Metro line 13 and knitting

I often had so much thoughts on my mind in the morning rush hour. Walking from the train station at St Lazare to Metro line 13. Walking from Metro line 13 to my office in the cold.

Yet when I am sitting in front of the computer, my mind is a blank. What should I write? The trivials in my mind?

So what's up in my head? Well that depends on the surroundings that distract me.
Well, for one, I hate line 13. It is the worst line in Paris. Every morning, lots and lots of people use this line and often there are problems with the metro trains. They are often late and too crowded. Line 13 runs from the south of Paris to the north. In the north, there are more poor neighbourhoods and a few office areas. This means that a lot of the people have no private transport and the only way to get into Paris is by line 13. In the morning, we are packed like sardines in the old trains which have poor ventilation and no automatic door. People are short-tempered and agressive. Each one pushing to get up the train.

The transport minister mentioned that all Metro lines are running well. But obviously, he has a chauffeur-driven car. Metro line 1 was given a big budget to upgrade the lines. Line 1 runs through the central of Paris. The trains are new with automatic doors. The stations are generally clean and the trains are efficient. Any tourist visting Paris will most likely have taken line 1.

For me, I take line 13 almost every day to go to work and it is really stressful at times. Reaching office late with half my energy gone in getting my way into the train, it is really not pleasant.

That is just part of my life in Paris. I hate the underground.

On the brighter side, I took up knitting. I have never done that before. I always like to do jig-saw puzzles. However, Seb is not keen to frame up my puzzles so I usually left my completed puzzles on the coffee table until Bao Bei destroyed them accidentally. She usually lied on the coffee table and sometimes while playing, slipped off from the table bringing part of the puzzle down with her.

In order to do something more productive, I decided to try knitting. I went to Printemps and took up a lesson with the boutique Phildar. After 2 lessons, I am starting on a scarf. It is really easy. I just need to keep repeating the same gesture until I get a really long scarf enough to roll around my neck twice. As usual, I have to watch out for Bao Bei. She loves to play with the thread.

It is weekend soon. And november is here. I realised that I wrote so little these days. I will try to write more. Even trivials. It was really pleasant to hear friends commenting that they regularly read my blog when I was in Singapore.

September vacation

Seb and I went visiting Nicole in Munich in Septembre. We took the night train at Gare de l'Est and the journey took us more than 10hours. This was not the first time that I took an overnight train but it was the first time in a sleeper train. It was of course not easy to sleep as the beds were small and the train was moving and sometimes stopping abruptly at small train stations.

Once we reached Munich, Nicole was there welcoming us. It was so good to meet her after so many months. We took the metro to her place. And interesting in Munich, there was no barrier or gate for entering the metro station. It was based on a trust system. There was a machine for validating the tickets but just no gate.

Our tireness was pushed away after a good coffee at her place. After a quick shower, we started our Munich walk. As she lived near the English Garden, we started with it. The park was really big. There was a big lake and home to different species of ducks. There was a beer garden and we drank beer and ate roasted chicken while listening to the Bavarian brass band playing in the chinese pagoda nearby. The atmosphere was really festive. And it was a working day. People were really cool and you could see families and friends chatting over beer. As we walked around the English Garden, Nicole pointed out to us the nudist lawn. Here, there were naked bodies suntanning. The nudist lawn was separated by just a small stream. There were however one or two naked people lying in the non-nudist lawn just along the path we walked.

We continued our walk in the heart of Munich. We visited the Theatinerkirche church, Viktualienmark; where there was a brass band playing, Hofbräuhaus brasserie; where there was another brass band playing and the City Hall (see pic on left). We also visited the various monuments and historic buildings in Munich like the Olympiapark constructed for the 1972 Olympics, the site for the coming Oktoberfest. It was a pleasant city with colorful buildings. The interior of the churches were white and clean and well maintained. A big contrast to the cathedrales of France.

I drank beer at almost all meals. One breakfast I took weisswurst (the white sausage) that should be eaten with Suesser Senf (a sweet, grainy mustard) and brezel with a beer. That was impressive.

After spending two days in Munich, we took the train to Salzburg which was about 2 hours from Munich. We crossed the border and arrived in Austria. Salzburg, birthplace of Wolfgang Mozart. There was Mozart written everywhere in this little town. We spent our day walking along the small streets with their famous metal shop signs hanging outside shops.

For lunch, we tried the famous apple strudels as dessert. After that, we walked up to the fortess Honensalzburg. It was big and like a mini-village. The view from the fortess was beautiful with the surrounding Alps.

At the end of the day, we took the train and stopped mid-way of Munich at Lake Chiemsee. We stayed at Nicole's summer apartment for the night.


Lake Chiemsee was huge and had 2 islands on it. We took the boat for visiting the 2 islands. The first island called Herrenchiemsee had a castle modelled after Versailles built by King Luwig II. He revered the French Sun-King and created with this castle, a monument to absolute monarchy.

The second island Frauenchiemsee housed some beautiful houses and a convert. There were plentiful of blooming gardens. We had a fish sandwich there. The fish was caught from the lake.

In the evening, we continued our journey back to Munich. On the last day of our stay in Munich, we walked along the river Isar and visited the outskirt of Munich the baroque palace Nymphenburg SchloB. We spent a great 5 days of vacation and it was really kind of Nicole to be our guide. Munich is really a nice city to live in. The people are sociable and the life style is cool. The streets are well planned and big with large pavements for walkers. It is not at all a boring city. We will definately be back there to visit the Bavarian region one day.

You are mighty

Want to make yourself feel good today?
Try this website. http://sohcool.youaremighty.com/
Replace sohcool with your name and check it out.

Thanks to Tim for this wonderful, uplifting self-motivational site.
I hope you guys out there won't get too self-centered after viewing it.
As my colleague puts it rightly, he will view it every morning to make his day.

It was fun

The BBQ was a success. Thank you for coming.
It was a great way for me to catch up though I must apologise for not spending more time than I should with each of you.

As usual, food was excessive and we had to ta-bao (bring back) them. People have not changed much though their kids have grown up a lot.

This trip in Singapore is really a relaxing time for me. It is a pity that the sun is hiding behind the haze.

I received positive feedback about my blog. A few people were telling me that I stopped writing from 18 August. :) I will try to write more often even on trivals. At the moment, I will continue to 'rot' in Singapore and write more when I am back in France.

Next up, watch out for my Munich's trip entry.

This annoucement is for friends in Singapore

Back in Singapore for a limited period
Hi friends,
I arrived in Singapore on 26 Sept at 7am and I am leaving in 11 days time.

I would like to get some news from you. So, I am organising a BBQ at the park in front of my block this Sunday the 1 Oct starting from 7pm. If you know me, you know how to contact me. Let me know if you are coming. Don't be pai-seh, ok?

Best regards,
Ash

Auvergne

15 August is a public holiday here in France. This year it fell on a tuesday. As everyone in the office except two of us were on holiday, my boss decided to close the office on monday. This means that I had four days to go for a short trip.

Anca would like to go to the beach. Seb would prefer to go to the mountains. I just would like to get away. As it was such a last min planning, we could only get accomodation in the mountains and not near the sea.

So, we set off for the town Clermont Ferrand which is about 400km away from Paris. The region is Auvergne . It is a beautiful region with old volcanos, lakes in craters and valleys.

Once we reached there, we left Bao Bei in the hotel room and set off for the nearest peak. Yeah, it was so last min that we could not find a cat-sitter for Bao Bei. Hotels here usually accept animals for a small fee but do not provide any food or bed. Still, we think this moving caused stress to Bao Bei. It is really not a good idea.

We visited the town Clermont Ferrand. It was not very colorful and in no time at all, we had finished visiting the up town. We headed to the nearest peak, Puy de Drôme. As we were there late in the afternoon, we decided to take the bus to the peak. Trekking up the mountain will take about 1h 45mins. It was really windy up there but the view was fanastic.

Below is the Lac Pavin. We took an hour to walk round the lake. It was crystal green and calm.

We visited villages in Auvergne. In the village Saint Nectaire, we bought cheese Saint Nectaire which is produced there.

One of the last place we visited in our stay in Auvergne was Mont Doré. We trekked along Puy de Sancy. During winter, there is a small ski station beside. There were cows grazing along the fields. I saw this lovely mountain flower and could not resist to take a photo.

Singapore's National Day

I am a Singaporean.
When I was in Singapore, I called myself a chinese.
When I was in Australia, I had an identity crisis.
-"Are you a chinese?"
-"Yes."
-"So you are from china!"
-"No, I'm a singaporean."

When I was in US, the same situation occurred.
-"You are a chinese."
-"Yes, I am."
-"You are from china."
-"No, I'm from singapore."
-"Oh, yes. Singapore. It is the island that was colonised by the British ....."
-"Yes..."
-"... and was returned to China..."
-"No. That was Hong Kong."

Now in France, I simply said that I am a Singaporean. Still, the story reminds much the same on my identity....
-"Are you a chinese then?"
-"Yes."
-"Your ancestors were from China?"
-"I never thought about it but I think so. I have no family in China."
-"How many chinese are there in Singapore?"
-"Almost 75% of the population."

