Author: Rach

19. Year 3 College student at HKUST, Hong Kong University of Stress and Tension. (No joke.) Lived an unbelievably amazing life in Southern France last semester. Currently on my second exchange at Rutgers, New Jersey. Not quite like Europe but still it will be a different kind of good experience :) damn this is super outdated. 21. employed. yea, that's pretty much my life now. Update again: 22. Still employed (phew). Moved to Taipei, from Hong Kong. Got a bunny. Life is great :) 23. I love my job but am I approaching quarter life crisis? 24. Chinese believes that YOUR year (I'm a Rooster) is always the one with the biggest change...we'll see about that. 25. I refuse any quarter life crisis. I guess by now I'm an adult? 26. Huh, 2020 I DID not sign up for this?

The END of iceLAND.

The weather was just getting better and better everyday. And our hope to see the northern lights was up again. First night was cancelled, second night we went, too cloudy 😦

We were lucky to have a 6-bed room with just the 3 of us 🙂 It made life a whole lot easier.

Finally time to do some intense activities! Horse riding for 1.5 hours around the mountain.

We each got matched to a horse and the owner of the riding school put us each in a fitting jacket and helmet. My horse, (Icelandic horses all looked like ponies, but they are actually really comfortable and reliable) was Gramerer. (I’m just guessing that’s how you spell it, it was too difficult to pronounce, like Grrrrameeerrrrer, with the multiple tongue curling sound) It meant the mask, because it has a white face 🙂

We first were crossing rivers, looking over mountains, and the horses started running so fast and although I was afraid, I could only convince myself to trust him and hold on to him. It felt incredible to be so intimate with a huge animal like a horse. But afterwards my whole body ached really badly… I felt grateful that I am born in the era with planes and trains 🙂 I liked my horse so much because it made me felt safe the whole time and it was such a special feeling to feel its breathing under his thick muscles when I placed my palm on its neck.

Remember how Iceland is well-known for its natural scenery? The Golden Circle tour has got it all, the Gulfoss Waterfall, Euro-American tectonic plates (not sure if that’s the right term :P) and the Geysir where water shoots up from time to time to release the pressure. Unfortunately, weather was poor and it compromised our experience…

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Although the attractions were not that captivating, the tour guide himself was rather entertaining. He said the weather here is even more unpredictable than his wife. And these white, green things you see in the photo there, are marshmallows for the cows. Green is mint flavor and it makes their milk minty. Yes I think he is crazy. He mentioned the Reykjavik Mayor being his cousin, and he was a former comedian…He wears pink suit too, I verified the last piece of information. Isn’t Iceland the cutest country ever? 🙂

from http://www.newsoficeland.com/home/entertainment-leisure/other/item/594-the-mayor-of-reykjavik-jumps-into-a-pool-wearing-a-suit

Good stories are not always perfect, and the best ones are those that leave certain regrets. At the end after trying for 3 nights, we did not manage to see any northern lights. We saw a lot a lot of stars though but that was it. (yes those are not dusts on your screen)

We stopped at a really cozy family-owned B&B for toilet. Perhaps I will come back one day and just stay in their cottages for a month 🙂 And watch the stars and attempt northern lights again. (The tickets are kindly valid for 3 years. Although the tour guide did say there will not be any more northern lights after 2 years from now 😦

Last night in Iceland, we had again traditional Iceland food in a restaurant named after Nordic god, Loki (Yes! Like in Thor/Avengers 🙂 The color tone was creamy yellow with warmly lit lights. I tripped as I was going up the stairs and the waiter said to me “It’s still too early to be drunk!” And I was so embarrassed 😛

Hot chocolate with Iceland spirits.

Assorted fish, and shark that tasted really fishy

My craving for sweet food 😛

Although this trip was not perfect, it was beyond my expectation. Perhaps I did not even know what to expect! I felt so lucky to have the resources to be here and at the end of the day, everything in life are reminders of how lucky I am, the great food, the nice people, the weather, the sun! I will never take things for granted. I have never been this appreciative of how fortunate I am until now.

Reykjavik left with us the impression of a beautiful night city and I became even more fond of Iceland at the end. Northern lights, when it is meant to be, when it is the right moment, I will see you some day.

The coolest (not literally) country – Iceland Part 2

Let’s start off with homemade Icelandic breakfast: Skyr, (Skii-er) the local yogurt like cheese and it tasted…healthy. Blueberry skyr though, was good.

