Friday, February 19, 2010
I'm Wired!
After spending money on 3 extended telephone cables, I broke the 3rd one tonight without even getting to use it. I should have done this a long time ago, I got a belkin router modem and voila! we're wireless baby! Now if I can just get around to buying a wireless usb adapter for my husband's pc and we're all set. Bliss.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Paris! (Act Two)
I gave up on my foodie expectations in Paris just after day two. The meals we had was just to eat so that we wouldn't faint from hunger. Since we were going to the touristy bits, we didn't find anywhere that served good food. Eating just to survive is not fun, I don't understand how other people can stand eating something that they don't enjoy. The one highlight of our otherwise forgettable meals was going to Eric Kayser. It was by far the best bread that I've ever had. Yes, it's a big claim, but one that I'm sure a lot of Parisiens will back up. The shop was empty when we arrived. While we were deciding which ones to get, I turn around to join the queue and realize that there were people lining up all the way to the street. And they kept on coming. And I know why. The bread had a crunchy crust, but the inside was moist and chewy, the flavor was bread, but a lot better. You felt all the love that went into choosing the ingredients, the slow and precise kneading to get the right consistency of the dough, the timing of the prooving, and the selection of the temperature for the baking. It was P-E-R-F-E-C-T. And I don't like bread. And I'm now a bread convert, if only for Eric Kayser. This man understands bread. Ok, I'm wiping the drool... We went back after a couple of days and got the croissant filled with cheese, basically a cheese sandwich. It was good. It was pissing, and all bread in the shop was bought to go, so we had to take shelter under some awning to eat. It was one of the highlights of our trip. That was the best ham and cheese sandwich that I ever had. The croissant was buttery, soft, chewy, crispy, salty, sweet, warm, not too hot, melted cheese...mmmm. We also got the lemon tart and it was perfect too, just the right amount of sweet and sour. I don't like lemon tarts too, but I love this one. My whole food experience in Paris was subpar, but the trip was sustained by our two jaunts to Eric Kayser. If you are in Paris, you must go.
Le Halles however was okaaaay. I expected something more from the place where the 700 year old market once stood, but I guess you only need one fishmonger, one butcher, and one produce stand. They had the most amazing seafood (compared to London, not compared to Asia). I saw prawns that were as big as bananas. It was a delight to see sea urchin sold amongst the regular selection of fish. We have to make a special order from our non existent fishmonger just to get that, and the price we'd have to pay would be extortionate. It's not hard to eat good in Paris if you have your own kitchen. The area was just smaller than I expected. There could have been more food stalls in the market, but I guess I'm spoilt for choice in Asia. One of the stops we made in the area was to ASimon, a kitchen supply store that I read in my book. We got two average sized chefs knives for Mike. I remembered that I had them in my bag as we were passing through Customs on our way back to London. Maybe I should have thought more about what I was going to say instead of "I have two knives in my bag." The guy at check in suddenly looked up from his desk and looked at me like I just confessed to a murder. "I'm a chef! I'm a chef!" worked and he relaxed. Next time, I'm just going to show them the knives. Or maybe not. All in all, it was a bad day to go to market since piggy got soaked from the rain. They're not kidding over there when they say it's going to rain. It rained the whole day from sun-up to sundown. Good thing it only rained one day while we were there.
Le Halles however was okaaaay. I expected something more from the place where the 700 year old market once stood, but I guess you only need one fishmonger, one butcher, and one produce stand. They had the most amazing seafood (compared to London, not compared to Asia). I saw prawns that were as big as bananas. It was a delight to see sea urchin sold amongst the regular selection of fish. We have to make a special order from our non existent fishmonger just to get that, and the price we'd have to pay would be extortionate. It's not hard to eat good in Paris if you have your own kitchen. The area was just smaller than I expected. There could have been more food stalls in the market, but I guess I'm spoilt for choice in Asia. One of the stops we made in the area was to ASimon, a kitchen supply store that I read in my book. We got two average sized chefs knives for Mike. I remembered that I had them in my bag as we were passing through Customs on our way back to London. Maybe I should have thought more about what I was going to say instead of "I have two knives in my bag." The guy at check in suddenly looked up from his desk and looked at me like I just confessed to a murder. "I'm a chef! I'm a chef!" worked and he relaxed. Next time, I'm just going to show them the knives. Or maybe not. All in all, it was a bad day to go to market since piggy got soaked from the rain. They're not kidding over there when they say it's going to rain. It rained the whole day from sun-up to sundown. Good thing it only rained one day while we were there.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Paris! (The First Act)
Bonjour! (I am showing off my very limited french that I picked up while in Paris. Really, learning how to say my name was not useful. I realized what a dork I'd be if I told every stranger my name). I'm watching The Devil Wears Prada while I'm doing this post, I swear I looked like Anne Hathaway the whole time (no, I am not saying I'm as pretty as her, just the wide eyed I-can't-believe-I'm-in-Paris! look).
