Di Yin and I decided to explore a bit of Paris on the day we arrived. It would help us get on local time. It was a beautiful day. We decided to look around our neighborhood, Le Marais, a bit as we headed for an early dinner.
I took pictures. Di Yin also took some. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day after we went out exploring (picture #12 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Day 2" (picture #49), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
We found a local grocery and, next door, a beautifully-fresh fruit-and-vegetable market. On another day we'd find a supermarket even closer to home. We also stopped by countless bakeries to admire their remarkably attractive pastries. (I say countless because, yes, there were so many of these that I lost count.) A few of these bakeries would supply my pastry breakfasts later in the trip.
We also found a glass sculpture shop: very pretty. I especially liked the mock aquariums: balls of glass with colorful glass fish embedded within. At 300-500 euros, these were the cheapest items on display in this shop! Other shops, such as jewelry shops, were likewise unexpectedly expensive.
On the walk, we stopped by the only remaining medieval cloister in Paris. It was nothing special, as was the art exhibit it was holding (of sculptures of wild cats). The church next door, though with rather nondescript architecture, was worth the stop because someone was playing the organ.
We ended up having dinner at Les Philosophes. Although we didn't know it until after we sat down, the restaurant emphasizes the use of locally grown, sustainably grown, organic ingredients. We enjoyed our meal, and actually ended up eating there two more times during our stay in Paris. See the pictures for details on the meal.
Paris: May 12: Le Marais, part one
Paris: May 11: En Route To Paris
Thanks to S providing a lift, getting to the airport was easy. Check-in was also easy.
We killed a bit of time in the airport by viewing an exhibit on Josef Frank (other links: international terminal exhibits, exhibit photos), an Austrian who lived in the middle of the 20th century and designed furniture and textiles, most with nature themes. I took out my camera to take some pictures and get in the habit of taking pictures for Paris. Di Yin also took pictures. The latter link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #1 in the album). When you see a picture of Di Yin lying down to get over her jetlag (picture #11), you're done with her pictures for this post. I'll link her later pictures in the following post.
We got to Paris via two flights. The first flight, on KLM, was brutal. There was a large guy in the middle seat next to me; I thought the stewards kept the plane too hot; I couldn't get comfortable (the seat was poorly designed); I found the personal TV frustrating because I had trouble hearing the actors' voices above the background noise (I think the bass-treble balance was off).
We transferred in Amsterdam to our Air France flight to Paris. This flight was shorter and easier.
Upon landing, we transferred to the metro to get to our apartment. We didn't even have to clear customs--apparently the customs we went through in the Netherlands sufficed. Someone on the train played a violin for our entertainment in a style that sounded like a fiddle.
Incidentally, during our stay in Paris we noticed that on trains near tourist sites we'd sometimes be musically entertained ... usually by an accordion!
Our landlord was waiting for us at our apartment. He turned out to be friendly, and the place was nice. By the way, I took pictures of the apartment; I'll post them with the following blog entry.
Di Yin and I took a nap, then headed out exploring.
Paris Overview
I spent nearly two weeks with Di Yin in Paris in May 2011, leaving the bay area on Wednesday, May 11, and returning on Tuesday, May 24.
I enjoyed my trip.
There is no feature that always comes to mind when I think of Paris. Rather, my memory of Paris is colored by an assortment of facets that each slightly distinguish it from other cities I've visited. These features are French food (more on that later), the people-watching/cafe scene (again, details later), the Seine, and Paris's size.
When I think about Paris, I'll frequently think of the Seine. It's central to the city. One might guess this oft-encountered geological feature would be an obstacle but it's not. Its countless bridges make it easy to cross wherever you are. Furthermore, it's a pleasant place to stroll along. The Seine always has footpaths on both sides of the river. Indeed, there are often multiple walkways on each side, one at water-level and one at street-level higher above. Thus, in contrast to London's Thames, the Seine is prettier, narrower, and much more welcoming to walkers, picnickers, and whatnot-ers.
Transportation
Paris feels like a compact city. I think it feels small because it invites walking. The Seine is a nice place to walk along on your way somewhere, and it's easily found, whether intentionally or not. Also, in Paris areas with large streets and many cars have relatively wide sidewalks. Areas with narrow streets tend to have no traffic so it doesn't matter how wide those sidewalks are.
I think Paris feels compact because the metro stations are close together. Metro stations are placed about five or maybe seven minutes walking apart. No matter where you are, you can get to a station in a couple of minutes and be rapidly on your way to another part of the city. This also means that if someplace we wanted to visit was two or three stops away, we'll often walk it rather than take the train. After all, we're only talking about twenty minutes and, beside, we'll get to enjoy the weather outside and see more of the city this way.
