LV building at Champs Elysees.

Galleries Lafayette is brimming with festivity.

Their endless panels of window mobile displays attracted huge crowd and they were all in shades of PINK!

They have families of mice, rabbits, ducks, monkeys dancing, marching and flying around to the rhythm of music.

They were all so lovely and sweeeet even for someone like me, who is so not into this color.

Malcolm had fun dodging in and out the crowd, scurrying from one window to another.

One moment you see him, one moment you don’t.

He was obviously fascinated with the displays and it doesn’t matter even if they were all PINK!

Due to the cold front in Europe, it snowed in Paris on Sunday !!!

It was cold, it was freezing and it was SNOWING !

We piled on our clothes, put on our winter gear and scurried outdoor

Braving the wind and cold to catch the first snow for the season !

Gloomy, gray, chilly, wet

Naked branches framed the sky

Skeleton trees lined the streets

Days are short, nights are long

Mr solar lazes

and the whole world follow so

The clock goes back an hour

slowing down time

For even time

cannot defy nature’s law

and Lady Eiffel

standing tall, overlooking the lovely Seine

welcome it all, like she always does

in her brand new coat of icy blue

The previous post was actually meant to be this. It’s amazing how my thoughts get carried away by the silence of the night…

So yesterday, instead of the usual French lesson in a classroom, we visited the Palais Garnier. Or more commonly known as the Paris Opera. I told Malcolm about it and gave him the option to choose. To join me for the visit, which he must be prepared to do lots of walking OR to go back to school after lunch and play with friends at the playground.

He hesitated and decided the former.

He was VERY GOOD throughout the 2 hours trip. No whining, no fussing over too much walking. I was totally impressed.

It was the first time we stepped into an opera house and I was totally blown away by the intricate architecture.  It was decorated with elaborate multicolored marble friezes, columns, and lavish statuary. It was grand and beautiful with lots of chandelier that fascinated Malcolm.

We were given a glimpse of the stage from one of those cubicle seats, once stood by aristocrats and I could almost imagine them with their binoculars, watching the performance on stage from afar.

We didn’t catch half of what the French narrator said but once a while, Malcolm would tell me he heard her said some words he knows.

And I knew I made the right choice in bringing him along, when on our way home, he repeatedly told me how much he enjoyed the opera house.

In his own words,

‘the opera house is beautiful,

there are lots of lights to see

it is very quiet

and I can hear your teacher speaks French’

he was actually comparing the silence to his class, when it is usually noisy when the teacher speaks.

And I never really know he appreciates silence this much.

We love these dragons on the ceiling

and the many angels remind us of Sistine Chapel at Vatican City

After dinner, we took a stroll from our place to the nearest bridge crossing the Seine. Waited with many like-minded locals who chose to watch the fireworks from afar.
Half way into the display, my boy who was sitting comfortably on Daddy’s shoulder blurted out loud,
‘Mummy, did you fart?!’ causing some chuckles around. Kids sometime say the darndest thing!
It was a good way to end Bastille Day and I think Malcolm will remember this for a long time.

Not too long ago, we visited the Water Lily Room at Musée de l’Orangerie which houses Claude Monet’s renowned Water Lilies since 1927. Thanks to this book which I mentioned in my earlier post, Mal was more appreciative of what lay in front him.

It is one thing to read it in the book and another thing to see the real thing. I was in awe of the real thing. It made me feel little, literally and figuratively.

For one, here was a guy who spent the last 10 years or more of his life painting and repainting, and then repainting again, aiming for the acme of perfection until a good friend was brave enough to insist that it was already perfect and demand that he stops before he destroyed his own masterpiece. However, till his death, he was still not satisfied. This thing is HUGE. Imagine, 2 rooms worth of water lilies….what was this guy thinking?!!

I can’t really tell the difference between a Monet or a Van Gogh, but for once, I felt that I could appreciate this bigger than life piece of art. Strangely enough, for some then obscure reason, I felt touched and moved. Reflecting, perhaps it was the release of all the anticipation and expectations, coupled with the fact that here I am, standing in front of IT, not some cheap reproductions from posters.com, looking at IT’s closest details, marveling that IT once stood in Monet’s studio about a century ago.

I kind of like this euphoric feeling.

We attended the Soirée Internationale (International Evening), an annual event held by Ecole Militaire in Paris It was a night with free food, drinks and lively music in carnival style. The cultures and food from over 60 different countries were the highlights of the night.