We got to the station early, partly because I couldn't sleep the night before (excitement and nerves since most of the trains the week before were cancelled due to snow, I had to rebook our tickets a day later than planned). Also, I told Mike the departure time, but I moved it 30 minutes earlier than the real time. What? I get stressed everytime he does his "we have enough time relax" speech. I turn into the white rabbit in Alice and Wonderland. The station was empty so check-in was a breeze (we did have enough time afterall). I wanted to stay awake during the train ride but on just 2 hours of sleep the night before I ended up snoring my way to Paris (with Mike elbowing me whenever my snoring got too loud). At least I didn't drool thank goodness. There was a queue for cabs outside the station but I didn't care. I was in Paris! Even the builders' catcalls were in french! They sounded a lot like Pepe Le Pew. (There was a pretty lady in front of me, so I'm guessing I wasn't the one they were woot! woot!-ing at). On the way to the hotel we decided against going around the city on Velibs. The foreign road signs will be hard enough to navigate on foot, let alone on a bike (we did the math, we didn't have enough hands to balance the bike, hold the map, point at the road signs, throw our hands in the air to signal defeat and wave at a passerby for help). I didn't want to end up next to le poop on the gutter (everywhere in the city is dog poop alley, apparently Parisiens have not heard of le pooper scooper).
We stayed in a boutique hotel so everything was nice, clean and refurbished. The lady who checked us in looked a lot like Sandra Bullock. She said it wasn't the first time she was told that (oooh look at me being charming and giving her a compliment). She opened the door to our room and it was...small. I was already calculating how much we'd have to pay for our entire stay in the hotel, the price was extremely high for such a small room. Eh, who cares, we're in Paris.
So, first thing that I learned about Paris is that it's colder than London. Way way way colder. My nose was freezing half the time (the rest of the time I covered my nose with my scarf and walked around the city looking like a fat ninja.) If someone invents nose muffs they'd make a killing there.
Our first day was spent walking along Champs Elysee towards Place de la Concorde. The garden would have been better viewed in the summer. Also, I do not advise walking the whole stretch on an emtpy stomach in the middle of winter. We bought food at one of the touristy stands(meaning expensive...very expensive...so expensive for a small miniscule piece of apple pie), warm apple pie with plastic bits (it's some tourist stand, so I was hoping it wasn't a preview of French food for the whole stay). Plastic bits aside, finally some food so we don't faint and freeze to death. We got lost going towards Eiffel tower and ended up outside the Louvre. This is me talking to Mike: "The Louvre! That's ok, let's not look for the Eiffel Tower cause I'm freezing to death and I don't really want to walk around anymore and my feet hurt. Stop looking for the tower already! The Louvre is fine! It's better than fine! Yes this is romantic enough for our first day! I get to see Mona Lisa on our first day, that's romantic! Oh, it's closed? (I can see it now, two idiot tourists die of exposure and hunger while going to the Louvre not knowing it was closed so they died for nothing.) Ok let's take pictures and come back tomorrow. What? We need to walk all the way back? Of course, how else are we going to get back to the hotel...can't we get a bus or something? Waaaaah!" Ok, basically you've had a glimpse of how I am when I'm hungry, freezing and my feet are tired from walking (at one point I was parodying Tom Hanks, "Walking the mile...walking the mile...") Just to give you an idea how cold it was, all the ponds and fountains were frozen solid (we saw footprints on the ice).
Since everyone who's ever seen her told me how *disappointing* she was in person (yes I realize she's just a painting), I wasn't surprised at how small Mona Lisa was (really, my face was bigger than her in this holiday snapshot). Going to Paris during the off peak season paid off since the crowd in the museum was fairly tolerable. I didn't have to queue going in and it was easy to move around the crowd by the painting. La Joconde! finally, it's so nice to meet you in person.
Lie ins, aaaah, one of the perks of a vacation. We left our hotel room just after lunch. I wanted to go out alone while I was waiting for Mike to wake up, but in the end I decided I didn't know enough French words to get me past the next block. I didn't practice my hand waving gestures before leaving London. I didn't know if flailing your arms translate well in french and didn't want to get punched in the face while gesturing for a bottle of water/metro tickets/food. I watched a local soap opera (while Mike was getting dressed/eating breakfast/waking up all at the same time). If I got it right, the lead character (who looked a lot like Sarkozy) was sleeping with this french she devil (she kept on doing the she devil look) and plotting to kick out two senior doctors (they were wearing lab coats and had stethoscopes) in the hospital (ok, in a building that looked like a hospital) where they all worked. Funny how you can still get the plot even if you stop listening to the french dialogue (they were all whispering their lines ala Pepe Le Pew which started to get irritating after a while.)
