France vs. Italy

A little late but I have been meaning to post this.

This is for you Rafael, Erhan, and Timo.

The Breakup

I can't believe this is happening. We started our relationship last April. It's only been about a year and three months, but sadly I feel that our relationship is ending really soon. Things went really well in the beginning. I rode him a lot... but I guess that comes with the honeymoon stage. I felt I was really good to him. I took care of him, kept him clean, fed him the best and highest quality food so he his stomach was never empty and he would always be satisfied. Sigh. Then I just started to get bored. We didn't see each other as much, and eventually, I started to neglect him. I mean, I just left him out in the cold most of the time. I wasn't ready to give up on him just yet; I was in my comfort zone. But now, holding onto him because of comfort would not be fair to either of us. We need to be free and try out new things. I have noticed that over the past few months, I have been seriously neglecting him, so now I think I am ready to say good-bye. I think I will officially break-up with him this Sunday afternoon. Pray for us that someday very soon, we will find the one. ='(

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He has turned gay and I have decided to pimp him out. But it is just a one time thing. I need the money. He will be meeting Craig Slist this Sunday. Wish him lots of fortune and luck (and no future diseases).

Asian model fever?

For the most part, I have been pretty disappointed with the choice of Asian models in the fashion industry. I do, however, like Ai Tominaga's look.



I was reading up on MDC today and trying to catch up on the latest model/fashion news. Been out of it for awhile. But lookee lookee! A real nice looking Chinese model that doesn't have the stereotypical straight-cut bangs, chinky/slanty eyes, and flat nose. Woo hoo! She used to be a dancer but grew too tall so she got into modeling. Loving the Vogue cover with Gemma Ward.

Du Juan

Kate Moss, and Weird Science of Alexander McQueen

Yay for Kate Moss!


She gives hope to us peanut models out there.


Autumn/Winter 1999 is so beautiful. The Spring/Summer 1999 is interesting...


This is really cool with the rain.


I would love to do another runway show again. But the ones I have done in this market are either really commercial, or really amateur. It would be cool to do a really organized high fashion event. Ah well!

*Tuition* Sugar Daddy

I have accumulated $45K worth of school loans.

Would anyone like to volunteer to be my Tuition Sugar Daddy? This is the reason why: Tuition: 30,950.00 Euro.

In other "news," my company is trying to save money on electricity so they cut off half of our wonderful fluorescent lighting. I think I'm seeing squiggles all over the place. I have been staring at this godforsaken monitor in the "dark" for too long with no breaks. I'm outta here!

I miss Europe

Or more specifically, Spain and France. I had such a good time there despite getting a bit sick the last few days. Everyone we came in contact with in Spain was extremely friendly and helpful. The staff, which consisted of two or three young adults (early - mid 20s), had three different shifts at the hostel, and were awesome too. On top of running the place, they also cleaned the bathrooms and rooms everyday. I mentioned earlier that they woke us up on the morning because we didn't have an alarm clock. Raf asked one of them if the person with morning shift would forget, and he was like "no way." Even when asking for directions, people were pretty nice and helpful as well. Though Raf tried speaking Spanish to them, sometimes they would reply in English perhaps to be more helpful.

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Speaking of giving directions, last week I stopped at a gas station in Santa Clara. This lady comes up to me totally freaking out because she had been lost for three hours. She was giving me her whole sob story of how she's from Texas and nobody knows how to get to Hamilton. I was on the Alameda right next to 880S. She showed me her Yahoo! map directions.

Me: "Yes, you take 880S which is over there. Then you take 17, and that takes you right to Hamilton."

Lost (bitch) lady: "Well, why is everyone giving me different directions." (As she angrily stomps off)

Then she has the audacity to give me the dirtiest look ever and go to the next person to ask for directions. I was like OMG! Dumb biatch! I should have told her to take 880S to 280N to SF and exit Hamilton from there! Anyway!...
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I've heard from numerous people that Spanish girls are hot, and yes it is very true. If any of you decide to go, you have to hit the beach! 50% of the girls are topless. Also, Spanish girls are pretty slender too. It's rare to see obese people here! Same with France! And if we did, they were foreigners. hahah! Probably English or American.

