At last, I’m blogging the final chapter of my travel log in Paris. Something I should’ve completed 2 months ago.

The City of Love is also the City of Museums. Paris is a city dressed with too many musées and galeries d’art (that’s museums and art galleries btw).
Most travellers who come to Paris tend to only visit the Louvre and see the Monalisa smile, which is a pity really. Because my smile is so much better.

Kidding of course. 😉
With my two travel buddies away doing their girly stuff (eg. getting French manicure, dressing up as French maids, eating French fries, French kissing French guys), I found some free time of my own on to do my nerdy stuff. And that would include visiting art galleries and museums too atas for my own good.

Palais Garnier, the opera house that inspired smash hit musical The Phantom of The Opera, which was like High School Musical to the people back in its day

I highly recommend anyone going to Paris to get the Paris Museum Pass (€30 or RM150 for 2 days). It’ll save a lot of time queueing up at each attraction to purchase tickets. Also, download Rick Steve’s Audioguides before you go. An audioguide is good thing to have, particularly if you’re as clueless and unsophisticated as I am when it comes to all these artsy-fartsy-schmartsy stuff.

The first stop I made was at Musée Rodin (€6 or RM30), the former residence of 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
I’ve never even heard of his name before this trip (see I told ya I’m a kampung boy at heart), but I definitely remember seeing some of his artwork. The most famous one being The Thinker.

The Thinker is such an iconic representation of one man’s intense intellectual activity that replicas of this sculpture can be found in museums and universities all over the world.

Sadly, we have no replica of Rodin’s famous sculpture here in Malaysia, but that’s okay because we have our very own “Thinker”.

There are of course a lot other interesting sculptures to see at the Musée Rodin.

This one is called “The Kiss”.

This one is called “The Walking Man”, although I think it should be more appropriately titled as “The Man Who Lost His Head, His Arms And Pants”.

Blow-up dolls back in those days were kinda ugly.

Travelling musicians on the train from Musée Rodin to my next destination.
I really appreciate buskers like them entertaining the everyday commuter. You can never find people like these on the trains in KL because they’ll be classified by the authorities as “nuisance” and probably be detained under ISA.

My next stop was Musée d’Orsay or The Orsay Museum (€8 or RM40).
The Orsay is the next most impressive museum in Paris, after the Louvre. There’s a mind-boggling array of original 19th century French paintings here, including many famous one’s like Stifler’s Mom Whistler’s Mom.

If you are not sure where you’ve seen this painting before, most people will probably remember it from the Mr Bean movie as this.

This museum is one of those places where an audioguide would come in really handy.
There are so many paintings, and so much going on behind each painting that it would’ve been tough to appreciate them properly without some help.

Painters in the 19th century France were a lot like bloggers in the 21st century.
Like bloggers, every piece of their artwork convey subtle messages through the paintbrush. These paintings are exhibited throughout Europe, and people leave comments that can be positive sometimes, but mostly negative.

van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom. My mom would probably say something like “your 7-year-old nephew could paint better than that!

19th century France was a cruel place for painters. The like-minded artists cliqued together, while the unconventional ones that stood out from the rest were ridiculed simply because they were different.

Like Van Gogh, who shot himself with a gun to his death 9 months after painting this self-portrait.
Poor guy had no friends, no money, and his works weren’t even appreciated until the last few years of his life when he became severely deranged.

Before Van Gogh’s time, the typical style of art was “Idealist”.
A lot of artists at the time made money painting Greek goddesses and angels to near perfection. These things sell because they are pretty, and people at the time do not want to accept anything less than pretty.

An example is this piece, titled The Birth of Venus depicting the Greek goddess sleeping on water with her flawless skin, perfect naked body and pretty angels singing in the sky.
It was hailed as one of the great masterpieces during its time, but later people grew to hate it.

In came Edouard Manet, who attracted a lot of controversy when he painted Luncheon On The Grass.
It was controversial not only because it depicted prostitution in an infamous park in Paris, but the nude girl in the picture wasn’t even painted to look pretty! She even had fats showing in her stomach.