I am proud to be a singaporean. There are only 3 million unique pure singaporeans in this world. How rare that is. The foreigners I came across either had personal experiences with Singapore like having visited it, read a special article about its cleaniness etc; or had never heard of it and do not know where on earth it is.

Today is 9 August. Singapore's birthday.

For non-Singaporeans who do not know about Singapore, I hope this blog will make you go search a little more about this sunny island.

For fellow Singaporeans, I hope that you enjoyed the National Day Parade. I will try to catch it online.

Ardèche

Each year, my company organises a company weekend. This year, we passed a weekend in Ardèche which is about 600 km away from Paris.

At Ardèche, we did a full day of kayaking down the gorge of Ardèche. I was glad that my partner, Mehdi, and I had good coordination and had no problem paddling down this 25 km journey. The mountains are impressive though I would prefer the scenery of the Delaware River in United States where I did 9 days of canoeing few years ago. Still, the lavender fields are impressive. There are fields of violets. Pretty!

I would definately visit this area again. It is very picturesque and there are many ruins to discover. Little towns and nature as well.

A hot saturday

France is hot this summer. Even with our fan at the highest speed, there is no cool air but only warm air circulation. But compared to Singapore, this is nothing. However, the french are not used to the heat and a dozen lives had already been claimed by this heat.

I guess this heat was announced as an international news in Singapore because my mom advised me to drink more water, stay indoors and blah blah blah. Mom! I lived in sunny Singapore almost all my life. I am more heat resistant than the french here. And I am a grown up. I know how to prevent myself from dehydration.

I am kinda glad of the weather cos I get to wear my summer clothes more often than I did last year. I remembered that I only wore my sleeveless blouses for two weeks back then.

I just went to Chinatown to buy some essentials like mee hoon, green chinese vegetables etc. And guess what I saw there. Durians!! It is the season again. Whole durians are selling at 6.50 euro per kilo. I have no experience in opening durian so that is not an option. Durians fruits are selling at 18.50 euro per kilo. This is too expensive. I started to think about my coming trip to Singapore and resisted from buying the durian. I promise to eat all I can in Singapore. Finally, in order to calm my taste buds, I ended up with a durian ice cream. Price: 0.85 euro.

When I reached home, I cooked mee siam with the pre-mixed paste from Prima Taste. It was really simple to make. It reminded me of my primary school canteen's mee siam. 50 cents for a plate of mee siam. Just mee hoon and gravy. Just yummy.

Baghdad Burning

It has been months since I started to read this blog regularly. There is even a book published. Please do give it a read. When will Baghad stop burning?
I sincerely hope that one day, she can bring a close to this blog. In order to achieve it, we need to create awareness about the situation in Iraq. It is beyond me. But if you can do something about it, please do.

France in semi-final and the french went crazy

When France beat Spain to go into the quarter-finals of the World Cup, cars on the street started honking and waved the french flags. People were heading down to Champs Elysees to celebrate.

When France beat Brazil to go into the semi-finals of the World Cup, cars on the street started honking and waved the french flags. People were heading down to Champs Elysees to celebrate.

The difference was, there were more people this time round for the semi-finals celebration. This time, Seb and I were at Anca's place watching the game together. As the game ended at 11pm, Anca offered to send us home. We drove along the périphérique of Paris to get to my place as she lives in the south of paris and we in the north.

There were cars and cars heading down the same direction as us. The exit to Champs Elysees is one exit after ours. The traffic was slow. Everyone was honking for joy, even Anca. People were waving french flag, algerian flag (Zidane's origin is algerian as his parents came from there), and portugal flag. France versus Portugal in the semi-finals.

That's not all, people went crazy. They sticked out half their bodies out of the car windows and sat on the window ledge. There was even extreme cases when people sat on the roof of the car. One must not forget that these were moving cars and though traffic was slow, if the driver jammed on his brake, these people could easily get thrown off and be hurt seriously. There were even cars driving recklessly cutting on the shoulder of the highway to over take other cars. Motorbikers without helmets, a driver on a convertible standing and waving while driving with one leg on the steering wheel. Boys running on the highway and at one point, pulling down their jeans to show off their boxers.

These people were drunk in excitement by the fact that france is going into the semi-finals. They totally went out of control and they were heading into Champs Elysees to party and get drunk further.

When we reached home, it was very late. Traffic was never so bad on a saturday night on the périphérique. France semi-final will be on this wednesday. Seb and I had decided that we will avoid going out this wednesday and this weekend nights. I am sure you can understand why.

Irene came and went

Irene and Mag came to Paris during the week of Roland Garros. They are such big tennis fans that they travelled all the way from Singapore to France just for 2 days of "live" Roland Garros. Of course, they stayed for a week to profit on sight-seeings and shopping.

Well, I am glad that they came. Firstly, Irene acted as my "DHL". I am stocked again with some singapore local delights. Cool. Secondly, they brought along with them big sunshine. Just a week before they came, it was grey and cold in Paris. I was still in long sleeves. The day they arrived, it was so hot. Amazing. The ladies were even complaining that it was too hot for them.

I took leave and visited Musée d'Orsay with them on Friday. I had always wanted to visit it but the last time I was there with Nicole, it was so crowded that we decided not to waste our time queueing. This time round, we did not have to queue long. It was so interesting to see the impressionist paintings. Earlier on in Delft, I watched a documentary about the lives of the impressionists. The founders of this type of painting. People like Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne who started their first exhibition had critics saying that these artists should wear glasses as the images were all blurry. I will write another blog about these artists when I have the inspiration.

On Sunday, we visited Mont Saint-Michel and on the way back, we made a short visit to the Americian Cemetery in Normandy. It was really impressive as rows and rows of white crosses greeted us on green american lawn. These are the americans who sacrificed their lives during WWII to liberate Europe from the NAZIS.

A week came and went. Very soon, it was the end of the vacation for Irene and Mag. Now, I am waiting for the photos from Irene . . . . .

Amsterdam and Den Haag

During the first weekend of my training in Delft, Seb and I spent a day at Amsterdam and the next at Den Haag. Den Haag is the local name. In English, it is known as the Hague.

Amsterdam
After a good lunch in a chinese street, we made our way to House of Anne Frank. Along the way, we passed by Dam Square which is really crowded with people, a row of windows with bikini girls exhibiting their wares and lots of bridges crossing the canals.

The house of Anne was not big and the visit did not last more than an hour. The atmosphere was solemn with people whispering in respect of the event that had taken place here during the holocaust. However, this is worth a visit lest we forget how humans can be so inhuman and treat other humans inhumanly. I really could not imagine how all these people allowed themselves to be loaded up into trains leading to the deathcamps. How their neighbours can turn against them. How their neighbours can turn their backs on them. It is just so sad.....

We walked around Amsterdam and eventually took a guided boat ride along the canals. It was interesting as there were explanations on the artitecture and other trifles about this city.



For dinner, we stopped by a street full of little resturants and settled for Tibetian food. It tasted like Indian anyway.

Overall, we did enjoy Amsterdam. The center was a bit small so it was really crowded. There were less bicycles than in Delft but more coffee shops.

Den Haag
We met up with Elisabeth and her friend Evelyn at Den Haag train station on sunday afternoon. In the morning, Seb and I passed a peaceful time having breakfast in the center of Delft.

The first place we visited in Den Haag is Madurodam, the miniature Holland. With Evelyn as our guide since she had visited it at least 6 times, we had a better understanding and view of Holland. All famous landmarks and buildings in Holland are there. Acurate to the finest details.



Next, we visited the art museum that is next to the Parliment House in Den Haag. We viewed paintings by Dutch painters who made their way to Italy during the 18 century before the impressionists made Paris the center of art. As it was a small museum, it was very enjoyable. I remembered more of what I saw here than I did with le Louvre.

For the rest of the day, we had an afternoon tea and lazed around Den Haag until Seb left for Paris on Thalys and I headed back to Delft. It was a pleasant weekend.

I'm in Delft

I'm in Delft, The Netherlands. I will be here for 2 weeks of training. The last time I came here was more than 2 years ago during winter. So it really surprises me that this week, the weather is warmer than in Paris.

Delft is the second most popular destination in The Netherlands after Amsterdam. It is really a student town as there is a university. The famous painter Johannes Vermeer lived here and painted here. There is also the House of Orange museum telling the stories of some royal family history. The last time I was here, we had a pleasant visit there. Also, it is important to know that Delft is famous for its ceramics. The Delft Blue .

There are good food in Delft as well. I met up with Dick yesterday and we ate good ribs at Billy Beer. (Beer is bear in Dutch) It is really nice to catch up in person as we had not met since our last training and had only commuicated by Skype and emails.

For next week, I will be looking for the good indonesian resturant that Seb and I had once 2 years ago in Delft. I cannot really remember where it is now. The indonesian food here is really good compared with Paris. Indonesia used to be a colony of Holland so they is a high population of indonesians here.

Class is over and we are all heading to the nearest beach. We have to enjoy this great weather while it lasts. I will update on my coming weekend at Amsterdam. So come back again next week.

