*** CROISSANT COUNT: Lost count, dreaming of youtiao.. ***
French Lesson: "Oui" = what the French like to say to fella French speakers;
otherwise it's "Non".
ARCACHON (beach resort): V well fed by En Hui & Vincent, great hosts
and 'tour guides'. Visited Bordeaux, St Émilion
'Château' (meaning vineyard here), didn't get drunk but
learned to appreciate Big Luscious Fresh Delicious
oysters and climbed Arcachon's sand dune - biggest in
Europe.
This felt like home away from home, thanks to
En Hui's great cooking skills, Chinese VCDs, Shaolin
Gongfu (in German?!), lovely cottage & garden, not
forgetting the antics of Boy-Boy, Girl-Girl, Xiao Huang,
Xiao Hei (hint: they hop).
AMBOISE (um-bwa-zih): Wah.. nice river, nice bridge,
nice clouds, nice château (meaning castle here), but
nice UNESCO hostel with die-for location in river
middle won't let me stay 
Filled out by student groups,
no doubt here for 
's inspiring house, Le Clos Lucé 
.
IBM-made life-size models of his sketches abound in
the gardens - prototypes of bicycle, tank, plane, water pump, portable
bridge.. inventor, engineer, architect.. how can one person be
genius at everything? And yah, he painted that little
painting called mona lisa and made one dan brown v
rich.
BLOIS (Blwah!): Château galore in the Loire Valley. Freaking cold.
Château de Blois - refurbished royal rooms. Cold.
Château Chambord - looks like fairytale castle, fascinating double-helix staircase. Cold.
Château de Cheverny - Tin Tin's manor! Colourful decor inside. Cold outside.
Say "Brrr..wah" again.
ST-MALO (pronounced Malu, teehee :) Warm! Beautiful
beaches that stretch forever, blue azure seas,
parachute kites, picturesque houses.
Walked the city
walls and got treated to tea in a sailboat. English
hospitality in France, hm.
MONT ST-MICHEL (just pronounce French way): Startling
triangular architectural 'heap' in the middle of
nowhere surrounded by sea in high tide, and otherwise
all flat plains of sand, sea, quicksand.
English-speaking tour at last! Free too. Fascinating
to hear how the Romanesque, then Gothic architecture came
about, no joke building this abbey amidst the shifting sands,
winds, waters, saint-ordained or not.
BAYEUX (bay-you): Beautiful Cathédrale Notre Dame. Awesome
Bayeux Tapestry chronicling in embroidered pics over 70m, how England's Harrold
falleth and how France's William became The Conqueror of
England & France in 1066. Strictly French Norman version.
Visited D-day beaches from here, site of the Allied landings codenamed Operation Overlord on 6 June 1944 during WWII. German artillery wreckage remains at
Pointe du Hoc & Longues-sur-Mer. Bloody Omaha Beach
still got people go swimming?! The American Military Cemetery looked just like
in Saving Private Ryan, white crosses & Stars of David facing
west towards US.
You know D-day is coming when you see
lotsa american ah peks decked out in army gear riding
in jeeps, 'too young' to be veterans and too pot-bellied
to be real soldiers.
ROUEN (impronounceable): Monet's fave Cathédrale Notre Dame looked so-so,
esp when under restoration works. Learned not to take
short cuts here or you'd wind up v lost in the
half-timbered building streets.
GIVERNY (not Givenchy): Forget the pretenders'
Musée Américain and head for the real thing,
Claude Monet's house & gardens, or rather the long queue to it. Ate my
lunch in hot sun, finished my Adrian Mole book,
drooled at nearby ice-cream van, and ooh, finally
herded in!
The manor's ok but the garden's amazing, so
many kinds of flowers juxtaposed together. And the
water lily garden simply takes one's breath away.
Crowds notwithstanding.
Got me ice-cream (even ice-cream van got
queue now!), went for a hike in the hills,
came back, and with
everything else closing, people were still queuing to get in for a
peek at the most beautiful garden in the world.
Period.
PARIS again: Went to Chartres' (what else but another) Cathédrale Notre Dame
,
only limited look at the
famed tainted glass windows 
though
cos pilgrimage going on.
Finally found The Truth of Da Vinci Code at Louvre's shopping
mall
. Cool.
Galeries Lafayette 
lured me in with a free tote bag
voucher, minimum 30 euros purchase. Trouble is,
everything's 3 figures, too cheap leh!
So I showed
remarkable restraint window-shopping instead 
.
* Love it, hate it, but Paris always looks chic.
CONCLUSION: Lonely Planet is right. France IS lovely country, apart from the
French. Next time a French asks me if I parle
français, or even anglais, me gonna go "Non" and give
blank look. Au Revoir!
27May~6Jun 06
