The City of Lights

It is sooooo pretty in Lyon at night, and with the warm summer air, I loved to stroll down by the riverside just admiring the great floodlighting. It's interesting that although Paris is known to be "The City of Lights", floodlighting actually originated from Lyon in the 19th century, when people would put candles in their windowsill on December 8 to pay hommage to Mary, for sparing their city of a plague that passed by a couple centuries earlier.






July 14th is Bastille day, a.k.a. La Fete Nationale, I got to watch an amazingly long fireworks display on. It's the biggest holiday of the year in France as it commemorates when the people of France took down the Bastille fortress-prison. This act marked "the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy... and what people considered the happy conclusion of the French Revolution" (according to Wikipedia). Basically in a nutshell, it's what's Canada Day is to us, as is Independence Day is to Americans. Everyone took to the streets and set up lawn chairs or blankets by the river to watch the fireworks and enjoy the street festivities.




On my way back to the hostel, I stopped by a little crepe cart. Gotta love the crepes in France. Paper thin, more fragrant, and deliciously chewier than what those that I've had back in Toronto. I usually go for the Nutella crepe, but that night I enjoyed a simple cinnamon sugar one. Yum! :)

I miss macarons

So until my trip to France, I'd never understood what the whole deal with macrons was. First off, I'd always get confused between the macaron and the macroon, not really knowing the difference until recently when I looked it up. The macaron (mah-ka-rohn) is a French pastry cookie made of two almond meringue cookies that sandwich a cream filling, usually either a swiss meringue buttercream, ganache, or jam. I like to think of it as being the fancy French version of a gourmet Oreo (maybe because I just really liked Oreos). They come in all different flavours and colours and are very delicate, giving off a smooth, crackly texture when you bite into it.

The macroon on the other hand, is an American cookie that is kinda like a ball of baked coconut shreds, sometimes drizzled with chocolate. I don't really find them particularly tasty



As I was saying, I'd never really bought into the hype of the macarons because first off, I'd thought they looked kind of odd and not extremely appetizing. Compared to the visual appearance and tantalizing allure of a chocolate chip cookie, the macron looks like a pretty plastic toy. And the bright, pastel colours always threw me off a bit: pink, blue, green and.... purple cookies?

Then there was the issue of the neat little price tag: averaging at about $1.50 to $2.50 each, the macron is hardly an everyday indulgence. I had subconsciously come to the conclusion that these were some fancy, all-for-show, rich cookies that only fancy, all-for-show, rich folks eat, and thus, never bothered with them.





Enter Lyon. The culinary capital of France. This little metropolitan city is actually more renown its food scene than Paris - one walk down it's restaurant districts and you'll see why. There're barely any tourists here, which means that there aren't any gimmicky tourist cafes and food stands that churn out mediocre food to hungry tourists who'll eat anything. lnstead, it's the locals who are out enjoying themselves on the patios, with two or three course meals featuring the plat du jour. And I love the fabulous farmers market that stretches all the way down the river three times a week (the other two days it's a market for woven goods and pottery).



One day, I decided to pick up a boxful at the daily market where a lady was selling for half price because they were broken. Actually, it was more like the lady convinced me to buy them because she spot me lingering by her stand... and I'm the worst person ever when it comes to saying "no" to anyone. So I handed over 3.50 euros for half a dozen broken macarons and thanked the lady, "Merci beaucoup" (who replied back to me in English. Sigh. And I had thought my accent was improving).

I thought I should wait to eat it because it was about 10 in the morning and far too early to have a cookie... and then I remembered that I was on vacation, so I dove in. One bite and I was in pastry heaven. Literally swooning and unable to think, I sat down on the steps of a post office thinking, "Oh. My. God". It was, quite possibly, the best pastry/dessert/anything sweet that I have ever had in my entire life. They were everything and more. They were.... perfect.