Singapore Election

This saturday will be election day in Singapore. It will be the first time in my life where I will be able to vote. Not that I just turned 21 but because in Singapore, there are not many candidates up against the PAP government so usually it is a walk over. Meaning no election.

Election is mandatory in Singapore. Yet, this time round, I will not be able to vote because I am here in Paris and the nearest polling center is in London. Well, I wrote to the Election Department informing to be excused and to be included in the next election. Till now, I have yet to receive a reply from them.

At the same time, living in France had made me become more aware about politics. I started to check out on the Singapore Election Watch blog and also on a site dedicated to Yeo Cheow Tong. What a revelation! Maybe you are already awared of the happenings behind the scene concerning the Lee Dynasty. Still, check this http://www.yeocheowtong.com/Salaries.html out.

For now, I am waiting to get my hands on the banned in Singapore book, Escape from Paradise. Mean while, have fun voting in Singapore for those concerned and tell me how it went.

My saturday

Spring is finally here. And in this blog, I will take the opportunity to show you readers with visuals on what Seb and I did on this lovely saturday.

After lunch, Seb decided that he wanted to go to Saint Michel to buy a book from a bookstore that sells a wide range of technical books. In order to reach Paris, we had to take the train from Becon station to get to St Lazare Station. The journey is 7mins by direct train.


This is St Lazare station and it is always crowded at all times. From St Lazare, we walked to the bus stop of bus 81 to bring us to the Louvre. I needed to go to the central post office as it is the only post office still open after 12pm in Paris.

As you notice, in Paris, for small narrow pavement, there is hardly any space to install a bus shelter. So, we really have to look out for the bus stops at times.

Along the way to the post office, I noticed 2 smart cars will dress up advertising Nesquik. Isn't that an idea?


After buying the stamps and posting my letters, we walked towards Saint Michel. It was really a fine day to take a walk in Paris. As you can see from the first photo, spring flowers are blooming and the sky is blue. Above is a photo of le Seine. Isn't it lovely?

And finally we reached Saint Michel, one of my favourite hang out in Paris. It is a lively area with lots of foreigners. There is a bistrot which serves great onion soup. Mirama which serves the best roast duck rice in Paris is around the corner.


Walking past a cafe, I could not help myself but to take this photo as prove of the life style in Paris. Notice that the chairs are arranged in such a way that the clients are facing the streets. This is very Parisians. We like to sit and watch the world passes by in front of us. Now as the weather turns better, people are enjoying this past time to the fullest.

To sum up the day, Seb bought the book he was looking for. We both had a great day walking in Paris. It is really enjoyable and I do hope that these photos will enforce your determination to visit Paris.

CPE, the new reason for the riots here

Less than 6 months and France is in the news for the same reason. There are riots again. It started as peaceful demonstrations by students and ended up with hooligans burning cars and rioting. CNN was first at hand to show the amercians footage of burning cars. I spoke to mom and she asked if everything is fine here. Everything is fine. It's a wonder how the TV news reports out of proportion the situation. They usually make a small news spectacular with sensational headlines, music and some seconds of disturbing footage.

Once again, I had to explain. These riots had nothing in connection with last Nov's riots. There are only a few. The First Minister recently set up a new contract for the first employment. It is known as CPE (Contrat Premiere Embauche); Contract of the first employment. This is meant for young job seekers below 26 years old. With CPE, you can be sacked anytime without any reason in your first 2 years of so-called probation. What horror!

Well, you have to understand the economy in France. This is not a simple right or wrong contract. There are about 10% of unemployment in France and a high percentage of youths could not find jobs after graduation. So, the right-wing government decided to create this contract to combat this issue.

Of course, employers are very happy as France's strict labour law makes it really difficult to sack an employee. There must be valid justifications that are quantitative. Just saying that this employee is under performing and he has to go is not enough. You will have to compensate him. However, there may be a risk that large companies will employ youths and sack them before their two years contract is up.

So, on the other side of the fence are the students and labour unions. Think about it, after many years of studies, you ended up with a CPE job. You cannot commit into projects like buying a house, planning the future etc. One, you have no idea if you will still have your job after two years as your company can replace you without reason in order to employ someone younger than you. Cost saving for the company? Also, how can you borrow money from a bank if you want to buy a house? Will banks be willing to lend money to someone with a two years contract? The risk that the person cannot repay the loan if he is sack is too high.

And there you are, students protesting in the streets, at schools. Who's side are you on? I guess it depends if you are under 26 or if you are a patron of an enterprise. For me, I am neither. I prefer to sit on the fence.

For further reading, check out on BBC. But I can't say if the reporting is fair. From what I read, they seem to be interviewing more of the bosses than the under 26.

Mango

Last Sunday, I had lunch at rue Saint Anne which was nearby Opera. While walking to the train station, I saw this interesting ad at the bus stop. An idea isn't it?
It is not a poster but a hang up of real clothes. 100% 3-D and I feel it real cool.

Are you at a cross junction or T-junction?

I thought of this song today. A song that I had not heard or sung since a long time. At this precise moment, I could not get this song out of my head. I need it as I feel like I am standing at a cross junction. There are roads ahead but my engine is dead. I can't move forward. I need a start-up and a signal light. I hope this song will minister to you as much as it does for me now.

God Will Make A Way
Words and music by Don Moen
Proverbs 3:6
"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. "

God will make a way,
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way, He will make a way.

By a roadway in the wilderness, He'll lead me
And rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and earth will fade
But His Word will still remain
He will do something new today.

Marching to an Oscar

I am so delighted to annouce to those who still have no idea which film bagged an oscar for the Best Documentary Feature.
It is none other than 'March of the Penguins'. I watched it in french during my flight on Malaysia Airlines last year. It was super touching. It was simply narrated and there were many moving scenes.
It really deserves this award.
Now, this french produced film has been translated by Morgan Freeman for the US market. Friends, if this film is aired in Singapore, I strongly encourage you to watch it.
If you complain about raising your kids, wait until you see how the penguins do it.

1 Mars

1 March 2006. My first blog for this month.
Nicole came visiting last weekend and I took 2 days leave to visit Paris with her. We had fun. It is amazing the number of places we had not visited in Paris. Nicole was in Paris for a year last year and I met her through our french lessons.

We visited Basilica of Saint-Denis, the cathedral which houses the tombs of the royals. There are tombs of 46 kings, 32 queens, 63 princes and princesses as well as 10 great officers of the Crown who laid there until the French Revolution. Today, we are still able to see the tombs from many hundred years ago. It is really amazing.

Catherine de Medicis was laid there with her husband. She was the one who instigated the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre on the eve of her daughter, Queen Margot's marriage to Henry IV. There are great paintings of this massacre. But we will leave the painting topic to another day.

There is also the tomb of Philip le Bel (the fair). The tomb of his son, Louis X is also there. Louis X's wife had an affair and Louis X was never sure that his daughter Jeanne was really his. However, I was surprised to find her tomb just beside his. Also, the tomb of the baby son of Louis X by his second wife is there as well. It is really interesting to have read and watch this story from 'Le Rois Maudits' and then to really see these tombs for real.

We visited St-Germain l'Auxerrois. This is the church favored by the kings who attended mass there as it is just nearby the Louvre. This is also where Queen Margot married her husband, the future king Henry IV. The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre happened just nearby this area. To understand this day better, I would invite you to watch this film, La Reine Margot.

We visited Sainte-Chapelle. This is really the place that one should not miss. I am in Paris since two years and I never really bother to find out more about this small chapel hidden in the court of the Palace of Justice. I cannot describe more about this chapel. You have to see it to believe the beauty of the stained glasses.

Of course, we visited the streets of Paris and the places we used to hang out. Including a beer at Coolin's.

How rich are you?

Last friday, the prize money of the lottery EURO millions reached nearly 200 millions euro. There are 3 people who won. 2 in france and the other one somewhere in Europe. That is about 61 millions euro for each of them. That is mega, super lots of money.

Yesterday, the news showed some african kids who were kidnapped to be boy soldiers. Young african girls were forced to be slaves and child bearers. Some westerners volunteers were trying to save these kids out of their poor situation. A boy of 11 was asked if he had killed someone with his gun before. He shyly nodded his head.

On friday, I wish I could be just a million euro richer. Yesterday evening, I thank God that I am rich. How ironic isn't it?

Have you watch the movie with Nicolas Cage? The title is Lord of Wars. It shows exactly how guns were given to these poor boys in africa. This is an international conspiracy. If there are no warring countries, there will be no demand for weapons which is a powerful industry in the western countries. With the end of cold war, big countries do not need to stock up weapons for the unknown enemy. Thus, the arms were sold off to warlords for their ethnic cleansing and what not.

Africa is a rich place. It has a lot of natural resources. Yet it is a shame that its own people do not profit from it. Outsiders make sure that there are chaos in Africa so that the natural resources can be conveniently shipped off to the richer countries.

Back to the movie. In the end, Nicolas Cage who is the main supplier of arms did not gave up his professional. He justified himself by saying that if he quits, there will be someone else taking his place.

