adventures of the salty mushroom

2008-11-29T02:30:00.000+01:00

------ 2 yrs 5 mths 3 days, 4 handph upgrades since the snatch-thief in Paris (Nokia6235, Motorola Razor, K700i, G900), 1 Job Change, a whole lot Adventure, Mishap and playing Ultimate in btw... the salty mushroom resurrects! -------

stumbling across the ol' blog agai-n i realised that it has been awhile. i never did publish the above article which i wrote on 26 june 06 in closing memory of the fantastic grad trip in Europe before embarking on a working-adult life.... plus purchasing a new laptop got me going through all the photos and amazing times.....

now that i have begun work at the Y, life has begun again... :D
i'm now doing something i love!
i've traded in office skirts, high heels, the corporate-look
(not that i had many cos i think i sort of knew that i was not going too long...1.5years to be exact)
how many people can honestly say they like their jobs?
so i think it time to start writing again to make recordings of this new & exciting journey....
something for my grandkids to find out abt... the possible acheivement of cool-grandma status

Adventures of the Salty Mushroom II......

2006-06-26T11:17:00.002+02:00

now that i'm finally back home with unlimited access to the internet i guess i should update the blog. since the last entry, we've been tennis-stars chasing at roland garros, night-cycling and walking around paris, catcing live-music action in damp n dark Irish pubs, paragliding, camping and trekking in Chamonix, France (where Mont Blanc is!!), hopping over to Sweden; Stockholm, the surrounding Swedish Archipelagos and Nyoping.
of course this all includes eating our way around, you cant hunt, fly, camp, trek or canoe without good food can you? and from recent experience, even the smallest of islands ( 2km by 5km approx) hold fantabulous restaurants.....

finally meeting nadal in the flesh was electrifying, it was a total coincidence that we walked into his training slot. (The Spaniards never looked better than in the form of Nadal). Janice obviously managed to get her way once again, not just with one cap signed, but TWO! but of course it was also because he was very nice n obliging as well....sigh..sighhh....

then there was the night that only evania and I were home. decided to discover Paris by night, taking the Saint Michel route down by the river to Notre Dame. T'was a gorgeous evening, watching various groups of people taking up their spots by the river, dancing to the music of a live-fiddler on one end and a boombox on the other. also the groups of friends drinking wine and eating cheeses, laughung together in their tight circles.

ev and i, 2 chinese girls whizzing by on road bikes illicited quite a few looks as well. i guess it was a visual inter-cultural exchange of sorts.

next along teh river was a pleasant suprise, a gang of acrobatic rollerbladers who were perfrming the most amazing tricks with speed n grace, sure wish i could be as agile.
emerging fr the tunnel we caught sight of a very beautifully lited up back view of Notre Dame, Paris sure spends a tons on her electricity bills!

2006-05-31T18:41:00.000+02:00

whoah...i have been lazy. its been 2 weeks since my last entry. i think keeping a blog is way too tough for computer-illiterate me, the result of too many things to do and too many people sharing one internet enabled computer.

So, D&G (daph and Gloria) and it took a total of 5hrs to bring them home ( me leaving hse catching bus, finally meeting them n then bus again.) crikey...should;ve just taken the RER...an 8EURO, 50minute train ride...paris has 3 terminals, each located like 50 miles away fr each other!! therefore the miscomm of the terminal they were in, resulted in an extra hr of travelling to and fro T1 & T2.

anyhow it's always agreat seeing family and old buddies you havent met for awhile.

after a day of bringing them around in paris and resting up the jet lag, we left for SPAIN!!! barcelona... and she had.....

the best seafood paella ever! unfortunately or fortunately....they only make paella for a minimum of 2 orders....it was enough for 4 though!!! a 24 EURO expenditure worth every penny!

ORIGINAL SPANISH TAPAS!!!!!!....smoked octopus with paprika drizzled with olive oil...i could live on it forever.

look! sangria the size of my face....almost.... i made sure i had plenty of that on your account Dea!

camp nou..a giant F.C.B souvenir store...the football musuem entrance fee was too high...at least there was this shop, with plenty of young ronaldhino videos...adverts for nike.

