12 Aug 08
Today’s different. We woke up with absolutely no idea what we’re going to do. Knowing that this is the last day we are going to be in Paris, we’d better make good of the time.
We went to our favourite boulangerie for breakfast and I’d got a quiche Lorraine (who the hell is Lorraine?). Meanwhile, LG got to live his fantasy when a black lady served the hot quiche to him and gave him a semi-porn-like “C’est chaud…” (Translation: That’s hot…). His attention was definitely arrested. And that, my friend, expanded my list of things to rib my friend for years to come as well. Brilliant!
It’s a Tuesday. While most of the shops are open, most muesums are not. Unbeknownst to us, there is Chateau de Vincennes that is pretty near to where we were staying. It’s a no-brainer that we were going there (although we had no idea what it is about).
Chateau de Vincennes
Turns out, it is not too shabby and quite interesting for something that was a question mark to us. The fort looks great, polished and not as crowded as the usual Parisien attraction. It is kind of interesting that the surroundings have adopted English-esque landscaping for something so quintessentially French. Though the visit to the royal hunting lodge was short, it was architecturally interesting with its play of light, which I’m unsure if it was intentionally designed to be such.
Play of light
With nothing else on our agenda, we turned to the default option - hitting the shopping belt. LG claims he has to get out of the fashion jailhouse. The man’s got to go (to shopping, to shopping!). This perculiar friend will always have a favourite shop for trips I’d gone with him. It was this strange and hilarious shop called Donki Hotei in Japan. Now, it’s H&M. In addition, he insisted on a two-hour walk off to this Longchamp boutique that I dreaded big time. I regretted not planning for something else to do.
Anyway, I’ll spare the boring shopping bits and the random wandering around. And in case anyone is interested, here’s where we galivanted around:
Le Marais again
Somewhere near G. Pompidou Center again
Musee de Lourve, again…
Pantheon (again, from previous trip)
Embarassingly, we went to La Fayette as well. Loved the glass dome though.
It’s the last day and the dinner at another boulangerie (Paul) was absolutely fantastic. We ate our sandwiches at an anoynomous roadside but the pastry was awesome.
In retrospect, I think the second visit to Paris wasn’t as magical as it felt the first time round as most of the glitz and enamour for novelties had worn off. Also, I sort of know what to expect before arriving. The enthusiastic monkey inside me is subdued this time when it came to Paris. From a ‘Wow I’m seeing it for myself. Let’s stop here and admire it’ to ‘Oh, there it is. Now what were we looking for again?’.
An obligatory cliche picture and that’s it!
We had wanted to end this leg of the tour at the top of Tour Eiffiel after procrastinating doing this activity for the previous three nights. And guess what, we decieded to give it all up on our way there after seeing how many shopping bags he has. We’re going to prepare ourselves for the to the highlight of the trip the next day - Scotland.