Nevertheless, we regularly used Paris's metro system. It's every bit as complex and comprehensive as London's. My only complaint about the system is that the subway transfers require a lot of walking, especially in stations where more than two lines cross. Indeed, if we were in a major transfer station and simply wanted to transfer to take the other line one stop, we found it more efficient to walk to the next station rather than transfer and take the train.
Trains run often (every couple minutes). Once, we got off a train at the end of the platform farthest from the exit. By the time we walked to the other end of the platform, the next train had arrived.
Some of the metro system lines use trains but others use vehicles that look and feel like trains but have big wheels. Only at certain stations can you manage to see the bottom of the cars and notice the difference. Regardless, for getting on and off metro vehicles, one has to press a button or flip a lever to trigger the doors to open. The vehicles respond to these actions before reaching a complete stop. That is, the doors can open while the train's still slowing down in a station. It's a bit scary.
I also should say that, though Paris is more pedestrian-friendly than any American city, it's not as pedestrian-friendly as Barcelona. Paris also doesn't have anything like Barcelona's Old Town, a whole neighborhood with a ton of personality and a tangled mess of pedestrian-only streets.
Incidentally, Paris has the same bicycle rental system that I spotted in Barcelona, where one can check out a bike from most metro stations and return it at any other bike station. We saw many people on these bikes.
Paris's Look
Paris has the same predominance of grand buildings as London. At first I thought these buildings tended toward Gothic architecture (I made a note regarding this halfway through my trip) but I realized later that it's a false impression--it's simply that the neighborhoods we tended to be in at the beginning of our trip were built in the Middle Ages and hence had lots of Gothic churches. Other areas in Paris have other types of architecture, including grand Federalist or Roman-style buildings (grand colonnades and all that) and churches in a variety of styles.
Paris has the same wrought-iron balconies that I enjoyed seeing everywhere in Barcelona but didn't see much in Rome.
Paris doesn't have London's density of small, cute squares and parks.
The left (south) bank is livelier and more diverse than the right bank, though the right bank isn't a slouch (I'm just making a comparative statement). Likewise, the left bank has more cultural features such as bookstores.
Regarding bookstores, the book industry in Paris is like nowhere else I've been. Virtually all the bookstores in Paris are used bookstores with a disorganized feel that's somehow appealing. They stock old books (not merely "used" books). Furthermore, the handful of new-book bookstores I spotted are on specialized topics (Tahiti, art, anthropology, etc.). I didn't see any large, clean, modern, general-purpose bookstores like Barnes and Noble.
Sometimes we'd see military men in combat fatigues with submachine guns patrolling the streets. This seemed normal to everyone (other pedestrians, the military men) and did not make us nervous in the least.
Food
Di Yin and I enjoyed the food, though I not quite as much as the food in Rome.
My trip to Paris changed my image of French food; I learned that my image of French food as involving complex, heavy sauces is kind of wrong. We ate often in bistros. The dishes we were served let the taste of the ingredients shine through. There was little to no use of spices or seasoning. Di Yin says Paris taught her the appeal of cooking things gently and of cooking things in generous amounts of butter.
In addition to French restaurants, we often saw restaurants serving food from the south coast of the Mediterranean. I mostly mean restaurants serving North African and Middle Eastern food (especially Moroccan, Tunisian, and Lebanese). Given France's colonial presence in these areas, none of this is surprising. We also saw some Greek and Turkish restaurants as well.
What is surprising is the number of Japanese restaurants we spotted. They're pretty common--certainly much more common than I expected--and they looked respectable.
Overall, Paris seems to be a somewhat culinarily diverse city (certainly more so than Barcelona). Though not common, we did notice other cuisines such as Chinese and Indian. I was surprised I didn't see much Vietnamese, as Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos were former French colonies.
Oh, and yes, you can indeed get good bread everywhere. Or at least baguettes: every baguette we had was good. The pastries varied in quality. While I often enjoyed the various pastries I sampled, the croissants, for instance, were not uniformly better than what one can find in the bay area. The handful of good bay area bakeries make better ones than some that I tried in Paris. By the way, savory croissants such as ham and cheese croissants are an American invention--I didn't see a single one in Paris.
Finally, I appreciated that all restaurants have their menus posted outside. It helped us decide where to eat. Also, it turns out this is dependable--it's the law in France.