Camp Nou sports grounds...incredible...a ticketing booth and competition arena for every sport FBC sponsors; basketball, handball, hockey... managed to sneak a peek at a youth handball competition...and it was...messy..heh...

to be continued...

2006-05-15T02:03:00.000+02:00

Had the most fantastic week/weekend in france.sigh...a crazy week but every second was beautiful.

monday was a holiday!so we decided to get our asses down to chateau des versailles, a 40 min train ride.we ended up having our picnic at jardin du luxembourg instead cos it was to late by the time jan finished her frenc placement test.bought crackers, smked salmon, cherry tomatoes, apples, pepper goat's cheese..it was a lovely day 'cept for the part we had to look for chairs...as the whole of paris was there too..

had perfect attendance at french class, for once, finally as well.

tuesday was a day of recuperation after last week; going out everyday (ive come to realise im quite a homebody) and the crazy trip to milan.

(the kitchen fits one person at a time. that's a 33 sq metre home for you.)

wednesday was green curry day, had jan's thai schoolmate over.unfortunately she cant do thai food..so i wasn;t able to squeeze any thai recipes off her..i must say tt, 'asian gourmet' green curry paste is very more than decent.throwing in some aubergines, fishballs, potatoes and chicken made it all SO good, ahhhh...for the love of spice!!

spent thursday at the chateau des versailles.made smoked salmon sandwiches a delicious salad accompanied by Jan's now infamous Tiramisu.spent the entire afternoon lazing on the grass and taking in the atmosphere of the chateau;did a little boating, admired the sculling training the locals were doing, staying on til the no one else was leftin on the compunds. The grandeur of the gardens and chateau was even greater with us being the only 2 souls left and the security guard who appeared suddenly to chase us out. heh....

friday was a mad rush.after procrastinating for the longest time, and saturday's Fontainebleu trip..i was finally motivated enough to hunt for a BIKE SHOP!

yes. i THOUGHT, there would be plentiful; alas due to big Sport corporations like Decathlon and GO SPORTS, many smller bike places have closed. i went hunting for 3 different internet advertised addresses only to find a resataurant or cafe in their places. starting to panic i tikamed one of the addresses in my 'cycling France' guide book and finally hit the jackpot; although it was 3 differnt train changes away, decided to trust the tikam-method anyway, an old-school choice, predecessor of eenie-meenie-mineey-moe. BINGO. (divine intervention mostly too, prayed over it!)
Rando Cycles proved her worth, fixng up all the dented, creaky bits, oiling and pumping in the air, bring new life into the old Trek 1oo0.

made friends with Fleurian the bike-mechanic and had good fun conversing in broken english and French.Nice boy. one of the more decent youngsters i've seen in paris.

my first ride on parisian roads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
porte de vincinnes (bike shop) to porte d'orleans (home)WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...it was quite a lung-busting ride, (pollution) not because it was hilly or anything, but the number of cars! plus the narrowness of the lanes.

still... i felt really safe, like queen of the road actually, its really lovely when bikes and buses are entitled to their own special lanes.ha! wonder if singapre wil ever do that,another way to reduce the number of cars on the rd perhaps..com'on PAP..listen up!

(beginning fr our hse to the train station!)

so comes the weekend....twas the best time!!whizzing around in Fontainebleu, like Versailles, its part of the ile-de-France. the periphery towns of paris, linked together by the seine river.a real adventure with our bikes on hand we cycled to gare d'lyon to catch the hourly train.40 minutes separates lush forest roads filled with pines and birches, gorges, quaint cottages and chateaus with enormous gardens from congested,tired paris. (still the lifestyle beats those of us singaporeans; cos the parisains have such gorgeous weekend havens to run too!)

getting there was easy-peasy. with the assistance of a very kind gentleman we met on the train, he inroduced us to some pretty chep hotels.immediately after settling in and dumping our bags we rushed out to grab at the crisp air and sunshine.met a bit of rain nearer the end of the evening, but at least we saw the whole town.our dinner encounter was the cherry on top of te whipped cream.

made friend's with jimmy the chef of pizza pazza. had the most incredible vege pizza. jimmy tosses ut 250 pizza a night! you should have seen his pizza-making hands, forearms and biceps!!!!!
more inspiringly he gave us some of his personal (pizza) history, totally captivating jan and i with the love in his eyes as he spoke bout the beauty of italian food and his adopted-province; (french dude, bred and trained in Parma, Italy). Grana parmigiana and jambon(ham) parma.......as he spoke and introduced ingredients to us, our pizza kinda grew in variety and portion of ingredients!you will understand with the following picture when i say i had the best pizza of my life thus far!

sunday was spent cycling to the renaissance painters' village of barbizon.ok. i adore serendipity, but i guess when it comes to cycling you just have to plan, know which rd to take and exits to follow.

