iPhone iPariah

I was at Machines the other day looking for anti-glare film. The Sales Assistant Dude (SAD) there was very courteous. He offered to locate it for me. A moment later, he held up a packet with the words “for iPhone 4”, upon which I told him, I have an iPhone 3GS, not an iPhone 4, upon which his demeanour totally changed. He transmogrified from a friendly, helpful SAD to a … He-Bitch.

“Aeuouih,” he said. “We don’t have any of that for the old model.” His voice dripped with snob. Apparently, it was a faux pas of epic proportions that I’d clumped my way into Machines to ask for something that was so frightfully passé. *Gasp*. I was a technological leper. An obstruction to progress. An affront to all that is good, holy and Apple. I was an iPhone iPariah.

The now-snotty SAD gave me a pinched little smirk, then turned away to serve another customer – somebody with a brand new, gleaming iPhone 4 in his hand. SAD gave this customer my anti-glare film. I slinked out of Machines, my head bowed low, my iPhone 3GS naked, exposed to the elements.

So do I want an iPhone 4? Like these hordes of people so desperate to nab one?

Just take a look at this line of people I snapped at KLCC recently. I don’t believe in queuing up for anything, let alone queuing up so that I can part with a wad of hard-earned cash. But wait a minute. Maybe that’s not true. I have queued up for a couple of things lately: paying for stuff at the supermarket (thus, parting with hard-earned cash) and waiting for a table at Chilli’s (which eventually also led to the parting with hard-earned cash). Perhaps I shouldn’t speak so soon.

I’ve always been a slow adapter anyway. Takes me a bit of time to warm up to something new before I develop an affinity for it and gradually, become delirious over it.

Like these dear folks.

Oh well. Whatever it is, thank goodness Maxis set up a clinic right at the scene of the crime. At least they’ll know where to get help. If there’s one thing these people need, it’s some serious therapy.

Good To Be Fat: 25 Reasons Why

Newsflash: my body weight has increased by 12% in the last three months. That’s right. I’m not freaked out. In fact, it’s got me thinking and I’ve come to the conclusion that being tubby isn’t all that bad. There are many advantages to being tubby / chubby / plump / big-boned / fat / whatever. Here are 25 of them:

1. People make way when you’re lumbering towards them. When you’re skinny, they stay where they are and expect you to turn sideways and squeeze through.
2. You perspire more, which means you’re eliminating more toxins than skinny people.
3. You have many layers of blubber and therefore, can withstand cold weather better – great if you plan to migrate to a cold country.
4. You don’t have to worry about becoming some shriveled old prune when you turn 60. You’ll have enough blubber reserve to be what young folks like to call, “A jolly old lady”.
5. Babies like you more.
6. Dogs like you more.
7. Come to think of it, even your grandmother likes you more.
8. If you’re ever stuck on an island with no hope of ever being rescued, you’ll be the first to be killed and eaten – that’s a good thing because that way, at least you’ll be humanely killed by your friends (unless you have very evil friends who hate your guts). Your friends will later be ravaged by the mysterious, monstrous beasts that have been skulking around in the bushes waiting cunningly for their chance to attack and tear the heads off – wait, I’ve been watching too many castaway movies.
9. People think you’re jolly even when you’re scowling.
10.  People assume you’re healthy because of all those nutrients in the mountain loads of food you’ve been scoffing down.
11. You get to buy new clothes!
12. You have an excuse for wheezing your way up the hill; skinny people are frowned upon if they wheeze.
13. You have one extra thing to bitch about.
14. You can make fun of skinny people and accuse them of being anorexic.
15. You can wear shirts that say, “I may be fat but you’re stupid.”
16. You are bigger and therefore, more visually prominent (read: important), than everyone else.
17. Robbers will think twice about kidnapping you.
18. You can sit on people who annoy you.
19. You will actually have boobs and a butt.
20. You have more fun nicknames such as Tubs, Chubs and Pui-Pui, all of which are very, very endearing. Skinny people have nicknames like Skeleton, Matchstick, Beanpole and Praying Mantis.
21. You’re nicer to hug.
22. You can be BB (Big & Beautiful) as opposed to SW (Skinny & Whatever).
23. And if you’re one of those aimless, goal-less individuals who have no idea what to do their lives, being fat automatically gives you a life goal: to lose weight!
24. Your ass doesn’t hurt as bad when you sit for a long time.
25. I’ve run out of reasons and I’m too lazy to change the title of my post

Paris: Room With A View

Every picture I took while up in the Eiffel Tower … hmm, how do I put this delicately? … sucked. Which was shocking because the view was phenomenal, I had a fancy camera and I was looking really good (I usually do when it’s dim). 