The big field inside the Ecole was dotted with blue and white tentages. Aroma and laughter filled the air. There were Dutch men in colouful wooden clogs and funny hats, Scottish men in tartan skirts, Korean women in hanbok, Africans in tribal dress and Indians in their traditional sari. Our Singaporean friends were cladded in SIA trademark kebaya and batik shirts instead. Daddy was lucky to be given the chance to come this far to meet and work with these people. We were lucky to be with him.

Kids warmed up in an instance and soon they were running around chasing each other. They were the best nannies for one another and that leaves us some time to go ‘country’ hopping. We moved from one tent to another, sampling food and drinks, chatting and meeting new people. Bon soir and bon soirée were the most commonly used words for the night and I was more than happy to meet someone who speak English. By the end of the night, our tummies hurt from the glutting and our tongues were twisted a little after a trying night of parlez français.

As the night wears on, we quietened down. Out in the chilly night, we curled up to each other, waiting in anticipation. The gaiety around us was drowned and slowly faded into silence as our eyes lit up to the spectacular Eiffel Tower night light show ahead, at a distance not too far away.

We lunched out for the first time at a typical parisian brasserie, La Pointe Saint Eustache. It was at the 1st arrondissement, geographical center of Paris and a haven for tourists where The Louvre, Les Halles and the Palais Royal are located.

beside this old historic churchwe found this brasserie, La Pointe Saint Eustachel’eau in a blue flaskDaddy ordered a Carnard which tastes like roast duck cooked in ang moh style. He loves the potato though I find them too oily
I ordered a steak cooked to moyen. It was a bit tough but it goes super well with the Dijond mustard. Just writing about it makes me drool!this was wrapped around my steak. 100% fatty bacon. I can’t bring myself to swallow, how sinful! Mal had his omelette with bacons…to be exact 3 omelettes!

Shoo dog shoo! this dog, which looks like Tin Tin’s Snowy was seated just like any other patron in the brasserie. Parisians LOVE dogs!

After lunch we took a leisure walk along Les Halles, once a central wholesale marketplace until 1971.

Les Halles

and saw this ooohh laaa laaa, passionate french lovers kissing in the middle of the street!

The walk brought us to Centre Georges Pompidou, the national museum of modern art which also houses a vast public library and a center for music and acoustic research. Mal calls it the ‘funny’ museum because of the huge pipe like structures seen outside the building. I find it more like an unfinished piece of work, a building still under construction. Just outside the museum there were crowds gathering around street performers, such as mimes and jugglers. The Stravinsky Fountain around the corner is something refreshing to see. The automatic fountain painted in bright vibrant colours is a piece of art on its own. A nice change from all the sober coloured historic buildings in the vicinity.

the pipe like structures outside the center and people queuing up to get inside the Pompidou the building looks more like unfinished to me

look at these fountains in fun jubilant colours, a great contrast from the sober coloured buildings around

fountain art

Further ahead we came to Hotel de Ville, housing the City of Paris’s administration. Ever since 1357, the City of Paris’s administration has been located on the same location where the Hôtel de Ville stands today. It was rebuilt in the 1870s after a fire that took place in 1871. It was there that we saw the biggest and most ancient looking carousel ever.

Hotel De Villethe grand c
arousel in front of Hotel De Ville

watch me balance

We took a long walk along Seine river …

we saw little stores selling paintings,
and very old books

and there is something for me too…an old Tin Tin comic selling at 12 EUR

It was Daddy’s plan to bring us to The Louvre, the biggest and most visited museum in the world, which holds some of the world’s most famous works of art such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Virgin and Child with St. Anne. We were however distracted along the way and ended up somewhere else…

Every walkway and every turn, you are greeted by a building, easily a few hundreds years old, since there long before our time, with a rich history waiting to tell.

Some people says that you don’t really know Paris, unless you know its buildings. It is an architectural timeline detailing the many eras, styles and trends from Medieval to Modern and that is what that made Paris an architectural wonder.