Note to self: follow what a local buys when doing groceries in supermarkets…

Remember how in High School you studied Geography and you thought to yourself- when on earth will I be able to use these tectonic plates and currents theories ever? Well, I had my chances right here at Iceland. It was around 8 degrees considering its geographical location, it is extremely warm. This is because of the gulf stream that brings warm current all the way up from Florida.

Iceland is really the perfect Geo field trip. You get to see Eurasia and North American tectonic plates, waterfalls eroding the cliff and volcanoes etc. Iceland thus have the privilege to utilize geothermal energy and they use a lot of water to cool off those plants and here comes the wonderful by-product- geothermal pools ALL across Iceland.

They were amazing. Because we went in the low season, the pool was so spacious, water a creamy blue, just the right temperature with periods of mist passing by… We saw the sunrise and overlooked the black mountains all over.

This saved my life. I wouldn’t be able to continue the trip if I did not have such a relaxing morning floating, lying down, drinking strawberry smoothie and just let the sun penetrates my skin and hair.

The latter part of the day we roamed around Reykjavik again under the flawless weather. The famous Dreamboat sculpture right by the bay… as if it is ready to sail out anytime.

Watching young adorable children skating under technicolor graffitis with their parents watching over them

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It is that time of the day again, as the sun goes down, it radiates such soothing rays of light all across the sky, through the clouds and all the way into my heart. My whole body warms from inside out. I felt so peaceful in Iceland, it’s like calming music is playing in my mind all the time.

Did that sound like the end of part 2? Well of course not because I still haven’t mentioned much about FOOD. This is Iceland’s best ice cream place according to Trip Advisor. We walked pass it so many times without realizing this is IT.

Such a colorful and bubbly family-owned shop. The owner’s daughter told us that they open and close whenever they FEEL like it. Imagine this business model in Hong Kong? Doomed. But right here, it’s just so lovely. I wish I own a crepe shop that opens and closes whenever I want to.

Hazelnut ice cream with banana icelandic pancakes (= crepes in France)

That’s my snickers ice cream with chocolate fudge sauce on pancakes. The more fattening the food, the better it tastes like – the number 1 tragedy in the world. oh well.

This is frozen pancake with vanilla ice cream wrapped inside dipped in caramel and chocolate sauce on each end with coconut and almond toppings. Or to sum up in one word = heaven.

Apart from the relaxing routine, we understood a little more about the history of the Icelandic people by visiting this sweet little open air museum. It’s basically a real life model of the lives of Icelanders back in the days before modern civilization.

There were a small church that became someone’s house at some point and other civilian cottages.

The tour guide demonstrated how Icelanders eat without a table (I want one of those), how they sit on skulls to milk the cows, how they make wool sweaters, how they cram many people under one roof because they were poor, and smoke ham right over their pot while cooking 🙂 Genius.

In the kitchen, there was already a waffle maker, how cute is that? Icelandic people were even tinier than me and their beds were just like baby cribs.

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Who says Iceland isn’t cool? 😉 practically the only nice car I saw in 4 days though, Icelanders are rather modest. All the more reasons to like them 🙂

People in Iceland are funny, nice, and they don’t do things just to rip off tourists’ money. They genuinely want visitors to appreciate the country that they so very much loved. We had to beg the guys to open the souvenir shop for us.

End of Part 2

The coolest (not literally) country – Iceland Part 1

3 weeks after the trip to Iceland and I am still so excited about this country. I mean come on, it’s ICELAND. It is not an obvious country to visit in Europe but then again, I don’t always do the obvious 🙂

Starting with the airline, WOW. yes WOW, it is a funny budget airline, their flight attendants looked like they were made from barbie moulds. Blonde, pale, slim and tall. Funny how the tour guide said when the vikings came to Iceland, they took all the beautiful women. If that didn’t happen, perhaps everyone in Iceland would look like barbies.

Currency exchange: it’s such a pain that up North, they rarely use Euros. Kroners is fine but can they NOT be called the same when in one country it’s x1.3, and in another it’s /164? The rate is really good in Iceland though, the bank is also the most modern one I have ever seen.

Of course to me, the most essential part of travelling, is the food. On the first day, we walked for almost 1 hour straight all the way out to the bay for this restaurant that serves lunch buffet for less than 10 euros. It was a very sincere and traditional Icelandic seafood buffet.