The obesity rate in France is roughly 10% while in America/UK, it's around 50% (64% overweight/obesity in US). (Thanks, Google.) Crazy, huh? But I'm sure it's because of the portions served in America. As for the UK, maybe because they eat too much fried foods and stews, and way too much beer. I noticed a lot of the girls (and guys) had big ole beer bellies. Hahah! I think all these Jenny Craig diet places are a load of crap. All they do is serve you the same kind of food but just 1/3 of the usual portions. That's why they say you can eat chocolate, etc. What a scam. I remember hearing about how the FDA blames restaurants for obesity rates in America. But at the same time, is that really fair because no one is forcing anyone to order/eat a lot. I asked Erhan (Rafael's roommate) the other day how he felt about the food when he first came to America (he's originally from France). He said that of course, the average restaurant/fast food was not good, and the portions they serve are enough for three days. HAHA! Man, is it weird to feel "healthier" after coming back from a trip full of rich foods? Yes, because we didn't overeat. There wasn't really a time that we felt like we ate up to our throat. It was awesome to have satisfying meals day in and day out (minus my cracker days). Now that I am back in the states, it was hard for me to not feel like I was going to explode/obtain digestive problems because I found myself eating really fast here, whereas the previous two weeks, we have been eating slowly as well as one dish at a time.

Anyway, at one point in my brother's life, he was thinking about moving to Paris. I'm borrowing his book: Paris Inside Out: The Insider's Handbook to Life in Paris. I am only up to page 3, but I am already loving it. Why you ask?

Because:

· 1982 - 1999, the official French workweek was 39 hours... BUT after a long and heated public debate, the workweek was reduced to 35 hours which helped create new jobs without reducing salaries.

· French law guarantees everyone who works, five weeks of paid vacation. Les vacances (conges payes) is a cherished institution among the French and is a right, not a privilege. This is standard and non-negotiable. The French would rather sacrifice higher wages for quality of life and better benefits. (Tax rate is something like 40% but they have free healthcare and education... like free undergrad, grad, med school, etc., plus don't have to worry like we do about retirement.)

· They have something like 16+ holidays vs. our 10+ holidays.

· Did you know November 25 is called la Sainte Catherine where all the 25 year old single women are presented with funny hats and have dances held in their honor? Hahah, cool! I can celebrate this year!

Ok, that is all I've learned thus far. Ha-ha, I'm sure some people work more, but it can't be like the worst/longest work-weeks in America which lead up to 75+ hours a week (Carlo!). The most I've done is probably 60 hours/week.

I also liked that people greet each other more. In the many convenient stores we ventured into in Spain, we were greeted with a simple "Hola." (Which, I noticed, were owned by Pakistani/Indian people.) In France, people were pretty polite (and I'm sure Raf being/speaking French helped a lot). When we were in Bordeaux, we couldn't walk down the street without saying "Bonjour" to people. Also, when I got bumped in the subways in both counties, people always said "Pardon." It was strange.

This morning, I wanted to do a silly experiment. As I was on my morning run, I decided to say "Good Morning" to people just to see if they would acknowledge my existence. I mean, I'm sure I will see these people again because they are probably my neighbors or live down the street from me. 1 out of 5 people said hello back. The others didn't acknowledge my existence or just looked at me weird. Hah! I was telling my coworker about this and we were joking around that they probably thought I was going to rob them or something.

Ok, it's almost 5pm and I want to get the flock outta here.

Goodbye London

After two weeks of backpacking, I think it's fair to say that I am totally used to the weight of my backpack now. In the beginning, I was dying, but now lugging around this big backpack is no problem! All this cardio and weight lifting has done me some good! I was feeling a little better this morning, so making the hour-long trip to Heathrow wasn't so bad. The tube was packed since the one line we took went straight to the airport. After some discomfort of having to stand in the tube for a while, we later got to sit down for a couple stops before our destination. Note: you cannot buy tube tickets ahead of time. We bought a couple the night before ($16 USD!) and tried to use it the next morning. They wouldn't let us exchange them so we had to buy a new pair of tickets.