But it’s okay because this pic Room With A View by French photographer and artist Sophie Calle says it better than anything I take ever will.

Paris: Ladurée Pattiserie & Tearoom

On our first day in Paris, we don’t have much of a plan. We dump our bags in the hotel and fly out the revolving doors into the avenue of Champs-Élysées. The avenue is perennially jammed (and Parisian drivers aren’t the most genteel, no matter how pretty they sound when they speak).  

With the Arc De Triomphe at its west end, the iconic avenue is one of the most expensive in the world and the most stunning tribute to consumerism (probably sacrilegious to label it as such). It’s 2km long and filled with every luxury designer store and eatery you can think of, and lined by horse chestnut trees clipped into squares – that’s the one of the first things we notice, that the trees in Paris are square.  

 

We’re hungry, so we nip into the prettiest tearoom we see, which just so happens to be Ladurée, Paris’s first and grandest luxury patisserie and tearoom established as far back as 1862. It was one of the first few places in the city where groups of women would meet for tea – that’s saying something back in the 1900s when women weren’t even allowed to go out without male companions.

Image courtesy of www.alifewortheating.com

We step into Ladurée and there’s a round of ooh’s and aah’s – low-hanging lights cast a soft glow over the customers queuing up at the pastry counter. A closer look shows why …

Image courtesy of www.alifewortheating.com

… gorgeous, too pretty to be eaten.

I bet they’re buying them to have them framed up at home.

Anyways, we decide to have a quick bite and soon find out that the most elegant tearoom in Paris doesn’t exactly have the most efficient service. The room is packed to the brim and cramped – think elbow battles and heavy eavesdropping. It takes forever for the waiter to attend to us despite several attempts to attract his attention. Obviously, he doesn’t particularly care that we’re starving to death. Maybe it isn’t terribly fashionable to be starving to death in Paris.

When he finally does come, we discover that he understands no English – not surprising, of course. Luckily, the menu is translated into English (not all restaurants in Paris offer the same benefit) and we have to do a lot of pointing to get our orders across. He doesn’t crack even the faintest smile.

It takes forever for the food to come. The bill takes forever too.

Despite the rather lukewarm first-time experience, we decide to breakfast there the next day after hearing a local wax rapturous about it. Well, it is the most famous patisserie in Paris. Just as everybody knows that the best ice-cream in the city is Berthillon …

… a French luxury ice-cream and sorbet that’s found at every corner …

like here …

… here …

… and here, the best pastries can be found at Ladurée. And since we’d pretty much do anything for a sugar high (including suffering the indignities of being pooh-poohed at by a stony-faced waiter), we decide to give Ladurée another go.

When we arrive the next morning, we are directed to the breakfast area (Stone Face is nowhere to be seen) situated in another section of the tearoom. It’s like entering an underwater world almost … with its soothing shades of celadon and shimmering glass windows. You feel totally cut off from the outside and can easily lose track of time in here if you’re not careful.

 

We order the breakfast set …

… and this glorious slice of cake – I forget the name – with its layers of cream and caramelised biscuit in some sort of cappuccino flavour. It is sinful. And therefore utterly delicious. I fight the urge to order another slice. Instead, we join the line to buy some pastries to go – we get a bunch of stuff plus, of course, what they’re most famous for: macaroons!

Buying macaroons anywhere other than Ladurée when you’re in Paris is considered brutish and sacrilegious. The confection comes in every imaginable flavour – coffee, rose, blackcurrant, caramel, lemon … the list is endless. Our plan is to stuff ourselves silly, then sashay it off. That’s how French women stay skinny, so we figure we’d give it a go too. (The scale proves this method futile – a horrifying fact I discover only two days later and therefore, too late).

Ladurée can also be found in London (we spot it in Harrods), Geneva and Tokyo – definitely worth checking out. Maybe I’ll manage to get better pictures next time round.

Paris: Musée du Louvre

There’s something to be said for planning ahead. I visited the Musée du Louvre without doing a smidgen of research beforehand and paid dearly for it. I mean sure, I knew some things about it – I’m not entirely ignorant all the time, you know – for instance, I know that it is an art museum (one of the biggest and certainly the most visited in the world), it’s most recognised for those two glass pyramid thingamajigs in the compound, it’s really big and houses the most famous painting in the world.