(the map was upside down! according to the toursit office! imagine if we followed!)

aye, thankfully Barbizon was pretty straightforward, after some initial confusion.. we made it in the end!NFORTUNATELY, Jan's rear tyre was punctured right as we were reaching Barbizon!thank God it wasnt in the middle of he highway...had no choice but to cab back to fontainebleu, aye...still it was great fun :)

just behind our hostel is the forest and so before leaving Fontainebleu we went for a short hike.
my great-outdoors urges, placated in a weekend!

(a last pizza before leaving)

aye!Daph and Gloria!! hurry over!! we will go again together!!!

2006-05-09T01:04:00.000+02:00

this bit of reflection on the rest of italy is a week overdue actually. was busy bringing Jan's mom around, playing tour guide and all.
i should make it my real job maybe?!
quite enjoyed it...perhaps open my own agency, specially catering to taitai crowds; do a shopping 'tour d Paris' and then throw in a day trip to Milan. did exactly that with her mom. 12 hours overnight to Milan on the 8:20pm thursday train and back to Paris, another 12hours on the 11:35pm friday train.
it was a saver on hotel, to release more money into shopping... at the 5 storey Ferrari merchandise store for example....
REALLY; luxury ferrari, ferrari for children, ferrari for the (rabid) fan, ferrari sports-range, ferrari bookstore!!!! talk about propaganda.... the ferrari-colnalgo bike...ferrari-surfboard, ferrari-puma.....if Ferrari had a heaven, it would have resembled just that.

as for the delayed italy update, i think jan's blog has a good gallery for that and is pretty much fantastic already... http://lost-vagabond.livejournal.com
have a looksey if you want more rome, venice, bologna, florence and milan....also for a glimpse of the sort of sinful indulgences i have to come hme to whenever her practical is over...
when i return to Singapore, you will be allowed to bear witness with a pinch session of my spare tyres, developed from rich, french pattiserie...

all in all, italy was... phenomenal... every city was different, had its own character, flavour and style of pasta..hehe...(jan bought a tea towel that had the map of italy divided into pasta regions instead of city names...)

reading Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayer now... it certainly does not help to stop the pining for more of Italy.

i hope you get there one day too...to tread carefully through Roman ruins, run through the windy and cobbled streets of Florence, crack your head trying to get to the Basilica/museum just on the other side of the river when the gondola operators are on strike, watch Italian hunks scoot around in their Vespas and most memorably... gulp in the smell of baking pizza while shovelling into your mouth the richest, creamiest, best pistachio and hazelnut gelato.

festina tarde!!! (make haste slowly!!)

bongiorno!

2006-05-03T19:52:00.000+02:00

Days of Italy....Rome is gorgeous. Sans the other million tourists, hotel-hunting difficulties, crappy waiters, sleazy men, angry cabbies, streets fillled with touters selling fake gucci prada handbags and sunglasses; say 1 to every 5 tourists!

The Colosseum was truly amazing. Will catch Gladiator soon just to check out how they reproduced it. And the ruins were being ruins, I guess I still prefer Asian ruins, kill me, i know im biased, being a Southeast Asian student and all. Professor Miksic, I know you will be proud. Like Borobodur and Angkor Wat...they drive me gaga any day. Of course Jan shares the oppososite sentiments. Nonetheless, Rome still worked its own magic, casting her spell deeper as we roamed through the archaeological sites.

