France – Part 2 – Paris

Paris to me was a let down.

Take your time, let that sentence sink in.

Perhaps I’ve seen too many French film, perhaps I had unrealistic expectations of Paris, perhaps that’s not my fault, perhaps Paris is just overly good at marketing itself and ends up overselling itself. The Paris I saw was not the Paris they sold me. The Paris I was sold is moody, sexy, glamorous, artistic, like a 35 years old gorgeous woman, not young, no, she’s been around the block, but she’s sure of herself, she’s single but she’s got it all. However, the Paris I saw was clean, wide boulevards, beautiful in a few rare moments, rarely romantic, sexy or glamorous and never moody, never did I find that oomph that character. Let down, yep.

I sometimes think it’s perhaps the way I traveled around France, the way I did Paris last, because I thought it would be a great whirlwind ending with me falling in love with the city. Perhaps if I started the trip with Paris, I would have liked it and enjoyed it more, but I’m not sure if this theory is valid. Paris is what it is, it’s become overly touristic, overly gentrified. The Paris I had in mind can only be found in old photographs.

Sorry to start on a sad note, but to cheer you up, here are some lovely photos.

Day 1

A photo studio’s way of advertising itself. Pretty cool huh, really reminds me of Amelie.

Jady and I went to the biggest outdoor food market in Paris, we arrive too late and some stalls are already packing up, by the time we buy and finish eating lunch, almost all the stalls have packed up and gone. We did buy a box of lychees for the cheapest price in history, 2 euros! And I did a little scavenging in the dumped fruit pile and found some perfectly ripe plums, I believe Jady has photographic evidence…

Jady’s potato heart…

Day 2

We did the new Paris walking tour, it was a good introduction to Paris, seeing almost all the famous sights on foot in about 3 hours.

Place St Michelle in the Latin Quartier

Pont Neuf with its funny faces

Tip of Il de la Cite

“Let me out!”

Hiding in the archways of Lourve waiting out the rain

Concorde with that famous thing in the background

Petite Palaice

Day 3

Took this photo right near the tunnel where Diana was killed, didn’t realise that and was wondering why there were a whole heap of people there and so much graffitti and scribbles.

We just walked around really. I made sure that we visited Colette, it’s like the most famous hip clothing store I know in Paris, it’s expensive and attracts a hip young crowd, some will even tell you that Colette is legendary. It’s similar to London’s Dover Street Market or Sydney’s Corner Shop I suppose. Downstairs in Colette was just cheaper fun little gadgets that people would buy because they can’t afford anything upstairs. So upstairs, as soon as I look through any rack of clothes, a shop assistant would come immediately after to rearrange it. That pissed me off.

Oh! We also looked for Pierre Herme’s shop that day, but it was closed for summer. Bummer, I was so so SO dissapointed, but we did come across a nice little looking restaurant which we went back to later for dinner.

After dinner we strolled around, ended up on one of the bridges, I can’t remember the name, apparently it’s the bridge in the last scene in Sex and the City the movie… hmmm… Anyhow, being a balmy summer night, the bridge is filled with young people, mostly tourists, drinking and having picnics. Jady and I linger, take photos and finally we sit down to just enjoy the view. One of the guys sitting next to us, offered us some box wine, we accept. He’s from Czech and is apartment sitting in Paris for 3 weeks while his friend goes on vacation. What did he study? Some science related really serious sounding thing. And we end up having a conversation about economy, China and politics, ending on the note that I said “the perfect system (both economical and political) isn’t possible, because humans aren’t perfect” Deep huh? I know! It seems like a lot of conversations I have with strangers in Europe end up being deep and meaningful. What’s up with that.

Il de la Cite again.

People on the bridge

Day 4

We went to Versaille, all my photos are on film. You might get to see them, some day.
Day 5

It’s a painting, wordpress can’t censor that right?

Musee D’Orsay! It was great, I loved it. So tiring, so so much to see, by the end I felt like I was simply looking at the paintings but not seeing them.

After that we dropped by Pierre Herme again, the notice on the door said it should be re-opened by now and it was Jady’s last day in Paris. And it was open! Oh what relief and what tremendous exciting. How my heart pounded as we waited in line, “oh oh, I can see a little bit of cakes now”. Yes of course the queue went out the door. We buy 10 macarons, 1 of each flavour. Never mind the pretty boxes, just in plastic bags please, we are only going to devour them in 30 seconds. Jady and I somehow manage to choose a cake each, with the not so big but each tantalising looking selection, it was a difficult choice.

Jady chose something chocolatey, it had a few layers inside, 1 was chocolate mousse and 1 was praline if memory serves me correct. I chose an almond  mille fuille, it was messy to eat and if we weren’t in the middle of a public square in Paris on a sunny day, I would have licked the plastic wrapper the cake same in. It was that fucking good. Oh excuse my French! With the macarons, we had half of each flavour and each produced an “woooo” “arhhh” “ooohhhh” “mmmmm” from us. Each flavour oomphed but our favourite was the salted caramel. No wonder the guy in front of us bought a box with 1 of each flavour but 3 salted caramel.

Mmmmm

Jady’s cake

My cake

Half way through the delicious mess

Actually writing this is making me sad. When will I next have the chance to eat Pierre Herme’s macarons? Never??? At least not for a few years. I don’t see myself going back to Paris anytime soon. So I guess I’ll just have to jump on a plane and head to Tokyo at the next opportunity.