People Watching
France is on continental Europe's eating schedule, meaning a late lunch, a visit to a cafe for aperitifs in late afternoon, and dinner around eight or nine p.m. at night. This habit of late afternoon drinks (actually, people-watching, as the focus seems to be) appears to be more evolved in Paris than in other European cities (Rome, Barcelona) I've visited.
People-watching is important to Parisians. In late afternoon, sidewalk tables at virtually all cafes we passed would be filled. In America, people sitting in pairs face each other, or at least mostly face each other. In Paris, the pairs sit side by side, each person facing out to the sidewalk to watch the passers-by.
Furthermore, tables inside cafes were universally empty. It's clear the prevalence of late-afternoon aperitifs is not due to the drinks; rather, they're just an excuse to sit and watch the world.
Language
French is the working language. Di Yin spoke French to people and people replied in kind, not attempting to switch back to English. (Maybe Di Yin looks foreign to them, so they didn't know she spoke English.) Even the few times when people later discovered Di Yin speaks English fluently, they were willing to answer Di Yin in French when she spoke French to them. It's clear everyone we talked to was simply more comfortable with French than English.
By the way, between using my Spanish background, recognizing words corrupted into English, and knowing some Latin roots, I could sometimes get the gist of written French (historic plaques, menus, advertisements, etc.). Di Yin of course was much better at this than me.
Miscellaneous
The weather was great. The temperature was in the upper 60s or 70s during our trip. We walked around without jackets. A simple long-sleeve or, sometimes, short-sleeve shirt did fine. The skies were clear most days and, even when they were not, it never rained.
It wouldn't get dark until late (after 9pm), making for long days (sometimes too long) of activities and explorations.
Paris may be as inexhaustible as London and New York City. I'd probably make this comment without the modal caveat ("may") if I could read French. As it is, some of the secondary sights, temporary exhibits, etc. are not fully translated into English and thus might not be worth visiting as an English-only speaker.
A historical fact on the rise and fall of the Jesuits: in 1627, King Louis XIII laid the first stone of a Jesuit church in Paris. In 1764, less than 150 years later, the Jesuits were expelled from the country. How's that for a fall from grace?
Monte Bello Open Space Preserve
M, on a rare break from medical residency, briefly visited the bay area with her husband J around the weekend of Sunday, May 8, 2011. I attended their wedding two years prior.
I found out two weeks before that M was pregnant. I imagine this was a last-chance trip before they were to have the baby (and thus not be able to travel for a while). It was also probably my last chance to see them without traveling to Chicago.
Di Yin, M, J, an acquaintance of mine whose name I forget, and someone I never met before whose name I also forget all met up to go on a hike. From the few choices I nominated, we selected to hike in Monte Bello Open Space Preserve. It was a great choice--with varying terrain, it was a true sample of bay area nature.
I took a handful of pictures.
As we walked, we talked. I rarely manage to talk on the phone to M and never hear much from/about J. It was nice to catch up with M and J and get the current scoop.
We hiked for about six miles.
After the hike, we drove into town separately, reuniting (along with a few more of M's friends) at the Palo Alto Creamery for dinner.
Los Angeles: May 1: An Indirect Route Home
After a small snack at home to tide us over, Di Yin and I headed to the day-after-the-wedding brunch at The Peninsula in Beverly Hills. It was a good spread at another fancy, expensive venue. I was impressed they served freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (in addition to fresh orange juice of course). We chatted with all the other guests we'd met the previous night, plus the people in the wedding and the wedding party who were too busy to talk with us the previous day.
After brunch, we began heading home. We drove north on 405 to route 5, but route 5 seemed backed up as it entered the hills so I took the road labeled "14N highway 5 truck detour" under the assumption it would rejoin the 5 later. This was a mistake.
We drove for a while and soon found ourselves in the desert. The landscape was flat, with lots of short, dry grasses and sagebrush, quite a contrast to the green hills one passes through on 5 in the national forest-land north of Los Angeles. We stopped so Di Yin could take pictures of the desert with the San Gabriel mountains in the distance. I wasn't in the mood to take pictures, and didn't end up taking any the entire day. We also passed a field of poppies, the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, as well as multiple orange fields.
At one place we stopped on 138W (on our way back to the 5), we ended up beset by small bugs. We noticed them only after we returned to the car and discovered many on ours pants' legs. We got out, brushed ourselves off everywhere, and got back in. Over the next ten minutes we killed a dozen and a half more that managed to remain on us--that's a sense of how many must've been there originally. Di Yin said they were weevils.
