i have lived in Europe for 13 years and we finally got to Paris!! This winter holidays we were unable to go skiing because Tobias was still recovering from his broken arms (see here if you would like to know details of what happened), so we opted to do a city trip and my beloved husband decided on Paris 😀
We were only there for 3 days, leaving on the first flight from Zurich to Paris and returning on the late evening flight. But we made use of the 3 days fully and saw quite a bit of Paris. i will just give you a picture summary here. Click on each photo to read captions and find out more about our trip.
Left: The interior of Charles de Gaulle Airport is so retro-space-like with its plastic covered escalators criss-crossing each other. Right: What a beautiful building Gare du Lyon is.
One last shot of the Louvre before we leave this fascinating city.
Left: The square, Place de la Concorde, where Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antionette were executed during the French Revolution. Right: The obelisk given to France by Egypt.
Top: Arc de Triomphe, Bottom: Watching the traffic negotiations around the circle which the Arc stands on is frightening and amusing at the same time.
Left: Going up the Eiffel Tower, Right: It was fogging that morning so this was our view from the top.
The famous Eiffel Tower on a foggy Parisian morning.
Left: If this is the size of the crowd during low season, i don’t want to be here at high season. Middle: This is as close as i got to the Mona Lisa, Right: View of the glass pyramid from below.
This is one of my favourite buildings and it houses a lovely tropical aquarium.
There are lots of monuments around the whole city.
We enjoyed riding the Metro. It’s a great system once you get to know the lines.
Our first sit-down meal in Paris, dinner at a small local cafe on St Michel at the Latin Quarter. It was lovely! And they have a drink i love but i don’t know any place which serves it besides here; it’s a cup of warm milk with honey – YUM!
View of the Eiffel Tower from the River Seine, during our evening river cruise.
All the lovely views from our evening river cruise.
Of course, we could not go to Paris and not see a platform near the River Seine which is covered in locks.
Left: See that double height glass? That’s the apartment i want if i could afford it. Right: Love the houseboats too!
The Notre Dame! It is huge and i would recommend getting the audio guide. We didn’t do that because we were limited by time.
Images from our very first walk around the city, we crossed the River Seine and walked around Jardin des Plantes. Paris has quite a number of these big parks.
Of course, we also did other things (such as cleaning the house, visiting friends, watching a movie and going to the Glacier Garden in Lucerne) during those 2 weeks but Paris was the highlight 😉
i know this is an extremely belated post. We have been back at school for 4 weeks now. i have tried a few times over the last few weeks to get this post written but somehow it never happened. So this week i decided that it has to be written and it got moved to the top of the ‘to-do’ list.
Our autumn holidays was the first 3 weeks of October and while it was not as exciting as last year’s, it was still fun-filled and we managed to do a fair bit.
In the first couple of days, we focussed on getting some housework done. Tobias then went off with one of his best friends to a nearby waterpark, Bernaqua, for an afternoon. The next day, we met up with some friends from Niderwalden at the Toni Zoo for lunch and a lovely walk around the small but well-kept zoo.
One of the highlights was the Foxtrail! We did this scavenger hunt type game around the city of Bern. We did have rather high expectations after reading great reviews. But it was a bit of a let-down. A few of the instructions were not well written, so we got confused and turned around quite a number of times. The helpline was not as helpful. But i think it was because this was originally meant to be worked out in German and being English-speaking meant we understood the instructions differently. We had also expected to learn more about the city as we chased the “fox”. However, there was little write-up to learn from at all. What was expected to take us 2.5 hours, took us 3.5 hours. Oh my, my feet were nearly falling off.
Top Left: One of the clues, Top Middle: This tunnel took us ages to find, Top Right: Another clue, Bottom: Such a lovely view of the Aare!
It was not a great experience but it was not all that terrible. We did see parts of Bern we would otherwise never venture into and walking along the river was lovely. i can see that it can be quite fun for an adult group of close friends. But we had children with us so such long walking times with very little rewards of learning or anything else made it difficult to justify the costs.