Jady took the train to Venise with a fully and satisfied belly

I took a long walk after dinner from Place du Concord all the way to Arc D’Triumph.

Seine at night

Concorde in the background, fountain in the foreground

Arc d’Triumph

Shop window on Champs Elysee, cake killed fashion

Asian photo shoot on Champs Elysee

Inside of arc

Day 6

I walked around Marais, the Jewish quarter in the morning, it was quite nice day and I had the best felafel wrap for lunch.

Hotel de Ville aka Town Hall, took me a while to work that one out “So… where the hotel?”

Seeing as this was my second last day, I felt anxious to tick off more on the tourist list. So I saw the Notre Dame. It’s ok, not that exciting.

The world famous flying buttress

I went to the Louvre. Since it’s free for all under 26 on Fridays after 6pm, it opens til 9.30pm. I found the Louvre itself very impressive, it rivals the Versaille. There are so much art in the Louvre and I was pressed for time, in 3.5 hours, you get to see nothing. So I was the Mona Lisa, it’s small, you can only see it from 10 meters away, behind a wall of tourists, I didn’t like it much. I saw Venus de Milo. But the favourites I saw and I only saw about 30% of the Louvre, they were 2 frescos by Botticelli, they were magnificient, beautiful and sadly most people just walked right past them.

All for a glimpse of Mona Lisa

Can’t see shit being 10 meters away

Venus and her admirers

There was also Napoleon’s apartment. It was grande beyond excess and really too too much, I have no idea how anyone can live in such a space.

The entertainment room, it was so dazzling, you didn’t know what to look at.

The giant dining table

Looks like a giant glowing insect with red eyes…

Day 7

I went to Centre Pompidou and I absolutely loved it. The building itself is very impressive and its collection even better. I saw so much, Picasso, Mondrian, Calder, Matisse, Rothko, Pollock, Duchamp, Arbus, it’s like a who’s who of modern art and of course they contain some of their most famous pieces.

My fav though was this video floor projection, I must have stood on it for 20 minutes. It wasn’t part of the permanent collection, it was part of Elles @ Centre Pompidou.

To the left, Eiffel Tower.

To the right, Montmartre.

The project that I stook on for 20 minutes.

Mondrian

Calder

Duchamp

Matisse

The square below

Oh! How could I forget, I had been looking for a nice pair of vintage boots ever since the purple ones I got in London started falling apart and I threw them out. As I headed to Pompidou, I walked past this vintage shop. Now the day before I searched up a whole list of vintage shops in Paris and went to all of them, they all had very little ankle boots. But just accidently I past this shop and they had a great selection of ankle boots, I tried on a pair, they fitted, I paid for them and just kept them on… Hah! It all happens when you don’t expect it.

Then it was an early night in packing bags and getting ready to fly to Stockholm today the next day.

France – Part 1

Words written 29 August 09 & 5 September

And there are 72 photos in total, it’s going to be a long post.

Tonight is my last night in Paris, I am inside the hostel writing this because I have no money, I still haven’t gotten paid for my work in London and the transferred money from Sydney still hasn’t come through. Plus I’ve been on my feet all day, I think I deserve a break.

So I have been in France for exactly 1 month now, this whole big adventure started on the 29th July with me taking a Eurostar from London to Paris then changing to local trains twice and a bus to get to Bagneres de Bigorres where I spent 2 weeks on an organic farm. From there I spent 1 night in Cacarssonne, 1 day in Avignon, 4 nights in Lyon, 2 nights in Geneva, 2 nights in Strasbourg and 7 nights in Paris. All these journeys I made by train, it was fun, different, much less stressful than Ryanair flights though also quite expensive in comparison.

So then this blog entry should really start with my 2 weeks on the farm, except all the photos I took are on film and they are sitting in the bottom of my newly purchased 38 liter backpack (Never have I thought I’d look like one of them backpackers, but I honestly do now… my country road bag has nearly broken my back and I’ve had enough, plus the next leg of my trip involves many Ryanair flights, with their 1 bag policy. There’s no way my camera bag can fit into my country road bag, hence the 99 euro purchase blah blah blah justification justification, oh I’ll be using it when I get to the states too.) (That bracket was way long! And how nice to not type on a French keyboard!)

Cacarssonne

Well then, we shall start with Cacarssonne! Cacarssonne is a medival walled city, the main attraction is the old city itself and the Chateaux, outside the old city, it wasn’t very exciting. But the old city amazed me and delighted me, after getting a navette from the train station to the old city then walking through the draw bridge, into the city, I squealed out loud. The tiny cobbled stoned winding streets, the old city walls, the tiled watch towers, the ivy covered houses, splendid!

I dropped my bag off at the hostel and immediately changed into a skirt and singlet, it was steaming hot! It was around midday, so I had lunch and went to visit the Chateaux to escape the boiling sun, it was a good plan. The old town has been built and added to by many in many different eras, including the Romans, the city became famous during the Cathar Crusade. It was good to learn how Cacarssonne became what it was today. It was a very picturesque town and the perfect starting point after 2 weeks on the farm.

