always.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Everything's just so perfect right now. =))

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Paris with mum and gang!

After a fabulous shopping cum lots-of-Singapore-food trip in London with my dad and sister, I'm now back in Paris with my mum, brother and aunt!

The holiday pace just flipped a total 180 degrees since my mum and dad's style is SO different. My dad chased us everywhere, was always on the go and we had train connections with timings like 7mins in between trains O.o...

My mum on the other hand snoozes, is totally jetlagged and doesn't mind stopping anywhere to see anything!! Haha. So yay I can finally relax!!

The other big difference is that we get to enjoy the small little roads, cuz my dad was chionging all the major attractions e.g. eiffel tower, notre dame and the louvre. Which was good. But now, it's time for shopping =)

See how pretty the narrow little streets are!

My brother was extremely tired after flying in from Singapore.

At least he was game enough to do an emo pose for me.

He so fits the vandalized walls of France, with the hoodie and his ocassional naturally-occuring emo moments hurhur.

The thing about side streets is that you really can get lost in it's charms and just immerse in the beauty of it all.

And see all the wonderful things you can buy!!!

I WANT THOSE BAGS AND POUCHES!! *control.. control*

Check this out! This is a bag as well!!

Oh the things they sell here. Why can't we have such merchandise back home =(

AND THEY HAVE 3-PERSON CHESSBOARDS!! =DDD

Aside from all the funky one-of-a-kind items we do get to buy along the streets, there's also french pastries and cakes!!!

Omg.. Friends have said that it's good to get lost in Venice because you find very cool small shops everywhere turn you get into. How come nobody says that about Paris? It seems like that as well. And for one thing, the shops here are also slightly artsy, where most of the things on sale have some sort of artistic design/graphic prints/vintage advertisements and all. Argh.. Irresistible!! I love Paris streets!!

After walking around, guess who I bumped into!!

Bernice and Eugene!!

And it looks like we met at some nightclub right??

Heh too bad it wasn't.

The picture turned out funny.. and this was actually taken in Notre Dame. Ber and Eugene have better copies so mine's the lousiest photo of us three.

But yay!! Met them before starting exchange proper in London, and now I meet them again when exchange has more or less ended!

Nice pre/post-exchange way to meet =)

Shot of Notre Dame and other Middle Ages French houses from across the bridge.

Today was rainy. Again.

So the only way to go is sepia =)

Got French Famous Ice-Cream with my aunt after a long walkabout around the Parisian streets.

We were both supposed to pose with the ice-cream brand but it got blocked.. so the brand's Berlhillon by the way.

The special thing about this ice-cream is that, it has hardly any cream in it!!

According to my aunt, most French hate creamy ice-cream, therefore hating Haagen Daz, and eat this one way more instead!

Much as I love creamy ice-cream, this one actually tasted quite good.

Mine was a fantabulous cinammon flavour =D.

The whole bunch finally settled down for a crepe and cider dinner, with another uncle living in France, and my aunt's french friend who was her university classmate about 30 years ago!! My goodness.. long time man. I wonder whether we'll ever keep in touch with university friends for such a duration. Realistically, probably only as business partners maybe? What a sad thought.

Aunt's friend, aunt and mum, all happily munching on their savoury crepes.

By the way, these crepes beat Singapore's anytime.

It's brown because of a special flour, and it's soft!

Not like the chewy type you find back home.

My extremely animated uncle living in France, and my very very very very sleepy brother.

And here's my... *drumrolls*.. chicken yellow sauce crepe with onions, carrots, apples and pineapples!!

Quite tasty too considering the weird mix.

BEST CHOCOLATE MOUSSE EVER!!

It's thicker than any chocolate mousse I've ever tried, yet not too strong.

It's extremely chocolatey, yet it still retains it's "moussiness".

One scoop of it and you think it looks like cake, but it's smooth and has a creamy texture.

HOW CAN IT GET ANY BETTER?

I love french mousse <3

Haha last but not least.. This was super amusing!!

After 5 months plus of exchange in sweden, I find that the Swedish Accent is used as a sex toy in London!! WTH???!

Cool huh.. for a breath spray. =DDD

4 more days!!!