A week after we came, it occurred to me that Mal’s meagre collection of books is not going to last him very long. You can find librairies (french) everywhere in Paris and there are already quite a handful around our neighbourhood. For a while, I was very happy and relief as I thought librairie (french) = library (english) which means I will have no problem getting books for Mal. My happiness and relief was short lived. I soon found out that librairie is not LIBRARY but is actually bookstore which only sell FRENCH books most of the time! I was told that they might not even have an English books section in town libraries! I began to panick and began searching on the net for English books. We thought the best choice we had was to either order from Amazon UK or Ebay UK, which we did. We found the book that we were reading half way before coming over and decided to order it. It was a thick book and it contains quite a few stories. We thought we were safe as this should be able to last us awhile. It costs us almost SGD 40 for the book and it has been more than 2 weeks, the book has yet to arrive.

Last week, a search on the net was finally paid off. I found the AMERICAN LIBRARY IN PARIS!!! I was elated, overjoyed, ecstatic. I checked the time, 3 hours before the library closes at 7 pm. I called Daddy and arranged to meet him at the Metro station after work. There was no procrastination. It was URGENT. It eventually took us 2 hours to finally hunt down the place!

The library has a huge collection of English books. It is near to Daddy work place, near to Eiffel Tower which means not very far from our place. There is a story telling session for Mal’s age group every Wednesday just like the library we frequent in Luke. And with a annual family membership, which cost us EUR155, we are allowed to borrow 20 books, 12 magazines and 5 audio visual items at any one time. We had already made full use of the card. We had borrowed 21 library books. 4 for Daddy, 4 for Mummy and 13 for Mal (apparently they were not so stringent with the maximum number of books)

I know that library membership is free in Singapore and in the States, we don’t even need to pay a single cent and we get to borrow 50 books each time. But trust me, when you are as desperate as us, EUR 155 for 1 year is CHEAP! It’s like paying for a RARE GRM, in our case, a place in Paris where you can find English books!

I finally visited the main Gallery Lafayette store in Paris Haussmann, historical departmental store from the 19th century, opened by 2 cousins in 1893. It is situated something like 13 Metro stops from our place, which is around 1/2 hour train ride. You could see the sign of the store right after you exit the Metro station. It was not a very big entrance and I was expecting just another departmental store like those back home. As we entered the grand magasin, Daddy turned to me and said, ‘I will take care of Malcolm while you do your shopping. Call us when you are done’ We did a bit of test calls with our phones to make sure we are both contactable before they disappeared with their roller scooter. I think Daddy was overwhelmed by the size of the departmental store, and the wise choice to make was to make himself scarce ASAP before the damage is done, physically or mentally. For those who are not aware. Daddy HATES shopping and Mal is his perfect disciple. Now my little boy can’t even tolerate going grocery shopping with me!

Anyway, with them gone. I felt so FREE! free to do all the shopping I want for the next few hours. Gallery Lafayette is also known to be one of the places in Paris that is as visited as the Eiffel Tower and was shopped by the ‘greats’ of the world from Duchess and Prince to presidents and superstars. I was totally awed by the design and architecture of the place, from the glass dome roof top, to the balconies of each floor. From the very antique looking lifts with gates to the very grand, wide spacious stairway. There is a total of 200 over stores and brands inside this huge departmental store, from the luxurious to the affordable ones. You can find your favourite Gucci, LV, Burlberry, Prada, Tods, Fendi, Ferragamo, name it, you have it!

So I was fully energized and excited hoping to find myself a nice pair of boots and a warm wool coat, unaware of the challenge ahead. After combing through the first 3 levels of the 7 story building, I found myself totally drained and defeated. Everything seems to be expensive as they were all designer brands. A pair of boots with a name that I have never heard of, cost EUR 600++ after discount. Maybe I was too ignorant. A pair of leggings cost EUR 100++, probably fit for the Duchess. I later realised that the first 2 levels of the store houses all the designer brands, definitely not for commoner like me! Level 3 was a bit less discouraging as I finally saw something familiar, ZARA! But soon after the Zara store, I call it quit! I called Daddy and decided to meet up with them instead. It’s enough window shopping for me. My loot for the day include, 2 hooded sweat shirts from Zara and 2 100% lambswool scarves which I was very very pleased with as they only cost like EUR15.

I finally met up with them outside the Opera Garnier, world’s largest theatre and opera house opened in 1875, in the midst of handicapped demonstrators. Apparently, there was a demonstration by handicaps, asking the government for more aids as they have no means to earn a living in Paris, if we never misinterpreted the signs.

Mal scootering in front of the Opera HouseMal sipping his cup of hot chocolate, enjoying his choco muffin at MacDonald while watching the demonstrators do their stuff.

