My Scribblings Journeys of a mom and wife

After having dinner in Rotterdam, Spawn suggested to go to somewhere for a drink, but another idea came up in my mind. To go to the show: “Disney On Ice”. So we checked our Iphone to see whether we could still order 3 last minute tickets for the show at 19:30 and they acutally had more than enough seats tonight…

One of the promotion picture of the show

The price of the entrance is more than half the price for a day entrance to Disneyland Paris, but this show only lasted for about 1,5 hour and the quality of the show was not so good as what I expected. Spawn fell almost asleep, he probably didn’t find all those princesses so interesting. But what is most important, LiTtLe BeAn did enjoy the show very much!! She saw all her favorite princesses, Tinkerbell, Mickey, Mini and Goofy. She became crazy and was quite excited after watching the show.

And we also bought a nice little princess crown for her. When we put the crown on her head for the first time, you could see that she felt very pretty.

Back from Hong Kong for weeks already. It was the first trip for LB and a tiresome trip for Spawn and me. We first thought we could handle it without bring LB’s trolley. However, we were totally exhausted on the second day of our stay. I was not able to move my head properly and I started to experience pain in my neck up to my left shoulder. Not exactly sure whether it was the overload by carrying LB or the unusual mattress at the hotel that lead to the cause. Whatever it was, we already had an appointment with Dr. Wan for Spawn. While we were there I requested Dr. Wan to have a look at my neck as well.

Dr. Wan Chi Yuen (溫芷婉中醫師) is a Chinese Doctor, I saw her name on one of my favorite forums with a lot of positive comments. Didn’t know what I was thinking, but I wanted to contact her to cure Spawn’s back though I did not even know whether Spawn dared to try this kind of medication. I then tried to call her 1 month upfront to ensure that we could meet her during our stay. However, no appointment was actually made, but she told me to call back when we arrived. Luckily, Dr. did remember us when we called again, since then she gave Spawn treatments every day during our stay in Hong Kong.

As I was not the patient, I sometimes waited in the waiting room, which was quite kind of funny, because you could hear all patients were yelling hard during their treatments. For Spawn’s treatment, I used to go with him into the treatment room and saw how he got treated. Everytime I heard his yelling voice, I had a hard time pretending like I was not laughing.

We actually thought that Spawn’s problem was only his back. When he took off his cloths, the Dr said: vertebra is not totally straight, edema (水腫), tendon (筋) of the neck and legs are shorter than usual, muscle is too tight…etc. (She determined this even without using special equipment(s), but only with her eyes and hands). During the whole treatment she used Chinese medicine, acupuncture, spinal (chiropractic) adjustment, massage and cupping (內服中藥, 針灸, 復位法, 堆拿, 拨罐).

In the beginning we doubted whether the Chinese treatments would really help, but we now truly believe that Spawn got most of his body cured by the Chinese treatments. What I found it amazing is that on overall the body of Spawn got thinner after 2 days of treatments. According to Dr. Wan, his edema is less severe now, therefore he looks a bit thinner. Besides, Spawn’s back is getting better every day since the treatment started.

As mentioned above, due to the pain in my neck, I also underwent a spinal adjustment for the first time in my life. It was scary to hear all the cracking sounds from my body, but I think I love the results of it.

During the whole treatment, it was like going to friends, I am glad that Dr. Wan shared her experiences with me as I love listening and found it wonderful to hear all stories about herbs medication and medication methods. Besides I admire her enthusiasm for helping people. We would surely visit her again when we return back to Hong Kong.

Assistant of Dr. Wan, Dr. Wan and Spawn

Me and Dr. Wan

An attractive Smart Cabrio parked in the street in front of the museum. Haven’t seen this model before. Found it quite cool.

During this trip, we traveled mostly with the metro. Here is one of the metro station, it was quite in chaos!! The cables just hanging around everywhere.

Just passed by a real estate agent and had a look at the house price in Paris. Prices were extremely high. The asking price for  a 88m2 flat is 840 000 euro.

Besides cleanness of my first impression in a metro, we also found how important mobile phones are for the French.

Our sweet memories of anniversary.

— End —

Just after arrival in the opera district, we quickly noticed a 24/7 restaurant. The food was unexpectedly good. The plateau fruits de mer was fresh. I loved my dessert "Crêpes flambées au grand Marnier", and the dessert Spawn ordered was also super delicious.

At a Vietnamese Restaurant in China Town. We got big portion of nice food for little money. 11 euro for a 3 course menu. That is super cheap. I have not seen these kind of prices in the Netherlands.

This time we did not go to my favorite macaron shop, we tried two other shops that are listed in the top 5 of macaron shops: Pierre Hermé and Lenôtre. We both liked the macarons from Pierre Hermé better then the ones from Lenôtre. The structure is slightly heavier but the taste is really nice.

Although the macarons from Pierre Hermé were nicer, the icecream and salmon mouse from Lenôtre were excellent.