Monday, June 08, 2009

A taste of France

I realize that my writing here is determined by 2 things:

1) whether there is time AND
2) whether the internet connection is good

And Paris totally satisfies these 2 conditions! Most of the time, we're stuck in the hotel room now because it keeps on raining. ARGH. But on the bright side, it's never gotten so good, but now my internet connection is at maximum strength thanks to the lovely hotel we're staying at!! Yay! So in gratefulness, I have more pictures up =D

We started out visiting The Louvre this morning. And I take back what I said about just the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame being grand, cuz.. All the attractions are grand!!! Check out the length of that building. And that's only a portion of it!

And what's inside does indeed live up to expectations. The halls are HUGE and elaborately decorated. Although the artpieces and sculptures inside each hall are already fantastic, the halls itself are even bigger artpieces!! Below is a just one of the more ordinary halls. Some of the other halls even have paintings with gold frames on the ceilings itself! The whole place just spells opulence.

See how big the paintings are, compared to all the people!! And if you realize, the frames on the artpieces are super thick too. My dad was telling my sister and I that some frames are worth more than the paintings itself! By the way, the crowd was there because of the original Mona Lisa.

And.. *DRUMROLLS*, here's featuring the most most most famous sculpture of all!!! The lowest statue below the other two is the most important and most visited.

So anyways, when we hit the Egyptian section of the museum, my dad was in a decidedly good mood, and happily gave us his version of what he believed the display actually was.

"This is what the Egyptians read as their storybooks."

"Hey, you see! Chat Noir was not started by French, but by Egyptians!!"
"This in an ancient Egyptian recipe manual! First you throw one duck in, followed by two chickens.."
(Notice that there're a lot of bird-like hieroglyphs)

"This marks the time when the Egyptians sang 'so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen goodbye!"

"The Egyptians using flotation devices."

"Egyptian school childrens' homework!"
"The Egyptians also know how to rock!"
"These are Egyptian pyjamas!"
"Look, girls. These are Egyptian mirrors. But, they double up as fans."

Haha. Oh no.. now we know he cannot work in a museum. So anyways, after that, we tried going to Museum d'Orsay, but it's closed on Mondays!! =((. Roar. We decided to try not to waste the trip out, and just visit the Arc de Triumph, though it wasn't originally on the list of things to see on our trip. It was pretty, but we didn't know what to do really. So we left after staring at it for 5mins. Oooops..

Since it was raining so bad, the only thing left to be done was SHOPPING!!!!! Whee!! Went to Galleries Lafayette, the high-end department store in Paris. BRANDED BRANDED BRANDED. It was more like a "rich people retail therapy indulgences" museum rather than a shopping centre, because everything was so damn expensive. And I spent most of the time window shopping instead, and just bought one set of poker cards =.=

The next shopping area to hit was Printemps. But it was supposed to be more expensive than Lafayette!! So I gave up and just stood outside taking pictures. There were so many rabbits on display. Kept on looking at them more than the model.

Auddie Ippodie puddle of goo!! As promised, I took a picture of Chanel for you!!! Maybe if I'm stinking rich in the future then I'll sponsor you some goods ok. Haha.

At least window shopping kept us busy for a while. Saved lots of money too, given the amount of time we had to shop.

Bonjour, Paris!

Just reached Paris today. It's been drizzling the entire day, but still, that couldn't take the charm away from the whole place. There's just a certain style that distinguishes France, and the atmosphere is just a unique, quirky and romantic mishmash.

We did our quick sightseeing of Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame today! One word - GRAND. But it was too fast. So although I had been complaining like crazy before, I'm glad this definitely won't be my last time over this exchange period.

Eiffel Tower

Stainglass window in Notre Dame

However, although these two are the local touristy must-sees, my favourite out of today's rushed trip was Mont Martre. It's a quaint narrow but long area, filled with restaurants/cafes and artsy souvenirs, all at affordable prices!

Area in Mont Martre

I'm hooked on this art piece thingy called Chat Noir (I think it means black cat?), and I'm buying up almost everything that has that plastered on.

Now I'm eyeing that Chat Noir apron. I hope my mum sponsors me that =D.

