72 Hours in Paris

I've always dreamed of going to the airport, walking up to the ticket counter to say "Give me a ticket to anywhere, please!" Last week I did something not quite as adventurous but equally spontaneous!! After having lunch with Yvette and our friend Huitze, somehow the conversation ended up going from "I wish I could go with you to Paris" to "Omg we should totz follow you to Paris". As fate would have it, my mom was at the SIA ticketing office in Ion finalising our flights to Hokkaido (for which I'm leaving tonight), and she said okay to me going!! There and then we booked our flights, and it was a mad rush the rest of the day till we got to the airport.

It was mainly a shopping trip as Huitze was on a Birkin hunting mission, but I'm glad we got to squeeze in a little bit of sightseeing, and some good food too, although I have learnt my lesson to never take suggestions for restaurants from the concierge. We were supposed to have a day trip to Versailles as well, but unfortunately we spent too much time (fruitlessly) in the Hermes store. LE SIGH. I'd rather not buy a Birkin if I have to spend all my vacation time waiting around the store hahah what kind of memories are those?! 

We stayed in a hotel called Hotel Astor, a cute little place nestled in a quiet lane just minutes away from Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which is where the Hermes store is. We shared a junior suite-- haha slumber party in Paris!! Although not the biggest, this is apparently where it's easiest to get a bag (not that I had any luck, although Tze was lucky) as it is their flagship store! There's also all the big name brands such as Chanel, Dior, Lanvin (also flagship), Givenchy etc all are. the main Faubourg itself is also lined with embassies and the official residence of the President of France, plus the French office of Conde Nast and Vogue. Clearly politics mixes well with fashion, oui? No photos of the rest of the day because I left my camera in the hotel room. HAHA also dinner was at a shitty but pretty (rhymes!) art deco restaurant near our hotel recommended by our concierge. NEVER AGAIN.

We arrived super early, and after making a trip to the Hermes store we headed to Avenue Montaigne for MOAR SHOPPING and also lunch. This is Huitze's fave cafe called L'Avenue, but the food was not inspiring. Just tasty, and also clearly fashionable-- a place for people watching/being seen but not terribly gastronomic. This was later reaffirmed by the amazingly nice salespeople in the Chanel store just down the road from the cafe. Cindy was being helped by a sales person called Jean Phillipe, and he said it was "disgusting and overpriced", and he directed us to another restaurant near the Tour Eiffel called Les Cocottes. Unfortunately, I have no pictures because I was on the brink of starvation. The Chanel store closes at 7pm and we were there until 730pm!!! If you ever want to get really good service in Chanel, go straight to the Avenue Montaigne one for sure. 

This is just a picture of Cindy's damage in ONE afternoon. Well done Cindy, well done!!! Although as a disclaimer she bought some of it for her mother and on behalf of friends haha ;) 

After dinner we took a stroll to Parc Champ De Mars, with its amazing view of the Tour Eiffel!! 

And of course a lousy blurry photo of us in front of it. A nice korean man/boy helped us take photos, and he frowned upon my shaky, non-changeable-lens Fujifilm x100, and used his camera instead to help us shoot some pics... He took my email address and promised to send it to me but I haven't seen it in my inbox yet hahah now some random korean tourist has our pictures.... I ain't gonna lie it makes me a bit worried. 

The next day we went to what we call the love lock bridge! Unfortunately, it was a failed attempt as this was NOT the bridge we had intended to see. If you watched "Now You See Me",  you'd know that the closing scene was filmed on a pedestrian bridge with a view of the Eiffel Tour. Mark Ruffalo's character reveals the plot twist of the movie to Melanie Laurent's character, aka also his love interest, on this very bridge. This pedestrian bridge is called the Pont Des Arts, and it's famous for all the lovers going there to put a lock and throw the key into the river, symbolising everlasting love and other Hallmark emotions. 