It's cold.....

aWeather report from Paris, France. These two weeks, it has been cold. In the morning, the temperature ranges from -2°C to 0°C. In the afternoon, it raises to about 5°C. The sky is mostly grey but snow does not fall often.

Frankly, I am still not used to this cold weather. Even all wrapped up from ear mufflers to gloves and boots, I can still feel the cold. For the weekend, we choose to stay at home and watch the Manga animation Naruto. Nothing better than a warm, cozy place and doing nothing in this winter time.

I do hope spring comes soon so that I can start to take walks in Paris.

Chinese New Year

Today, we had the most important dinner of the year. For all chinese, Chinese New Year's eve dinner is a time where everyone in the family eat togather. This evening, Seb and I had steamboat in keeping with our customs in Singapore. We put a pot of chicken stock on a stove and made do with our improvised steamboat. The dinner was great.

In order to get the new year mood here, we turned to CCTV to watch the variety program. It feels good to know that there are chinese all over the world and everyone keeps to this tradition of celebrating chinese new year.

In New York, Sydney, and other parts of the world, there are chinese new year celebration organised by the mayors as there is an important population of chinese.

For tomorrow, I will cook a feast for my invites. It is sure a good way to start the Dog year. To feast and drink. And I wish all chinese a prosperous and happy chinese new year.

I am bored

Recently, I received a website on how magazines retouch their photos to make their models perfect looking. Check out this site.

With that aside, what else is new? Have you heard of the game Su Doku? Okay, I think in the United States and Japan, it is not new. Even in France, you can easily find Su Doku games at all newstands. But in Singapore, not many people have heard of it yet. It is a 9 by 9 grid and there are several random numbers in the grid. The whole idea is to fill up the grid with 1 to 9 without repeating the same number for a single row and column and in the box of 3 by 3. Still not getting there, well, check out www.sudoku.com then.

For people who likes numbers and find crossword puzzle interesting, go try Su Doku.

My Singapore trip

I am in Singapore. I am delighted to see that not much have changed. I am able to eat the foods which I missed so much in France.

But the journey this time round was not easy. Seb and I left our place at 8.30am to catch the 12pm flight leaving for Singapore. We took the train from Courbevoie to St Lazare, the Metro from St Lazare to Chalete, the RER B from Chalete to CDG Airport terminal 1 RER station and finally a bus to the airport terminal. 4 different transports in order to reach our plane and that took us just an hour and 15 mins.

Still, all is not well. It was snowing in Paris and our flight was delayed by 3 hours. The runway had to be cleared of snow and our plane had to go under a 'car wash'. Yeah, we were finally on the runway and there were lorries with extenable hoses to splash hot water on the plane to warm it up and to unfroze the wings. That was impressive to see when you were inside the plane. As we took Malaysia Airline, the delay cost us to miss our transitting flight. So at KL Airport, we waited 2 hours to get our flight back to Singapore. By the time we touched down Singapore land, we were so tired. We had not really slept since the last 24 hours.

Now, all is well. As the third day of my stay started, I am starting to plan what to eat for today. I do have a choice from the 40 over items I wrote down. :) Seb thinks that I should just stay in a foodcourt. Got to go, no time to lose.

It all started at Clichy-sous-bois

Recently, there has been some social unrest here in Seine Saint-Denis. This department is right beside Paris. In fact, I work in Saint-Denis, which is one of the towns of Seine Saint-Denis.
Things got hot last week when two teenage boys were electrocuted while hiding in an electric power plant. They were trying to run away from the police. People in this poor neighbourhood, Clichy-sous-bois (a town in Seine Saint-Denis) were upset and hooligans started to go on riots at night by burning cars and destroying public properties like the bus stops, rubbish bins etc.
Now, a few other towns in Seine Saint-Denis are also having riots almost every night. The minister of interior is holding talks with the families of the two dead boys. The television is inviting educators, police and politicians for debates on how this incident escalate to such a level.
It is difficult to explain in a few words as the root of the problem goes way deep now. There are high unemployment rate, more immigrants and non-white French. The people felt that they are ignored by the society.
But the first question I asked was ‘Why were the boys running away from the police?’ Are not police there to help us, the citizens? The police in Singapore look friendly and helpful.
In one of the reportage on television, people are scared of the police. There are comments that the police harass them, check on them just because they are not white. The police use dogs to scare them and insult them during checks. The police can accuse them of anything and has the right to put them in temporary detention for any reason.
Yet, there are two side of a coin in every story so it is really difficult to say who is to blame for the two boys. But one thing for sure, the riots are definitely not for a good cause. Cars and factories were burnt. I do not understand why some people are just so ignorant and had nothing better to do in their lives than to be destroyers. I condemn the actions of destroying things.
For more information, check out BBC.

How to cure hiccups the german way

I just confirmed for the third time the most successful way to stop hiccups. Thanks to Nicole who passed me this formula. Oh how I miss her now that she is back in Germany.

Well, the next time you have hiccups, you have two options.
1. Think of what you had for lunch the day before yesterday.
2. Think of three bald men.

It is that simple and it works for me three times already.
You do not have to stop your breath or drink lots of water. Just use one of the option. I usually use the first option. It is definitely more interesting than thinking of three bald men.

Let me know if it works wonder for you.

I'm having the blues

I have finally moved to Courbevoie over the weekend. It was a painful move. Not that I am emotionally attached to the old neighbourhood but it is more of the physical pain. We were lacked in manpower in the moving and poor Seb had to labour hard. We had promised to engage the professional movers the next time round. On the positive side, we are sleeping in a really quiet neighbourhood. In our building, there are about 20 apartments and so far, I see mostly elderly neighbours.

As for having the blues, I just added in my cheese list the 'Blue cheese'. In terms of french food; I am not very adventurous in cheese. In fact, I only eat those hard yellow American cheese before coming to France. Yet at every family meals or invited dinners, the host will definitely serve us a cheese plate with the best selected cheese bought from the cheese shop. Of course, best cheese means stinky cheese to me. There are those white runny cheese or cheese with potholes of mouldy blues. There is also that innocent looking goat cheese which stinks. A durian is for Seb like a goat cheese is for me: eternal enemies. Still, I tried to try a different cheese at each occasion.

Slowly as time goes by, I started to eat feta cheese, cheddar, camemberts, brie et finally on Saturday, taste overcome looks and I took my first bite of blue cheese. It is of course not Roquefort (The smell and taste are too strong). I am delighted cos it does not taste so bad. I even had it as breakfast and supper on Sunday.

When I am back in Singapore, I will certainly make friends and family try it. So watch out for the blues!

It is a foggy day

Since yesterday, Paris is very foggy. I have not seen the sun at all. The sky is greyish white and it is weird. It feels as though I am living in a big hollow mushmallow.

As Paris is in a valley, foggy weather is not uncommon. But to have this fog for 2 days, it is rather surprising.

I hope the sun will come back soon and get me out of this grey mood.

To end this weather report, I will do an announcement. Seb, Bao Bei and I are moving out of Paris. We are moving to the suburbs just 5 mins by train from Paris. So, anyone passing by Paris are welcome to help us move on the 15 Oct 2005. If you think you might send me a nice housewarming gift, contact me so that I can give you my new address. :)

Third deadly fire in Paris

The news seldom bring good news. I mean the news that we watch on TV.
Just yesterday, there was a fire in an apartment block in Paris 3rd arrondissement (district) and several people were killed.
About a week ago, there was a fire in an apartment block in Paris 13th arrondissement and about 17 people, mostly children were killed.
In the beginning of the year, there was a fire in an apartment block in Paris 8th arrondissement and less than 20 were killed. (I cannot remember the exact number.)

Well, so you may ask, what is the whole point. The whole point is that these fires could have been prevented. The whole point is that the victims were all blacks immigrants.

Details:
In Paris, there are a lot of poor people. I mean there are poor people everywhere, except in Singapore, of course. But in Paris, it is more obvious if you are NOT a tourist who is just visiting central Paris for 2 days on a 3 weeks Europe, 7 countries tour. Where I live, I see poor people!

So, poor people are often people who migrated from poor countries. France had many colonies in the old times so these people from the colonies can easily get papers to stay in France. As I am not trying to give a history lesson here, please check out for yourself which were the countries. And poor people cannot afford 800 euros a month to rent apartment here. You have to take note that these people usually have many young children.

There are associations that will try to find lodging for these people. Of course, associations like these are never rich and what they can find as lodging are usually cheap. Cheap equals to small, dirty, unsave rooms. As a result of these, fires could be started more easily and small rooms do not always have windows. And there is only a wooden stairway as most Paris apartments were built from 1800s to 1900s.

Can't the government do somthing? As the apartments here are mostly private, the government can only do this much to make sure they are livable. But I am sure the standard in Paris and in Singapore are way apart. In Singapore, 80% of the apartments are government built and sold off to Singaporeans. In France, the government will built HLM, apartments which are simple and rent them out to poor people.