I've never seen a more toursit oriented city. the metro stopped at just about every attraction; like a Rome-shaped, Sentosa monorail system. Also, i believe i've never felt, smelt, observed and been together with a greater crowd of toursits gathered in one city, not to mention the concentration of souvenir shops, out to squeeze every toursity penny out there.

me and my new pal, Michaelangelo.

anyways after participating in all the activities which should be done as a proper tourist in Italy/Rome (as seen above), the next thing would be to hunt for good Gelato; which we did to the tune of a grand total of 30 scoops in our 7days there. In addition to the search for the prettiest/tastiest pizzas!!! you can't blame me for the greedy face...

taking a midday break on ancient, Roman grass in the middle of ruinous compunds.

the third great and missing but now found intellectual of Rome :)

2006-04-24T16:36:00.000+02:00

forgive me. i know i have been really slow with the updates of the blog. its hard when you have hooves for hands when it comes to typing.

The easter weekend was amazing...
Bunked in at prrofessor Bil's holiday home in Normandy, veules des roses.

it was a realy crazy, multi-cutural experience with 2 Russian Scientists, Anastasia the Biologist and Dimitri the Bactriologist/Economist.
2 French, French-language profssors,
(Bil, of Jewish-Polish descent and Roger, who came from Congo to study in a seminary and then Sorbonne
University.) And of course the 2 of us and Roger's kid, darling Sarah.

Veules des Roses is a tiny sea-side town in Normandy with pretty cottages which have been preserved and is under some
conservation plan whereby they are nt allowed to change the look of the town in anyway;
ie. buried electricity wires, tradtional thatched roof covering modern-day tile roofs,
chimneys, which are still very used at least. Also the screenng through of potential residents, no new housing is
allowed to be built either, so as you can uderstand, the village has been seriously restored and is still in as original
a form as it can be.

Complete with ONE boucherie, ONE boulangerie, ONE pharmacy, ONE church, ONE petrol station,
ONE vege farmer/seller, ONE dairy farmer/seller and TWO epiceries.
NO hypermarts in sight or fastfood joints, wich is refreshing, then one knows she is up country,
away from the frazzle ad hazzle of city life.

EVen the cars drive slower with pretty bike routes on narrow lanes.
In this small vilage eEveryone knowing everyone.

i will post up the photos soon...pictures will say more than i can.

will be out of france for the first time this week.
leaving for Italy; Rome Venice and Florence on ryanair.

I still cannot believe its 9.99EURs to fly. and i cant wait to sit on the 79cents flights just to say that i sat on a 79cent flight.

how do they cover their costs chargig us peanuts?! perhass their engines are truly castoffs of fighter jets from WWII.

hmmm..

well, ti all those still at the exams.. YOUR BIG SUMMER BREAK IS ALMOST HERE. i will be job hunting when you enjoy, trying to rebuild savings, then you can laugh at me.

ah well, pray we be kept safe, guess being robbed in the first week was good training. all our french friends keep remindng us to be careful of cheats n pickpockets!! eeeks...

to roam the streets of rome now.. back on sunday..

2006-04-11T12:11:00.000+02:00

Birthday breakfast...fondue du fruits!

handmade dapquoise brithday cake by janice, courtesy of le cordon bleu

the best tart citron by far... in the shape of a b'day cake-neighbourhood patissier.

birthday present!! kermit would be proud.

birthday dinner dessert...lime absinthe souffle ice-cream

room filled with suprises....thank you Jan!! seriously....the best birthday I've had since beginning Uni-11th April is always pre-exams period....

Thank you dear friends for your birthday greetings/presents/wishes...been the most memorable 23rd....

Your call made my day Dea! Shuiyen..your birthday message was the first one i read. Thanks Geraldine for the unexpected greetings...Daph and Julia as well. Even Pop and Mom; Thanks for the lovely birthday email, means alot... and lastly, most significantly...my partner in crime on the streets these streets of Paris, for the fantabulous birthday suprises!! my salutations!!

2006-04-10T13:21:00.000+02:00

Vietnamese Marionnettes Day - Cirque d'Hiver
This is a concrete circus tent built by Napolean so the French could have circus even in winter. The puppet show was held inside.

Us photowhores.

Vietnamese Marrionettes on Water. It was most amazing.
After which we adjourned to have dinner with our new found friends...
A crazy bunch of mult-nationals, friends of the Professor.

Sarah; kid of African and Polish friends, Roger and Anna. Paul; Francoise, our host's kid, she's a really cool Painter!