Olympia – showing a prostitute waiting for a client

On top of that, Manet seemed to have rushed his painting so much it looked like a sketch, and didn’t even bother to correct or cover up his mistakes.
But prostitution is something that happened rampantly in Paris during that time, although no one dared to talk about it. When these pieces were exhibited, Manet was whacked left right and centre because it was too real, and too different to the near perfect gods and goddesses people were so used to during that time.

Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette

These are “Realist” paintings that challenged the perfectionists’ “Idealism”.
“Realists” depict everyday life as truthfully as they were, even when sometimes when they may be ugly or taboo. At first people rejected them for being anti-mainstream, but eventually as poverty grew and people became disillusioned, they accepted and even admired these artwork because they so accurately showed that the world is not perfect, that people make mistakes, and that these are the realities of life that everyone has to accept – good, bad and ugly.

Maybe that’s the same why some people prefer reading blogs to newspapers, why some people prefer Xiaxue over Dawn, why movies like Crash won an Oscar, and why Raja Petra is more believable than Najib.
Idealism is a fantasy, and when people’s lives become harder, they are finding it increasingly difficult to remain optimistic.
It doesn’t mean all those idealistic things are impossible. It just means that people nowadays are more ready to accept the reality, as ugly as it may be.

I left Paris feeling as if my IQ just increased by 10%. Up from my original 50.
Paris is an absolutely amazingly romantic city. Four days was way too short to experience all that the City of Love has to offer, but it’s time to say Au Revoir!
As short as our trip was, it was enough to make us realise how gorgeous France is. Given the chance, I’m not gonna hesitate exploring the rest of this great country yet again.
Of course, that’s not gonna happen anytime soon.

Because traveling costs money, and I’m a realist!

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For someone whose first name is “Dawn”, she certainly sees very little of it.

Throughout our trip, our travel partner was rushing for her Uni assignment deadlines half the time.
Some days I’d wake up at 6 for my morning run and that poor girl would still be awake staring at her laptop. Then when I’m ready to go out and do some sightseeing, she’d be in bed fast asleep. I told her about the irony and she joked that she’s called “dawn” because that’s time she goes to bed.

Normally I’m perfectly okay with going sightseeing alone, but I have reasons to be worried in this instance. Les Marais (the place we were staying), apart from being the Jewish enclave in Paris, is also the gay centre of France.

If Notre Dame is the heart of Paris, then Les Marais must be the penis.
Every morning as I walked out to the train station past the cafes, pairs and pairs of gay couples would be sitting together holding hands, looking at the people.
Apparently, Paris is such a romantic city that even men and men fall in love with each other.

When I do meet up with the two girls, it’d be for dinner, after I’m doing with my sightseeing and they’re done with their shopping.
Dawn and I are both big fans of chillout music label Hotel Costes.

They produced a lot of music I listen to regularly, including my favourite holiday song “Sympathique” by Pink Martini, which I’ve used in the Saddam Hussein visiting McDonald’s prank video I did earlier this year.

Hotel Costes is also the name of an actual hotel near the Champs Elysees. We thought it’d be a sin if we travelled all the way to Paris and not visit this legendary hotel.

Even if you’re not a fan of the music label, Hotel Costes is still worth a visit for its opulent French decor and awesome courtyard.
Not to mention their lovely barmaids.

We decided to stay for a drink and enjoy the DJ spinning our favourite lounge music while we’re there, feeling slightly under-dressed among the suits and gowns here.
The atmosphere is so warm and cozy and posh and opulent in here that I almost felt obligated to pay them for the air we breathed.

I knew drinks were gonna be expensive alright. Sport stars and celebrities come to this place. But I truly had no idea how expensive some of the drinks are until Dawn jokingly asked me to order a “King Louis XIII Black Pearl” cognac for fun.

The cost of it?
€14,000.

No shit. That’s RM70,000!
What a ridiculous price to pay, considering it still comes out as piss in the end.

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After spending four days in Paris, we began to get a pretty good idea how to pronounce certain words in French.

View from the top of the Arc du Triomphe

The golden rule of thumb here is that we should never pronounce French words the same way as they’re written in English.

That’s one reason why I will never be able to date a supermodel. I’m most definitely gonna EPIC FAIL when it comes to pronouncing all those difficult French designer names.

You can’t blame me really.

My English teacher never taught me that Louis Vuitton should be pronounced as “LOO WEE VOO TONG”, not “Loo Wiss Vooi Teng”.