Here are Di Yin's pictures. The link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #89 in the album). When you see a picture of me in bed, you're done with the pictures from the trip.
Once finally back on highway 5, we headed straight home, stopping for a late dinner in Gilroy (where we discovered a tasty frozen yogurt shop). It appears our detour took an hour longer than the direct route not counting the stops we made to take pictures. Though it was neat to see the desert, I wouldn't have made the trade-off given the choice.
Los Angeles: Apr 30: Encino and Wedding
This day was allocated to attend a wedding. I took few pictures, mainly because I didn't feel like taking pictures at the wedding. Di Yin took similarly few photos. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #80 in the album). When you've passed the wedding pictures and see another brunch picture (picture #89), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
For breakfast, B, E, Di Yin, and I drove to their local downtown in Encino for brunch at More Than Waffles. Indeed, More Than Waffles serves lots more breakfast items than just waffles, but almost everything is served with a Belgian waffle. And, yes, they make their waffles well.
From the drive, I noticed Encino is a hilly, pretty area filled with large estates (all different) and wide sidewalks. Once back at the house, we took a stroll around the neighborhood and admired the houses and gardening. The weather was the same beautiful weather as the previous day.
As for their house itself, it can rightly be called an estate. B and E invested heavily in the house because they want to raise kids there and eventually grow old there. Everything is 50%-100% larger than a "normal" house. Even the hallways are wider as well. It has four bedrooms plus a "maid's room"/den, a sizable pool, tons of patio plaza pool space, and a huge kitchen (six burner range, large island, large stove). In fact, the pool area reminded me of the pool scene in Octopussy. Admittedly, their pool area isn't as large or extravagant but it gave me the same feeling as the setting in the movie.
I especially liked two features of the house: the plantation shades and the recessed lighting. I hadn't seen many plantation shades, but now I know I like them. As for the lighting, I generally appreciate recessed lighting, but I liked this more than usual because the lights are also skylights. You can't tell by looking at them, but the light coming from the recessed area during the daytime is filtered sunlight. It looks like the lights are on even though they're not.
We hung around the house until it was time to go to the wedding.
Di Yin's college friend B was marrying S in the Calabasas Hills. These hills felt like ranch country. It's almost entirely nature, with cactuses and mountains, and the farmland is bounded by post and rail fences.
The wedding and reception were at Saddle Peak Lodge, a hunter's lodge nestled in the mountains. (This is the Santa Monica chain of mountains, by the way.) A cactus garden served as the immediate backdrop to the ceremony, with the mountains visible beyond.
Ironically (given the setting at the hunter's lodge), there were sushi hors d'oeuvre, plus cocktail shrimp. More apropos, elk was one of the dinner choices. Both Di Yin and I had it. She said it was like seared tuna in the sense of being raw in the center. It tasted meaty, like jerky, but was a really tender version thereof. It came with butternut squash puree, brandied cherries, stuffed mushrooms, and ciopinni onions (I love those).
Along with the main course, we ate asparagus soup, salad, bread pudding, and cake. The salad, made with endive, watercress, and apples, included St. Agur goat cheese, one of the few varieties of blue cheese I like. I didn't like much else about the salad however. On the other hand, I definitely liked the banana huckleberry bread pudding served as dessert.
It was clear the wedding was more for the parents than the couple. Indeed, we talked with one couple who'd only met the bride once or twice and didn't know the groom at all but were there because they're friends of the bride's parents. Also, music and dancing weren't a priority either; the dance floor was small and nevertheless barely used.
After dinner, we enjoyed the photo montage of the bride and groom together. I think more weddings should have one.
Los Angeles: Apr 29: Huntington Library/Museum/Gardens, and Food
I took many pictures this day. Di Yin did too. The latter link goes to her first picture from this day (picture #9 in the album). When you see a picture of us having brunch (picture #80), you're done with her pictures for the day. I'll link to the next day's pictures in the following post.
It began with us driving across L.A. to Pasadena. Surprisingly, on 110 near the center of the city, we passed through a series of tunnels. (A hill attempted to block the highway.) Pasadena is pretty, with tons of trees. I say this not in contrast to the rest of L.A.; there's just a lot of trees, period. It's a wealthy area. The residential part of it has fancy single-family houses.
We detoured to the neighboring town, San Marino, for lunch at Julienne. Julienne is in two-block-long commercial street in a residential area. We walked up and down it after lunch. As for lunch, it was very good; for details see the pictures.
From San Marino, we drove to the The Huntington Library/Museum/Garden, passing by/through CalTech on the way.
