The Magic School Bus goes to France

I think I covered every inch of Paris on Sunday. It started with a lunch date with Obicus (Oby), my mad yonk Kim-chi loving friend who surprises me every time I'm with her. Both dying for a hot hearty meal, we both agreed that Korean food would be a good choice. We took Mètro Ligne 12 toward Mairie d'Issy in the 15ème to a highly-rated Korean restaurant called Bong, but ah-hah! it was closed like 90% of the stores in Paris. Oby was insistent on not giving in to the random Greek/Mediterranean sandwich shops we passed by, so we trudged for a good 2 hrs to find a suitable Chinese resto. We finally found a small Asian alleyway near Montparnasse and jumped into a Chinese resto that looked promising. Worse. Mistake. Of. My. Life. Seriously Cynthia, ni xiang shen me ah? (I thought the Mandarin would be more emphatic...it means "What were you thinking?") A Chinese person eating Chinese food in France. Haha okay, lesson learned. Here is what it looked like. Panda Express is x2 better and x2 cheaper. Depressing.


Boeuf a poivre avec les légumes
["Peppered beef" with veggies]


Don't let our smiles deceive you!

On the upside, I had a good time exploring with Oby and an even better day when I met up with one of my new friends from Mix on Thursday. We met at Sacre Coeur in Montmartre* where we got to sit in on Sunday Mass (with church organs in full blast), watched street performers (a jazz skat-er, 3-man gigs, soccer player impressing the little kids, bongo drummers, etc) and portrait/caricature artists-- all in the back of the church. There were rows upon rows of artists waiting to sketch, oil paint, or cut-out silhouettes of tourists' faces. It was pretty tight traveling with a native French person, because we were very easy targets ("Konichiwa!" "Ni hao ma" "lai lai lai"), but then my friend Noel would just start speaking in fluent French and it would shut them up, haha.

*Montmartre is in the more "ghetto," northern side of Paris -18eme- where a lot of scenes from Amélie were filmed.





The rest of the day/night, we passed by Pigalle (famous for the Moulin Rouge & sex shops), Châtelet- Les Halles, visited Centre Pompidou (saw a very low-budgeted street magic show), Hôtel de Ville, Notre Dame (where we got to sit in on another mass), and ended the night at a cozy, uber-packed crêperie called Crêperie de Josselin in a petite rue proche de la Gare Montparnasse. I felt like I made a major breakthrough on my Paris check list. It was also fun hanging out with someone that was a) a native around my age b) Chinese so if French & English fail, we've got Mandarin to turn to and c) very patient to endure either my slow translating or endless rambling.


Pigalle

Châtelet- Les Halles

Magician man; Centre Pompidou

Pompidou fountain

Ice skating in front of Hôtel de Ville

Inside Notre Dame

LCD screens

Crêperie de Josselin

salée (crispy shell with gruyere cheese & sausage); sucrée (chocolate maison, bananas)

For all the photos, you know what to do... Bonne nuit.

P.S. It has been confirmed. French Asians do not eat bread and cheese at home. The disparity between immigrant parents and 1st generation kids' comportment is the same in both the U.S. & France.