For the price we paid, it was extremely worth the walk. (Especially for me, buffet is always a good deal 😉 The owner and staff was so nice too and I started to form a really positive image on Iceland despite the shitty ever-changing weather.

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On the way back, we walked pass the photography exhibition that I read about on the plane. I love reading those inflight magazines; they always tell you interesting things to see in the time that you are visiting. This photographer took photos 25 years ago with the idea of juxtaposing the past and present 25 years later. Isn’t that a really intriguing life-time project? It’s kind of like a time capsule, you see a new Subway here and the old building was restored … I could easily copy him and do the same but will I remember this silly idea after 25 years?

We landed 1 am at night so we had a really chill first day. We explored Reykjavik really thoroughly: the main street was filled with exciting graffiti, interior design and window displays etc.

I think Icelanders (sounds really cool, I’m an ICELANDER) are really amazing people, they value their heritage, they respect their nature, and they embrace arts and literature.

The modernistic Harper Concert hall is nicely designed and it was dazzling to see it at night.

Although the weather was cloudy and occasionally crazily windy and rainy, the city lake with swans and ducks was quite entertaining, especially to the kids. (and me.)

This church is so different, so out of the box. 🙂 I liked it.

The air there was revitalizing. Iceland is simply too remote to have any kind of pollution; their population helps too. If we think in a world with only HongKongers and Icelanders, you can only find 1 Icelander for every 22 HongKongers you meet!

Icelanders claimed they have the best tasting water, and I would attest to that any day. It quenched my thirst with its refreshing and deliciously cold taste. It’s hard to explain how flavorful water can be, you just have to try it for yourself. It just felt like what water should taste like. Funny though, you must remember to turn the tap to the coldest side or else you get the hot spring water that smells like rotten egg. Yes we made that mistake like, twice. However, that water is extremely good to shower in 🙂

At twilight, the ground absorbed the rain from earlier and was reflecting the traffic lights under the glowing lampposts. I felt peaceful and safe.

Back to hostel, we cooked in the cutest kitchen ever with cheese that we thought was butter. And we rested. Realize I never use the word rest in this blog? Because we really never did.

The day before, I dramatically tripped and landed on the floor at the end of a horizontal escalator like in a bad Mr. Bean show…

R: (Traumatized) shoot I feel like grandma

V: No you’re worst than them. At least they know that they’re weak so they don’t turn around talking on an escalator and then trip.

R: …

This is the 5^th day of our trip and the 13^th day of 6-8 hours walking. I really couldn’t stretch myself to the max anymore. I had the best night sleep in a long time snuggled up in my sleeping bag brought to me specially by a dear friend.

End of part 1.

The Unintended Trip Finale (Antwerp, Belgium)

Originally, it was never my plan to rush any country/city. But somehow there really was nothing much to see after spending one full day in Ghent/Brussels, and we thought, why not spend the last 5 hours before our flight in Antwerp, the fashion center of Belgium. With this limited timeframe, however, detailed planning was needed and here I lay out the (much anticipated, I hope 😉 ) grand finale of Belgium.

I loved the trains here, for youth like us, you can travel to any city for 6 euros one way. There were quite a lot of “THE First/Best” claims here and the first we saw was the “Prettiest” train station in Europe.

For that particular day, there was a Rotary event. As we headed for the pedestrian street with most shops, I saw this lovely chalkboard and as I arrived at the Italian Church, I looked down and there was a black, long limo. (Of course it was too rude to take a photo of it.) Someone died. My heart sunk a little.

But these once-off moments are the little bits and pieces that build up to a memorable and unique experience. Indeed, the Schelde River will always be there, and so will the clock tower. But these spontaneous snapshots were not here to stay. At this precise moment, the event must have ended, probably no funeral today and the cafe owner might have drawn up a new smoothie menu. And it’s comforting and special to feel that you were there at that particular moment in the universe. Isn’t it a wonderful thing in life that despite the static castles and clock towers, life is ever-evolving in big and small ways?

Now inside these marvelous architectures, was a huge champagne glass bar. And next to it THE First Skyscraper in Europe (Not exactly scraping the sky at that height though I suppose), the Farmer’s Tower 1932.

Since Antwerp was an important port, we saw a lot of related decorations all over the town.