We took a plateau the second evening as well, but this time it was not so good as last night. We just filled up our stomach and continued our journey.

Our set lunch

Our last dinner before we left. You could even order marrow at that restaurant ("os à moelle" in French).
 

There is really an incredible amount of good food in Paris. Too bad we just could try out a few restaurants. How can it be that those French girls remain so slim with so much nice food everywhere?!

To be continued…

First thing we saw exiting the metro station "OPERA", we saw this. So beautiful.

Standing at Montmartre with this nice weather, it is really relaxed. There you could come across with a lot of performing artists. Of course they are all performing to earn some money, but some of them are really good.

Montmartre, Sacre-Coeur

Metro: Anvers

Almost mid-night at Arc de Triomphe, everywhere we went there were a lot of people.

Metro: Charles des Gaulle Étoile – Av d’léna

Initially we planned to go upstairs by foot, but in the end, we did not even go up, because the long long queues… Btw, there was something that kept drawing my attention. And that were the "Gendameries", they are so muscular and strong. They are not at all like the Dutch policemen (with big bellies).

Metro: Champ de Mars

At a Sunday morning, there was nothing better than go to the open-market in Paris. Here we could find a lot of pre-process food like grilled chicken, paella,..etc. Besides that, there were sea food stalls all over the market.

Le Marché 11e du dimanche

Metro: Brequet Sabin – Bd Richard Lenoir

Where ever we went, we kept running into street artists and beggars. At a certain moment we felt a bit annoyed by some of the performing beggars. Especially in the metro playing very loud music with their instruments, mics, sound boxes…etc.

Pombidou

Metro: Randuteau

This time we have not been to any museums except for this one: "Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris". In the underground’s corridors to the metro, there are a lot of billboards, but especially one of those billboards drawed Spawn attention, because it mentioned a very famous name in the world of photography "Henri Cartier-Bresson"

One of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s notes displayed in the museum:

Le raportage est une opération progressive de la tête, de l’oeil et du coeur pour exprimer un problem, fixer un événement ou des expressions. Un événement est tellement riche qu’on tourne autour pendant qu’il se developpe. On en cherche la solution. On la trouve parfois en quelques secondes, parfois elle demande des heures ou des jours; il y a pas de solution standard; pas des recette, il faut être prêt comme au tennis.

Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris

Metro: Léna

To be continued…

As 90% of our trips are booked last minute, this trip was no exception and we booked the trip and hotel in the morning and we had to depart in the afternoon. We didn’t plan any activities upfront for this trip since Spawn didn’t want to hurry around. So we agreed that the focus would be on eating and taking it easy.

This time the bus was the only option that we could book so last minute, since Spawn didn’t feel like driving to Paris. Although the bus stops about every 2 hours, so you can take a break and buy some food at the gas station, we bought a lot of snacks before boarding the bus in case I would get hungry, since I don’t like the food at gas stations.

Spawn was sitting in the bus and complaining about the seat. I didn’t have any problem at all, I even found it quite convenient.

After 6 hours + 1,5 hour delay, we finally arrived in Paris. It was almost mid night. My first impression of Paris this time was clean as you can see in the picture below, the cabin of metro was quite clean. It was probably just cleaned. But unfortunately the first impression is not always right.

After arrival, first thing we had to do is check-in in the hotel. The hotel we’d selected this time was suprisingly good. Quite comfortable, clean and is super close to the center of Paris. It took about 2 minutes to walk to Galeries Lafayette. Plus there were a lot of restaurants in the neighborhood, and some of them are open 24/7.

The room we had also includes a tiny balcony. And because of the balcony, it felt quite romantic.

Outside the hotel was quiet. We were satisfied about the overall environment of the hotel. It is often difficult to find a hotel in the center of the capital without too much noise nuisance.

To be continued…

Some days ago, we were complaining about the Korean food in Rotterdam. This lead to invitation to join our Korean friend J. to a tiny Korean restaurant (sort of Eethuis in Dutch).

As J. is the expert, she ordered for everybody. The dish below we liked the most.

The owner of the restaurant taught us how to grill the meat in such a way that it would remain juicy.

I love shrimps! However, I found these a bit too salty.

Some side dishes; which are important in the Korean cuisine.

J. said this is a famous restaurant visited by a lot of Koreans living in the Netherlands. I actually loved it and we also saw Korean fondue, that also seemed delicious to me. We might try it next time.

After that we went to have a drink on a terrace. The weather was nice just like the atmosphere. These kinds of opportunities, like going out with friends and have a chat for whole night long, do not come by often. It was really a wonderful day. G. was so high, however we had to leave earlier then we actually wanted. Hope to see you guys next time soon.

On Thursday afternoon at Scheveningen, a crowded day at the beach. It was above 30 degrees celcius.

Took a seat at Simonis aan zee and tasted its delicious codfish. It was super fresh!

Its mussels stewed with garlic was also quite lekkerrrrrrrrr (=tasty)!