After checking our stuff in, we finally sat down to have a real English breakfast. (Well, as real as it can get in the airport. From what I've heard, typical English Breakfasts also come with smoked herring and/or salmon.)

Doesn't this look tasty?


The baked beans were really good! The bacon has virtually no fat on it, so it just tastes like ham. I liked it. The black thing is "black pudding." Eh, not that great. Sausage didn't really taste like much. Everything else was so-so. Again, I could only take little bites here and there, but luckily there was some toast and jam I could munch on. After our meal, we walked a half a mile through the airport to our gate, which was more like walking through Valley Fair!

Remember my initial post on Virgin Atlantic? Well they give you these little packs of eye covers, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc.

Pretty cool, huh?


The rest of the flight was spent watching movies, a documentary on Enron, and four episodes of The Office.

Damn this TV, I didn't get any rest!


Overall, we weren't too impressed with London. Not to say that we didn't like it; we would have just preferred to visit London before Spain and France. I'm sure you have heard that the food is not so good in London, which we found to be true unless you go to specific ethnic restaurants or the more upscale restaurants; like Indian food, and they have a Nobu in London amongst other award winning restaurants. The average food here isn't so great. We did enjoy our trip here, and with advice from friends, we felt that one day in London was enough for us.

London, UK

After a wonderful stay in Paris, [A BIG SPECIAL THANKS to TIMO!], we had to leave around 7am to catch the EuroStar to London. (Ah, they finally checked our tickets). Timo's apartment complex is located next to this bar that still had people hanging out from the night before! And I noticed a lot of tired people at the metro, waiting to go home after a night of partying. I don't know how they do it!

Unfortunately, I was feeling like serious shit the entire morning; worse than my incident at the Eiffel Tower. It didn't take us long to get to the train station; only one train and about four stops away on the 4. We had a bit of a wait before the EuroStar left, so Raf went to get some fresh chocolate croissants, which I was unable to enjoy. =( When we finally got on the EuroStar, we were stuck sitting next to two annoyingly loud French women who DID NOT STOP TALKING FOR THREE HOURS STRAIGHT . (We were both sleeping; I tend to keep my voice down if people are sleeping around me). How can you talk for three hours straight? I mean, I think I might run out of things to say. I think my current state of health heightened the volume of their voices to make me feel worse.

Anyway, when we finally got to London, we hopped on the tube (Jubilee line), which was insanely easy to use. Our hostel, St. Christopher's Village, was a couple blocks away from the tube on Borough High Street. I really couldn't believe I made it to the hostel without puking and/or passing out!

Around Borough High Street




Lobby of the hostel




Don't be fooled by these pictures. Once you walk past the lobby, you are already in the pub area, which wreaks of cigarettes, beer, and after clubbing stickiness (you know what I mean!).

This is located on the right side. Here you can see the pub menu. Stairs lead to a downstairs area which is also part of the Pub.


On the left, sticky Pub.


Then you go through these doors to the dorm-like hallways/bedrooms. This place is sticky and sleazy. I think 99% of the people here were Americans, the other 1% were British. Barcelona 4 Fun was mostly a mix of Europeans and a couple Americans (besides us). So if you want to travel to London to meet other Americans to hook up, this is your place! They even have a dispenser for Tylenol, condoms, and breath mints on the wall. HAHAHA!

When you sleep on these mattresses, you can feel the springs jabbing into your back. I think the top bunk only holds 115 lbs or less.


Lovely shared bathroom


They wouldn't let us check-in until 2pm (we got in around 10am), so we had to put our stuff in lockers, and wander around for the rest of the afternoon. We decided to go sightseeing despite my hellish state since this was our only day in London.

I had to take a picture in the tele booth. Lucky for me, I choose this freshly urine-infested booth where I almost puked from the smell. I'm trying to hide my disgust in this shot.


Walking to London's Tower Bridge. Lovely brown water.


London Tower Bridge, here we come.


Pretty cool, huh? It looks like it's made out of legos.


Ah, Europe must love placing phallic symbols around their cities


My humps! My humps, my humps, my humps!