*
*
*

For the love of the experience, for the mountains,

And for you.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

All things Swiss

I LOVE SWITZERLAND!! After travelling around Europe, Switzerland still remains my favourite country to date. Unlike 2006, where we stayed in Lauterbrunnen (a beautiful little town in a valley between some of the Alp mountains), my dad decided to have a holiday in one of the mountain towns in Wengen!

The view there was absolutely gorgeous. Outside our hotel, from both windows on 2 different sides are MOUNTAINS!! Which I procrastinated to take a picture on the first two days, and now regret like crazy cuz it was covered with snow on the last day =(.

The main highlight of Wengen is the view you get beyond the church - a vast expanse of snow-capped and forest mountains, with the houses of Lauterbrunnen reduced to dots of colourful pentagons in the heart of them all. Flowing from these mountains are long streams of waterfalls, breaking out into a free-falling mist before reforming back into it's original form again. This is the best I can describe it, and it's way too big to be captured in one shot, but it's a gazillion times better than that. It's one of the best places on earth to be, and I'm definitely coming back again. =)

Spent most of the holiday HIKING. We were going uphill within Munlichen and Murren, two trails leading to those respective spots. And it was a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y e-x-h-a-u-s-t-i-n-g. But also absolutely worth it!!!

Along the whole way, the trails circled the alps, and we had the most awesome view ever. And we kept on seeing different angles of that view as we moved along. *LOVES* And by the way, THE WHOLE TRAIL WAS FILLED WITH FLOWERS!!!

So I was busy snapping every single species, as long as they were different from anything I’ve taken. After doing that, I realize I have totally underestimated Switzerland’s flora diversity and probably hit around 100 pictures of flowers if not more.

This led to me burning way more calories than I would have expected from an uphill trail, as I had to RUN after my dad and sister after taking ages to perfect my flower picture. Take that, multiply by 100x 200m sprints. I estimate a 5kg weight loss =D. Until we put that back on eating all the fabulous Swiss food.

(THE CONNECTION IS TOO LOUSY TO UPLOAD PHOTOS =((( )