Although not overly sweet, they were very rich so I couldn't eat them all at once... even though I tried to. Anyways, lucky for me I had had the best macrons on my first try... because when I got to Paris, I visited four different pastry shops to find a macaron that could match my first experience, but all were subpar. I think I became somewhat of a macaron snob, because everytime I would try a new shop and be disappointed, I'd be all like "Psh! You call THIS a macron? Blasphemous! Disgrace!" and storm out in fury with my arms flailing in the air. Who knew that the best would be found in some ghetto-looking trailer at a farmer's market that wasn't even in the capital of France? I would visit Lyon again just so I could have another taste of those ethereal cookies.


So that's my story. I am officially a macron convert. I was thinking of doing an attempt at making them myself, but everytime I've tried to make swiss meringue buttercream in the past, I've failed miserably. In the meantime, I did find a French bakery ( petitethuet.com) in Toronto that does macarons pretty darn good. I'm still all hung up over my Lyon ones... but for now, these will do. (Yes, I'm aware that I still sound like a macron snob). They come at $1.50/ea and are a delightful little treat if you need a mid-week pick me up. There are four locations, one at Rosedale, two on King street, and one on Eglinton.

Van Gogh Water Lilies

Pretty in Pink

When it comes to cakes, frosting, and decorating, I, hands-down, always prefer piped decorations over gumpaste or sugarcraft work. Why? While I do think you can make extraordinary, beautiful things with sugarcraft, it's more just for the aesthetics than anything else. Well, I mean you CAN eat the layer of fondant and the sugar flowers if you really wanted to.....but really, anything buttercream is going be much tastier. In the world of food, taste > looks.



I'm all for trying to strike a balance between both the pretty and the practical, and buttercream allows me to find that. I also like the imperfect look of piped, buttercream cake - it feels more homemade... and looks more edible too.




I made these cupcakes for my boss' daughter on her birthday and decided to try something new with the buttercream, instead of doing the same ol' swirls. So I search around the ol' faithful internet and found a great video tutorial on how to make these flower designs on cupcakes using just a regular piping bag and two different petal tips (sigh...I really am a huge fan of YouTube). Anyways, a couple of practice cupcakes later and I had a whole mess of flowers crowding me in the kitchen!



It's a really easy technique to get down, and I recommend it if you're tired of doing swirls but want something that isn't too fancy. The only thing I couldn't really do is to get that two-tone colour going the whole time (the petals are supposed to fade from white to pink, or white to purple), and it's probably because my frosting was way softer than what they use in the tutorial so it all got mushed together in the bag. Check out the vid below! :)

Meg + Will's Wedding

Okay, okay, so I know I said I was going to post up all these wonderful pictures of France, but man, I got lazy in trying to sort through edit them all. You know when you have a huge pile of work you need to go through, and it just seems so daunting so you just procrastinate (which of course, makes everything worse...). In the meantime I've been wanting to show you all some other stuff I've been up to since France, but of course, being the perfectionist that I am, I wanted everything to be in perfect, chronological order so it made sense, but then everything keeps getting pushed back.... and back... and back..........

Well, bah! France posts are just gonna have to take a back seat for now, 'cause I'm moving on. Seriously, I must, otherwise I feel as if my blog is going to wither away again. I'll come back to France here and there, though.



Alrighty! So a couple weeks back I worked on a wedding project for Meghann and Will which was a lot of fun. While Will is from here, Meg's from the Big Apple, so they had this cool "NY-meets-Canada" theme going on. And can I just say here that I was so happy to work with their colour of RED? Whoo!!! It's such a refreshing change from all those pale, pastel girly colours that most weddings use.



So this wedding was also tres cool because I got the chance to integrate some 3D decor elements into the usual stationery design. I combined a floral centerpiece into the seating card display which I thought would have a great "wow" factor.




There's a ravine in my backyard, which is where I found the branches I would need. James helped me to cut them down to size and spray paint them black. We ended up using a whole can of spray paint, even though there was barely any surface area to cover (this was also my first time spraying, and boy... does it smell like TOXIC. phew!!)



To hold the actual seating cards, I got four black box picture frames from Ikea and removed the glass. Originally I was going to have little tent cards, but I didn't have enough space in the frames to hold 130 cards total, so after a bit of brainstorming, I got the idea to use an accordian fold to prop up the cards instead.