I digress. We spent the afternoon walking around/looking for the Eiffel tower and got there by nightfall. No, we did not spend the whole day just looking for it, we saw other sights along the way but I thought I'd skip the other bits (buildings, historical monuments and the usual things you see while you walk...buildings). We avoided the vendors hawking the gaudy eiffel tower souveneirs with the garish spinning lights by approaching the tower from the west pillar. It was also a perfect spot to steal a kiss and take a holiday snapshot. Weee! Eiffel Tower! It's definitely better to go at night before the lightshow starts. I'm not too keen on the neon flashing lights (it reminded me of that scene in Flashdance where Jennifer Beal wore the kimono and danced around the room in a sort of I'm-high-on-speed way. Yes, I saw Flashdance the first time it was playing in the cinema. Yes, I am that old. Yes, I was allowed to watch it but my mom covered my eyes when naughty bits were played on screen. Yes, I peeked so I saw Jennifer Beal doing the dirty with the lead character but my mom doesn't know that. Yes, I realize that it paints a disturbing picture of my childhood to be watching naughty scenes at that age. NO, I will not repeat how old I am.) Anyhoo...I think we got pretty snapshots sans the top of the tower.
We took a quick stop at LV (of course!) before going back to our hotel. Mike said the whole ground floor smelled of hash (someone probably had to smoke some to calm themselves before shopping). You would too, all those bags! Gimme! We went back to our hotel after I had my fill of the store. This was the second night without green tea, and I was starting to have withdrawal symptoms. Yes, like I said I'm old, so I have to drink my tea for my...err...complexion. Who knew hotels in Paris don't have kettles?! I since bought a travel one so I can use it on my return. Yipeee! After getting our body temperatures back up (we turned up the thermostat, you with the dirty mind shame on you) we had dinner at Chateubriand (sounds fancy but I think it was a chain of bistros). Ordered steak but I think I could have cooked it better. Hmm, second night and french food is not fairing that well. We didn't know where to buy bottled water and I was getting desperate. We had to share one tiny bottle of water the first night and only had one glass of water for the whole day. On the way back to the hotel Mike asked a bouncer at a stripclub if he knew where the nearest grocery store was (le grocery? le shoppe? le agua?) The guy looked like the actor who played John Coffey in The Green Mile and I was tempted to repeat my parody but very wisely decided against it. He told us to wait, went to his car and opened the trunk (I hope that's not a baseball bat) and gave us a bottle of water! Merci! Totally unexpected and very much appreciated.
When we got back to the hotel we asked the guy in the lobby if we could get a kettle. We drew a sketch of a kettle in my travel notebook and showed it to him (aha! you thought we actually said kettle in french, sadly no, we had to resort to pictograms). He said we could get some tomorrow because the kitchen was already closed and you can only get hot water until 10pm. Maybe they turn off the hot water reservior for the city after 10pm. The night wasn't a total loss. He asked Mike if we were the couple from England, while eyeing us from head to toe. He asked us why were were staying in the small room. We said because Sandra Bullock gave us that room. So he told us to tell Sandra to move us to another room and to make sure that Michael was the one who asked for the room change. Ahhh, clever. You see, he wanted us to make it look like Michael was too tall for the bed. Smart! And we were equally smart to decipher what he was saying in his broken english and us in our very very broken and unfixable french. It helped that Mike can converse a little in french, just don't ask him to get you a kettle. As we were going up to our room Mike seemed genuinely disappointed to be proven wrong that french people were rude, unfriendly and unhelpful. I thought it was a good omen for our vacation, all these nice, helpful and friendly strangers. We got a room change the next day and the room was huge! Bed, 3 seater sofa, single seater couch, wardrobe for clothes, a working safe and a hairdryer! You get to appreciate the simple things like a hairdryer in your hotel room if you stayed the previous night in a room sans dyer. The first night, I had to go downstairs to the lobby and borrow a hairdryer from the night porter and then return it the next morning. So, it turns out the room we stayed in during our first night was a single person room. Good thing the night conceirge noticed our extra large bodies. This was one time I was grateful for being fat. Cheeky that Sandra, making us stay in a cheaper priced room.