This was the furthest walk because we were heading to a special floating swimming pool that was frozen into an ice rink in Winter! (On the way we passed by the red light district. OMG. It was just, shocking. I was too timid to take photos, but my friend should have it. The ladies were banging the window as we passed by. I simply cannot imagine how it’d be like at night, a small, curious part of me wanted to stare longer, but the startled part of me pulled us away from that street.)

That day was somehow the coldest ever, the wind was blowing from all directions pushing me forward and dragging me back at times. We decided to take a break, and walked in to the MAS. They have a wonderful view on the top (Also where I realized I lost my left glove 😦 sorry grandma) but the point was, the intriguing and slightly dark exhibition on Life and Death. (I don’t know why this motif kept appearing in Belgium)

In the introduction it asked the questions

“Where do we come from? Where will we go to?” As the first one addresses what was already happened, my curiosity for that is not as strong as for the second one. What happens after this wonderful, vibrant life? What would be left of me? Interesting questions to ponder upon in my free time.

It reminded me of one of my favorite poem by Robert Frost,

“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice”

Perhaps the only convincing and utterly calming answer to this is to make an impact that will last even years after I vanish. There would be a tiny part of me staying and watching as the world progress.

Finally we arrived! It was my first time skating in the outdoor and you could not imagine how freezing cold it was. Also, I am a bad skater for all sorts of reasons: poor balancing and coordinating skills, inability to lose control, pathetically thin blade on the shoes and the slippery ice…

I would rather be dragged around like this.

Afterwards we rushed through the plaza and heard the clock town ring and saw the fairy-like fountain. Honestly, these are really the same after seeing the 3rd one. Suddenly though, a carriage just passed by us out of nowhere. Wow, I think I really haven’t seen one ever in my life.

For lunch, I had the best ham and cheese sandwich I have ever had and this was my camera working the natural blurry filter upon entering the store.

Finally it’s 3 pm and we were back to where we started, the beautiful Antwerp Centraaaaaal Station. (They like to spell it with many As 🙂

The Unintended Trip Part 2 (Ghent, Belgium)

Quote of the day: Life is too short to NOT LOOK BEAUTIFUL EVERYDAY! 🙂

After a nice warm sleep, we took the early train and headed for Ghent. We didn’t really have anything in mind particularly, and perhaps that’s what made the trip so fun. Learning from our mistake, we made it to their big Friday Flea Market and bought some really cheap but cute stuff. Yep, those are buttons. We’ll figure out what to do with them somehow…

The weather was a bit gloomy because it was still winter, but the river view mirroring the fluffy clouds above still tried its best for us to take nice photos 🙂

Now we arrived the “Graffiti Factory”. It really wasn’t much, just “Graffiti” on an abandoned “Factory.” It was cute though, midway, a dog started barking at us and I thought of running, but then I realized I was way too tired. That was when I dropped my map 😀 and picked it back up where I dropped it. Typical me, careless mistakes + fortunate outcome.

And then another antique shop. There were creepy baby cribs for sale… I did not quite like it there. The aura was somehow frightening to say the least.

Afterwards we went into a museum that displayed the lives of Ghent people back in the days. But the MAIN point: the door knobs were HEART SHAPED. awwww, first time I saw something that cute. Now I want one on my front door when I have a house.

Now, time for some food! We went to a bakery where they were supposed to have cookies that they use a real iron to flatten, but turned out they only sell those for breakfast 😦 so we had something else instead, the Creme Brulee is obviously delicious as I forgot to take photos 😛

These strollers we saw everywhere, sold Ghent specialty, purple nose or whatever it was called I forgot. They weren’t exported because they expire very soon. It was with some strawberries and rum inside I think. Worth trying, but were too sweet.

Now to the main part of our GHENT day trip. GRAFFITI. DIY. We walked into this spiraling alley FULL of paints in all colors you can name. I did not see a single empty space. Somehow I have always associated graffiti with bad guys and the thought of actually doing it myself is thrilling.

We bought a bottle of white paint spray and my heart was just jumping up and down insanely inside me.

There was me looking retarded and amazed by the bottle of white paint spray 😛

So there, I know it kind of spoiled others’ great art work, but that’s the whole point of Graffiti, right? To find beauty in ruins. That’s the cost of having a free canvas, and constant public audience. It is refreshing to think that every now and then, the walls would be renewed, Rebirth.