Outside the old town

Bridge to the old town

Outside the old town

Avignon

Next stop Avignon where I met up with Jady for a few days. Avignon was also boiling hot, it was a small place with not too much to see. So Jady and I spent most of the time eating lunch, sitting in a cafe in the shade and looking at things we won’t buy in air conditioned shops :p

Lyon

That same evening we took the train to Lyon and were there for 4 nights. The hostel is a bit of a hike to the one of the high points in the city, so even 2 of us dragging my country road bag up hill was a struggle, we had to have 3 pit stops. But once there, the view was gorgeous, there’s a terrace in the middle of the hostel with much of it shaded by trees and plants. It was chilled and quiet at lunch and beautiful at night when the sun goes down and the city lights up, sitting there with our bread, cheese, jambon (cured ham), salad, sautered yellow mushrooms, sweets and fruits, it was just perfect.

The first day was a Sunday, market day, we had a good night sleep, got up late and went wondering around the market, it took us many hours, strolling up and down the market several times being amazed, drooling and trying to decide what to buy. I wanted to buy everything, I wanted to eat everything, I wanted to cook everything. The atmosphere, the fresh produce, the smell of fruits, the stink of cheese, the smoke from the rotisseries, everything was tantalising!

Unfortunately being August, much of the restaurants and shops recommended by Jady’s Lyon farmer host were closed, it’s also a hilly city, so we take our time and have frequent ice cream breaks. Speaking about ice cream, there’s 1 famous ice cream place in Lyon, it’s by the Rhone and is often packed. They must have about 20 flavours, it took me a while to decide upon slated caramel and chestnut. Chestnut in French is maroon, Rs in french are pronounced almost like a H with your tongue curled trying to draw up all your phlem, yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like, I’m still perfecting mine, but since I have a phlemy cough right now, it helps a lot. So I go up to the counter and say “Double sil vous plait, caramel sale e maroon sil vous plait.” Thinking I’d done a good job pronouncing maroon, so the guy replies “Caramel sale e maRRRrrrroon, d’acorrd.” Oh gosh no, I need more phlem, a lot more definitely.

Restaurant napkin

Giant Jady!

Spot the odd one

Basilica at night

Jady with Lyon nightscape

The Lumeier brothers are from Lyon, so we visited the museum which is situated in their original residence. They were also amazing painters with much of the paintings in the house by them. Across from the Lumeier museum was a little park where several games of boules or bocci were being played out enthusiastically. We stayed for a little and had look and I had a few snaps.

Crazy 3D photo thingyo

Painting by one of the brothers

Game of boules

Lyon sunrise

The next day Jady and I went our own ways for a few days. And I took a train to

Geneva

I know it’s not in France but they speak French there! All the signs are in French, everyone’s speaking French, if didn’t feel like I was in Switzerland, except for when I see souvenir shops filled with watches and swiss army knives. I enjoyed Geneva very much, it had that big city feel which I was starting to crave after so many lovely but small towns, but Geneva also had a laid back feel. The days are long and hot, some shops close for siesta and people don’t rush around.

I dropped my bags off at the hostel and first stop was of course, the UN! Oh how exciting! It’s only a 15 minute tram ride from the city center and visits are ran only as guided tours. The guide I got had a heavy or should I say eavy French accent, so I really had to listen hard, but it wasn’t too bad. It’s so so uber cool to see some of the different meeting rooms, the circular rows of tables and chairs fitted with mics and buttons and stuffs. I also sent V a UN postcard using a UN stamp sent via the UN post. Wow!

The United Nations!

Press the button

Fountains outside the UN

My visitors pass

The old town in Geneva is lovely to walk around. Cobbled stoned streets, hilly, windy, many nice boutique shops and cafes, people in this town dress well and they got money. Actually I think there are 2 types in this city, 1 is the type I just described, smooth operators, the other type isn’t so smooth, they are your dorky diplomats…

By the afternoon of the 2nd day, I was in need of a good cool down, so I went to the big water spraying thingy thingyo at the lake. You know, similar to Canberra’s thing but only much bigger and you can walk right upto it. I walked there, I took photos, I packed my camera away and I walked across fast and got a little bit wet and suitably cooled down. The wind blows in 1 direction, causing the water to create a little bit of mist curtain. It’s a big mist though, if you stand directly under it you can get drenched pretty quickly, which a lot of people did since it was hot.

Macarons will make you buy clothes like mad

Could be anywhere really

Modern art museum

The lake

Strasbourg

After lovely Geneva I took the train to Strasbourg. One of the main reasons I went, ok, THE reason I went was that it’s close to the black forest and that’s where the black forest cake comes from. 2 layers of chocolate cake sandwiched with fresh cream and cherries soaked in liquor, topped with more cream and chocolate shavings, it sounds like heaven. But alas I was there on the weekend and the tour company only runs tours to the forest on Wednesday, other companies were only running wine tours. Who the f*ck cares about wine, I know it’s the specialty here, blah blah, but I want my cake!!!

I got NO cake, the only other way to get there would be to hire a car, I had no time or money to do that. Strasbourg is a very nice town but 1 day is plenty, I had 2 days, so yeah, meh, after seeing so many old towns and castles, it can get a bit much.

Despite the very different style of architecture (more German styled),  the many canals going through the old town, Strasbourg for me nonetheless felt average. Though I did have a lovely lunch and tried some snails in a pesto sauce, yum! And the cathedral here is amazing, the architecture is very unique, it employs the flying buttress like the Notre Dame in Paris, but it’s nothing like anything I’ve seen so far. So gothic, yet so ornate, I walked to the viewing platform, I had to rest 3 times while getting there… I never walked so much small circular stairs, if you have to do that everyday, I think it will make you go crazy! The view is pretty good from the top.