I wanted to have crystal jewels strung and hung down from the branches (so they would shimmer in the light), but the only ones I could find sold in bulk at the craft store were those cheap, plastic looking ones. So I veto-ed that and made a last-minute decision and go with adding some tiny white blossoms to the branches instead.






The wedding was to be held at a museum in Ottawa, and being unable to attend, Nancy (the groom's sis) and Joe swung by my place to pick everything up. I set up the whole sha-bang in my kitchen so they would see what it should look like, and took pics to email as well. And while I'm pretty sure I looked like a sleep-deprived, half-dead zombie when it was done, I was SO psyched to see it all put together. Yay!! I thought the branches turned out particularly nice. I mean, even without the white flowers and the tulle it looked quite nice - so nice in fact that I went out and bought the exact same vase again so I could make it again and decorate my room. :)

Chicken run

June had five chickens at her place, so I got to eat fresh eggs daily. They were so cute! They come scurrying around your feet whenever you come out because they think you have food. And at night, they all cuddle together side-by-side in the coop to stay warm :)

Natural Beauty

June's place, Charolles (central France)

Photographic memories

France. Wow, it seems like ages ago that I was there. Isn't that funny how that happens? It hasn't even been a month since I've been back home, and my journey in France feels almost like a distant dream.

Initially, I was actually hesitant about taking my camera - I already had a super heavy backpacking bag, plus my purse, and I really dislike carrying my clunky camera bag around. And I wondered if I would be too busy touring to bother taking pictures. But I'm glad I did. Looking back on the pictures helps me to remember the little details of my trip that I probably would've forgotten about otherwise. I suppose it's true what they say - a picture's worth a thousand words.

I just about filled up my memory card so I've yet to organize them still. I'll post some up as I go through them. It's nice to be back home, but I certainly do miss certain parts about France - the beautiful rolling countryside, the long summer days, the super-convenient Paris metro system, the fabulous bakery and patio scene, the nutella crepes, the dinner salads... the impeccably-groomed Parisian men. :)

Still, it's good to be home.

First morning in Paris

Blink, blink.

The sun beams through the open windows and I hear the clatter of pans in the kitchen below me. I shuffle between the freshly laundered sheets, too comfortable move, and then realize that I'm finally, actually in Paris.

It's the mid-way point of my four week journey in France. After spending my first week in the countryside near Charolles, the following in the metropolitan city of Lyon, it already feels like I've been gone for such a long time.

Travelling alone has been an interesting and insightful experience so far. The first thing I realized is that I feel less inclined to go visit all the fantastical tourist sites that one automatically assumes to see when in France. The experience of visiting something like the Musee des Beaux Arts in Lyon turned out to be rather anti-climatic, and I expect the same to occur when I visit the Effiel Tower, The Louvre, and so on.

On the contrary, I'm that finding most of my enjoyment is coming simply from my observations about French culture.

For example, between 12pm and 2pm, almost all the shops and businesses in France close to enjoy lunch. Lyon is known as the cuisine scene of France, and at mealtime, restaurants open and their patios are flooded with locals enjoying the beautiful weather and fine food. As someone who's quite used to eating in front of a computer screen while multi-tasking, I'm still finding it hard to stretch a whole two hours just for lunch. I can't imagine any city in North America doing such a practice. I feel like our economy would have a meltdown or something even if it tried to.

I was also taken aback by the size of their coffees here. Tiny! About the size of an espresso, and accompanied by packets of cubed sugar. Now, since I don't like to drink a lot of coffee, I happen to find their tiny cups to be the perfect size (and maybe also because I also have an affinity for miniature things). Interestingly enough though, I met a French woman here who thinks that French coffees are too small and believes that the Americans got it right with their huge cups.