I leave you with proof that dogs tend to look like their owners. This was so The Lady and the Tramp! (The disney movie ok??? I wasn't implying that the lady in the photo looked like one. Hmp.)
We got to the station early, partly because I couldn't sleep the night before (excitement and nerves since most of the trains the week before were cancelled due to snow, I had to rebook our tickets a day later than planned). Also, I told Mike the departure time, but I moved it 30 minutes earlier than the real time. What? I get stressed everytime he does his "we have enough time relax" speech. I turn into the white rabbit in Alice and Wonderland. The station was empty so check-in was a breeze (we did have enough time afterall). I wanted to stay awake during the train ride but on just 2 hours of sleep the night before I ended up snoring my way to Paris (with Mike elbowing me whenever my snoring got too loud). At least I didn't drool thank goodness. There was a queue for cabs outside the station but I didn't care. I was in Paris! Even the builders' catcalls were in french! They sounded a lot like Pepe Le Pew. (There was a pretty lady in front of me, so I'm guessing I wasn't the one they were woot! woot!-ing at). On the way to the hotel we decided against going around the city on Velibs. The foreign road signs will be hard enough to navigate on foot, let alone on a bike (we did the math, we didn't have enough hands to balance the bike, hold the map, point at the road signs, throw our hands in the air to signal defeat and wave at a passerby for help). I didn't want to end up next to le poop on the gutter (everywhere in the city is dog poop alley, apparently Parisiens have not heard of le pooper scooper).
We stayed in a boutique hotel so everything was nice, clean and refurbished. The lady who checked us in looked a lot like Sandra Bullock. She said it wasn't the first time she was told that (oooh look at me being charming and giving her a compliment). She opened the door to our room and it was...small. I was already calculating how much we'd have to pay for our entire stay in the hotel, the price was extremely high for such a small room. Eh, who cares, we're in Paris.
So, first thing that I learned about Paris is that it's colder than London. Way way way colder. My nose was freezing half the time (the rest of the time I covered my nose with my scarf and walked around the city looking like a fat ninja.) If someone invents nose muffs they'd make a killing there.
Our first day was spent walking along Champs Elysee towards Place de la Concorde. The garden would have been better viewed in the summer. Also, I do not advise walking the whole stretch on an emtpy stomach in the middle of winter. We bought food at one of the touristy stands(meaning expensive...very expensive...so expensive for a small miniscule piece of apple pie), warm apple pie with plastic bits (it's some tourist stand, so I was hoping it wasn't a preview of French food for the whole stay). Plastic bits aside, finally some food so we don't faint and freeze to death. We got lost going towards Eiffel tower and ended up outside the Louvre. This is me talking to Mike: "The Louvre! That's ok, let's not look for the Eiffel Tower cause I'm freezing to death and I don't really want to walk around anymore and my feet hurt. Stop looking for the tower already! The Louvre is fine! It's better than fine! Yes this is romantic enough for our first day! I get to see Mona Lisa on our first day, that's romantic! Oh, it's closed? (I can see it now, two idiot tourists die of exposure and hunger while going to the Louvre not knowing it was closed so they died for nothing.) Ok let's take pictures and come back tomorrow. What? We need to walk all the way back? Of course, how else are we going to get back to the hotel...can't we get a bus or something? Waaaaah!" Ok, basically you've had a glimpse of how I am when I'm hungry, freezing and my feet are tired from walking (at one point I was parodying Tom Hanks, "Walking the mile...walking the mile...") Just to give you an idea how cold it was, all the ponds and fountains were frozen solid (we saw footprints on the ice).
Since everyone who's ever seen her told me how *disappointing* she was in person (yes I realize she's just a painting), I wasn't surprised at how small Mona Lisa was (really, my face was bigger than her in this holiday snapshot). Going to Paris during the off peak season paid off since the crowd in the museum was fairly tolerable. I didn't have to queue going in and it was easy to move around the crowd by the painting. La Joconde! finally, it's so nice to meet you in person.
Lie ins, aaaah, one of the perks of a vacation. We left our hotel room just after lunch. I wanted to go out alone while I was waiting for Mike to wake up, but in the end I decided I didn't know enough French words to get me past the next block. I didn't practice my hand waving gestures before leaving London. I didn't know if flailing your arms translate well in french and didn't want to get punched in the face while gesturing for a bottle of water/metro tickets/food. I watched a local soap opera (while Mike was getting dressed/eating breakfast/waking up all at the same time). If I got it right, the lead character (who looked a lot like Sarkozy) was sleeping with this french she devil (she kept on doing the she devil look) and plotting to kick out two senior doctors (they were wearing lab coats and had stethoscopes) in the hospital (ok, in a building that looked like a hospital) where they all worked. Funny how you can still get the plot even if you stop listening to the french dialogue (they were all whispering their lines ala Pepe Le Pew which started to get irritating after a while.)
