in Alor Setar. We didn't even have a Rock Club, heck, did we even have any community club to begin with?

Sure, we’re going to miss them, not being able to just hop on a bus or train to get to them in less than a day. We’re going to miss all the zany things the boys come up with and amuse us with. We’re going to miss the laksa, prawn noodles, hokkien mee binging we always go through when Grace is around.

I know while my parents are sad, they’re also glad for them to have this opportunity for greener pastures. Mum even asked me recently if I would think about migrating too!

So Matt & Grace, yes, we are sad that you’re moving so far away, but we’re happy for you. Plus it gives us an excuse to come visit America one day!

Go Home!

For the first time in my working life, my office mates chased everyone out last Friday at exactly 5pm in an attempt to enforce some work-life balance.

My colleague and I, famous for staying long after most have gone home, were plotting on means and ways to sneak back into the office to complete more work. But after half an hour hiding in McD's for an ice cream, the weekend mood had sneaked in and we simply couldn't bring ourselves to start work all over again plus the fact that we were warned that names would be reported of those who stayed back.

Still, it was really great to go home early, spend time with Mum and Dad who just came back from Singapore. Having about two hours before dinner was, wow. Hopefully this exercise will be carried out every last Friday of the month as planned.

********************
By the way, speaking of my office, there was another demonstration that went on again at my office area today. This was to abolish the ISA, an act which was supposed to be used to contain people who are perceived to be dangerous to the country. Of course, we all have witnessed extremely dangerous people who were a threat to the nation being put behind bars of late, with an undefined time of when they would be released.

Gosh, will I be arrested under ISA for saying that?

Memory Mishaps

Over the last couple of weeks, my memory has been failing me big time. Firstly, I left the computer and fan on in the Klang house one Sunday simply by being distracted with searching for something downstairs. Once I found what I was looking for, I just left the house without remembering the computer was still switched on.

Then on Friday, KS happened to go back to feed the cat when he noticed it. So the computer was on for 5 days in a row. Sheesh.

The second incident was ironic. My sis-in-law was in town and we were laughing over some other person who was being very forgetful. I gave a sheepish grin and confessed my own forgetfulness. The morning after that, I was watering the garden and noticed the package Ron sent to me (he bought me ear plugs and sent them from Melbourne for my Paris trip, bless him!) had arrived. Since it was getting wet, I left it on the car and continued my task.

After running around doing more errands, we went out for breakfast and yes, I only remembered about it while halfway through my noodles. The package could not be found anywhere along the road although we checked twice.

Sheesh. I've been stressed out ever since, trying to consciously keep tab of everything.