The most amazing cathedral

View of Strabourg from the top

17th and 18th century graffiti

Flying buttress like on the Paris Notre Dame

So after Strasbourg, Jady and I met up again in the city of light, Paris. But to hear about that you have to wait til the next blog post!

Portugal redux

Not going to put any words up, just pictures since last time I used Jady’s photos and now I finally have my film photos developed and scanned.

Enjoy!

Brighton

Words written last week.

No better way to start than with a glass of pimms and lemonade!

Thanks to my love of film and my traveling schedule, all the entries from now on aren’t going to be in any chronicle order, they are just going to be all over the place. And I’m actually on a train to Carcassonne changing at Toulouse as I write this, they have power plugs on the train! Wahhh!

So I went to Brighton with Jady in was it June? I think it was June… It was a mighty fine day, great weather which made it a fantastic day trip out of London. The British beaches are very different Australian beaches, Brighton is a pebble beach, as in there’s no sand, just big pebbles. It’s not very comfortable to lie on but at least you won’t have a shoe/towel/hair full of sand by the end of the day.

Brighton had 2 piers but 1 burnt down, they’ve left the burnt skeleton of the pier there and it’s actually quite interesting to look at and makes good photos, when the tide isn’t high, you can waddle out to it a bit too.

On the functioning pier there’s a small fun fair, a few food outlets and some pokies machines. The actual beach on the day was filled with people and as always dotted with lounge chairs which you can hire for half a day for a few quid.

Brighton is absolutely filled with Martin Parr moments, before I thought you’d have to hunt for such moments, but nop, they come to you and plenty of them too, if I wanted to I could have filled rolls and rolls with Parr-esque shots. Take this one below for example. I actually laughed out after I saw this shot scanned large. I was concentrating on the couple in the foreground, their white whale-ness, how the man has his top off but his shoes on, the woman with her eyes closed while holding onto her hot pink beach bag and the 2 sort of holding hands lying there dead straight. But the magic is the 3 people a few meters behind them, their odd frozen movements while moving their deck chairs. I would like to claim that this was a decisive moment, but the truth is I can’t remember if it was, so I think it was more of a happy accident.

Lastly, I’m loving ektar! Though this is the only roll I’ve seen so far, but the colours are fantastic, I like

Banksy VS Bristol City Museum

So this is the giant queue that greeted Jady and I as we found our way toward the museum… I checked the Bristol City council website and it stated to be prepared for queueing for around 1 hour. So since we came all the way to Bristol for this, we joined the que and it took an hour and half to get in.

Those of you that are Banksy fans will know that he had a show in NY last year, so the Bristol show has all of those what I’ve been calling “moving sculptures” or “animated sculptures” as well as many guerilla paintings and non animated sculptures and works.

Spoilers alert – If you intend to see the show for yourself and don’t want this to spoil it for you then please do go any further, because I have taken photos of EVERYTHING!

As you enter the Museum.

Buddha’s had a rough day

The main hall as you entered is filled with these sculpture/installation works, the ice cream van served as the information desk. The SWAT guy on the horsy was particularly creepy, the horsy rocked back and forth producing a squeaky sound. I had a close look at the mannequins face, it was very life like and completely creeped me out.

The first room had many large scale complex stencil works, many paintings and a few installations. The most interesting was a little caged room that I suppose is meant to be Banksy’s living room. With a knit jumper that says “thug for life” draping on the back of a rocking chair, loads and stencils and an audio loop of a radio talk show that had audience call in discussing the “art” of Banksy. I felt like you got a glimpse of what the man himself thought about the media circus that’s played out around him and his fame.

The second room was filled with cages containing “animated sculptures”, these got lots of giggles out of people. It’s hard to explain but each piece moved a little repeated movement.

Featherless tweety blinked a little, he looked so so miserable that it makes you want to take your own life.

The 2 cocktail sausages on the top right of the stone, in 1 sequence of action seemed to be humping, yes I’m pretty sure they were humping…

These look pretty normal static, but the way they wriggled was absolutely disgusting but also fascinating.

In stead of the monkey watching monkey porn that NY had, we unfortunately got a family friendly monkey painting. Pppfffttttt! So much more tame.

These photos of mine don’t do the works justice, so please take out a few minutes and watch these youtube clips, you’ll see just how funny and how Banksy they are.

Now these 2 rooms were the main areas where his works were, but throughout the museum he’s littered many more works. You just got to keep your eyes open and look for them.

Spot the odd one

Prehistoric cave painting

The evolution of mankind

Tucked away amongst the museum’s real collection of serious paitings are many guerilla paintings by Banksy.

Would you like a like a lolipop or…?

There were 250 or some number like that soldiers on this work and 1 terrorist. We failed to locate the terrorist, so please send in more troops.

So did I enjoy the show? Indeed I did, but after lining up for the longest time in my life amongst mostly middle aged parents with their 8 years old sons and daughters, I can’t help but feel that Banksy is now absolutely mainstream and therefore no longer cool. So like all scenesters do, I will now abandon ship and claim that I am no longer a Banksy fan. But shhh just between you and me, the dude’s a genius and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

What? I didn’t say that… Banksy is like-oh-so over! Oh well, shit happens.

Banksy VS Bristol Museum is on til 31 August 2009. Do pop in if you are around, well worth the wait. More info on Banksy site here, or here on the Bristol Museum site.

the plan forth

Today will be my last day of work for a while. I’ve freelancing for the past month or so if you didn’t know, full time, with a few overtime late nights too, I’m not used to this 9-6, not at all.