Well, it probably is gone now and is replaced by some beautiful graphics(or perhaps ugly, signatures by tourists like us) but at least we established our presence there vividly. 🙂

Before the sun went down, we found a cute and ancient looking cafe and had what they said might be best coffee in Ghent, and waffles. aaah Isn’t it just wonderful, the combination of cream, milk, butter, egg and flour. Almost like a miracle.

Notice that the blurry effect, was natural! Since it was only 0 degrees outdoor, once we entered the warmly heated cafe, my camera just automatically created these wonderful effects. (I know it is simple physics, but just let me put it this way so my photos feel more special)

The view when the sun was going down was intoxicating. The dimly lit lights within the buildings, the floating boats and metal bikes was just so… “Europe”. (Sorry for the lack of a more intelligent word)

At night we went back to our cozy hostel at the penthouse to tidy up things and grabbed dinner at a local version of McDonalds.

The lady asked what sauce I want and I went ermmm…hmmm.. and she just said “I will give you all, so you can try.”

Small town people are just always nicer.

The Unintended Trip Part 1 (Brussels, Belgium)

Before going on exchange, it has never ever crossed my mind that I would be visiting Belgium, Iceland and Denmark. They all sounded too cold for me. But life is all about surprises and ad – hoc decisions 🙂 so here I am, overloaded with Belgian chocolates and missing Icelandic water, recalling my 12 days trip to these wonderful places.

Embarked for Brussels on Feb 20th, 4pm, we got off the shuttle bus at 3:35pm. Thank GOODNESS we made it. Upon arrival, we saw several of these ugly hearts and I wonder what sin did this person commit… The next day we woke up and we saw this huge protest from people wearing Red, Blue and Green respectively. (Research has shown that it was one of the biggest Anti-Austerity Protest)

Brussels was cold, I couldn’t bring my hands out to take more photos but here I saw some wooden llamas and color-coated bottles so I had to take a photo of it.

There was a gallery featuring Hong Kong photos and I suddenly miss home, and the vita soy, and the BBQ pork, and Japanese Food.

This is our lunch place! It was really good money for value. That was our first meal of deep fried food…Brussselians LOVE fried food… Did you know French fries were invented here?

1) Gueze Beer. They say it tastes like vomit, but I actually liked the sourness of it. We also visited a beer brewing factory and had a taste of lambac and cherry gueze beer. (NEVER try cherry, one way or another they taste like meds)

Perhaps I just wasn’t a big science person nor a beer fan, that’s why bottling and labeling was the only processes that I understood 😛

Those brownish mushy stuff right there was how it all started. It smells so warm and good, like ovaltine. (And I’m not short, the boxes were just stacked high :P)

2) Pissing statue… I simply didn’t understand their fascination with pissing stuff. There’s this pissing dog, and then the manneken pis…which is supposed to be THE tourist place, but I.T. W.A.S T.I.N.Y. NOW I am pissed.

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3) Of course there were the lovely waffles too ❤ I must have had fries and waffles as many times as I tripped/stepped on poop because of concentrating on the map.

4) The Tin Tin and the graffitis, they were all over the streets! You just got to be super eagle eye to spot them 😉

5) CHOCOLATES !!! This was basically why I even took notice of Brussels, not because it is the Capital of EU. There was a street with ALL kind of chocolates, and of course I didn’t buy any Godiva. AND WE HAD CAKE FOR DINNER :O

Mary’s is my favorite one 🙂

V: (pointing to a 60 year old lady) Hey the sales lady over there looks like the owner, you think she is Mary?

ME: (pointing under the logo) The shop was established in 1919, do you think she looks 94?

Dinner in the hostel common area , girls eating Salad.

V: Look at them eating salad…OUR dinner looks so much more delicious!

ME: Yea, that’s also why they are thinner…

Well who cares 🙂 The cake and chocolates were heavenly. It was chocolate mousse with creme brulee filling. The bottom crust was ALSO CHOCOLATE. aaah god.

Erm… we also went to a flea market…after it was over. Apparently the owners just leave whatever they don’t want anymore for free. And my dear friend and I started searching for treasure/trash, along with the hobos… yea it was fun. She got her Discs for I-Don’t-know-what

Note to self: MAKE SURE you go to these markets in the MOOOoooorning.