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Hit counter code here	Wednesday, June 17, 2009 =) Everything's just so perfect right now. =)) 2:25 am · Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Paris with mum and gang! After a fabulous shopping cum lots-of-Singapore-food trip in London with my dad and sister, I'm now back in Paris with my mum, brother and aunt! The holiday pace just flipped a total 180 degrees since my mum and dad's style is SO different. My dad chased us everywhere, was always on the go and we had train connections with timings like 7mins in between trains O.o... My mum on the other hand snoozes, is totally jetlagged and doesn't mind stopping anywhere to see anything!! Haha. So yay I can finally relax!! The other big difference is that we get to enjoy the small little roads, cuz my dad was chionging all the major attractions e.g. eiffel tower, notre dame and the louvre. Which was good. But now, it's time for shopping =) See how pretty the narrow little streets are! My brother was extremely tired after flying in from Singapore. At least he was game enough to do an emo pose for me. He so fits the vandalized walls of France, with the hoodie and his ocassional naturally-occuring emo moments hurhur. The thing about side streets is that you really can get lost in it's charms and just immerse in the beauty of it all. And see all the wonderful things you can buy!!! I WANT THOSE BAGS AND POUCHES!! control.. control Check this out! This is a bag as well!! Oh the things they sell here. Why can't we have such merchandise back home =( AND THEY HAVE 3-PERSON CHESSBOARDS!! =DDD Aside from all the funky one-of-a-kind items we do get to buy along the streets, there's also french pastries and cakes!!! Omg.. Friends have said that it's good to get lost in Venice because you find very cool small shops everywhere turn you get into. How come nobody says that about Paris? It seems like that as well. And for one thing, the shops here are also slightly artsy, where most of the things on sale have some sort of artistic design/graphic prints/vintage advertisements and all. Argh.. Irresistible!! I love Paris streets!! After walking around, guess who I bumped into!! Bernice and Eugene!! And it looks like we met at some nightclub right?? Heh too bad it wasn't. The picture turned out funny.. and this was actually taken in Notre Dame. Ber and Eugene have better copies so mine's the lousiest photo of us three. But yay!! Met them before starting exchange proper in London, and now I meet them again when exchange has more or less ended! Nice pre/post-exchange way to meet =) Shot of Notre Dame and other Middle Ages French houses from across the bridge. Today was rainy. Again. So the only way to go is sepia =) Got French Famous Ice-Cream with my aunt after a long walkabout around the Parisian streets. We were both supposed to pose with the ice-cream brand but it got blocked.. so the brand's Berlhillon by the way. The special thing about this ice-cream is that, it has hardly any cream in it!! According to my aunt, most French hate creamy ice-cream, therefore hating Haagen Daz, and eat this one way more instead! Much as I love creamy ice-cream, this one actually tasted quite good. Mine was a fantabulous cinammon flavour =D. The whole bunch finally settled down for a crepe and cider dinner, with another uncle living in France, and my aunt's french friend who was her university classmate about 30 years ago!! My goodness.. long time man. I wonder whether we'll ever keep in touch with university friends for such a duration. Realistically, probably only as business partners maybe? What a sad thought. Aunt's friend, aunt and mum, all happily munching on their savoury crepes. By the way, these crepes beat Singapore's anytime. It's brown because of a special flour, and it's soft! Not like the chewy type you find back home. My extremely animated uncle living in France, and my very very very very sleepy brother. And here's my... drumrolls.. chicken yellow sauce crepe with onions, carrots, apples and pineapples!! Quite tasty too considering the weird mix. BEST CHOCOLATE MOUSSE EVER!! It's thicker than any chocolate mousse I've ever tried, yet not too strong. It's extremely chocolatey, yet it still retains it's "moussiness". One scoop of it and you think it looks like cake, but it's smooth and has a creamy texture. HOW CAN IT GET ANY BETTER? I love french mousse <3 Haha last but not least.. This was super amusing!! After 5 months plus of exchange in sweden, I find that the Swedish Accent is used as a sex toy in London!! WTH???! Cool huh.. for a breath spray. =DDD *4 more days!!!* 12:46 am · Monday, June 08, 2009 A taste of France I realize that my writing here is determined by 2 things: 1) whether there is time AND 2) whether the internet connection is good And Paris totally satisfies these 2 conditions! Most of the time, we're stuck in the hotel room now because it keeps on raining. ARGH. But on the bright side, it's never gotten so good, but now my internet connection is at maximum strength thanks to the lovely hotel we're staying at!! Yay! So in gratefulness, I have more pictures up =D We started out visiting The Louvre this morning. And I take back what I said about just the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame being grand, cuz.. All the attractions are grand!!! Check out the length of that building. And that's only a portion of it! And what's inside does indeed live up to expectations. The halls are HUGE and elaborately decorated. Although the artpieces and sculptures inside each hall are already fantastic, the halls itself are even bigger artpieces!! Below is a just one of the more ordinary halls. Some of the other halls even have paintings with gold frames on the ceilings itself! The whole place just spells opulence. See how big the paintings are, compared to all the people!! And if you realize, the frames