So currently I'm located in Mont-montre, which is north of central Paris near the Moulin Rouge. I managed to snag a last minute apartment on craigslist the day before at only 30 euros a night, and I'm relieved that I won't have to spend another two weeks in a crowded, stuffy hostel. I won't be moving in until tomorrow so at the moment I'm staying next door with the apartment owner, Hakima... Moroccan descent, born in France with good English, and about as bohemian as you can get. We arranged to meet at a cafe, and there she was, wearing a floral-printed skirt, beer in hand, and having her portrait painted by an artist friend. Eyebrow raised, she called to me across the street in her thick French accent, 'Iz zhat you, Alee-cee-ah?'

Hakima is really interesting. I've never met anyone who had such a laissez-faire personality before. But she's incredibly nice and is letting me use her laptop for the time-being, and did my laundry for me this morning... so I was able to have clean clothes for the first time in two weeks! I met her friend Carine yesterday and we hit up a local bar last night. The French here love dogs, and Carine was able to bring her huge German sheppard into the bar with us without a problem (he sat obediently under the table). The lively, rowdiness of the bars here in Paris caught me by surprise, as I found Lyon to be much more tame. Lyon reminds me of Toronto, actually... you know, nice but boring. Paris is definitely the more hip-and-happenin'place to be, with lots of young people out, especially in this area of town.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel intimidated here. The air just feel so... French. I actually hate carrying my camera around, it just really makes me stick out as a tourist. I think the worst combo is the camera + the map + the Help-I'm-Lost expression. Being asian has already granted me lots of uncomfortable stares while in France so far as it is. Ah well, so far I have found French people to be way friendlier than Quebecois, which is a relief.

Till next time, a bientot!

The Karate Kid

Hardship meets Discipline. Belief meets Victory. If you're looking for an adventurous, feel-good film, then The Karate Kid is for you.

The film made its debut last week bringing in $56 million at the box office on its opening weekend, which I think surprised everyone. There was a lot of talk about it beforehand, with a slew of die-hard fans scoffing at Hollywood for even attempting to mess with their beloved 80's classic. That's fair enough, but personally, I loved it. It was thrilling, emotional, and overall very entertaining. I left the theatre that night feeling light on my toes and wanting to kick some kung-fu butt (pow!).

The film stays very true to the original plot with only a few minor differences (the biggest being that karate was traded in for kung fu). Our hero/protagonist, Dre (Jaden Smith), plays a 12-year-old boy from Detroit who moves to China when his mother gets a job transfer at the car factory. Alone and unhappy, he soon finds trouble with the schoolyard bullies but is rescued by the apartment's maintenance man/kung fu master, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), who takes Dre under his wing as his apprentice.

The entire story is set in Beijing, which is a nice change of pace from the original. The scenes are a visual feast - amplified Hollywood-style - with breathtaking shots of temples, The Great Wall, and China's mountainous landscape. I found that the new setting seemed to really emphasize the theme of Dre's isolation. Despite the length of the film (140 minutes), the story is well-paced and filled with a generous dose of humour. The fight scenes feel captivatingly real. The kids are particularly young in this version, so you really get a sense of the bullying that Dre goes through. All throughout the theatre, I could hear people in the theatre wincing, grunting, and cheering for our protagonist as he battled it out.

What I was most impressed with about the film was the acting. I know there's been some criticism against Jaden for being too one-dimensional, but I disagree. Personally, I thought he did a great job (he also happens to be Will Smith's son, FYI). He really made his character believable, and for a 12-year-old kid to go through all physical training, it's quite impressive. As for Jackie Chan, well, you can't really go wrong with Jackie Chan (although I did hear his previous film was a flop).

Admittedly enough, I'd never even heard of the original Karate Kid until this past year, when it happened to play on TV one day (hey, It was before my time). So perhaps it was my lack of attachment to the original that enabled me to embrace the remake with open arms.

All in all, it was a lot of fun to watch. If you're on the fence about seeing this one, I say just go! Check it out at Rainbow cinemas on Tuesday nights where admission is only $5 (regular is $9). There's one on Front Street, at Promenade Mall, and at Woodbine Centre. You won't get a huge IMAX 3D screen, but you'll still get to enjoy a night of some kick ass entertainment (no pun intended).