At night we arrived a square thingy (which all looks the same everywhere, in Madrid, or Bordeaux) and IT REALLY WAS FREEZING. I couldn’t stand it anymore and called it a day.

Please note that we did ALL THOSE, in one day. Thank you very much. (Yes you might say that on day 1 walking 10 hours is normal, but do note that I have been walking for at least 6 hours a day for 8 days right before the trip… It was just such a huge challenge for me but I made it alive and enjoyed every bit of me, except some of the hostel but we will get to that 🙂

Sweet water? Dolceacqua, Italy

After seeing all the ancient villages in France, let’s move on to their close neighbor, Italy! How wonderful, in just 2 hours train you find yourself on the land of ITALY.

Ventimiglia has an overrated friday market, but their cheese and ham was already worth it.

The store owner might look fierce here, but he was actually really nice! He kept urging that I eat more of his cheese and gave me a discount 🙂 The reggiano was really good especially when it goes with the parma ham ❤ (I forgot how many pieces I “tried”)

Then we were done here. Moving on to another random destination, with the sweetest name – Dolceacqua, even though I know not Italian, I could make out that it means “sweet(it can mean fresh too) water” 🙂 Now, you might think you have seen all of the Lord-of-the-Ring-villages, but THIS! This blew my mind away. This is the place with the least tourists amongst all other old villages I have been to. People actually still live here!

The weather was flawless. The clouds has finally decided to cooperate with us and the sun worked seamlessly with the river to create the spotless mirror under the bridges.

On a side note, this has got to be the sunniest day which I forgot to put on sunscreen -,-

If I were alone, I doubt that I would have the courage to walk under…

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mightly spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

Then we saw this old lady, stumbling her way up the steep slope, resting every once in awhile. It made me sad to see how she was dragging herself while we were skipping along so effortlessly. How great to be young was my first thought, but my second was, what if I become old and weak? Then I realized there is no doubt that one day I WILL become old. The least I can do is make myself healthy so as to prolong the days of traveling and eating whatever I want 😥 Time is ridiculously ruthless.

This angry cat suddenly disrupted my thoughts with its meowing. Well little tiger, what are you starring at?

As we hiked up the village, we came across a choice, the 5 mins walk and the 45 mins walk. Guess which one we took? Well to the left it is 🙂

Indeed to see great views, one must climb the hills.

Despite of the inappropriate shoes, the heavy cheese and ham in our bags and our way too warm clothing, we made it there!

This is exactly the scene that Monet saw and painted in 1884. Unbelievable how some things can last hundreds of years. When the world changes, this picturesque village just seem to remain as it has always been. As if nothing sad has ever happened, and no one ever grew old or die young.

As we hiked down, all restaurants were closed and I started feeling dizzy either because of the heat, the lack of food or the daunting thoughts of growing old. It probably was the lack of food because we only had gelato all morning… (CREMA gelato, whatever that is, was the best one I have ever had and so cheap 3.8 euros for 3 scoops ❤ Can’t wait to actually go to REAL Italy 😛 , sorry Ventimiglia, you are too close to me to be labelled “real” Italy.

How I wish you were, Missing Puzzle Piece, you would have loved it. At least you got the postcard this time finally 🙂

The aromatic city – Grasse

I started to think I am a natural in traveling for day trips near home. Not only am I good at matching suitable point of interests with my friends, I am also good at planning.

On the day to Grasse, the town of Perfume, we changed bus so seamlessly: the moment we got off bus 200, the bus to Grasse was just right behind. It was the exact same situation on the return bus ride 😉 OH what a genius I am. (done with boasting mode, moving on!) There are 3 major perfumeries in Grasse, but they all kind of sound alike just to confuse us. So first on Fragonard, there was an art collection museum and traditional jewelry and clothing museum (for free) that was quite nice to visit. (There were CCTV everywhere so I could not snatch a photo of the beautiful necklaces and keychains)

Apart from shopping for perfumes, each perfumery provides free guided tour in English. Or at least they claimed so. When we were at Molinard, they said there were no English tours for that day. 😦

Just when we were about to leave with a disappointed heart, I saw a group of tourists speaking alien language (I assumed it was french) and I thought, oh well it’s free, might as well spend 30 minutes to see what’s inside!)