on the artpieces are super thick too. My dad was telling my sister and I that some frames are worth more than the paintings itself! By the way, the crowd was there because of the original Mona Lisa. And.. DRUMROLLS, here's featuring the most most most famous sculpture of all!!! The lowest statue below the other two is the most important and most visited. So anyways, when we hit the Egyptian section of the museum, my dad was in a decidedly good mood, and happily gave us his version of what he believed the display actually was. "This is what the Egyptians read as their storybooks." "Hey, you see! Chat Noir was not started by French, but by Egyptians!!" "This in an ancient Egyptian recipe manual! First you throw one duck in, followed by two chickens.." *(Notice that there're a lot of bird-like hieroglyphs)* "This marks the time when the Egyptians sang 'so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen goodbye!" "The Egyptians using flotation devices." "Egyptian school childrens' homework!" "The Egyptians also know how to rock!" "These are Egyptian pyjamas!" "Look, girls. These are Egyptian mirrors. But, they double up as fans." Haha. Oh no.. now we know he cannot work in a museum. So anyways, after that, we tried going to Museum d'Orsay, but it's closed on Mondays!! =((. Roar. We decided to try not to waste the trip out, and just visit the Arc de Triumph, though it wasn't originally on the list of things to see on our trip. It was pretty, but we didn't know what to do really. So we left after staring at it for 5mins. Oooops.. Since it was raining so bad, the only thing left to be done was SHOPPING!!!!! Whee!! Went to Galleries Lafayette, the high-end department store in Paris. BRANDED BRANDED BRANDED. It was more like a "rich people retail therapy indulgences" museum rather than a shopping centre, because everything was so damn expensive. And I spent most of the time window shopping instead, and just bought one set of poker cards =.= The next shopping area to hit was Printemps. But it was supposed to be more expensive than Lafayette!! So I gave up and just stood outside taking pictures. There were so many rabbits on display. Kept on looking at them more than the model. Auddie Ippodie puddle of goo!! As promised, I took a picture of Chanel for you!!! Maybe if I'm stinking rich in the future then I'll sponsor you some goods ok. Haha. At least window shopping kept us busy for a while. Saved lots of money too, given the amount of time we had to shop. 8:17 pm · Bonjour, Paris! Just reached Paris today. It's been drizzling the entire day, but still, that couldn't take the charm away from the whole place. There's just a certain style that distinguishes France, and the atmosphere is just a unique, quirky and romantic mishmash. We did our quick sightseeing of Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame today! One word - GRAND. But it was too fast. So although I had been complaining like crazy before, I'm glad this definitely won't be my last time over this exchange period. Eiffel Tower Stainglass window in Notre Dame However, although these two are the local touristy must-sees, my favourite out of today's rushed trip was Mont Martre. It's a quaint narrow but long area, filled with restaurants/cafes and artsy souvenirs, all at affordable prices! Area in Mont Martre I'm hooked on this art piece thingy called Chat Noir (I think it means black cat?), and I'm buying up almost everything that has that plastered on. Now I'm eyeing that Chat Noir apron. I hope my mum sponsors me that =D. * * * For the love of the experience, for the mountains, And for you. :) 1:24 am · Saturday, June 06, 2009 All things Swiss I LOVE SWITZERLAND!! After travelling around Europe, Switzerland still remains my favourite country to date. Unlike 2006, where we stayed in Lauterbrunnen (a beautiful little town in a valley between some of the Alp mountains), my dad decided to have a holiday in one of the mountain towns in Wengen! The view there was absolutely gorgeous. Outside our hotel, from both windows on 2 different sides are MOUNTAINS!! Which I procrastinated to take a picture on the first two days, and now regret like crazy cuz it was covered with snow on the last day =(. The main highlight of Wengen is the view you get beyond the church - a vast expanse of snow-capped and forest mountains, with the houses of Lauterbrunnen reduced to dots of colourful pentagons in the heart of them all. Flowing from these mountains are long streams of waterfalls, breaking out into a free-falling mist before reforming back into it's original form again. This is the best I can describe it, and it's way too big to be captured in one shot, but it's a gazillion times better than that. It's one of the best places on earth to be, and I'm definitely coming back again. =) Spent most of the holiday HIKING. We were going uphill within Munlichen and Murren, two trails leading to those respective spots. And it was a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y e-x-h-a-u-s-t-i-n-g. But also absolutely worth it!!! Along the whole way, the trails circled the alps, and we had the most awesome view ever. And we kept on seeing different angles of that view as we moved along. LOVES And by the way, THE WHOLE TRAIL WAS FILLED WITH FLOWERS!!! So I was busy snapping every single species, as long as they were different from anything I’ve taken. After doing that, I realize I have totally underestimated Switzerland’s flora diversity and probably hit around 100 pictures of flowers if not more. This led to me burning way more calories than I would have expected from an uphill trail, as I had to RUN after my dad and sister after taking ages to perfect my flower picture. Take that, multiply by 100x 200m sprints. I estimate a 5kg weight loss =D. Until we put that back on eating all the fabulous Swiss food. (THE CONNECTION IS TOO LOUSY TO UPLOAD PHOTOS =((( ) 11:12 pm ·