Paris - Days One to Three

Day One: Roommate did a really good job of buying tickets and selecting seats so we had a row by the window to ourselves on the way over. It was really nice to be traveling "with" someone rather than just traveling to meet someone.

We arrived in Paris early in the morning, made our way to our hotel, dropped off our bags since it was too early to check in and then headed out. We enjoyed some espresso and a croissant sitting at the bottom of the hill near Sacre Coeur, ate a picnic lunch under the Eiffel Tower, walked the Champs Elysees, drank more espresso, checked out the Place de la Concorde, and then called it a day. We headed to bed early since we had had only 4 hours sleep on the plane the night before.


Sacre Coeur - very near our hotel. We actually requested a room with a view but either we were too late or the guy in reception didn't understand.


Eiffel Tower.


Arc d'Triomphe


Day Two: We headed out early to see Saint Chapelle which although I have been to Paris several times had never seen. Here's a tip - don't leave this off your list. It is a must see and the Roommate's favorite place we saw the entire trip. (Mine too after coffee and French food.) Then it was across the way to Notre Dame where we waited in line to get in the church and then a 2 hour wait to go up to see the gargoyles. Both were worth the wait but since I have never been to Paris during the high season I was a little annoyed by the lines everywhere we went. If you don't want lines visit Paris in the winter. If you want nice weather and flowers then be prepared to stand in line. After Notre Dame we wandered around the Latin Quarter and visited the Musee de Moyenne Age where we saw the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. Since we had a Paris Museum Pass we did a quick stop at the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa and Victory before we headed back to the hotel and fell into bed. The whole six days were non-stop and filled with little else other than art museums and espresso at sidewalk cafes.


Saint Chapelle - Downstairs


And upstairs. The stained glass was amazing.


The floor of the chapel.




Me and the roommate


The view from Notre Dame


The Lady and the Unicorn - Touch. I had tried to get to this museum when I'd been in Paris before and never made it so I was super happy I finally got to see these. They really are stunning although it's hard to take good pictures. They have to keep the light level very low to preserve the color.


The Roommate was there for the art - I was there for the food.


A Canadian bookshop in the Latin Quarter with more books than shelf space.


Victory

Day Three: We hit the Musee Rodin (where we saw the famous statue The Thinker) and the Musee d'Orsay. The weather was cold and rainy so it was a great day for being inside. We had scheduled a bike tour that evening but we weren't attired for the rain and the cold so they took pity on us and let us reschedule to later in the week.


I wonder what he's contemplating.



Next Up: The Louvre, l'Orangerie, Musee Pompideu, Giverny, and Chartres

To bee or not to bee

I've been a bit obsessed with bees lately. This latest card is made with a piece of a brown paper bag from the grocery torn and pasted to a watercolor card.

Summer Etegami

No more summer breaks for this working girl but I like to take a coffee break every day at 2:30. We have beautiful purple hyacinths outside the windows I pass by on my way to the cafeteria and there are lots of busy bees hovering around this time of year. Those bees inspired this etegami that says I look forward to summer.

Jaa ne

I've been trying to introduce some Japanese words to my 3 year old nephew's vocabulary. Supposedly this is the best time to learn a second language because his baby brain is still developing but he gets pretty upset when I tell him something is a different word so that we have some version of this conversation over and over.

Me: *points at a tree* Ki. Sore wa ki.

Nephew: Noooooo, that's a tree!

Me: Ki.

Nephew: Treeee!

Having two words for the same thing just isn't jiving right now so I decided to just stick with a few phrases. He already knew oishii (delicious) and the next phrase I tried to teach him was jaa ne (see you later). For the longest time I would say jaa ne when they would leave and wave. He always answered back with his name. We couldn't figure it out. It finally dawned on us that he thought I was saying Jenny (I am Aunt Jenny after all) so he said his name.

He's just stopped doing that and was finally saying jaa ne back. Well, really it still sounded like Jenny but it was progress. Until yesterday when Mom said jaa ne as they were leaving and he responded with a confused look, "No you're Nana."

Maybe Japanese lessons need to be put on hold until he gets a better handle on English.

More etegami

Here are my latest etegami. It's a winter series and I wrote in Japanese this time. It's probably not correct Japanese since I'm out of practice but it's my best effort using my dictionary and the internet. I'm sending these to my friend Marie. I sent the first one already and I'll send the last two a few days from now staggered so she gets them at different times.


I just realized my scanner chopped off the bottom of this one but it says "It's getting colder and colder"


"Don't catch a cold!"


"Warm hands and a warm heart."

My latest hobby

Right before I left Japan I got really interested in etegami. It's a kind of Japanese folk art. The word "e" means picture and "tegami" is letter so "etegami" is picture letter. Really they are postcards.

I love postcards. Ever since I was a little girl I have collected post cards. I have hundreds from everywhere I've traveled, some from you here on my flist, and a large selection of old postcards my grandmother gave me when she cleaned out her desk. My favorites are the ones my grandpa sent from Germany when he was stationed there in the 50's. So postcard art is right up my alley.

Etegami has several components. First you ink in the outline. Sumi ink is traditional You hold the brush at the very top. It makes it very hard to draw precisely that way but you end up with what is called a "living line." Second you lay in the color with gansai water colors. Then you add words - a saying or a phrase that goes along with the picture. Then you put your stamp on it. I use the smaller of my two stamps that my calligraphy teacher, Maeda-sensei, made for me.

Finally, and this is the most important part, you give the postcard to someone. A little old lady in Kobe told me "it's not etegami unless you give it away." I love getting mail and I hope the people I send them to like getting mail too. So far it has already prompted a nice long email from my friend still living in Japan.

Below are a few samples of what I've drawn and also ones that Marie painted and sent me before I left Japan this summer. She helped me find a book to bring home and I bought most of the supplies before I left since they are much harder to find here in the States. I did a bunch that were fall and Halloween themed and sent them to friends.





I made this one for the Roommate.


And then I gave her this one the next day.


You and me are like cherries - Marie gave me this one.


Let's go eat delicious sushi - Marie gave me this one.

Larry Travels the World

Many years ago - almost ten now - my sister and I got a Larry the Cucumber for Christmas. I don't remember how soon after we started taking pictures of Larry but it wasn't long before he was all over town. From there it was a very short step to taking him along on vacation and my many trips around the world. Since I've lived in France and then Japan, Larry has had the opportunity to have his picture snapped all over Europe and Asia.

This is the work of nearly 8 years and you can see where at the beginning I didn't have a digital camera (or the ability to get anything focused correctly.) Here are just a sampling. You can see the rest in my Flickr set here.


At the grocery store in town.


In London


In Paris


In Rome


In Sydney


In Beijing


On the Great Wall


In Tokyo


Near Mt. Fuji