So we followed the crowd and proceeded with the tour. Midway I realized it was an Italian guided tour and I could not stop laughing at my stupidity. We nodded as if we understood fully.

Thank god there were occasionally written english descriptions on the methods of making perfume. We got to test our sense by smelling different scents and guessing what it was.

At the end – the highlight of our tour! Making customized perfume! I was never a perfume person, but I am definitely in for anything that I can play around with.

For 45 euros you get 2 hours to mess around with 80 different fragrances, a bottle of self-made 100 ml perfume with your own label, your own formula number and a certificate ❤

First you choose 3 scents from several categories and/or vanilla. Then you pick 3 fond notes from the categories you previously picked. 6 scents of the heart notes were then added into the cylinder.

Every time you add a new scent, you have to pour it out and back in so it is mixed thoroughly. Then you dip in the perfume paper and smell the new scent through it to check if they are compatible.

Oddly enough, some scents smells extremely terrible on their own, but surprisingly pleasant along with other scents while some just stinks one way or another.

Lastly 5 peak notes were selected and your bottle was removed and labeled with the name you picked. The lady in lab coat explained to us how to test whether the scents go well together and all in all was a special experience. I think my nose was numb afterwards.

To my pleasant surprise, no bottles were broken and not even a single drop of perfume was spilled. Skillful me. (Very unlike my usual self)

VOILA, here is the end product. 🙂

Festivals!

For some reasons, there seems to always be some kind of festivals happening in a certain part of the South. Apart from the circus festival in Monaco in January, there was a small scaled festival on love, chocolate and pastry in Antibes. And yes of course there was free tasting.

Then there was the Nice Carnival. To be honest, I was not quite sure why everyone was so excited about ugly humongous cartoon characters being all over the city, but perhaps French people really like parades that much.

Traditional specialty snack – Socca. Actually only the crispy layer on the outside taste good. The middle felt like it was not cooked through.

Another festival was rather random – Menton Lemon Festival. They made use of lemons and oranges to build landmarks from “Around the World in 80 days.”

No wonder it was so expensive to buy lemons around here (sigh) They must have used millions of it to create all the displays. It might sound boring but actually the atmosphere was quite enjoyable 🙂

There were live performances in accordance with the display, such as fire dancing near the Japanese temple, saxophone performance at the entrance, french comedy show, indian dancing and last but not least, fake Beatles performance at the UK section.

Actually the whole festival was rather hilarious… The crepe maker asked me to take a photo of him with the hat on.

Poor baby, frozen and did not understand what was going on.

Perhaps the idea here is that when you love life, anything or any day can be a celebration or a festival.

Once upon a time…

Amidst the rather “famous” cities in Southern France such as Cannes and Nice, there lies several captivating small villages that are really worth going. They might all look kind of similar at first glance, but to actually be there you can feel the subtle differences amongst the lay out of the village, the pavements, the twists and turns between the alleys.

Saint Paul de Vence

Traveling back to Medieval Ages, the entire village was erected back in the 14th-15th century but amongst the old fortress and cottages, the place was painted with a modernistic aura.

Right above the tourism office is a free art gallery. (With random black and white rocks that I have no clue about…)

Although art is not my thing, it really added a special coating to the entire village. Art galleries of different themes and styles were on every corner, each with a beautifully crafted sign hanging from the top.

Then there were always random art pieces, sculptures just lying all over the village, blending in. (Or standing out) Art is inextricably linked to the village, not a single piece can be left out.

It was as if I were in the Middle Earth of Lord of the Rings.

I know.. photos overload, but it was just hard to describe with words! See for yourself 🙂

Have a nice day! More on other villages tomorrow.

Eze

Now heading towards Monaco/Italy, there lies an even smaller village all the way up the top of a mountain – Eze. It is famous for even Nietzsche found the truth of life while hiking up the hill top. Of course I just took the bus up for I am no philosopher… I thought I could just go to one of the two and I would have seen it all, but the truth is, the view up Eze is very different.

From the top you can have a gorgeous view of the ocean (the weather was not perfect unfortunately…) and on one side you see the old clock tower.

Eze feels even older, and less touristic. There were so few stores (or perhaps it’s off season) and the style is slightly more reserved.

There were also metal giraffes in a hotel! (I love giraffes for reasons that I am not quite sure of) It’s like how I felt towards stars and chocolates and all other adorable things.

Miss Tofu

My journey in life