No French wants to stay in a HLM if they can avoid it. Usually the HLM are built in a ulu (isolated) place and since there is a concentration of poor people, meaning unemployed people, immigrants who do not speak French, illiterate people, drunks, gangsters, there is a higher possibility that it is unsafe. I am not trying to be bais to the poor. But this is a social issue and logical thinking and the facts of life here will bring anyone to conclude this.

So the solution to the root of the problem is not so simple here. I do appreciate very much the system of Singapore. There is a ratio of race in each public apartment block. This means a good mix of culture and understanding. There is a good mix of different sizes of apartments in a housing estate. This means a good mix of lower income and middle income families.

The HLM are built in ulu places because the locals do not want to have HLM in their neighbourhood. And if the mayor does built them against the will of the locals, he may not be elected the next time. Also in Paris, there are no space to built HLM as land is scarce and super expensive.

After the second fire accident, the mayor of Paris was under a lot of pressure. He had immediately see to it that the reminding residents in the apartments have a nicer lodging. Still, there are many people out there who needs safer lodging.

There are so many thoughts that need to be expressed. I sympathise the people who have no means. When I said that there are no poor in Singapore, it was really a half truth. When I was living in Singapore, sometimes I think I am poor. What a foolish thought. There are very few poor in Singapore. And most of the poor are living in a better way than the poor here.

The next time you visit Paris, visit the central Paris if you are a tourist. But keep your eyes open at the passer-bys and it would not be too difficult to catch a poor.

I can rattle on but I decided against it. Please do not take whatever I say as truth. These are my thoughts and how I see things here after living in Paris for 2 years now. For better truth, learn French and then ask one.

Center of France

The 15 of August was a public holiday. It was the Assumption. As that day fell on a monday, we decided to spend a long weekend from friday to monday in Cologne, Germany. All plans were made. My friend has a friend who lived in Cologne and she had a studio apartment available for us during that weekend.

Yet, we spent the 4 days in the center of france. The change of plan was swift. We checked the weather forecast on thurs and realised that it would rain for 4 days in Cologne. As we were not having enough hot weather in France, it was depressing to head up north for worse weather. So we started brain storming and in the end, we found an alternative.

We spent our weekend in Chalon-sur-Saone which is about 300 km from Paris. And we had hot weather throughout. We spent a day kayaking 25 km down the river Loire. It was exhausting as it had not rained much this summer and the water level was very low. So, we had to get off the kayaks to push them when we hit stones. Overall, we did enjoyed ourselves.

We visited other parts of this region, Burgundy. In France, it is known as Bourgogne. On the way back to Paris, we drived past many villages where vineyards were a plenty and we also passed by some enchanting private chateau. In this region, they usually produce the red wine known as Burgundy (of course).

We noticed a lot of Holland and German cars in this area. Apparently, this place is very popular with them.

Now that we are back in Paris after a week, it is rainy and windy. The temperature is about 16 degrees to 21 degrees. I can't wait for my next vacation and that is to go to a place with ultimate sunshine all year round. Of course, it is not hard to guess where I will be going. A little sunshine state that starts with a big S.

Hiccups

I found a new way to end my hiccup. I know there are dozens of ways to stop it. I used to inhale and held my breath for 7 seconds and then exhaled and repeated the whole procedure several times in order to cure my hiccup.

But last Thurs, after having a beer with Nicole, I had this hiccup that just could not be stopped. Nicole asked me to think of 3 bald men and as it was too funny and difficult, I was just laughing away and that did not help my hiccup at all. So, she asked me to think of the lunch I had the day before yesterday. And guess what, that did the trick. After I figured out what I ate, I was back to normal. So an advise for you people out there, do the same for your hiccups.

Think either of 3 bald men or what you ate for lunch the day before yesterday. Let me know the results, ok?

Barcelona

About a month ago, I spent 4 days at Barcelona with mom. It was hot there and we enjoyed ourselves. We bought this 2 days pass for the open top tourist bus that offers 3 routes. One up north, one down south and one along the beach. With this 2 days pass, we boarded and alighted as and when we like. So it was really cool.

Las Ramblas is the main street that leads from the center to the port and along the street, there is an old market which sells lots of fresh food. There are tropical fruits which I can't find in France and fresh seafood and meat and dried sausages. It was always crowded with tourists but I have to say the prices are reasonable.

Sagrada Familia, a cathedrale that started to be built in 1882, is still under construction. It is the only cathedrale in this world that is under construction. Does this mean that there are no other cathedrale being built at this moment? I have no idea. It may just mean that this is one of the last cathedrale that is not completed from the 19th century. This temple is really amazing and is the main attraction for sight-seeing tourist in Barcelona. In the cathedrale's museum, explanations of the design really made me understand how the architecture use nature to its best. You really have to see it to understand it.

Of course, during the 4 days, we had visited many other places like Park Güell, the Barcelona FC stadium, the old city, Poble Espanyol, Miramar Park ....

As for food wise, we tried the different tapas, tortilla(different variety of omelette), paella but the most impressive food is the bread. We had breakfast each morning in a cafe which serves sandwich with sliced chorizo. The interesting part was that the bread were spreaded with a tomato paste that tasted fresh and unique. We asked if we could buy this tomato jam but after some language difficulty, we understood that this tomato paste can be easily made.

First, cut a big juicy tomato in halves. Take one of them and rub it on the bread. After that, cut a garlic into halves and rub it on the bread as well. Sprinkle some salt and olive oil and that's it. It is so easy.

When we were having lunch at Poble Espanyol, we noticed that on each table, there were 2 tomatoes and some garlics. Of course, we had fun making our own tomato bread to go with our main meals.

All good things must come to an end so after a short 4 days, we packed up and headed back to Paris. In fact, I think mom enjoyed Barcelona more than Paris. The weather was warmer, the people were friendlier, things are cheaper and the food tasted less foreign for her. :)

Boite de nuit

I just passed a great Friday and half a Saturday with my company at the Château de Bertichères.
This was where we passed our company weekend for this year. I even did horse riding for the first time and am now recovering from my body ache. Yeah, I was stressed at a certain time when the horse stopped and started to feed on the grass with its head bent down and me trying to keep myself from falling.

Well, today's subject is not on the château itself but on the boite de nuit.
Boite = Box
Nuit = Night
So boite de nuit means night club. Most of our quarterly company meetings finished off in a 'boite de nuit'. So far, I had been to three such events.

1. I guess the first one was rather interesting. It was a restaurant-spectacle-dance hall all under a big top. Yeah, the venue was a top like those of a circus and there, the theme was Spanish. While dining, there was light circus performances. After dinner, the ring was turned into a dance floor and we had fun dancing away.

2. For the second time, we went to ManRay along the streets of Champ Elysee. It was highly recommended by my colleague. This is the club where all jet setters go. So we had dinner fusion style. After dinner, as usual, tables were carried aside and it became a dance floor. I remembered that on that night, there was a promotion on a wine and there was free wine tasting. Added to that, there were 2 pillars in the middle of the dance floor. Soon, there were 2 young ladies standing on each of the pillar and striping to the music. This was happening while everyone was dancing. They striped to their strings and danced with the poles on the pillars. Of course, my colleagues told me this was not normal but I did not appreciate it at all. We were here for dancing and not to watch strip tease.

3. Well, and for last weekend, we visited Le Pharoan. There are 5 halls in this night club. A wine bar, a hall for 30 years and more, a hall for house music, a hall for 70-80s music and a hall for Zouk music. This place was not too bad as there were a variety of music for one to choose from. But I was again shocked when I saw a strip teaser performing lap dance on the men who had bought a bottle of liquor for 100 euros. There you had, 18 year olds girls and boys dancing away on the dance floor and right beside them, a strip teaser working on a man beside the dance floor. Of course, a lot of men's attention was on her and she was just doing her job.

For me, it is really weird to see all these. Especially each time out with my colleagues. I guess for the French, these things are part of life. To pretend that they never exist is being puritan. But for me, to be in such places just makes me feel uneasy. As I told my colleagues, the next time, let me choose the 'boite de nuit'.

how to read/interpret the french address

My friend Carol sent me an email asking if my address is still correct as she is updating her address book. At the same time, she was wondering how to read/interpret the french address.
Well, I thought it will be interesting for you readers out there as well.

As for my address, it is 10 rue Davy 75017 Paris. (the number has been changed for security reason)
rue = street
So, it means the No. 10 building of street Davy.
In Paris, the buildings are built in blocks.
As most of the apartments were built a long time ago, there were not many apartments in one block. In the old days, one block housed a family from the servants to the head of the family.

For my block, there are 6 stories and 2 apartments on each level. There are no door number. We put our surnames on the letterboxes. The postman will come to 10 rue Davy, check the names on each letterbox and put in the letters into the right letterbox. If someone simply wrote my name on the envelope, then the postman will have no idea where to put this letter. So, letters must always have our surnames. For Seb and I, our letterbox shows both our surnames. In this way, I can still receive my letters from Singapore. In france, my letters are addressed to me with the surname of Seb.