2006-04-10T12:58:00.000+02:00

Went to church today, once again it was impossible to find, eventhough this time there was a map that we drew to find 40 Rue du Disque. I guess it was because we were expecing to find a church in a shape similar to those in Singapore. Little could we guess that service was held in a room near a Buddhist temple (which occupied the opposite room); both confined in some tunnel-like carpark establishment.

Worship songs were held in French and English; and the small but passionate congregation were truly singing their hearts out. And during prayertime, we all joined hands; Chinese, Afircan, Vietnamese, French, American, Canandian, Singaporean... a most internationally unititing moment.

Being in Church I was reminded that Good Friday and Easter happens this week.
The signs have been very obvious....
Didn't manage to link it all til the invitations during announcements..

All around me were the obvious symbols...
Chocolatiers banking in on the Season...giant CHOCOLATE easter bunnies, Foil eggs, Praline filled eggs, egg-shelled chocolates... more eggs and bunnies in dark, milk, mint and white CHOCOLATE. Didn't manage to link it all til the invitation to Good Friday service during the announcements...

Guess God really wanted me to be aware and prepare for the week of joy and sorrow, 2000 years before...
Switching on the lappie for some music, I stumbled upon a song I've never played, the melody and lyrics stopped me in my tracks...

"What can take a dying man, to raise him up to life again?
What can heal the wounded soul? What can make us white as snow?
What can fill the emptiness? What can mend the brokenness?
Brokenness..

Mighty, Awesome, Wonderful; Is the holy cross.
Where the lamb laid down His life, to lift us from the Fall.
Mighty is the power of the cross.

What restores our faith in God? What reveals the Father's love?
What can lead the wayward home? What can melt a heart of stone?
what can free the guilty one? What can save and overcome?
Overcome.

Mighty, Awesome, Wonderful; Is the holy cross.
Where the lamb laid down His life, to lift us from the Fall.
Mighty is the power of the cross.

It's a miracle to me and still a mystery.
It's a miracle to me, the power of God, to those who believe..."
(Mighty is the Power of the Cross - Chris Tomlin)

Turning 23 the same week as your saviour's death and resurrection will give much room for the contemplation of life. I pray I will come to a satisfactory conclusion. Pray with me....

2006-04-08T08:17:00.000+02:00

I have the best friend in this world. really. LOOK.
a prelude to my birthday....
cos i wasnt feeling it...
Thanks dear Jan!!

Gorgeous aint it?
Its been a very flower-ful pre-birthday.

A very sweet Dan sent up yellow Narcissus in a pot (very practical indeed) as well...what a suprise...many thanks as well..I have been very dutiful yeah? watering it everyday. be proud! they aint dying yet!!!

anyways, had my 3rd lesson of frenc today. it was NUMBERED...the french really have a way with their numeros... it is not only challenging to the mathematical and language department of the brain, it also is a tongue-twistering task to just say "94" spelt as "quarte-vingt-quartorze"; pronounced as "carte-van-kartoze".
now imagine doing the ten timetables aloud!
10 dix (diz)
20 vingt (van)
30 trente (tront)
40 quarante (karont)
50 cinquante (sankont)
60 soixante (swasont)
70 soixante-dix
(swasont-diz)
80 quarte vingt (cart-van)
90 quarte vingt dix (carte-van-diz)
100 cent (saun)

k enough french for the weekend.

however torturous the language can get, at least my professor is really nice. reaslising that i was a student of SEAsian, he asked if i would like to watch a Vietnamese Marionette performance at Cirque d'Hirer tomorrow....of course i said YES!
anyways, he actually made the effort to get one more ticket for Janice; Alas! SOLD OUT. he still extended a dinner invitation to her after the show.

A really eccentric man with a passion for French and Food. Typical French. Desiring for us to try a Michelin 3 star baker's bread he begged us to wait and watch over his bag while he made his way back to the office to bring it down.

Now, the bread, it was really something!!! ok fault me...i just adore bread in general...so perhaps i was biased. but as the yeast n flour interacted with the saliva in me mouth, i felt a burst of flavours of the different grains...no kidding!