Sadly, we didn't communicate well with each other and assumed we were all talking about the same bridge because here comes our plot twist: there is MORE THAN ONE LOVE LOCK BRIDGE. Gotcha! Huitze showed the first result on Google for "love lock bridge" to our cab driver, and instead he took us to Pont de l'Archevêché. LE SIGH. It's still a bridge with locks on it put there by lovers, but not the one we thought we'd see. This one has a beautiful backdrop of the Notre Dame from a different angle, but was also about 10 Euros further away in terms of cab fare as compared to Pont Des Arts. Film buffs will be happy to note that Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron danced on this very same bridge that I stood on in the classic movie "An American in Paris", and it also happens to be the narrowest road bridge in Paris (only a one way road folks!). #shitwikipediateachesyou

We also went to see the Jardin Des Tuileries after a tea break at Angelina (famous for hot chocolate and an ensuing sorethroat--no photos because we were once again starving and inhaled all our food), which I was very excited to see because of all the Paris Fashion Week Street Style shots I always see shot here. I was calm on the outside but my inner fangirl was all like, ANNA WINTOUR ANNA DELLA RUSSO TAYLOR TOMASI HILL ALL THESE COOL PEOPLE HAVE WALKED ON THE SAME GRAVEL I NOW WALK ON. Yep pretty much. 

Yvee's tattoo tells you to leap off a bridge. KIDDING. 

Dinner was at L'Entrecote, once again recommended by yet another sales assistant at Chanel (this time from the Rue Cambon store)! They only have steak on the menu, covered in a debatably delicious sauce. Yvette and Huitze didn't like it but Cindy and I lapped it up! We got there late around 10pm, which is normal dining hours for Parisians apparently as the restaurant was packed!! They sat us, and didn't even give us a menu. Two questions were thrown at us "What do you want to drink?" and "How would you like your beef cooked?" A few minutes later a simple walnut and mustard mesclun salad arrived, and after that the main attraction is plated and served! Huitze says the sauce tastes like curry hahahhaha but I actually think it's sorta like more liquid-y version of the mint chutney they usually serve with Chicken Tandoori. Weird at first but I liked it hehe :) also, the fries are amaaaazing. Crispy but if you like it soggy like me, drown them in the sauce! 

That's the serving station and one of the servers who looked like she could be a very strict nun in a catholic church. 

TEEHEE. Leaving you with a video of some serious Eiffel Tower Sparklies. Paris Je'Taime x

Eiffel Sparkles from JIAYI T. on Vimeo.

Tokyo Love

The stories of the radiation leaks in Japan is truly truly breaking my heart. As much as I love the country, my family is seriously considering cancelling our trip to Tokyo and Kyoto in November, although we're still going up end of this month to Hokkaido! Excites. Here's some leftover pics from our April trip (yah I know so backdated but losers can't be choosers and I have nothing interesting to share that's already in my laptop. Funemployment just makes me lazier than I already am ok.) Anyway it's mostly food, because it's delicious in Japan ok! EVERYTHING IS DELICIOUS. 

My family <3 Handsome uncle and cousins xx

QUEUING FOR SUSHI WTF look at that insane queue we waited about an hour.... I was starving so everything tasted good (it might be their intention) 

Slicing up a giant toro at Tsukiji. 

Cutest little shiba inu!!! Basking in the crisp spring air and warm sun so contentedly. 

Look at the fat content on that ootoro!! 

Sigh this view doesn't exist anymore :(

Our fave crab restaurant!!

Sending you all my love, Nippon x

Salad for Lunch

I'm packing a salad to lunch tomorrow, but cos it's something I haphazardly threw together (and was too lazy to head to the supermarket near my haus) I'm not too excited about it. Instead I'm reminiscing of this totz yumz salad I made a few weeks (maybe months) back! Man it was yummy. I was super excited about making it because back then I'd been having this insane craving for salad. Who craves salads anyway? Must have been all my OL (office lady) friends in the CBD instagramming their salad lunches, but because my office only has the requisite mixed rice stalls and fish soup stalls, well, I had to make my own to bring to work. I was inspired by this recipe here from 101 cookbooks, a really cool blog with great healthy recipes and pretty photos, but so damned healthy I feel a bit sorry for the author. I wonder if she misses eating fried chicken and cheesy pasta... 

