Paris in the Springtime

The past 5 weeks have rolled by in a haze of drywall dust and paint fumes for Brian and I, as we have been diligently renovating our guest room in anticipation of even bigger home renovations this Fall. It's been a steep learning curve for us (well, Brian's curve is up sharply, while mine has remained pretty flat as I accidentally hammer through windows, paint on the wrong side of the tape, etc.), but I think the end is finally in sight. We tore down a wall, installed new flooring, removed two windows and replaced another, built a closet, repainted the walls, rewired everything, installed new lighting, and re-did drywall on one wall and the ceiling. We're down to the wire, as Brian starts back to work in a week, and I'll then be leaving for Michigan to take intensive graduate courses in epidemiology for 3 weeks.

But despite the ongoing home renovations, we did manage to take a fantastic 2-week trip to France and Switzerland at the end of May, which was a really nice finale to our whole round-the-world adventure. Our trip started off well, with a kind resident of the housing project near the bus stop bringing us bottles of water as we waited in the heat for the bus to arrive, and then we got on our way, flying first to Atlanta, where we saw rapper Chris Brown (yes, the one who beat up Rihanna) and his posse in the airport, and then on to lovely Paris! When we arrived at the airport, I discovered that my ATM card wouldn't work over there, and it turned out Brian had decided to not bring an ATM card or any cash (I guess he was planning on washing a lot of dishes??!), so we had some significant money hurdles to get worked out in our severely jetlagged state upon arrival. With everything eventually finally cleared up, we made our way to My Hotel Le Marais to drop off our stuff (this pic is the view out our window), and from there we headed out on foot to explore Notre Dame (impressive, but kinda cheesy with trinket machines next to the prayer alters), fight off numerous crazy gypsies, see the crypt (not all that exciting), and tour Saint Chappelle (which has nice huge stained glass windows, but is currently undergoing renovation). We stopped to consume a giant mint chocolate chip meringue (almost the size of my head - see pic) before having our first of many VERY expensive meals out during our time in Europe.

Notre Dame

Huge Meringue

We started out the next day by taking a very cliche stroll down Les Champs Elysees (I sang the whole way), stopping along the way to buy a couple of French music CDs at the giant Virgin multimedia store and to pick up some Pain du Chocolate (a flaky pastry filled with chocolate) - yum! We eventually made it to the L'Arc de Triomphe, and climbed the 280 steps to the top for a fantastic view of the 12 boulevards that converge at the circle. After enjoying the view, we decided to head over to the other famous Paris landmark, the Eiffel tower. We walked underneath (see pic), but chose not to go up due to the long lines. We walked up through Trocadero Park, where we were able to get a nice view of the tower framed by the beautiful trees blooming in the springtime (see pic). Afterward, we decided to go ahead and head to one more Paris icon - the Louvre, which was open late that night. Neither of us are huge art fans, so we made our way through the masses of children and tourists to hit the high points - the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa (which is actually pretty small), and the Code of Hammurabi (Brian's favorite), then decided to hightail it out of there in search for some dinner. While walking through the St. Eustache area, we stumbled upon a FANTASTIC walking street - Montorgueil - which is lined with cute local restaurants and shops bustling with locals. We indulged in some crepes and Normandy cider before walking onward towards our hotel.

Arc de Triomphe	View from Arc
Eiffel Inside	Eiffel Tower
Louvre	Louvre

Throughout our time in France, we found that our elementary knowledge of French (I had 5 years in school, and Brian went through a phase where he was obsessed with the PBS series "French in Action") was essentially useless. Even when we knew exactly what we were supposed to be saying, the discrepancy between our accents and theirs was just too much for us to be intelligible. This was most problematic at the metro ticket windows, where we often had to resort to finger counting and animated map pointing to describe where we needed to go. On the third day of our trip, after another ticket dance, we boarded the metro to Montmartre, an artists community high on a hill in the north of Paris. We embarked on a self-guided walking tour, seeing the Moulin Rouge, the Cafe des Deux Moulins (from the movie Amelie), one of Van Gogh's houses, the Man in the Wall sculpture (see pic), the last vineyard in Paris (see pic), and numerous sidewalk painters. We ended our tour at the magnificent Sacre Coeur, and then had lunch at a cute macrobiotic vegetarian sidewalk cafe (see pic of Brian). After walking through Montmartre, we decided to tackle a request from my grandmother to visit the huge luxury department store Printemps and get her a small bottle of Paris perfume. We definitely looked like we just fell off the turnip truck as we walked through the fancy perfume department in our stinky backpacker clothes, but we did manage to buy a small apple-shaped bottle of "Nina" by Nina Ricci and make a hasty exit, since we wanted to make it to the Paris Sewer Museum before it closed. After two hours of searching, we finally gave up trying to find the museum (it turns out the entrance is through a manhole on the ground!) - at least this gives me a reason to have to come back to Paris. :) But instead we headed over to the Musee de Orsay, which contains a nice collection of impressionist art. The museum was currently undergoing renovation (seems to be a theme), but we still were able to see some nice paintings by Monet, Manet, and Renoir.