And so, Professor us bid farewwell at the budget cambodian-chinese restaurant he reccommnded us for dinner. it was cool cos it was an authentic cambodian-owned family restaurant. managed to squeeze in a few phrases of the Khmer i knew with the owner. perhaps i could ask if they would like some hired-help...then i can practise French with them as well as learn Khmer!!!

its vietnamese marionettes on water tom then!

2006-04-05T21:52:00.000+02:00

Sweet Smell of Sweat
finally perspired today....however little..i still felt it. the curse is broken. went to play tennis in Parisian Public courts, and it felt good to have the arm and the leg back in action. unfortunately its so hard to get courts that we could only book an hour. ah well... still better than sitting home shivering on the couch.

the body was so inspired that it even decided to run home after class today!

Details about the Run
1 You start from BOULEVARD RASPAIL PARIS .
2 Follow Rue Huysmans for 30 m
3 Turn left, follow Boulevard Raspail for 7oo m
4 Turn right, follow Rue Émile Richard for 50 m
5 Follow Rue Gassendi for 450 m
6 Turn left, follow Avenue Du Maine for 500 m
7Follow the roundabout Place Victor Et Hélène Basch for 45 m
8Follow Avenue Du Général Leclerc for 450 m
9Turn right, follow Rue Poirier-De-Narçay for 150 m
10Turn right, follow Rue Friant for 50 m

You reach RUE FRIANT PARIS . Covered distance: 2.8 km
http://www.maporama.com

(how cool is that. they have an online guide to tell you exactly where to walk and how many minutes anywhere is Paris.) a most useful tool when you're too giam to get a Paris walking guide.
yeah i know the run was short, but it was my my first after 3 weeks of non-running!

you know you need to start excercising when...

1) you have a best bud who's doing a pattisserie course and brings back three full slabs of differently styled butter cakes after every practical. Fig 1

2) when you start shitting uncannily well after being diagnosed with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)

3) you polish off couscous for 2 in a tunisian/moroccan restaurant by yourself because

4) 16 day old jeans which should be well-seasoned n nicely expanded start feeling tighter

5) dinners begin at 9pm too often.

aye...evidence on the call to shed perspirition...indeed! Fig1.

2006-04-03T14:14:00.000+02:00

i've decided that i really enjoy doing laundry here in paris. its therapeutic. you walk in with a tons of smelly clothes and walk out feeling renewed after lovingly folding the clothes from the still-hot dryer. so you get to warm the cold hands as well as be awash in the redeeming, flower-scented, clean clothes.

since it takes 45mins for the whirring machine to finish, i decided to make the neccessary visit to the post office. whilst walking there, i kinda walked almost smack in the middle of a student strike of sorts. right in between the junction i had to cross to get to the beloved post-office. the riot leaders were clanging metal and shouting revolutionary-sounding french words and they students were pumping their fists in unison. pity i didnt have the cam with me, it was quite scary/exciting. they had actually blocked up the roads for a while by splewing construction dividers everywhere... the car in front the zebra-crossing i was about to cross just banged its way to the other side... thank God i wasnt standing near the divider cos it kinda flung itself to the other side upon impact...saved again...

parisians are a violent lot... no doubt..

(OK..as i'm typing, there seems to be another strike going on...mad shouting again..wish i understood the language...aye...)

finally safe within the walls of the post office, another shouting match begins with the customer and the postlady... again i dont understand anything....(i'm so determined to ace French class which begins tom...cant hardly wait....dying to study...) i must comment that the infuriated customer was still very polite; as he finished with the postlady, he turned around to clamly say, 'excuse moi' to us the stunned queue...stomping off thereafter...

another langugage horror: as it came to my turn the postlady and i had much trouble...thankfully a nice bi-lingualled lady came to the rescue again...*phew*... this all adds to the energy i have now to learn French...fast!!!

meanwhile...

the trusty washing machines continues to whirr away, oblivious to whatever the world throws in it... butter-stained-cordon bleu aprons, 5-day old socks, tea-soaked aprons, bike-grease rags,
10 day old blood-crusted shirt....

while waiting for the last bits of laundry to finish, i sat down to finish reading stephen clarke's book 'merde actually' , about this brit guy's struggle in finding life and love in France.
now he is my kind of riot.
i think the old uncle waiting for his laundry might have thought i was mad rocking in my seat, stifling my gasps of laughter...