The point is that she talks about how her salad holds up through the day and that's exactly what I was looking for in making a salad to bring to work-- it needs to stay crisp and fresh, but yet have enough goodies in it to make me stay full. 

I used mostly organic produce for my salad, except the avocadoes, olives and mushrooms, all of which are harder to get them organic in Singapore. I used a mix of baby kale, romaine leaves, broccoli heads, sliced celery and carrots, plus organic chickpeas which were cute and tiny!

As for the salad dressing, this one's a keeper! My mom taught me how to make her amazing salad sauce years ago but that one is an olive-oil-balsamic-vinegar-secret-ingredient-mix that can sometimes be a little boring, seeing as how I've been having it for yeaaaaaars, and I've always had a thing for creamy salad dressing anyway. I guess I'll start alternating between them!

Miso Dressing:

1 large clove garlic, smashed in a pestle and mortar
1 tablespoon white miso (brown miso is fine too)
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar or any other light vinegar
pinch of ground cumin
1/3 cup plain yoghurt

The original recipe called for heavy cream but it's salad! How can I put heavy cream into a salad?! If I had sour cream I would have substituted with it but I just added a little more yoghurt. Eugh so easy and delicious wehhh I wish I was having this for lunch tomorrow!! 

Tada isn't that a beauty. I also added in some penne, about a handful just cos I love my carbs. And of course some toasted pinenuts because they are delicious. Sliced in the avocado just after I tossed it so it wouldn't become avo-mash. 

Clearly I overestimated the size of my tupperware... 

Ok now I'll have to make this again soon. jtong cooks yall! 

Sakura Showers

Waddup earthlings I'm back. Been bitten by a blogging bug but that's good I guess. Despite how OCD I am about blogging chronologically I've given up hope on ever finishing my documentation of 2012. Yep moving on, look what happened in 2013!! Impulsively booked a Tokyo trip up to join my parents despite my mother's fears of radiation, and we planned it such that I would be able to catch the full bloom of Sakura or the Plum & Cherry Blossom trees. Unfortunately, there's an asshole known as global warming lurking around, and this year in Tokyo it got really warm about two weeks too early and the blossoms, well, blossomed!! I was seriously devastated about missing the Hanami, but luckily managed to catch the very last of the spring flowers.

I left Singapore on a Thursday night at 9pm, reached Tokyo at 5am (deer lawd), took the train to our apartment and fell into bed after a quick shower (mum and dad were in Takayam since they left for Japan a whole week earlier). Woke back up at 1pm, met up with our Uncle Allan who lives in Tokyo and headed out for our fave tempura lunch. After which we walked to Yoyogi Park, and there I was devastated to see Sakura flowers not on the trees but on the floor! WHAT. Luckily me and my sis decided to hightail over to Shinjuku Gyoen instead to see if their flowers were still holding up. And holding up they were!!! We were so excited we spent about a good 30 minutes in front of the first Sakura tree we saw that was covered in white flowers. 

Usually during full bloom the trees have no leaves at all, but since they bloomed early the leaves all came out. It's much much prettier when it's just flowers erupting from their branches. 

Love love love this shot I managed to capture! This young (and very pretty) mom was dressed in some kind of traditional Japanese costume, not a kimono obviously but she was carrying her baby and lifted it up to the flowers, singing very softly while her baby gurgled with happiness. It felt like I was intruding a bit but a moment too beautiful not to take a shot of. 

It truly was a perfect day, blue skies and amazing weather, Sakura trees still in bloom, and a shower of white petals drifting like snow whenever a breeze blew past. To me this is the true epitome of Spring-- how your chest expands and swells, your breathe catching in your throat when you get the first glimpse of a shimmering tree of flowers in the sun.