As I'd mentioned briefly in the previous post, I had Huiyu as my companion for the past three and a half days. I thought we got along pretty well despite having never met, and you wouldn't imagine how comforting it was to listen and to speak in Singlish.
After countless calls and futilely weaving in and out of streets to locate her hotel, we finally met up at the Gare du Nord, a train station about a 10-minute walk from my street. Our first stop was to the Latin Quarter to see the Notre Dame de Paris, and guess what I found as we were deciding on a cafe for lunch? Shakespeare and Company is a bookshop popular amongst writers and travelers (they house them upstairs), and I am pretty sure it has earned a permanent place in guidebooks and travel programmes.
Lunch was at one of the street cafes facing the Notre Dame, and the pizza-like thing you see is actually a croque-monsieur - a ham sandwich with melted cheese. It sounds deceptively simple, but I relished every single bite. I am salivating right now just recalling the taste, perhaps because it's 10:30 a.m. and I haven't had breakfast. Haha.
And this is the Notre-Dame de Paris in the daylight.
The interior of the church was gorgeous with its stained glass windows, but I felt that the throngs of chattering tourists marred its tranquility.
The back view of the church.
We strolled along the banks of the Seine River, where several people were sprawled on its banks basking in the sun.
And this is the Ille Saint-Louis, a quaint island just a few hundred metres from the Notre Dame. A busker was playing his accordion, and it felt like we had entered a different part of the city. People were roaming the streets in shorts and tank tops, and almost everybody we saw had an ice-cream cone in their hands.
It's expected, for the acclaimed Bertillon ice-cream shop was housed on its streets.
This is Huiyu with her ice-cream. The flavours were written (in French) on a board outside, and unlike most ice-cream shops, the tubs were not on display. Picking the flavours was thus a game of chance, which we won.
With the street signs and our maps, we set off by foot towards the Pantheon. This is one of the structures near it, but I don't exactly remember its significance. The architecture's gorgeous though, no?
And this is the pendulum in the Pantheon. The Pantheon was originally built as a church to St. Genevieve, but it now also functions as a burial place for the famous.
Having missed the brochures on display, we wandered past the various paintings and became increasingly restless with the French descriptions. We had just started to come up with our own interpretations, when we saw people holding the English brochures. Oops. Haha.
After wandering the cold, cold crypts below, we took a chance and decided to head to Chinatown. Big mistake, for the neon lights and rows of char siew rice shops we had expected were nowhere to be found. Instead, we had merely entered a district where there were distinctly more Asians and high-rise buildings. To think we roamed the area for almost two hours in search of the neon lights!
B made dinner that night - fuss-free but very yummy Spaghetti Carbonara.
I headed back to the Eiffel Tower the next day, in the morning with Huiyu this time to avoid the queues. This grassy area is the Champs des Mars, where people lay on to look up at the Eiffel.
The queues were unavoidable, but manageable.
Going up the elevator to the top.
View from the top.
School kids on excursion, and our hopeless attempts at a self-portrait.
This is a pretty cool shot I thought. I was hoping to catch a couple walking past hand in hand in the reflection, but no such luck.
Then it was back to Montmarte and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. Montmarte was the artistic heart of Paris where artists like Picasso hung out in the 1800s.
I finally got to try the crepes at this quirky piano bar that was featured on a travel programme I saw about a year ago. B and I actually passed it by on Saturday, but they weren't ready for business yet. And I had to admit its lack of patrons made it seem a little dubious in comparison to the overcrowded cafes along the same street.
Well we tried it this time, and I can attest that the "mmm mmm mmm" the presenter on the show made were genuine. The interior was artistically messy, with a million post-its from patrons. Some even used dollar bills and stuck their passport photos up.
In the window of a boulangerie.
Streets of Montmarte.
The seemingly overrated Moulin Rouge. The facade of the building in the daylight had none of the glitz of its Hollywood production.
That night, B and I headed over to Romain's house (near the Eiffel tower lucky he!) where we caught up with him and Marine over champagne and finger food Rom whipped up in 30 minutes. It was comforting how nothing seems to have changed, apart from the surroundings. And the MICA-bashing was significantly lesser this time around. Time heals all wounds, haha.
BCB goes international.
When night fell, we took a short stroll towards Champs des Mars to see the Eiffel Tower being lit up. I never thought much of the metal structure, but seeing it glow against the night sky was breathtaking.
The over-hyped Louvre Museum.
I got a picture of Mona Lisa, though I still don't understand the hype. I kinda like the sculpture of Venus and Mars though. And, I never experienced "museum fatigue" till this visit. After awhile, all the paintings started to look the same and I was exhausted even though I'd had my full eight hours of sleep the night before. We escaped barely three hours later to meet Marine for a picnic lunch at the Tuileries Garden.
On our walk towards the Champs-Élysées, we came across a fashion shoot happening at the Concorde. Very Devil Wears Prada-ish, me thinks.
The highlight of the day had to be visiting Laduree, the pastry shop famed for inventing macarons.
Apart from macarons, this shop probably invented the true meaning of "attas" as well. For the uninitiated, "attas" can be loosely translated as snobbishly-posh.
But honestly, I probably would be attas too if I could make macarons this good (delightful enough to charge 12.50 euros for a box of small six bite-sized heaven).
That night, B and Huiyu got acquainted over a steak dinner at Hippopotamus Restaurant, and before she had to return to London on Thursday noon, the two of us braved the rain and cold and explored the semi-opened Le Marche les Enfant Rouges. We stumbled upon a pastry shop selling the most orgasmic pastries, and the apricot custard pastry I chose as my breakfast was really the perfect accompaniment on a cold rainy morning.
And just last night, B and I headed over to his friend's Nicolas' house for Raclette. It kinda resembles a cheese fondue, except that we had to grill our own cheese to melt it over ham, sausages, baguette, potatoes and French pickles. It's typically eaten in the Alps to beat the cold, but Paris hasn't been really warm of late, and it was good. And absolutely filling. I left my camera in the apartment, so no pictures unfortunately!
This would probably be one of my last posts before I head to Rome on Tuesday. Kenrick just arrived in Paris tonight, and we would be heading to Champagne with B and Marine tomorrow, and to Disneyland on Sunday. It's gonna be a busy, busy weekend. Good no? ;)
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