Moulin Rouge	Man in the Wall
The only vineyard	Art Stands
Sacre Coeur	Brian at Cafe
Printemps	Musee d'Orsay

Our final day in Paris was another busy one. We got up early to get to the Catacombs at opening time, only to find that they were closed due to flooding. :( (Another excuse to return to Paris one day!) So instead we took a stroll through the nearby Montparnasse Cemetery, where we saw the graves of composer Saint-Saens (see pic), the Citroen family, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Poincare. From there, we stopped to pick up a "baguette de tradition" to snack on, and continued on for a walk through the Jardin du Luxembourg (see pic), where we saw a bunch of men enjoying a game of boules (similar to bocce ball) and a group of mimes practicing their craft. After leaving the garden, we went inside the Pantheon, where we observed Foucault's Pendulum (a big hit with Brian) and saw Marie Curie's tomb in the crypt underneath. That afternoon we toured the Arts et Metiers Museum, full of lots of interesting mechanical items, and then on a whim, I decided to drag Brian back up to Montmartre to purchase a kitty painting I had seen the day before. So 2 hours later, the kitty canvas was finally in my hands! (It was quite a sight to see me lugging this painting on and off the trains in Switzerland, but I'm happy to say that the picture now has a nice spot on the wall in our newly renovated guest room.) But even after that escapade, the day was not yet over. We rushed back to Montparnasse to arrive at Tour Montparnasse (a viewing platform on the top of a giant skyscraper) just in time to catch the last lift up at 11pm - and we got to the top just in time to see the Eiffel Tower do its extra-special night twinkle, which it only does for 5 minutes on the hour from sunset to 1am (see pic). Awesome way to end our time in Paris!! :)

Montparnasse Cemetery	Saint-Saens
Jardin du Luxembourg	Foucault's Pendulum
Marie Curie	Eiffel twinkling

Singapore Oddities

For the past couple weeks we've been busy back in Austin starting our home renovation projects and getting ready for our final 2-week journey to France and Switzerland, which we're really looking forward to. Si je parle français aussi mal que j'ai fait à l'école, je vais avoir un temps difficile, cependent! :) In the meantime, here are some of the oddities we came across in Singapore:

We saw these signs in a lot of places, but I really think the whole 'caning' thing works a lot better as a crime deterrent than our often lenient jail sentences. We never felt like we were in any danger, and since the standard of living is so much higher in Singapore than in the other places we visited in Southeast Asia, there weren't even people trying to rip us off at every corner!

Here is an example of the 4 languages on most signage in Singapore: English, Mandarin, Tamil, and Malay.

No durians on the subway! (a very stinky fruit popular in tropical Asian countries)

Illustrated instructions for using this public restroom:

A FANTASTIC dynamic parking sign, letting you know how many spaces are currently available in each of these lots!

And another fantastic sign, this one at the bus stop, letting you know which buses will be arriving and when.

Need a hip joint? These were for sale at the pharmacy down the street from our hotel.

Giant boat on the roof of Singapore's new casinos.

Odd things for sale at a booth in Chinatown... shark fin, frog, giant lizard, etc.

And now by reading the ingredient list of these pills in Chinatown, we can see where those items above would be used...

Another stand in Chinatown, "The Last Sausage Kiosk Before the Equator":

We had quite an appetizing selection of desserts to choose from in Chinatown:

Brian chose this mango ice thing (that dark area at the bottom turned out to be a core of baked black beans). I was kinda glad I had the vanilla ice cream!

Lightning counter on a tree at the Singapore Botanical Gardens - this tree has been struck 4 times already!