As for the postal code of 75017, the first two digits are the department you are in. 75 is in Paris. Around paris, the departments are 78, 93, 76, 92, etc. These numbers are by alphabet order. So numbers in 70+ are in the range of P. To see someone having postal code 75 means he is in paris. The last three digits means the area you are in. In Paris, there are 21 districts. I am in the 17th district. By seeing the number of the postal code, you can know if the person lives in the 'good' district or not. The posh areas are the 8th, 16th, 7th, 6th and 1st districts. Paris started with 10 districts. So the inner districts are more expensive. During the time of Napoleon, Paris was expanded to add in 11 more districts. Of course, 17th district is not so bad. It is big and there are the good side and the poor side. My area is on the poorer side.

Well, so there it is. The explanation of my address. Interesting isn't it.
I do hope that this gives you an idea how the french address is like. If I miss out on anything or if you want to send me a postcar, just drop me a comment.

Une sale journee

This morning, Bao Bei puked. We think she ate too much, too fast. Cats!
Work went fine.
This evening, my key was not able to open the door. It was jammed.
I called Seb and he packed his bag to return home.
As it was 33 degrees, I decided to walk up the street to get an ice cream while waiting for Seb.
I reached the ice cream shop. It was closed on mondays.
I walked back and took a Monaco at the brasserie near our apartment. Finally I managed to cool down.
Seb came and used his key and force to open the door.
At home, internet connection was down. Seb had to call the Free provider and reset the modem 5 times to get it to work. Internet connection is important as our phone line is by internet connection and we got extra channels on TV through internet.
We call this une sale journee. A dirty day in french expression.

Poor Bao Bei

I received an email from Mike today. Among other things, he mentioned that I had not update my blog for a while. Indeed, it has been more than a month since the last blog. Well, these days, times flies and there was more work, the weather is warmer and I am just feeling slack.

What's up these days? :) Bao Bei is sick again. She has this allegry that makes her scratch her face. This is really bad for a cat so we had no choice but to make her wear a collerette. It is a collar shaped like a funnel so that the wearer is not able to use its paw to reach its face. It took us 30 mins to make Bao Bei wear it. It was really a big, big struggle. She cried, meowed, and used her claws to get her way out. Of course, in the end, Seb's shirt was dead.

When she had the collar, her sight was restricted and her whiskers were not extended. This made her walked very slowly. She looked like a big black caterpillar to me but to Seb, it was more like a slow lizard. She was on all fours and she dared not even jump up the chair.

The next day, we took out the collar as she had not touched her food and water while we were at work. But she started to scratch herself again. So, after a while, I took up the courage to put the collerette back on her. But hey hey, it took me no effort at all. She just lifted up her head for me to put it on. We could not believe this. Just the day before, I had to sit on her and hold her front paws while Seb struggled to put the collerette on her neck.

We concluded that she might think that this is her new collar. Seb thinks further that Bao Bei trusts us so this time round, she obeys us. After all, we fussed over her a great deal during these 2 days.

Life's a bore without a cat.

Opera - Madame Butterfly

I went to watch an opera last month. It was the famous Madame Butterfly. As a "mountain tortoise", I had only a very vague idea of an opera. As it was performed by the London City Opera, I thought I had a good chance to understand it. How wrong was I.

The story of Madame Butterfly is simple. In fact, Miss Saigon is an adaptation as a muscial but happening during the Vietnam war. Madame Butterfly was about an American who came to Japan and got a "part-time" wife, Madame Butterfly. When Pinkerton left for US, Madame Butterfly was pregnant. She waited for the return of her husband and when he finally did, he brought along his wife. His wife knew that Madame Butterfly had born her husband a son and she wanted the baby. In the end, Madame Butterfly commited seppuku out of sadness.

All the dialogues were sang in a high-pitched tone and in Italian. The performers must have a lot of practices in order to reach this level of singing without panting. And to my surprise, the character Madame Butterfly was played by a Singaporean. Her name is Yee Er Ping and apparently, she had received the 2001 Young Artist Award from the National Arts Council.

The audiences were mostly french and the opera was in Italian. Okay, someone told me after that all operas are in Italian. Is it interesting? Well, for me, I did not understand a thing that was sung. I mean if I were to understand Italian, I am not sure if I could have understood the singing. :)

I don't think I will watch any opera in the near future. If I can recommend something foreign to you, go and watch the movie "Vas, vis et deviens" (Go, live and become). It is really a good film done by France/Israel.

This film is about an African boy from a refugee camp in Sudan. In 1985, Israel decided to save some of the Africans Jews. This boy was not a Jew but his mother made him leave with an African Jew who had recently lost her son. The boy settled in Jerusalem but had a diffcult time to intergrate and keeping the secret that he was not a Jew. This is not based on a true story but on a true event that had happened. So, I think there may be many stories that is similar to this one. Africa is one part of the world that people do not talk about so much nor do people react to the poor Africans who are still suffering there.

To Eternal Sunshine,
Thanks for your concern about my leg.
It is well now. Think it was caused by my heels and the uneven pavement in Paris. ;)

To doctor I went

Today is 1 April. Gone were the school days when friends made jokes on each other. This day, I remembered it as Bao Bei's birthday. Yes, we sang her a birthday song this morning to mark her one year of age but she did not really care. Guess birthdays do not count for cats.

In Paris, I had seen doctors thrice. Three times, it was with different doctors.
On the new year, I was sick and a house doctor had to come as there was no doctor who opened shop on this day. This house doctor came smelling like a chain smoker. He examined me, gave Seb the prescription for the medicines, wrote us an invoice for payment, washed his hands and left. Impression: bad.

The second time I was sick, I searched on the yellow pages in the internet for a female general practitioner near my area. Seb called up to get an appointment for me and we went. The doctor is situated in an apartment like most other doctors. The waiting room looks like a living room. There are sofas, a few chairs, a coffee table with lots of magazines. There was no assistance or nurse. The doctor sent out the patient, came to the waiting room, guided the next patient into the consultation room, examined, wrote the prescription, collected the payment and sent the patient out of the door. Then, she came into the waiting room for the next patient. That's how it works here. As medicines can only be bought from pharmacy, setting up shop as doctor is really a one man show.

The third time I was sick, which was yesterday, I searched the yellow pages for the doctor. I wanted to have an appointment in the evening after my work. I called up the female GP but she was totally booked for the day and I had to wait until the next day. I decided to call the next doctor in the list. The GP had retired and now, there is only a paediatrician. Since I am not a kid, this doctor is not for me. So, I called the next one in the list. Finally, a GP picked up the phone and he was able to see me at 18h.

At 17h55, I reached the building. It is an apartment building just a street away from my apartment. Outside the building, there was a plate engraved with the doctor's name. I went through the first wooden door and reached a spiral staris. I went up to the first floor. There were 2 apartments on each floor. On the left door, there was a plate engraved with the doctor's name. I rang the bell but no one anwsered. The door was locked. I called up the doctor and heard a phone rang on the second floor. The doctor was at home and he came down the spiral stairs to open his clinic. Once inside, he invited me to wait in the waiting room with the usual set up like a living room but minus the television.

5 minutes later, I was in the consultation room and I told him the pain I had in my foot. Half way through, the phone rang and he started to chat with someone on the other line giving advise on certain issues. As like with the previous doctor, the same procedure happened. He gave me the prescription, I paid him, he sent me out of the door.

This is kinda weird for me as I am not at all used to this. In Singapore, the doctor does not move. He just sit in his comforable chair and wait for his nurse or assistance to co-ordinate with the appointment, dispensing the medicines, and collecting money.
So this is my experience with the doctors here.

Au revoir, l'hiver

Goodbye winter, hello spring.
In 3 days time, we will be back to 6 hours difference between Singapore and France instead of 7. That also means daylight saving is gone. Which in turn means that spring is coming.
Indeed, about 2 weeks ago, when I wrote an entry about heavy snow even in Paris, I am really amazed to break to you the good news that since Tuesday, during the day, the temperature was at 22 degrees. Can anyone back in Singapore believe that? For me, I still can't get over the fact that on Tues evening, I was out dinner with my friend and I was wearing my suit and a winter overcoat. And on Wed, I was just wearing a pull with a thin outer jacket which was hanging in the wardrobe since more than 4 months. Finally, the jacket can be out under the blue sky. It seems like we skip spring and plunge straight into summer.

In the weather report, it mentioned that this surge in temperature is as abnormal as the snow fall 2 weeks ago. Also, as it had not rain much in France since the beginning of the year, this year may be a difficult year for farmers and in turn, difficult for us. For now, I am just glad to have the sun basking on my face.

Oh yes, before ending, I had to pass by a small patch of greenery each day to work and it is amazing to see wild flowers sprouting out of the grass overnight once the temperature is warmer. Isn't that a miracle?

It's snowing in Paris

Since a week, it has been snowing in Paris every now and then. Usually the snow did not stay on the ground as it snowed during the night when the temperature was lower. And during the day, with all the pollution from cars raising up the temperautre, the snow would have melted away. But this was not the case on two occasions. The snow stayed on the pavement and on these mornings, I had difficulties walking from the Metro station to work.

It was really weird to have so much snow in Paris. And it is already the start of March. People in Singapore were telling me how hot it was these days over there. I even saw from BBC meteo annoucement that Singapore is experiencing the highest temperautre in 29 years with 300+ bush fires reported. So the weather is going haywire again?