Going down to the tube, eating more crackers.


Here we are at Parliament and Big Ben


Big Ferris wheel.


Some cute cafe type restaurants around this area.


Waiting for the tube, eating more crackers. The tube is really clean and safe here. Most of them have the protective plastic so people can't fall and get hit. (Might have been handy in Paris with the World Cup festivities going on.) Also, the ventilation is really great, and they have these long escalators that make it a bit more convenient than the millions of stairs found in other metro stations.



After sightseeing, we went to look for some food. Most of the eateries we walked by looked like crap ass sammiches or fast food. We finally found this Italian restaurant that looked decent but they were hosting a huge lunch for an older crowd.

Ah, we continued our trek in search for food only to discover the Borough Street Market.


Then we found a real English pub filled with real English people... in hopes of trying some real English food. I asked the waitress what kind of soda they had. I don't think she knew what soda was. Do they call it "pop" here?

Ah, how much more English can you get than fish and chips, and those ubiquitous overcooked peas found throughout the city (I read that in a travel book).


The fish was freshly fried, but it had no flavor. We then asked for tartar sauce which tasted more like pure mayo. Wasn't so great, but at least it was fresh. According to Raf, the peas were indeed overcooked and disgusting; considering that Raf loves peas, that must tell you something. That travel book was right on, hahah! (By the way, if you want some really good fish and chips, try Gordon Biersch; they have the best dipping sauce!)

Caesar salad for my not-so-happy tummy. Surprisingly, it didn't taste as bad as it looks. (Or maybe it was because I was so hungry from eating crackers for the past few days?) I didn't eat the eggs though, Raf did. The bread they serve is not good either. It had a stale texture to it. It reminded me of the bread they serve in that German Restaurant in Sunnyvale, Hardy's Bavaria.



After this, we walked back to the hostel to finally check-in and take a much-needed break. Our intended short nap turned into a 2.5-hour nap. Oops! Good thing it gets dark here really late! When we woke up, we decided to take a trip to Harrod's, the biggest department store. They had a LOT of awesome name brand stuff like Christian Dior, Hugo Boss, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, you name it, they had it. They were also having a big sale, so things were 30%+! I saw this one Christian Dior bag that I've always wanted for something like £300; that is like $600 USD! If it were $300, that would be a different story. =(

Damn the weak USD!


This place is huge!


Harrod's is also located in the main shopping district. There was a Zara, of course (there are a million of them in Spain and France, too). I also found this cool brand called Jane Morgan that had really nice designs that fit my body type. Alas, damn the weak USD! After some window-shopping, we took the tube to the Buckingham Palace.







Then we watched the guards march around every few minutes. I think that's what they do in order not to fall asleep?


Once again, we were famished, and wanted to find next food on our list of things to eat in London --> INDIAN FOOD! We walked down the street and passed by a quaint Indian restaurant. Even the average Indian restaurants in London have some of the best chefs. We ordered Baltic butter chicken, naan, and rice. Since my tummy was still not happy, I could only barely taste some of this. But let me tell you, it was so fucking good! Everything was delectably prepared; the naan was perfect! They also added chunks of onion and green peppers to the butter chicken dish. (The Indian restaurants I've been to in the states usually don't add this).

Baltic Butter Chicken.


I love naan! We ordered one to go so I had something "plain" to munch on the next morning.


After Raf scarfed down a wonderfully delicious Indian meal, we walked back to the tube to go back to our sticky hostel.



Since we didn't have an alarm clock, Raf was planning on staying up all night so we wouldn't miss our flight back home. Umm, he's crazy! We were walking by this liquor store and I was like, "let's go see if they have an alarm clock." Of course Raf is like, "nah, they won't have it." I went in anyway, and to our luck, they had a little alarm clock waiting for us. It didn't come with batteries so we asked the cashier if we could by a single battery instead of the entire pack.

English cashier: "Yah, grab the DOE-CHELL"

Us: "HUH?"

English cashier: "The DOE-CHELL"

Us: "What?"

English cashier: "The Do-ra-cell."

Us: "Ohhhhh, Duracell!"