All in all, Gallery Lafayette is a shopping paradise for every woman. But be well aware that you will be blowing a HUGE hole in your pocket or be well on your way to bankruptcy. Still, I think it is a place that you must visit when you come to Paris and REMEMBER to bring your camera!

As for me, I shall be back again to complete my ascent to the 7th storey, oh and to check out their toilettes as well!

There is a Disneyland in Paris, in case you are as ignorant as me. Since we came here, Daddy has been eager to get the annual pass to the park. We assumed that Disneyland will be the perfect fun place to bring my 3 year old, since he was once a crazy fan of Mickey Mouse and friends. (he even had a Mickey Mouse and Friends birthday party last year) We could have been so wrong if not for the other night.

We popped the question the other night over dinner, asking Mal whether he would prefer going to disneyland or an airforce museum. He answered with a straight face, the latter was his choice. He certainly made it easier for us as it is definitely cheaper to visit the airforce museum than to visit the Disneyland, in fact, it is FREE till June this year to visit the museum. At the back of my mind, I was however concern over my son’s lost of interest in the fairytales and make belief world. Will he turn out to be a science nerd? Should we have fed him with more disney stories and fairy tales? Should we have let him watch more disney cartoons? Should we limit the number of aviation and space books he read? The questions are endless.

Anyway, he had his wish. We visited the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, which is situated just outside Paris. It was quite a long way from where we stay, around an hour 10 minutes by Metro and bus to a more run down neighbourhood. A sense of uneasiness crept into me as I took the public bus. The bus was packed and I felt like we were the few odd ones out. I tried my best not to look like a tourist and deep inside me I was already regretting our choice in coming. It was not our first time traveling in a less peaceful town but we always have our own transport when we were in the States and I felt safe even when we were lost in New Orleans downtown late at night. The car gives a sense of security, maybe a false one, but at least I felt that I could just speed off in the car if someone tries to assault, unlike in a public bus, where I felt totally exposed and vulnerable. Maybe I am over sensitive and worries too much. After a long journey that seem to last forever, we finally reached our destination. I told myself that it better be good, as we had brave the cold, the wind and risk our lives, just to get there!

The view of the 2 Ariane rockets at the entrance of the museum speaks for everything. You should have heard how Mal squealed and jumped with joy and excitement. It’s like a dream comes true for him, seeing the REAL thing. Even I myself went a bit crazy and hysterical after being fed so much of his books on space. I seriously think my 1994 trip to NASA Johnson space center at Houston was a total waste. My 3 year old now would have been more appreciative.

We saw Concordes, the 1st and the last that flew, lots of fighter planes, including the Mirage 2000, rockets and satellites. I totally forgot about my initial doubt about visiting. It was a worthwhile trip.

at the entrance with some planes painted with the colours of the France national flag

and the rocket heads that greet us at the entranceThe Ariane 5 rockets at close up

Ariane is a series of a European civilian expendable launch vehicles for space launch useThe very last concorde that flew

the inside of the concorde. It was quite narrowwe saw lots of fighter planes

and old historic planeseven the display planes at the souvenir shop made Mal very delightedmore rockets and satellite at the indoor display
Finally a picture with the rockets before we go. It was actually very windy and freezing cold for me!

we found a Japanese restaurant in 1st Arrondissment at Rue Saint Anne that serves really good udon and ramen at reasonable price! The soup tastes so good as it doesn’t taste like msg loaded.

Mal enjoying his Tempura Udon after a long day

what better way to end a cold rainy evening…hot soupy noodles with piping hot gyoza

So, the weather is cold in Paris. It is either raining or cloudy. Spring started last week but to me this is more like winter. I certainly hope it will warm up soon. We visited the famous cathedral, Notre Dame last Sunday. It was cold, drizzling and there was even hail. The weather did dampen our spirit a little but there was still long queue outside Notre Dame, tourists braving the cold and drizzle, waiting to enter the cathedral.

We took a walk along Saint Germain also known as the Latin Quarters, just across Notre Dame, with lots of cafes and bookstores.chef preparing seafood outside a seafood restaurant at Latin Quarters

There were a number of comic shops and we came across one that sells Tin Tin figurines and Tin Tin comics in English, one of Mal’s latest favourite bedtime story (only those series with rockets and planes)We spent a long time in this warm and cozy comic store with Mal snuggling up with Daddy reading Tin Tin