So, next Wednesday I depart for Ireland with Jady and Markus joins us on Friday, we’ll hire a car, drive around a bit and return on the Monday after.

Around 29th or 30th I depart for France for a month. I’ll be heading straight into Pyrénées, for a farm I’ve arranged to stay at for 3 weeks. I volunteer my work, they put me up and feed me. It’s a small family, young couple, a few kids, in the mountains, perfect. Pyrénées is right by the Spanish border, deep down south of France. According to Julien, it’s in the middle of nowhere and I will be forced to learn and speak French, again, perfect. But 2 minor/major things, the family is vegetarian and there’s no internet in the house. o_O We’ll see how I survive. After the farm stay, I’ll travel upwards in France a bit, Lyon, Paris, etc.

From Paris, I plan to fly to Scandinavia, take 2 weeks in beginning of September to travel around a few selected spots and Iceland.

From there I’ll get myself back downwards to Munich for a few days for Oktoberfest! Woo! Just about everyone I know in London will be there, or perhaps the entire British population will be there?!

Then it’s back to London for a few days as my folks arrive on the 26th Sept. We’ll stay in London for a week or so, fly up to Germany, then drive all the way down to Spain, through Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France then fly back to London. 6 weeks with my parents, most of it in a car!!! Am I mad? I don’t know…

Together with my parents, we will fly to New York. West coast, east coast, Miami, Las Vegas, Toronto. Then they fly back to Sydney, I stay on for a bit.

So that’ll be none stop on the road for me all the way til November. WOW! It’s a bit scary to think about actually. November and December I’ll stay in NY, enjoy the winter, be a loner for Christmas or join where the homeless go perhaps. Hehe, can’t wait to photograph NY in winter, will be awesome. New year’s eve in Time Square, now that I must do.

In January I’ll head to South America, I’d like to visit Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Brazil. Then it’s back to LA briefly before heading to Fiji for a quick 2 night relaxing stopover and then onto home, Sydney.

Gosh… it sounds a lot more scary typed out then in my head… A lot more awesome too.

Yay yay yay! Makes me very excited to think about this giant adventure ahead. Happy travels!

2 months on

Funny, this thing they call time. I’ve been overseas for over 2 months now, it feels like it’s been a long long time since I left Sydney airport, yet I can remember V and I at the airport sharp and clear like it’s yesterday and yet it has only been 2 out of 9 months. I miss Sydney very much, I just really didn’t think I’d miss it as much as I do.

London on the other hand, I’m slowly discovering bit by bit and I’ll have to admit, I’m slowly falling in love with the place bit by bit. It’s sometimes chaotic, often eccentric, and always energetic, which makes the perfect brew for me. Just now I took a walk to Primrose Hill after dinner, a nice warm evening with a nice slow stroll, a few photos, a nice sunset, topped off with a cone of Italian toffee ice cream from a 75 years old shop How could I not enjoy the place.

I do often forget I’m in London though, I may have mentioned this before but the place is so damn similar to Sydney. However earlier in the week I couldn’t have had a stronger reminder. I’ve been working at a small digital agency in London Bridge, at lunch, I got my salad, was about to sit down and eat when a few colleagues spotted me asked me to join them to go and eat on the grass. It was a sunny hot day, we walked between 2 big office buildings and low and behold the grass looks right onto at the London Bridge. Sure I’d seen it from the distance before but I hadn’t seen it up close yet and there I am, eating my lunch while looking at London Bridge! I find myself having surreal moments like that.

Enough of that, let me give you a low down on some of my recent food adventures.

Photos by Yasinta

On my brithday, Jady, Yasinta and I descended onto Taste London Festival and gorged on many many things. It was a huge event for me as I had my first ever truffle and foie gras, unfortunately both were underwhelming. One of my highlights was a cold pea and broad bean soup with almond bread from Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester. Reading their menu, it sounds quite safe and lacklustre but since I can’t actually afford to eat at the Dorchester any time soon and that I can’t possibly pass on tasting an Alain Ducasse creation, I decided to try the soup. It was refreshing, summery, tasty and just simply great.

Another highlight was ash baked celeriac from I can’t remember where… but it was amazingly tasty! Who knew the humble celeriac could be so damn yummy. We also found out that 3 girls ordering 1 single portion meant we got extra large portions! hehehehehehehe muahahahahahahahaha

Last weekend I went to St John at Spitafields for dinner with Sissi and David. I honestly haven’t been this stuffed in a long time, except for the several occasions I at Norman and Joyce’s of course. The spitafield restaurant adopts the same nose to tail eating idea, but the menu had much more than pork. We ate venison, ox heart, lamb breast, quail, fish roe and pig skin, that’s just the meat stuff. It was all delicious. I could barely fit in some peach jelly as dessert, my dessert stomach had almost entirely been used by the savoury stuff. Those who know me will know, that almost never happens, there is always room for dessert. But nonetheless by the end it took us forever to eat our desserts and I had to sigh an awful lot, because I was so full, have to say, sighing doesn’t make room in the stomach.

Note: I just checked the Dorchester website, I can actually afford to eat a 3 course lunch there, hmm, now now, who wants to go with me?!

Turkey – Part 2

First of all I have to warn you that this is setting out to be the longest blog post of all human history, I have a whopping 40 photos to share with you, many stories and antidotes too. So go get yourselves a cup of tea, some cookies and settle down for a nice long scroll.

