A painter near Montmartre, Paris

A painter in the flee market near Montmartre, Paris (2004.04.17)

Before touring me to the Montmartre, Mimi and I had a walk in this temp flee market so as to meet her friends. Suddenly, a painting in which a girl in white dress holding a teddy bear and a boy in navy blue sailor suit playing with a kyte at the beach attracted my eyes and stopped me in front of this painting stand. I like its simple composition and these two characters reminded me of the Raggedy Ann and Andy story series, yes, my childhood reading memory again.

Then, I saw this old lady painter sitting next to this small stand. She told me that she painted all the paintings. For these girl-and-boy paintings, she added a Teddy bear in each painting of this series. Thus, I found the lovely Teddy appeared at the beach, in the park and in some other places. I couldn`t resist this cute little bear and thus bought the painting that I loved at the first sight. I also asked her permission to take some photos with her, this painting, and her small stand. She signed her name, Pauline Bordeeux, and her telephone number at the back of this painting.

Looking at her signature, I hoped I would have a chance to meet her again when my next visiting Paris... yet, a dim hope maybe...

flats

Quite impressed to see no TV sets in my friends' living rooms when visiting Paris this time. Instead, these flats are equipped with musical instruments or a full wall of books. An organ (harmonia?) sits in Mimi's living room and a music keyboard is placed in Rodelph's. A wall of books stands in Kai's flat, too, pretty cozy. Compared with us here that used to have TV sets placed in the center of a flat and occupied most of the leisure time, no TV is really a cozy idea...

arrhhh.... wanna have a flat of my own. wanna arrange my space as I wish. wanna have some rooms to share with myself...


ps. While searching for the name of the organ musical instrument, find this beatiful Flemish harpsicord in the Baroque music site. Like the sound from the harpsichord a lot, though it reminds me of a horror vampire movie seen at the age of 10 or something. I was scared so much in the theater that I hold my mom's arms tightly and hided myself in her back whenever the vampire showed up. Plus, I had several bad dreams the next few days...

Hello Paris

Can't believe I am in Paris now... gosh... it's almost been 8 years since my last visit!

The strange but exciting feeling started from my transferring the plane in Bangkok Airport. After serveral days of working overtime until midnight in office, I didn't feel any excitments for my coming holidays. Yet, in the boarding room, most of the passengers were Europeans and spoke in French language. Interestingly, I became the minority in that room. Seeing these sun-tanned Europeans and hearing the cute and sexy French pronounciation of "r" and "-tion" sounds, I started to feel and sense, "ahh... I am going to Paris!!"

More interestingly, the first thing I did after my arrival Paris was attending a Taiwanese birthday party! My French friend, Myriam, the cute gal I am visiting, was invited by her Taiwanese friend for his birthday party yesterday evening. I thus went along. Again, most of the guests were speaking in French (Gosh!! I really fall in love with this language.) Though I understood almost nothing but only "ca va" and few greeting words, I enjoyed listening to the music-like conversations so much and, of course, trying hard to reply them with my servival-no-where-at-all French and... silly smile. People were nice to switch to English for me and a French gril even spoke in her limited Chinese to me...

Sashimi and sushi

Went to a Japanese restaurant with Franz and Marcus (Andreas' visitor) this evening for the sashimi (sliced raw fish) and sushi. We reserved the seats in front of the bar, where no menu was offered and needed. Only thing we did was telling the chef our preference to either sashimi or sushi or both.

Accordingly, the chef choosed what fish/seafood he had today and arranged the sashimi/sushi for us. We thus chatted while enjoying to see how the chef prepared the food. We had several nice surprises when the dish was served. I have been to this restaurant serveral times and still got surprises everytime! This time was the white flower sushi roll. The white flower was in fact shaped by a slice of squid with one side cut like a flower, quite cute...

My favorite food there is the perilla seasoned apple sushi roll. It looked like Tekkamaki (raw tuna roll) and the texture tasted like tuna at the first bite. Then a bit sour of perilla smell bursts into your nose... very very tasty....

huh... was trying to note the "puppy theory" suggested by a friend, which said to help people get their low mood away... yet, why turning to sashimi and sushi now? okay, next time then...


p.s. This site lists many sushi terminology in English...