I am spending my weekend in Chartres and it was just so lovely to see the 10 cm snow almost everywhere especially in the garden. We put Bao Bei in the snow and it is funny to see her paw prints in the snow. As the sun was out yesterday, Seb suggested to drive up to the Normandie coast 219 km from Chartres to see the coast under snow. We arrived at the beach resort of Cabourg. Normandie is a region with its unique architecture. The houses are built with the influence from the English. As this is a summer resort, most of the apartments and houses had their shutters closed. I gathered that these must be summer houses. It was like a ghost town in Cabourg, Deauville and Honfleur. But I can imagine during summer, it must be super packed with Parisians since it is the nearest beach for them.

Well, the weather turned for the worse on our way up north. The sun had disappeared and we were the only ones at the beach under the snow. It was good to hear the sound of sea waves though it was super cold too. After a nice lunch at Cabourg, we drove along the coast and passed by other resort towns. We stopped at Honfleur to take in the beautiful sight of the old port. Honfleur is famous for the display of flowers during spring and summer. Even with this cold weather, I saw a group of Japanese tourists. I wondered who will come to such a "ulu" place as tourist. But Seb reminded me that France is not just Paris. That is indeed very true. There are a lot of places of interest all over France. Each region offers its own style, culture and food. We stopped by at an old cafe manned by an old man. We had hot chocolate and the view of the old port was just in front of us. The old man explained to us that the buildings on this side of the port used to house the labourers. And the ones on the opposite side housed the bosses of these labourers. He also further explained that these buildings were built around the late 1600s. Of course, there were only us in the cafe so it was nice to have him telling us these information.

On the trip back, it was snowing harder and Seb had to concentrate harder. He was afraid that the road would froze and that would be extremely dangerous. At these times, salt is usually scattered on the road by the authorises to prevent the freezing. I would hope we have another opportunity to go up Normandie. My next place of interest would be to see the beach where the Americans embaked during WWII and also the cemetery of the Americans soldiers. Maybe when the weather will be less harsh.

Chinese New Year

In another 1.3 hours, it will be chinese new year in France. I called mom at 5pm in office today to wish her a happy chinese new year. It is the first time I spent my chinese new year overseas. How does that feel? Well, I miss steamboat and BBQ pork. It sounds simple but reflect on that and the sense of longing is deeper than just the good taste of food. It is habitual, tradition and all those good old feelings.

Seb and I went Chinatown on Sat to check out what we can find. I bought some food to cook tomorrow. After work, I will rush home to dish up some simple singaporean food for 2 invited guests. I would rather do it today as it is chinese new year's eve and it is really important to eat as a family. The invited guests are like family here in Paris. But I had my french lesson and today we were doing subjonctif which is very important in the french language. So I could not afford to skip class today. Seb cooked instead and the two of us had a good meal after my lesson.

I watched CCTV and saw Jackie Chan singing 'Nan er tang zi qiang'. There was this variety show from China and it felt good to be having reunion dinner in front of a chinese program.

Got to get back to watching CCTV now. Have a great Chinese New Year and 'Xin Xiang Shi Cheng' (Heart thoughts become true).

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective House Cat

Bao Bei is only 9 months old but she is already having her own habits. She is so adorable but as you read on, not all habits are desirable by her owners.

1. My cat has a bad drinking habit. No, she is not an alcoholic. It is just that she only drinks water from cups, glasses, taps except the cat bowl. If someone is drinking a glass of water, she will be eyeing on that glass. Once the glass is put back on the table, she will go to it and check if the water level is within the reach of her mouth. She tests this by putting her front paw into the glass. Next, she verifies if her head is able to go into the opening of the glass by bending forward. If all are possible, she will start her art of drinking from the glass. If there is not much water left, she will just use her paw and then lick on it.
Of course, nowadays, we tried not to give her this habit. We drink direct from the mineral water bottle. She meows at us asking for water. And if that does not work, she jumps onto the top of the sink and tries to act as though she is dying of thirst. All this while of couse, there is always fresh water in her cat bowl. Is it a good habit? Indeed, Seb and I are always amused by her drinking habit.

2. Every night, Bao Bei will wake up Seb at 3am and then at 6am. It is as though she can read the time. It is so automatic. At 3am, she will 'lick' on Seb's neck to wake him up. At 6am, she will sit on his chest and bit on his nose. What she wants from Seb is just to go to the kitchen with her, switch on the light, add in a few fresh cat biscuits and she will start eating and leave Seb alone. It is the same thing at 3am and 6am. We think that she is a black cat who is scare of the dark. How ironic.

3. So at 6am when Seb wakes up for the day as he can't get back to sleep, Bao Bei will come to me after she has eaten and sleeps beside my legs. I usually wake up at 7.30am. So we really can't figure out why she can't leave Seb alone to sleep. Of course she bothers me sometimes at night too but the success rate is slimmer as I usually just push her towards Seb. :)

4. The fourth habit is driving us crazy. Each Sat, we change Bao Bei's litter. And the first thing she does right after the fresh litter is put into the litter box is to do a big shit. It is really immediately as though the litter has a special effect on her bowel system. And of course, after the big business is done, she will try to cover up with the litter but splashing the litter outside of the box onto the floor as well. So we will have to sweep up the litter. It is just so ritual.

5. Bao Bei does not like to eat alone. I mean if we are at home, she can go to the kitchen and feed herself. But if Seb and I are not at home for the whole day, once we reach home, she will be rushing out from the bedroom and straight to her feeding bowl. Then, she will start gluping up the cat food. It looks as though she has been waiting since the whole day for us before she starts eating. How sweet right? I have no idea what's in her little brain.

6. Bao Bei likes to sit outside the window ledge. So, each morning when we open the windows to open the shutters, she will be under the window waiting for the instant when the window is opened to jump up on the window ledge. Of course, we are very concerned as she had fallen from the window when she was 3 months old. So, we are fighting hard with this habit. Call this "height-phobia" from concern pet owners.

7. The last habit of course is to do lots of stupid things and then look at us with big, innocent eyes like those of Puss-in-boots in Shriek 2. How can we be angry with her. She scratches while playing, bites when excited, pulls the curtains, chews on the flowers, jump on the dining table, shit or pee when we are eating inthe kitchen, pulls out all the toilet paper from the roll, etc.... yet each time, there are those 2 big innocent eyes. Gosh, they just melt your heart right away.

So, there you are. The seven habits of highly effective house cat. We don't always love all these habits but we do love Bao Bei so much. It is winter and she sleeps with us all the time now. It is just so sweet. If you can live with these seven habits and desire for a full experience, go get a cat. I'm sure SPCA has a lot to spare.

3 hours stay in the police station of Chartres.

I went to the police station in Chartres on the Saturday after I lost my wallet and mobile phone to file a stolen report. Seb and I arrived at 10am. There was a young police officer at the reception to welcome us. When he was explained of what we need to do, he ushered us to the counter. Before us, there was an elderly man who was there to complain about his neighbour or someone who was haressing him. When it was our turn, the police chief explained to us that we lacked some information and had to come back later. Also, he was busy as the "hotel" was full. Apparently, they had 3 cells (little rooms) and they were occupied due to a good "harvest" from the night before.

So, we went to the bank to get the numbers we need and to cancel all our GIRO transactions. When that was done, we went back at 3pm in the afternoon. As the young police officer recongised us, he told us to sit and wait. While waiting during the one and a half hour before our turn, I saw the "All in a day's work" in a police station on an average Saturday.

1. An old granny came to report that her house had been broken in. While she was waiting with us, her other old friends came and joined her and during their discussion, we overheard a comment "It must be done by the gang of blacks".

2. There was a couple who came and was told to come back another day as the police station was understaffed and there were too many waiting to lodge a complain. The couple were not happy as earlier they came, they were rejected and told to go to the Gendarmerie. And at the Gendarmerie, they were told to go back to the police and now, they were informed to come back another day preferably a weekday. For your info, in France, there are the police and gendarmerie. Usually, the gendarmerie takes care of road traffic related incident.

3. Another couple came and were rejected.

4. A man came and informed the police officer at the reception that someone misused his credit card number and purchased items in Turkey. Fortunately, the bank had blocked the credit card now and he was there to make a formal report. The police officer explained that the police station was understaffed and overcrowded with complains and asked the man to come back another day if he considered the money lost was not a big sum. The man replied the sum was about 3000 euro and he did not mind coming back another day.

5. A man came to ask for his son who was locked up over the night.

6. A woman came to ask for a man who was locked up over the night.

7. A woman who wanted to talk to a detective and not to the police officer at the reception as the complain was too personal.

8. Another man who was before us and waiting and waiting.

Now we know the job of the young police officer at the reception. His job was to filter the complains. At each complain he received, he maintained a cool look. I believe he must have heard of broken-in houses, stolen wallets and mobile phones, complains of neighbours, traffic accidents so many times that he was just so unaffected by it.