What I didn’t know – which I now do – is that it’s bigger than I’d anticipated, contains about half a million works of art, is divided into eight curatorial departments and spread over multiple floors, is a biatch to navigate (especially for someone like me who can’t read a map to save her grandmother’s life), and contains the most famous painting in the world that is just …

… wait, I’m not going to give everything away just yet. You’ll have to read my whole post to find out – oh stop griping, life isn’t fair and you know it.

So anyways, we go to the Louvre and there’s a line going into the pyramid. We get in and make our way to the ticket counter: entrance fee: €9; multimedia headset: €6. Not having done any research, I’m not aware (come to think of it, I’m not fully awake either) that there are in fact, three entrances to three different wings – Richelieu, Sully and Denon. We wander into Richelieu because it’s the nearest. Headsets on, we bid each other adieu and go our separate ways with an agreement to meet back at the ticket counter in three hours.

I am now going to take a deep breath and stand tall, unashamed to confess that I spend a good half hour (okay, maybe more) trying to understand the multimedia guide. It’s proffering an ear-load of instructions, none of which makes any sense. I don’t see any of the sculptures / paintings / nude people / walkways / whatever it keeps talking about. I’m inspecting the sculptures and can’t find any code to punch into the headset for the English audio explanation. It gets a little frustrating because the only source of information is the placards and they’re all in French. Come to think of it, what does Richelieu mean anyway? (It’s a rhetorical question; don’t answer.)

After what seems like an eternity, I give up and venture into the museum sans multimedia headset tour guide. Because I’m in the Richelieu wing, I find myself in the French sculpture department. Lo and behold, everywhere I turn, I’m blinded by flashing cameras. I remember seeing the ‘No Flash Photography’ signage outside but in here, it’s zoo-like. Even the museum personnel, dressed smartly in uniforms and sitting in their designated corners, look a little resigned, like they’ve given up trying to battle the hordes of bug-eyed tourists scampering all over the place, desperate for that perfect Look-Mom-I’m-At-The-Louvre shot. 

This scene brings to mind another thing that I saw earlier: a ‘No Food’ signage outside. That’s when I spy an elderly American couple sitting on a bench, masticating a croissant, a blasé look on their faces that can only be perfected after having spent sufficient time in Paree.

I really enjoy wandering amidst the French sculptures, marveling at the detailed expressions on every face, the anatomically correct chiseled bodies and of course, the naked chicks – gotta love the naked chicks.

I discover that most of the works don’t have a code, which means they don’t come with English audio explanations, which means you don’t know what you’re looking at because all the placards are in French. With visitors streaming in from all over the world, you’d think they’d at least have the descriptions translated into English. It’s a little frustrating, to say the least, which is why this is one of my favourite paintings.

Sometimes, words are not necessary. Just as music is a universal language, so is nipple-crimping. Haha … this one did have an English explanation though and let me tell you, it is fascinating.

Along the way, I chance upon Napoléon’s Apartments. It’s where the world conqueror used to stay when he was in Paris. Done up in the opulent style fit for an emperor, it is magnifiqué. 

That said, I can’t imagine living in a place like this. I’d be restraining the urge to burst into the first stanzas of All I Ask Of You every time the chandeliers lit up.

I am well into the third hour of my three-hour allotment when I notice the time. Only then does it hit me that I’m still in Richelieu. I haven’t gone anywhere near Denon, haven’t even grazed the surface of the Italian greats – Michelangelo (my personal favourite) … Donatello … Raphael … and of course, Leonardo Da Vinci … which leads me to the Mona Lisa. Yes, it’s cliché but it’s like going to Champs-Élysées and not paying homage to the Louis Vuitton boutique or to Rue Cambon and not snapping a picture of No 31. It’s just something you have to do not necessarily because you want to but because God has ordained it that way.   

And so, obediently, I make my way to Denon (which, in retrospect, is the wing I should have started with in the first place). I walk up the stairs – the stairway to heaven – and see a bunting with the Mona Lisa on it. Oh good. It’s near.

Now, either Parisians are not very good with signages or I’m directionally-challenged because I march down the long, long, long hallway only to get to the end and find that there’s no Mona Lisa. To make a long story short, I wind up asking several museum personnel where the old lady is. Finally, after much walking and asking, I get there.

Can you hear the angels singing? The hallelujah choruses? Can you see the bright light beaming down from heaven? Yeah well, I can’t either because there are …

… way too many people!

And all of them are here to see …

… the Mona Lisa.