Previously Jady and I visited many strange landscapes in Cappadocia, tanned ourselves in Fethiye and after the last 1 of 3 overnight bus journeys, we made it back to Istanbul in 1 piece.

Day 6

We somehow arrived at our hostel, after getting a mini bus, a tram, walking and a map of Istanbul in German… We dropped off the bags and headed out to see some of the most famous sights of the city.

Lunch was kebaps with tea.

First stop is Aya Sofya, also spelt as Haiga Sophia, meaning holly wisdom. Aya Sofya was first a basilica, then a mosque and now a museum, there have been 3 Aya Sofya built, the current one standing is the 3rd one, finished around December 537. Excavations have revealed remains of the previous 2 Aya Sofya under the current one and since it was converted to a mosque, almost all of the interior had been plastered over several times during different periods. Much of what we see today were once under plaster. Aya Sofya had been and still is under much needed restoration, when we went, a few sections were covered with scaffolding.

Above the altar

The main dome, Jady counted about 17 stories of scaffolding! So much work just to get to the top and the work hasn’t even started yet.

Intricate details

Layers, plaster with mosaics poking out below

The most famous mosaics of Aya Sofya, much of the mosaics have now fallen off.

Exterior of Aya Sofya

After that stroll, I felt like I needed a good scrub, after much contemplation since this 300 years old Turkish bath isn’t cheap, I decided to take the plunge, while Jady headed back to the hostel for a nap. So I paid, I headed in, they handed me a towel, pointed me to an individual change room and told me to strip off and put on the towel. So I did but left on my undies, locked the door to my change room and walked out in my wooden clogs and was like “where do I go?” I was pointed into the hamam, an older lady told me to sit down at one of the wash stations, gave me to little metal bowl and motioned to me to pour water over myself. That I did for about 20 minutes in the hot sauna like room. Now the room is beautiful, the floor is all marble, the main dome contains many small skylights with more smaller domes around it above the many wash stations. In the middle is a big marble slab where you get scrubbed and massaged. So 20 minutes later, my older lady appeared again and led me to the center slab and scrubbed me! Gosh I never knew I had so much dead skin… Then was the oil massage, then back to the wash station where she wash my hair and generated mountains of foam in the process. When I was rinsed clean and told to sit there a while longer to enjoy my new cleanliness, Jady arrived! She couldn’t fall asleep and decided to have a proper scrub after all.

Obviously I couldn’t take photos inside the hamam, so here are some photos of semi naked Kate Moss in this very hamam.

After feeling so fresh and so clean we headed across the bridge to Beyoglu in search of dinner. Beyoglu is the modern trendy part of the town, clustered with Turkish style tapas restaurants, bars and clubs.

Main strip of Beyoglu

Day 7

In the morning we headed to the Topkapi Palace where many Sultans resided. It also contains many artefacts close to Muslims hearts, like the cane of Moses, beard of Prophet Muhammad, sections of Kabba’s door from Mecca etc. I found the palace a bit small and definitely not as grand as I had expected, comparing to Beijing’s Foridden Palace, but nontheless it is very different and very interesting.

The baroque styled decoration added on in later periods are quite curious

Inscriptions as you enter the Harem, the inner court where the sultan’s mother, wives and children resided

Harem courtyard

Palace entrance

After much sightseeing a nutrious lunch was needed, we had some very tasty Turkish meatballs (don’t ask me why they aren’t round), pickled peppers, beans salad, bread and ayran, a yoghurt drink that’s slighty savoury.

After lunch we visited the grand bazaar, I was expecting so much more but was very much let down in the end, I thought I’d be trigger snappy happy but it didn’t happen. The bazaar now is so geared towards tourists, selling most things that are made in china, hassling you in every language conceivable, it doesn’t have much charm for me.

After lots of walking in the bazaar what we needed is to sit down, have some tea and relax and we did just that. We tried a strawberry Turkish water pipe. Jady had tried it in Camden, but didn’t think much of it, but one of the guys we met in Goreme said the stuff in Istanbul is good. Indeed a few consecutive big puffs will get you positively mellow and light headed. This courtyard tea house is fantastic and gets quite busy at night, most customers are male with a sprinkle of women and a sprinkle of tourists. Waiters walk over and puts on fresh charcoal for the pipe, trays of tea, you just plop down on your seat and get comfortable, everything will come to you.

We were both amazed at how much smoke our lungs could handle

After much smoking, we felt a little peckish, so I went and hunted down a few pieces of baklava and turkish delights, since the tea house doesn’t serve anything other than none alcoholic drinks and water pipes. I believe at this stage, the turkish delights had already been demolished. The turks eat tons of baklava, while I can only eat 2 or 3 small pieces in 1 sitting washed down with plenty of tea, they will easily scoff down 4+ pieces in a few minutes flat. I got light heartedly made fun of while purchasing these baklava because I was buying so little, but I am little, I eat little… sometimes… u___u

After exiting the tea house because I wasn’t feeling so well, Jady and I got hit up by 2 Turkish guys. 1 said he lived and worked in Japan, doing exports, later on he said he lived in Istanbul. Shifty. Initially I adopted the don’t look, don’t answer approach, but Jady perhaps intrigued by the dude’s fluent Japanese asked him questions! Why Jady, why! Any man chatting you up on the street has only 1 intention, no matter where in the world… Anywho, we ended up walking with them to the Blue Mosque and sat out front chatting for a while. The dude’s friend’s name was apparently smile in Turkish and spoke not too bad Mandarin, including a bit of slang but maintains he’s never been to China and learnt by himself… When we refused their offer to go to Takism for a drink several times and got up to go into the mosque, we were given a quick wave and off they dissappeared into the crowd.