That was my only real difficulty in understanding their accents. I think 90% of the time, Raf had trouble understanding them. Hah! We then called it a night, and went to sleep in our springy bright bunk beds. I was later awoken in the middle of the night with some Englishmen screaming "FAUCK YUU! FAUCK OFF!

Louis XIV & Louis Tchang

This morning, after attending a work meeting close by, Timo came back with some croissants. I just had a bite of this buttery goodness (and I mean buttery); the remainder of my meal consisted of more crackers. We then made a trip to Château de Versailles, which is 10 miles west of Paris.

Instead of the metro, we had to take the RER to get there. We accidentally hopped on the wrong one and tried to step in the closing doors in order to open them back up and jump out. Well, my 1,5 liter water bottle got stuck in between the doors, and Raf almost got squashed as well. These doors DO NOT open up for you if you get stuck. A couple French girls were laughing at us as we rode to the next stop with my big water bottle stuck between the doors. Eventually, Raf asked a nice French woman for help, so we safely departed this RER and hopped onto the correct one. Good thing too, because had we stayed on that one, we would have been screwed.

Versailles was only a block away from the RER station. Around the touristy places like this, there are a lot of African men selling knick knacks. This one guy was trying to sell blinking Eiffel Tower keychains outside of Versailles (?).

Raf (in French): "Hey, the Eiffel Tower is that way." (Raf points in the direction behind him)

Knick Knack guy: "Ah, bon?" (Oh really?)

HAHAHAH! Anyway, here are some cool photos.

Approaching Versailles. This Château is ginormous!


Hi


Every other room looked like this.


Top of the opera room


Louis XIV, a serious womanizer (different woman every night in different rooms)


ONE of his bedrooms. He has a million drawing rooms throughout the Chateau.


A mathematician from back in the day. He created the first systematic hospitals (hence the word, hospital).


Part of his gardens.


His wife's estate was about 1,5 kilometers down this way to the right. She's got a huge "mini-chateau" like his. There are gonDOLa's (pronunciation via Timo) in that little lake all the way in the back.


Walking back to the main estate.


After spending two - three hours here, we made our way back home safely. While on the train, we had to take pictures similar to Luigi's on a train in Europe.

Don't hate! HAHAHAHHAHAH!


We arrived back home in the afternoon only to be consumed with some serious hunger (especially me since I've been running on crackers the past couple days!).

We were famished so we stopped by a boulangerie to buy:
· Madeleine
· Éclair au chocolat
· Flan – Goooooodd (a la Japanese)
· Pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant)

Oh, my name in French translates to Yellow Bread. What a perfect translation for a Chinese girl that loves to eat bread. (Pan also means bread in Spanish and Japanese, woot woot!)

We also stopped by this "fast food" Greek place that Timo was raving about.

Falafels here make all the falafels back home taste like SHIT! See the tender chicken, tzatziki sauce with tons of flavor, fresh veggies, and YES, FRENCH FRIES. This combo was SO delicious!


After I scarfed down a lot of the scrumptious food that we bought, we rested for a bit, and then went out again. Raf found a Mango store (and shopping area) close by Notre Dame. Since I hadn't seen it yet, we went to go check it out. I bought another cool shirt from Mango for only 20 Euro (at this time, all the stores in Paris were 20% - 70% off, the big sale time of the year until things close down in August). After some shopping, we went to check out Notre Dame, and then back home to rest up for dinner.

On our way back home, we saw a little pooch with World Cup Fever representing France!


This morning, we had actually given my mom's Godfather (also my grandpa's best friend from college), Louis Tchang, a call. He lives just outside of Paris. Because of the short duration of this trip, I told my mom to let him know that we would meet up with him if we had time. It was tough to get ahold of him because we didn't have a cell phone. And again, I felt stupid leaving a message in English when his answering machine was in French. Even my Chinese is pretty sucky. I left another message for him later in the afternoon. He didn't hear his phone ring at the time, so he ended up calling back Timo saying:

"Parlez-vous anglais, chinois, français?"

Timo thinking to himself "(Who is this? I don't want to buy anything!)”