And the last night we were in town, we came across a group of Asian line dancers doing their thing right outside our subway stop. Kinda made us feel like we were back at home in Texas. :)

Singapore

We arrived in Singapore after our flight from Manila and immediately noticed the difference from the rest of Southeast Asia: clean streets, clean air, drinkable water, European prices, and a much more heterogeneous population (4 languages are prominently spoken: English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil). We made our way to the outskirts of Little India and arrived at our hotel, which suspiciously was only marked with a sign that said "HOTEL" out front. It certainly wasn't cheap, even by U.S. standards, but sure enough, we ascertained by the sketchy men and hookers in the lobby that we had managed to book ourselves in a "rent-by-the-hour" place. But they had a cool fat calico cat and free internet, so we stayed anyways. :)

The following day we took public transit to the Singapore Zoo, which has a reputation for being one of the best in the world, and it did not disappoint! Moats are largely used for animal containment, eliminating most of the need for cages, and the animals have large natural habitats to roam around in. They also have a lot of specialty animals that are rare to see in most North American zoos, such as False Gharials (a large fish-eating alligator-like creature), Proboscis Monkeys, Pygmy Hippos, White Tigers, and more. Our favorite was the rainforest exhibit, which allows you to walk through a contained rainforest amidst the free-roaming animals (which is how we got this close-up picture of a lemur just 'chilling' on the path!). Once darkness fell, we ventured next door to the Night Safari, which is essentially a 'nighttime zoo' that features nocturnal animals. We took the tram tour and walked the trails, where giant bats, flying squirrels, and enormous mosquitoes were swooping overhead - pretty exciting!

The next day we had our first of many meals at Komala Vilas, a prominent Indian vegetarian fast food outlet in Singapore. Here is a picture of their mascot, a giant dosai. :) If only they would franchise in the U.S.... then we would have an alternative to Taco Bell when we are on the road! After lunch we took the MRT (subway) to Orchard Road, the famous upscale shopping district. We looked like we just fell off the turnip truck compared to most of the people there, but it was still fun to browse in the 6-story malls full of Louis Vuitton, Prada, Jimmy Choo, etc. And they were air-conditioned!

Orchard Road	Orchard Road
Huge Mall	At Night

After getting our fill of 'window shopping', we took the MRT down to City Hall, where we walked to the Singapore Flyer, a 540-foot tall ferris wheel overlooking Marina Bay. There are 28 cars that hold 28 people each (according to the audio tour, it's some feng shui thing), and one rotation takes 30 minutes to complete. It was even recently featured in a stunt on this season's Amazing Race!

That evening (it was a busy day!) we journeyed over to Chinatown for a guided tour of the area and of the 'brothel history'. We saw odd foods, Chinese medicine shops, old sewage doors where nightmen came weekly to remove the pail from under your toilet, old brothels, and even some current brothels (identified by their red and white lighted signs - see pics).

Chinatown	Sewage Door
Brothels	Brothel Sign :P

The following day we headed to the Changi Museum, Chapel, and Prison, which memorializes the Japanese Occupation of Singapore during WWII. From there, we took the MRT to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, which are free to enter and are extremely popular with the locals and visitors alike. We saw similar activities as are popular in the U.S. - a couple getting married (see pic), random people dressed in newspaper costumes acting out scenes (see pic), kids learning to ride their bikes, runners, etc. It was the most "American" scene that we had come across in Southeast Asia! Here are some pictures:

Newspaper Costumes	Wedding
Rainforest Fig Tree	Ginger

The next day it was time to say goodbye to Asia and take off on the long flight to LA, with a 6-hour layover in Beijing. :( We had intended on heading to New Zealand at this point to do some hiking, but of course family matters became more pressing and we needed to head home. Our seats on the flight were just a couple rows behind the giant TV screens, so when the lights were dimmed for 'sleeping time', I put my black blanket over my head to block out the TV lights. And of course, in usual 'Susan' fashion, I wake up, the cabin lights are already on, breakfast is being served, and everyone is staring at me for having a blanket over my head! I wanted to just put the blanket back on to hide my embarrassment, but at least I will never see any of those people again, haha. In the next few days I'll post some pics of the odd signs we saw around Singapore - all the rules, instructions, and warnings that the country is so famous (or infamous) for.