The Huntington is part botanical garden/park, with many themed gardens. We wandered through many (but not all) of these: the desert garden, the subtropical garden, the rose garden, and the herb garden. They were all very pretty; I took a ton of pictures. The Rose Garden was particularly notable because it was entirely in bloom. It's nicer than Portland's Rose Garden (supposedly world-famous), which I visited last year. We also stopped by the Japanese Garden and the Chinese garden but these were mostly closed.
It was a perfect temperature for strolling slowly with a hat to protect against the sun--a temperature that neither felt warm nor cold on your skin but rather neutral as if it was skin's natural temperature.
After exploring the gardens, we ventured into the Huntington art gallery. It presents European art (mostly eighteenth-century) in the Huntingtons' historic mansion, furnished and decorated according to the period. There was a free audioguide available but we didn't take the time. We were so short on time that we explored only the ground floor of the museum's two floors. We also skipped the American Art Gallery and the gallery housing changing exhibitions, both in other buildings.
We reserved a chunk of time for exploring the Huntington's third major facet: its library. We first explored its collection. Its old books include an old Chaucer, a Gutenberg Bible, a first-edition Paradise Lost, first-quarto and first-folio Shakespeare, early versions of The Life of Samuel Johnson and Gulliver's Travels, Audubon's huge book, various hand-written manuscripts, and much more, including some American documents. For instance, it has some Proceedings of the Continental Congress, a hand-written 1702 treaty between American settlers and the Mohawk Indians, and an original hand-written version of the thirteenth amendment. There was lots of info about each item. The collection reminded me a bit of the British Library (see visit report). Lots of items are the same (Gutenberg Bible, Audubon book, etc.).
We looked at the library's special exhibits. The exhibit on the regency didn't make much sense to me. In contrast, the history of science exhibits were rather good. One presented the history of astronomy through original texts by Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Einstein, Hubble, and others. Another showed the history of biology/medicine through anatomical atlases and many other books, including for instance an early printed edition (sixteen-century) of Hippocrates's sayings. A third room explored the history of light with original texts by Kepler, Faraday, Volta, Newton, and more, and also items such as early light bulbs.
In these history of science exhibits I didn't have anywhere near enough time to read everything I wanted to. We got kicked out because the library was closing. I wonder how much longer we could've stayed in the gardens before being told to leave. (Everything is scheduled to close at the same time, but it looked like no one was patrolling the gardens.)
By the way, Di Yin observed that the organization is so wealthy that not only are its objects of high quality but also is the setting they're presented in. For instance, the astronomy room has constellations painted on the ceiling, the art galleries have period decoration, and the history rooms have numerous animal paintings.
Three hours was too short for the Huntington complex. I probably could spend another three while only seeing things I didn't see before.
After closing, we drove back across L.A. to meet E at his place and began a food crawl! Details are on the pictures.
After the food crawl, we returned to E's, then Di Yin and I left for our other friends B and E to spend the night at their place in Encino.
Los Angeles: Apr 28: To L.A.
We returned to Los Angeles in late April, this time for a wedding of one of Di Yin's friends. We stayed there from Thursday, April 28, 2011, to Sunday, May 1. This trip didn't change my previous impressions of L.A.; I have nothing to add to that post.
We followed the same route to L.A.--down the 5--as before, though this time it was sunny. Also, this time we didn't stop to enjoy the views (we enjoyed them only from the moving car).
Some observations from the drive down:
- We spotted two burning vehicles: a car on highway 152 and a truck on route 5 near the grapevine. The latter burned so hot we felt the heat from it as we passed it three lanes over. Contrast this with the tire tread coincidence from our last drive down.
- We spotted the industrial cattle farm that we somehow missed on the previous drive.
- Pyramid Lake, just off the 5 in Los Padres National Forest, is pretty. Maybe we'll stop there sometime.
There, we relaxed a bit. Then, hungry but lazy, we decided to walk to a restaurant, Nook, near E's condo. It had a long wait; we decided to do take-out. The food we got was good. Di Yin remarked that she appreciates restaurants that use few spices and thereby allow the quality of the ingredients to show through. So do I. For details on the food, see these pictures, the only pictures I took this day.
Di Yin took more pictures during the day. The latter link goes to her first picture from this trip (picture #1 in the album). When you see a picture captioned "Day one" (picture #9), you're done with her pictures for the day. ("Day one" is the first picture from the following day.) I'll link to her later pictures in the following post.
Eventually E returned home and we chatted for a while before nodding off.
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