Hahaha, in English, Louis told him that he wanted to take us to sightseeing the next day at places that were three hours away from Paris! Anyway, I was able to get ahold of him later on in the evening to inform him of our departure the next morning to London. He was really excited to see us so he insisted on driving into Paris to take us out to dinner. It took him 1,5 hours to drive through the Paris traffic + thunder storms. He made it safely to Saint-Michel around 9pm. We were trying to decide on whether to eat French food or Chinese food, so we decided on Chinese since I wanted something soupy for my stomach.

We were driving around the packed parking garage for a bit until we finally found a spot. When Louis parked, Timo said,

”Tres bon.”

This means “delicious.” He meant to say, good [parking]. Hahah! Louis then said,

”You mean, tres bien.”

For dinner, we had:

· Rose wine
· Seafood tofu soup (a little thicker than back home, but still good)
· Chicken feet (which Timo and Raf found quite enjoyable. Raf's first time trying it)
· Shu mai (pork dumplings)
· Sha Jiao (shrimp dumplings)
· Fish with veggies
· Sweet and sour shrimp
· Sautéed beef w/ sauce
· Mango sorbet (refreshing)
· Caramel ice-cream (this was really good!)



The difference with this restaurant compared to home is that they have a decent variety of wine they serve before your meal. Interesting, wine with Chinese food, but only in France! Also, they don't automatically give you free tea; you have to ask for it. The soup also did not come family style, and instead, was served in a small bowl. Also, all the waiters/waitresses spoke perfect Mandarin and French. Unlike America, where most of the waiters/waitresses speak only a few words of English.

There was a cute little French girl sitting at the table next to us wearing a pink qi pao (traditional Chinese dress). She actually could speak a little Chinese like, "Ni hao (How are you), ma ma hou hou (it's okay/so-so), Xie Xie (thank you)." It was really cute! Her accent was pretty good. She learned a bit because her father is some composer for the symphony so they spent some time in Shanghai, China.

Despite my extreme tummy discomfort (it took me an hour to eat that tiny bowl of soup), dinner was fun. Louis ended up speaking more with Raf and Timo in French. His English was very good, but I'm sure it was easier for him to communicate in French. He learned English and French in China, and moved to Paris about 25 years ago as an electrical engineer for a refrigeration/cooling company. He married the daughter of a French ambassador in Shanghai, but was later thrown into jail for 20 years during the Cultural Revolution for the accusation of being a spy for the French. They had a daughter together whom my mom grew up with (she is now living in Milan w/ her Italian husband). The Communists eventually forced them to divorce. After he got out of jail, his ex-wife helped him move to Paris and find a job. He married again (another French lady). Interesting, huh? He hopes that someday my mom can help him write his life story.



Outside the restaurant


Louis wanted to take pictures with all of us.


I was really worried that he would be insulted that I didn't eat a lot of food. Also, for Chinese people, if you are sick, they make a bigggg fuss about it so I was afraid that he was going to tell my mom. (Then I wouldn't hear the end of it forever!) Surprisingly, he didn't make a big deal about it, and didn't tell my mom! Overall, his personality is very French. I was expecting him to be more "Chinese" if that makes any sense. (I mean, even though my parents have been here for years, they are still in some ways very old-fashioned/traditional Chinese). Louis explained to us the Feng Shui of the restaurant. It is located where the two rivers meet (Seine and Marne [I think]); this calls for a prosperous location for the restaurant. He talked about the World Cup, Tour de France (he is actually not a fan), some famous nude beach in France, ping pong, as well as places he has visited throughout France. He likes to be the tour guide for visiting friends (he has been to Versailles 10x. LOL). I later found out that when he called my mom, he asked why Bush was still in office. Hahaha, that is like the first question Europeans have to ask us. Did I mention that he is 80-something years old, and is like a serious power walker (well, not literally, but he walks so damn fast!). I think he might be in better shape than me! And, he was wearing a Louis Vuitton belt. hahah!

Too fast for me.


When dinner concluded, he took us on a quick tour through the French Chinatown. Even though I felt like passing out on and off throughout dinner, I'm glad we were able to meet. Dinner was fun and delicious, and hopefully we will meet again soon!