Yes, I know. My thoughts exactly. Well, to be precise, two thoughts. The first is, “What? That’s it??!!” followed by, “I’ve seen this picture somewhere before.”

So do her eyes really follow you across the room, you ask? Who knows? She’s too tiny, too far away and too well-protected – the painting is displayed behind a bullet-proof, climate-controlled glass fortress. But who can blame her? For such a venerated work of art, she’s been through more than her fair share of abuse – crazies have stolen her, doused her with acid, thrown rocks at her, sprayed her with red paint and hurled tacky museum souvenirs at her. But yet here, she still stands (or rather, sits). It’s pretty amazing when you do take time to think about it: this is a painting that’s over 500 years old. The same painting that Da Vinci had laboured over for years. The actual one that bears every stroke of his brush, that he had looked at and touched half a millenium ago. Wow. No wonder it’s behind bullet-proof, climate-controlled glass. Hmm, maybe I should take a closer look.

Nope, that’s it – that’s as close as I’m going to get. Look at that guy cam-whoring in front of the Mona Lisa. Hey dude, get a room. Hahaha.

The Louvre is definitely worth a second visit. It’s an incredible museum and if you really want to comb through even a small fraction of its artworks, will take days.

A few points to note though:
1. Plan your route beforehand
2. Wear really comfy shoes
3. Bring in the map and headset (it does help)
4. Bring water and a camera (you don’t want to miss the opportunity to snap your very own Wikipedia-like Mona Lisa shot now, do you?)
5. And keep everything in a knapsack or something so you have your hands free to touch the sculptures and paintings – just kidding. Although I was rather disturbed to see several visitors getting touchy-feely with the nudies.

Paris: The Eiffel Tower

I visited the Eiffel Tower. One day after the bomb scare. What can I say? I like living life on the edge. We wanted to escape the daytime crowd, so we went at night so that we could … join the nighttime crowd.

It’s a short walk from the metro and we get all excited when we see the tower from afar. The 81-storey lattice tower looks like it’s been dipped in pure gold and it erupts into sparks every now and then, making it look as though it were one enormous firecracker.

The tower’s massive size really hits you once you get beneath it and look up.

There’s a long line to get tickets – tickets are 13 € per person to go all the way to the top. You can be jaguh kampong and walk up – it’s only 300 steps to Level 1 and another 300 steps to Level 2 but that’s as far as you’re going to get because after that, all levels are closed to visitors and you gotta take the lift. So we line up to get tickets …

Then we line up to get into the lift …

Then we get off at Level 2 and line up to get into the next lift …

Then we reach the top – the ride up is surprisingly short and my ears don’t pop once. Feels more like a 30-storey ride and not the purported 81. The observation tower is crowded, to put it mildly. It’s narrow and overflowing with eager visitors attempting to capture that perfect Look-Mom-I’m-At-The-Eiffel-Tower shot, which is what we’re trying to do too. Obviously. Needless to say, I’m not about to post that picture here; what I am going to post is a whole lot less embarrassing.

Wow, what a view.  

I’d love to be able to say that we get so caught up in the magic and romance of it all that wild horses couldn’t tear us away but the truth is, it’s cold, it’s crowded, and after a while, you kinda really need to pee. We stay up there for a few more minutes before we decide to leave.

Then we line up to get back into the lift … and we line up to get back into the other lift … well, you get the picture.

Oh, I’m sorry. Was this not the soppy Sleepless-In-Seattle* account you were hoping for?

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

* Of course it wasn’t - that was the Empire State Building. 

Happy Birthday To Me

 

If there’s one wish I have for every birthday of mine, it’s to be somewhere else. I don’t particularly care where – just anywhere but here. Well, this year, my wish came true in spades: I spent my birthday 40,000 feet up in the air, watching Damages, eating grilled fish and trying to think deep thoughts (and failing miserably and then, going back to my fish). A birthday in a plane. You can’t get any more “anywhere-but-here” than this now, can you?

It certainly wasn’t planned; it just happened that way. I can’t help but think that it’s somehow symbolic of how this year has been for me – constantly moving from one point to another, never stopping, never resting, never getting a break. To reiterate what I’ve said in my previous post: I’ve been unsettled, restless, discontented. That seems to be the theme of 2010. I know that as far as birthday posts go, this is a bit of a downer, but I confess that I’m not feeling particularly perky right now – hey, somebody give me an award for being so frank today (I’ll be so shirley tomorrow – hahaha).

God, I’m glad this year is coming to an end soon.