(swollen eye and grazed left-profile from crashing face down into hard snow, hence blood-speckled top)

rumble-tumble in the dryer...
all articles of clothings are re-newed for another week's battle with the dirt gracie and janice produce...

doing laundry is life-restoring isn't it? agree with me... besides good food of course..

2006-03-31T00:27:00.000+02:00

and so it was about the 10th day in Paris that IT really began. trouble finds me wherever i go. even in singapore; not just when i'm overseas. i just walk right up into it. or is it perhaps i do things that are more dangerous than the average person??? i'm normal, not stuntman, not extremist...

we decided, jan and i, that we look for Trouble, never on purpose of course. it was tuesday night, the day the strikes and demonstrations in Paris began. I wanted to go to the 17th arrondissment to explore....(with a fantastic market and all, how to resist even on a day of strife?) somehow we found ourselves in Monmarte and stumbled upon the Basilique du Sacre Coeur, a pretty cathedral which was featured in the film Amelie.

SO all was fine and well, no demonstration in sight. we caught the sun setting over Paris, quite gorgeous with the Eiffle about to light up in the distance, wobbled down the 243steps and wandered into a quaint egyptian teashoppe/restaurant fr dinner.

now before we get to the traumatic bits i must comment that the mint tea we had was most extraordinary. fresh, crushed mint leaves infused with an egyptian tea mix thing. absolutely refreshing on a freezing spring night. then there was moussaka, a roasted brinjal n tomato + minced beef stew/curry... something asian tasting... alas!! contented sigh...

we were all ready to go home, filled with a warm fuzzy feeling...

walking towards the Metro Pigalle, we discovered that it was the red light district of Paris (more vividly described to us by the french, photojournalist cutomer we met the next day.)

it was seriously a case of being in the wrong place at a most tragically wrong time.

Jan was trying to take the perfect shot of the neon red 'Sexodome' and 'Peep Show' signs, capturing the essence of Pigalle. I was standing around innocently waiting for her...

SUDDENLY....

this short, young punk grabbed at the sling bag hanging around me. I suppose it was my fault 'cause i looked like such an easy target, being asian, touristy and female.

i fell to the ground and jan and the punk were engaged in a tussle over the bag. he was violently tugging at the bag, i think my neck could have broken if it was any less strong. the felon had an advantageous hold of the bag, so as the straps broke he ran off in a flash with it, leaving the two of us in a most shell-shocked state.

unbelievable. afterall it was a very brightly lit area in the middle of 2 busy streets, by the entrance of the Metro station, with quite a few pedestrians walking by.

no one helped us while we were fighting for the bag.

no one stopped him whle he was running away.

we didn't manage to kick his balls or throw a punch.

i thought i could react better, since i should be rather used to sudden attacks.
but all the previous re-enactments in my head, fighting off imaginary baddies; did not surface to help deal with the punk then..

the element of suprise was stilll the better weapon...

i think i shall seriously consider some self defence course when i return home.

i lost 110EURO and my mobile. we gained a bruised knucke, backside, swollen and scratched up middle finger.

well at least we made a new friend, there was some heart left in Paris afterall.we shall call her angel evelyne.she came up to us and asked if we were alright and if we wanted to go to the police.

she got robbed too. hers was even more ridiculous, she actually negotiated with the assailant, so he only took her money. a passerby actually came up to apologise for being unable to help as he was scared!

at the police station we got turned away because they had their hands full with the arrest of many strikers, and the building was filled with them. INCREDIBLE eh? right then i missed singapore so badly, cos at least i have a home and family to run to, policemen who wouldn't reject my report, streets that were tons safer and familiarity that would stabilise my nerves.

we almost didn't have a home to return to for the night cos he ran away with the housekeys as well. the caretaker lives an hour away from rue friant and we thought of just sleeping outside our door for the night.

of course our angel would not have allowed that. she got us to call madame corantine and explained the situation (in a flurry of french) and agreed to meet us. thank God we had her as our relief translator/middleperson.

so we sat on the train home, a little stoned but at least alive and nearly unscathed.....
once again....