Inner courtyard of the Blue Mosque

By the time we entered the mosque it was about 8.30pm, in between pray sessions, we avoided the tourist groups, we almost had the space to ourselves, it was beautiful, peaceful and serene. We sat down on the carpet inside and just admired it for a while. Everyone has to removed their shoes and wear skirt or trousers covering their knees upon entering the mosque and women have to wear a headscarf, covering most of their hair and their neck. They have big pieces of fabric outside you can borrow for those skimpy dressed tourists.

And guess what when we left the mosque! Jady spotted Smile, one of the dudes that tried to pick us up, he was sporting 2 other Asian girls and was getting a photo take with one of them… Serial pick up!

Jady spotted this group of girls all wearing very colourful headscarves, she wanted a photo, so I suggested we sit down on the benches next to them so she can sneak a few shots in. After a little while, one of the girls in the group came over and offered us some sunflower seeds as they were all eating them and chatting away. Eventually we asked for a photo and they gladly obliged with the biggest smiles. They invited us to sit with them and we conversed in broken bits of English. They are all university students, meeting up for a prayer at the Blue Mosque. Bright, young and curious, they asked us where we are from, what we did and how we liked Istanbul. It was very lovely. Moments like this you realise what traveling is all about, seeing the place and meeting its genuine people, sharing some sunflower seeds, such a simple moment, yet one I hope to remember to tell my grandchildren about.

Blue Mosque at night

Aya Sofya at night

After a nap back at the hostel, we went to look for dinner. And look what we found, a boat on the side of the harbour next to the bridge, selling fish sandwhiches. Jady was sold the moment she saw those little plastic tables and stools, they reminded her of China. It was a balmy night and the smell of grilled fresh fish filled the air and we sat down to munch on our sandwhiches. At 7 lira for 2 sandwhiches it was one of the cheapest meals we had in Turkey.

A big family all sat down to eat at the table next to us, they were curious about us, we were curious about them, I took this photo of them where they happily posed. Then their dad said something to the girls we didn’t understand, but 1 by 1, 3 of the adorable girls came over and each gave Jady and I a hug. So sweet!

When we were done eating I gathered up the courage and asked the sandwhich seller for a photo, I was hesitant as he seemed grumpy, but a big cheesy grin broke out when I asked, he took the cigi out but I motioned for him to keep smoking. The guys on the boat spotted the photo taking and all of a sudden the serious mundaneness of flipping fish and filling sandwhiches stopped as they all bantered and laughed

Day 8

We explored the Spice Bazaar, also known as the Egyptian Bazaar, much like the Grand Bazaar, it is also very cleaned up, but since it’s mostly edible items, I have a higher tolerance level for all the hassling. I ended buying a big bag of sweets.

Accidently we stumbled into the maze like market streets between the Spice and the Grand Bazaar, where the Turks haggled and shopped. The stores sold anything from socks, to headscarves, genuine fake goods, crazy wedding dresses and anything in between. We spent a good few hours wondering up and down the little alleys. This was the most authentic part of Istanbul I saw, everything else to me were “meh”, not much special, but these streets where no one hassled us, I did get a little trigger snappy happy.

Guy selling mini hand held sewing machines

Jady contemplating her wedding outfit choices, will it be the green, purple, red, silver, pink or yellow? Oh lordy, choices!

After all that walking and sweets buying and trying to send them in the central post office, we felt we owe ourselves some tea and resting time. Guess what, our feet took us back to that tea house! Hohoho! This time we knew how it worked, we knew to change the coals regularly, to tap the top to get the dust off so you don’t inhale it, to order tea and water as the waiters come by. Though the effects this time round were much less than the day before, boo!

We killed so much charcoal

Day 9

Back on the plane to London.

Now now, it took me a whole day to write this post, I started around 11am and it’s now nearly 5pm… sure I did some scanning and had lunch inbetween, but still!

To end this crazy long post I’d like to share my favourite “Turglish” phrase that was said to me during my 9 days there, “Hello, hi, where are you going? Your shoes, they are walking!”

Turkey – Part 1

Turkey for me conjures up this exotic image, a diverse land with such diverse history, culture and people. Yet Jady and I became the exotic this vast land, we got stared at constantly… Never knew I had such people stopping star power!

Day 1

It took us a good few hours after we landed in Istanbul to get around, first we went to the train station, according to my research there’s an overnight train from there to Ankara, then a bus from there to Cappadocia, our destination. The information people at the station were quite confusing, then we found out there were no more trains to Ankara that day, or the tickets were sold out. So the next option is a direct bus, much less comfortable than a sleeper train, but it’ll get us there, which at that point, is all we wanted. We made our even more confusing way to the otogar (bus depot), the otogar at Istanbul is the mother of all bus depots, with a few hundred shops all hassling you, selling tickets and running buses nonestop, it’s a wonder how the place even stays organised. After asking 2 shops, we found there’s only 1 company in the whole depot that runs buses to Cappadocia, we headed there, got our tickets and had our first kebap while counting down the hours to our first of 3 overnight bus journeys. The kebap was crap, Sydney kebabs are much better…

Day 2

The bus surprisngly enough didn’t contain much tourists, the passengers were mostly Turks. After 11 hours of involuntary head bobbing and swaying we finally arrived in Cappadocia, changed to a mini bus and got to Goreme. The overnight buses in Turkey are mostly excellent, an attendant brings water ever few hours, tea, coffee and cake are offered either at the beginning of the trip or at the end, frequent toilet/smoke stops keeps the passengers sane through the night.