Finally, it was our turn. We were met with another police chief. He explained that usually it was not his place to be typing out complains but that day, they were understaffed. We explained briefly what we need to report and spent the next 45 minutes following his 2 index fingers on the keyboard. Yes, he is a 2 finger man. But at least he was nice. He asked "What is your country?" I replied "Singapour". And he asked "What is the city?" I replied "Singapour". That really surprised him. Guess it was the first time in his life that he heard of Singapore, Singapore. Of course when he asked for my nationality, we all laughed. "Singapourienne". How difficult can that be.

Voilà, voilà. That was my 3 hours stay in the police station of Chartres.

Merry Christmas 2004

Bonne fêtes et joyeux noël.
I had a good christmas in Chartres. Nope, it was not snowing yet. In Chartres, there is a high chance that it will snow in January but in Paris, snow never stays long. There is just too much pollution and it warms up the atmosphere. So for my friend who wished me to walk under the snow along Champs Elysee, that is very unlikely. :)

We bought a small real Christmas tree at home. It feels good to have a real one unlike the plastic one back in Singapore. When you walk along the streets, if you look up, you will most likely see sapins of all shapes with their christmas deco and lighting in almost everybody's living room. But too bad most people forgot the real meaning of Christmas. To kids, it is the time to write to Papa Noël to ask for gifts in return for being nice for the whole year. And adults help the kids to write letters and paste pictures from catalogues to send to grandparents, uncles and aunties.

For me, I hope to educate my kids on the correct meaning of christmas. Indeed, it is a time of giving and sharing. Indeed, there was a Santa Claus somewhere up, up north of France who once went around giving presents to nice kids. Still, the beginning started with baby Jesus being born on this day or somewhere near this day. And 25 December is the day to remember about our Lord Jesus who came to live and die for our sins. If you are interested to find out more about this, just search in the internet for an online bible and start reading from the new testaments.

Apart of that, I had a new lambwool scarf, 2 french books I asked for, a thick French-English dictionary, a pair of leather gloves and lots of cold outdoors and warm indoors and from Seb.

Why would someone steal my things?

To compensate for the silent period of Nov where I did not write, I am going to write more before today ends.

In my previous blog, I was pickpocketed. The police found my handphone but not my wallet with a teenage girl from the eastern country. Seb is not surprised. He explained to me that the pickpockets work in gangs. The leader will recruit these minors as they cannot go to jail due to their young age. Worse for these young girls are to be sent back to their country and in a month's time, they will be back to Paris to continue with their tricks.

These poor girls are usually promised food, clothing and shelter. In return, they are to steal for their boss. They work in groups where one steal and pass it to the other. In my case, the police only managed to catch the girl that has my phone. The boss keeps the wallet so that he can manipulate with the credit cards in it.

Is the society to blame for the sad plight of these girls? They are poor, have no education, no skills to find work. They are young and impressionable. How can we stop this chain of pickpockets where the big boss is never captured and brought to justice?

Life is tough for everyone. It is tough for me too. I'm glad in a way that I was the victim and not the culprit. I truly hope the young girl who is sitting in jail yesterday (maybe not today) will turn over a new leaf.

I have to buy a new wallet.

Someone stole my wallet and my handphone yesterday. It was a friday evening and Seb and I were leaving Paris to spend the weekend in Chartres.

It happened at the Montparnesse train station. As usual on friday, almost half of the parisians are leaving town to spend the weekend in the countryside. It was very crowded and as we were taking the escalator, someone told Seb that my backpack was opened. I took a look and realised that my handphone and wallet were missing. We were constantly on the move and walking. I could not imagine how someone would opened my zipped bag and stole my things without me feeling a thing. The chain of events happened as they should be. Seb called the phone company and bank to cancel my contract and credit card. He called his mom to get the numbers as we were not at home. To make life more interesting for us, the ticketing counter system for the counters were down and everyone had to buy tickets from the machine which were created in 'stone-age'. It was just so slow. And to add the cherry on top of the cake, the train was late and stopped every 5 km. On the train, we received a phone call from Seb's mother that the police called Seb's grandmother. They found my phone on a teenage girl. Apparently, she stole my things but they could not find my wallet. I was lucky cos there are so many people who had been pickpocketed and never manage to know who did it. I was so depressed to have fallen victim to pickpockets that I called a friend to get some comfort. She told me that she had the same thing happened to her. Someone used a knife and slitted her backpack from top to bottom and emptied the contents. She did not feel a thing. I feel better now. At least, I still have my bag intact though I am not sure I will want to use it again.

Now, everyone tells me to keep my bag in front of me in crowded places. So if you are thinking of the same, please do not send me a reply. :) Enough for this week where the washing machine gave out smoke, Seb's lap top died. We have enough misfortunate to end off this year.

All Saints' Day

Monday is Toussaint and it is a day to celebrate all the saints for the catholic faith. For me, it means a public holiday in France. What people do during this day is to go to the cemetery to pay respect to the dead.

Today is Sat and we went with my granny-in-law to the cemetery. This cemetery is in a small village where my granny-in-law grew up. On the way out, my granny-in-law showed me the grave of a soldier who died here during WWII. It was a 19 year old pilot from New Zealand. There was also a grave of an American pilot and a few Germans soldiers graves. An old woman was standing at the entrance of the cemetery asking for donation. She is part of an association that take cares of the soldiers' graves. The association will maintain the graves and put flowers. We chatted with the old woman and she explained to us that there were even soldiers from the fourteen eighteen (1418) meaning WWI which began from 1914 and ended in 1918. By now, the families of the WWI soldiers are all gone and there is no one to maintain their graves. She even had a thin book for sale. This book is about the life of the young New Zealand soldier. Research was done by a professor through the letters this soldier wrote home and the family of the soldier.

On the way back, granny-in-law pointed out the field, about a kilometer away from the village where a WWII plane crashed and soldiers were parachuting out of the plane. She told us that her cousin found an opened parachute there and in those days, parachute was made of silk. The cousin took it and made it into a wedding gown for a neighbour as cloth was scarce in war times.

With all these thoughts, I wondered aloud that isn't 19 year old too young for a pilot? Seb replied that right now in Iraq, there are 17 year old American soldiers. It reminded me of the movie 'Gangs of New York' which I watched in the morning. Only the poors were sent to war. The rich sons stayed. During the civil war, America accepted all immigrants on the condition that a random 25% of them will be drawn to go to war. And the movie ended with the poor immigrants of New York raising up against this consitution. 200 years after, things did not seem to change. In the recent documentary movie by Michael Moore, it is also the poor being targetted to go to war. Have my thoughts lead me too far again? Have I lost you the reader? War is complicating and where lives is concern, 19 year old is simply too young an age to die.

CFILC Ecole de Langue

I have started my french lesson again. There are 3 Polands, 2 Japanese, 2 Indians, 2 Americans, 1 Thai, 2 Germans, 1 Columbian, 1 Cambonian and me, the Singaporean. It is kinda weird that usually when you are overseas, you tend to have more foreign friends than locals. Ok, these people are not my friends yet as it was only my second lesson.

But right now in Paris, my friends, people whom I hang out with during the weekends are few and limited. There's Anca and Irinel who are Romanians. We really hang out almost every weekend with them catching movie. There's June and Erwan and June is a fellow Singporean. That's about it.

2 months ago, Seb and I joined a group of church members for a hike. Almost everyone is a foreigner as I attend an English church. There was one french and he joined us because he wanted to improve his english. How courageous for a lone French.Of course, there was Seb who is a French too.

Why is it difficult to find locals as friends?
1. Over here, the French do not have many friends in their lives. It is not like the Asians culture. Once you know someone by name, the person is your friend. Over here, friends are usually people who had been to the same school as you for 5 years . For Seb, his 2 best friends are from his high school days. Another good friend is a brother of his friend from high school. Another friend is from his previous work place. That's about all the people he needed to keep in touch.

2. Sometimes, the culture can be such a big barrier. I do not always understand the humor of French. A humor in France is called a 'blague'. As the word sounds like 'black', the joke is often qualified as 'black humor' to me and usually it is laughing at someone/something rather than laughing with someone. My sense of humor for any 'ang-moh' is kid's stuff. This is just an example. If we already share different taste in jokes, it is rather difficult to find something in common like beliefs, values, thoughts and etc.

3. It is easier to relate to someone foreign in a foreign land. You have more or less the same anxiety. When I was studying in Australia, there were so many Asians in my estate that I do not have a chance to know any Australians. I feel ashamed but I managed to redeem myself*. In the University, the Australians do not mix with the foreigners either.

*When I was in US for 3 months and stuck in a 'ulu' part of Fairview Lake for 9 weeks, I got to know many friendly Americans. There was no Chinese in the camp community of few hundred people. After my stint in Fairview Lake Camp, I was invited to stay with Heather whom I got to know during my work at the camp. Till now, we are still exchanging emails on a regular basis.

So, the reason goes on and on as to why it is difficult to find local friends here. But that is not going to stop me. Seb always told me that where ever I go, I can make friends easily. I prefer to count everyone as my friend. But in times of trouble, I counted with my fingers and guess how many I realised I can turn to? Before you know mine, start counting yours. My result is not too far from yours.