After all that walking, we took it easy and took in a movie the next day. ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ was a great movie and we loved it. Even in German, the story came through nicely as did the funny bits.
As it is our tradition, every year in the first week of October, we attend the Suisse Toy Fair! This year saw us spending more time in the electronic games section (E-games) and it is no surprise as this has been the trend. There was even an entire hall devoted to LAN gaming! Tobias has said he might try and see if he can register for entry for that next year… hmm… this mama doesn’t quite like that idea.
Tobias had a great time in a pallet gun game. He had to queue for about 45 minutes but he thought it was worth it. And it did look like loads of fun.
Top Left: LAN Gaming, Right: Trying out VR, Bottom Left: Pallet Gun Game
We also put in some practice in our squash game. And watched yet another movie, ‘Miss Peregrin’s Home for Peculiar Children’, which we absolutely loved! Definitely going to get the book!
In between all that, Tobias cooked a dinner of stewed meatballs and a breakfast of healthy blueberry donuts. We also painted our dining area wall a bright sunshine yellow!
Stewed Meatballs for dinner, they were yummy!Delicious Breakfast!Our spot of sunshine in the house 😉
On top of that, we hosted 3 guests; Tobias’ best friends stayed for a night, another friend who just had an operation came to stay for a night too and another friend stayed one night as well.
i took one of our guest on a walk on top of Weissenstein, the mountain behind our place. We were well-rewarded, don’t you think?
So as you can see, we were busy those 3 weeks in October!
We have been back from our annual visit to Singapore for almost 2 weeks now. i was going to post this earlier but we had computer issues. So finally, here is a picture summary of our trip this year:
People often ask what we miss about Singapore. And number one for me would be our family and friends.
Just as Meredith Grey is Cristian Yang’s person, these are our people!
i don’t often post pictures of people outside my immediate family but these 2 pictures show some special people.
30 years ago, we were 12 and leaving primary school. 30 years later, we find each other and have tons of fun catching up, such friendships are hard to come by.
Now the next thing we miss about Singapore is the food! We ate ourselves silly, as usual.
Top: Kuay Chap, one of my favourite dishes, Middle: Best Japanese food we had this trip, Bottom: Crabs and Suckling Pig!And this stand out dish deserves to stand by itself… half steamed, half fried fish… yummy!Various Hotpots! Left: Hai Di Lao Hotpot with 4 different soup bases, Middle: Traditional Steamboat, Right: Chili Oli Hot Soup.Of course, we had to have desserts!! Clockwise: Tobias with his Holy Smokes ice cream, dessert buffet at a Japanese restaurant, Bingsu (Korean Shaved Ice), Lava Cake and ice cream.But my absolute favourite is this lovely piece of beauty from Kki! Yummy, light and tasty!
What we did most of this year besides eating was spending time with family and visiting elderly relatives. It has certainly hit home for me that my parents and their siblings are not young anymore. We visited Walter’s elderly aunt, my elderly aunties and uncles; most of them have health issues and a few have mobility problems too.
Left to Right: At the Future World Exhibition at the Art Science Museum, Checking out Walter’s Alma Mater, Learning more about Singlish.
Of course, we also did some more action-packed activities such as canoeing on the Singapore River (no photo cos i have not transferred it from my WhatsApp yet). We played squash and went swimming as well.
And we did some catching too… Tobias caught a catfish (catch and release pond at Orto where we also enjoyed jumping at the Katapult Trampoline Park ), and of course, a Pikachu!We made a couple of cat-friends too 😉
Last year, my dad bought Tobias a couple of terrapins. They were tiny and cute, fitting onto my palm. 12 months later, they are huge and outgrowing their tank fast! So we gave them back to the shop we bought them from.
Tobias then talked my parents into helping him look after a hamster which he bought with his own money.
Bye Bye Biscuit and Brownie. Hello Sparky!
And finally, i leave you with a lovely night view of the Singapore skyline from the top of the Esplanade.
syc
trippingdifferently 