The strange landscapes at Cappadocia

After we decided on the hostel, we freshened up and headed to a tour of some of the local sights. For your information, Cappadocia means beautiful horse country, yes really. Cappadocia is surrounded by 3 mountains that were once upon a time active volcanos, each erupted at different times, thousands of years of rain washing away the different layers of rocks and made the landscape that we see today.

First stop on the tour is the Derinkuyu underground city, with 8 levels of nooks and crannies, how people carved these out is mind boggling. Derinkuyu was used by early Christains as a shelter during war and raids, with wells, air vents, horse stables, kitchenes, churches, school, graves and traps for enemies, it certainly is a city.

Next was the Ihlara Valley, cause by an earthquake, with a moutain water stream running the length of it, greenery all around and many cave churches to explore on the way, it was a pleasant 4km walk.

Last stop was the Selime Monastery, where one of the original star wars was filmed, it certainly felt like an alien landscape. There’s a shot of Jady for size comparison, the place is huge! 6 levels all up, we got to the 4th level, so many nooks and crannies to explore, you take a slightly different path and all of a sudden you pop out on a different level at a different side. There are not much stairs, most just curved paths, getting up is easy, getting down is the hard part. This place is one of my highlights of the whole trip, I wish I had more time to explore it.

Day 3

We explored the Goreme open air museum on day 3, pricey and over rated I’d say. Nonetheless, if you’ve already made your way here you might as well go and have a look. The open air museum have tourist groups by the bus load, thanks to it’s central location and having many stairs and railings put in for them boring middle aged tourists, it does lose its charm. Though the best frescos I saw were here, if you are into that kind of thing.

We then bumped into a few guys we met in the hostel in the morning and a few more from the Day 2 tour group, so we all had a nice walk in the Zemi Valley, much fun was had by all. Pictured are Bree, Max, Martin and moi.

And then we had to catch another overnight bus to the Mediteranean Coast, to Fethiye. Here’s Jady getting a bite of gozleme while waiting for the bus, somehow it didn’t occur to her to fold down the paper, perhaps she was just really hungry :p

This bus journey was crazy! These Turks are crazy I tell you! We booked our tickets through the hostel and there were stuff ups as the bus ended up being 1 seat short and we the only tourists on board copped it. We had to change seats 3 times during the night and when more people came on, we were 1 seat short, Jady and I took turns sitting in the attendant’s seat. Next to the attendant’s seat is a storage box right at my head’s height, when I’m alseep on the bus/train/car, my head sways in many directions, so sadly I konked my head on the box literally at least 5 times… My IQ has gone down by 10 points since… Pre seating and head konking saga, when the bus stopped at a servo for people to freshen up, we witnessed stories we’d only heard about. I was outside at the luggage compartment getting something from my bag when all of a sudden a guy ran across the servo with another guy in a black shirt chasing him, the black shirt guy even threw this mental thing at him. I got back on the bus as police cars turn up and all of a sudden, our attendant was getting hit by some guy, I didn’t see much, had no idea what’s going on, but heck, it was fun to speculate. About 30 minutes later, the bus rolled on as if nothing happened.

Day 4 & 5

Our umbrella is the one on the right, that’s Jady under it, correction, that’s me under it.

Day 4 and 5 were spent on the sunny and warm coast town of Fethiye taking on almost identical routines for both days. We would have breakfast at the hostel, grab our beach gears, go buy some bread, sardines, cucumbers, tomatoes and snacks for lunch, then hop on a bus to Oludeniz. Hire an umbrella, go for a dip and settle down to work on our tans. Unfortunate for Jady, I tan very easily and very fast, so on Day 5 I spent the whole day under the umbrella so she can catch up.

Oludeniz is a popular spot for paragliding, it’s very cool to see a sky full of them and some of them land right on the beach. After lunch, we’ll take another dip and when it gets a bit too hot, we’ll go and get some Turkish ice creams. Those Turkish ice cream! They are like mashmallow but in ice cream form, yummy!

Me posing with big fishes! Check out my DIY dress, it’s just a big square scarf tied at the back

On both days we had dinner at the Fethiye fish market. In the center are about 6 or 7 stalls selling fresh seafood, you buy what you like and take it to one of the restaurants in the market where they’ll cook everything for you, provide salad and bread for 5 lira a head. Tasty! Here’s Jady looking very happy with our spread of food.

Then onto our 3rd and final overnight bus journey back to Istanbul. Part 2 to come tomorrow.

00:16

I can’t sleep, so I lay in bed thinking, day dreaming, except it’s night dreaming, but it’s not night dreaming. Anyway, I think I come up with the best ideas in these delirious moments. So I have decided that I will continue with my photography portfolio while here in London, put something together and take it myself to Italy, to Fabrica.

I am here afterall, a train ride away to Venice, I will take my work there, I will sit and wait in the lobby til Enrico Bossan looks at my portfolio, even if it takes days of waiting. I think that’s a pretty Italian way of doing things, don’t you?

Yep, decided, done.

Now, better get my ass together and get the camera clicking.