I digress. We spent the afternoon walking around/looking for the Eiffel tower and got there by nightfall. No, we did not spend the whole day just looking for it, we saw other sights along the way but I thought I'd skip the other bits (buildings, historical monuments and the usual things you see while you walk...buildings). We avoided the vendors hawking the gaudy eiffel tower souveneirs with the garish spinning lights by approaching the tower from the west pillar. It was also a perfect spot to steal a kiss and take a holiday snapshot. Weee! Eiffel Tower! It's definitely better to go at night before the lightshow starts. I'm not too keen on the neon flashing lights (it reminded me of that scene in Flashdance where Jennifer Beal wore the kimono and danced around the room in a sort of I'm-high-on-speed way. Yes, I saw Flashdance the first time it was playing in the cinema. Yes, I am that old. Yes, I was allowed to watch it but my mom covered my eyes when naughty bits were played on screen. Yes, I peeked so I saw Jennifer Beal doing the dirty with the lead character but my mom doesn't know that. Yes, I realize that it paints a disturbing picture of my childhood to be watching naughty scenes at that age. NO, I will not repeat how old I am.) Anyhoo...I think we got pretty snapshots sans the top of the tower.
We took a quick stop at LV (of course!) before going back to our hotel. Mike said the whole ground floor smelled of hash (someone probably had to smoke some to calm themselves before shopping). You would too, all those bags! Gimme! We went back to our hotel after I had my fill of the store. This was the second night without green tea, and I was starting to have withdrawal symptoms. Yes, like I said I'm old, so I have to drink my tea for my...err...complexion. Who knew hotels in Paris don't have kettles?! I since bought a travel one so I can use it on my return. Yipeee! After getting our body temperatures back up (we turned up the thermostat, you with the dirty mind shame on you) we had dinner at Chateubriand (sounds fancy but I think it was a chain of bistros). Ordered steak but I think I could have cooked it better. Hmm, second night and french food is not fairing that well. We didn't know where to buy bottled water and I was getting desperate. We had to share one tiny bottle of water the first night and only had one glass of water for the whole day. On the way back to the hotel Mike asked a bouncer at a stripclub if he knew where the nearest grocery store was (le grocery? le shoppe? le agua?) The guy looked like the actor who played John Coffey in The Green Mile and I was tempted to repeat my parody but very wisely decided against it. He told us to wait, went to his car and opened the trunk (I hope that's not a baseball bat) and gave us a bottle of water! Merci! Totally unexpected and very much appreciated.
When we got back to the hotel we asked the guy in the lobby if we could get a kettle. We drew a sketch of a kettle in my travel notebook and showed it to him (aha! you thought we actually said kettle in french, sadly no, we had to resort to pictograms). He said we could get some tomorrow because the kitchen was already closed and you can only get hot water until 10pm. Maybe they turn off the hot water reservior for the city after 10pm. The night wasn't a total loss. He asked Mike if we were the couple from England, while eyeing us from head to toe. He asked us why were were staying in the small room. We said because Sandra Bullock gave us that room. So he told us to tell Sandra to move us to another room and to make sure that Michael was the one who asked for the room change. Ahhh, clever. You see, he wanted us to make it look like Michael was too tall for the bed. Smart! And we were equally smart to decipher what he was saying in his broken english and us in our very very broken and unfixable french. It helped that Mike can converse a little in french, just don't ask him to get you a kettle. As we were going up to our room Mike seemed genuinely disappointed to be proven wrong that french people were rude, unfriendly and unhelpful. I thought it was a good omen for our vacation, all these nice, helpful and friendly strangers. We got a room change the next day and the room was huge! Bed, 3 seater sofa, single seater couch, wardrobe for clothes, a working safe and a hairdryer! You get to appreciate the simple things like a hairdryer in your hotel room if you stayed the previous night in a room sans dyer. The first night, I had to go downstairs to the lobby and borrow a hairdryer from the night porter and then return it the next morning. So, it turns out the room we stayed in during our first night was a single person room. Good thing the night conceirge noticed our extra large bodies. This was one time I was grateful for being fat. Cheeky that Sandra, making us stay in a cheaper priced room.
I leave you with proof that dogs tend to look like their owners. This was so The Lady and the Tramp! (The disney movie ok??? I wasn't implying that the lady in the photo looked like one. Hmp.)
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