Givenchy is pronounced “ZHEE VON SHAY”, not “Give Wen Qi“.

And of course, Yves Saint Laurent is pronounced “EVE SANG LONG”.

Most definitely NOT “Yes, Santa Lao Ren”!

Anyway, we ate at a Chinese dim sum restaurant in Paris one day and to our pleasant surprise, the Chinese immigrants here actually speak very fluent French!

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If those PRCs can speak French, then it shouldn’t be too difficult that a native Chinese speaker like me to speak French too, right?

Translation: “Many commented lesbians baguettes have standards”

I did a bit of reading, and apparently A LOT of French words sound awfully similar in Chinese. Seriously!

Lemme give you a few examples.

“Bonjour” is good morning in French.
In Chinese, it’s ??.

“Bon Soiree” is good evening in French.
In Chinese, it is ??.

“Bon Apetit” is have a nice meal in French.
In Chinese, it is ????.

See? It’s not that difficult to master French after all. If the Chinese can speak it, so can we.

We just have to observe a few rules when we’re speaking the language.

Kenny: How do you pronounce that word? ‘Crime’?
Dawn: No, I think it’s pronounced ‘creamy’.

In general, “ch-“ in French is pronounced as “sh-“, “g-“ in French is pronounced “zh-“, and the “s” at the end of every word is not pronounced at all.

Kinda like French chicks, really.

Their ass at the end also not pronounced at all!

There’s a famous shopping avenue in Paris called Champs Élysées.

For the whole four days we were in Paris, I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce those words.

Among other atrocities, I have pronounced it “Champs Ee Lee See”, “Chomp Eh Lai Sees”, but the worst thing I did was calling it “Cham Ee Leh Sai”, which sounds like some disgusting toilet mixture in Hokkien.

The correct pronounciation of Champs Élysées is actually “SHAM ZAY LEE ZAY”

To give credit where credit is due, it is indeed the most beautiful shopping avenue I have seen anywhere in the world. Bar none.

Many cities around the world have attempted to duplicate the romance, beauty and liveliness of Champs Élysées on their shopping street. Many have failed.

Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur, Orchard Road in Singapore, Nanjing Lu in Shanghai, Swanston Street in Melbourne are all wonderful shoping streets in equally great cities. But none of them even came close to the original and best.

The crown jewel of Champs Élysées is Napoleon’s massive and monolithic Arc du Triomphe.

Another thing equally massive and monolithic on the Champs Élysées is the flagship store of Louis Vuitton.

It is so big, it’s absolutely mind-boggling. We’re talking about a six-storey high building stocking everything LV in the largest Louis Vuitton boutique in the world.

This must be what the tai tais and Datins imagined HEAVEN to look like.

Even more mind-boggling are the prices of the goods inside.

Why the hell would anyone wanna spend 170 Euros (RM850) on a small plastic keychain just because it has the words “Louis Vuitton” on it? It baffles me.

The SAD thing is? Everyone around me were pulling out their credit cards like crazy to buy.

There’s even a freaking queue at the cashier terminal.

It was almost like a supermarket

The even SADDER thing is that I thought Louis Vuitton has some of the ugliest bags in the world.

Hasn’t anyone gotten sick of the ubiquitious brown-coloured LV monogram handbag already? Why would anyone still wanna buy something so overrated and overpriced?

The cheapest handbag I saw in there must be about 600 Euros (RM3,000) and to be honest, it didn’t look any different than a RM150 imitation you could get in Petaling Street.

If you’re a tai tai already living the lifestyle of the rich and famous, surely you can still pull off a fake handbag that costs 5% the price of the original and nobody is gonna question ya.

If you’re an auntie who is so thrifty that you steal the spoons and forks from MAS planes, then even if you’re carrying a real RM3,000 LV bag, people are still gonna think that it’s a fake.

But you wanna know what is the SADDEST thing?

Despite me thinking that LV is ridiculously overrated and overpriced.

I still ended up buying something from there in the end.

Sorry! I couldn’t help being caught up by the excitement and prestige shopping in a Louis Vuitton store in Champs Élysées. After all, it’s not everyday I get to go to Paris.

I bought an LV brown monogram belt. It costs me 250 Euros (RM1,250) but I got 30 Euros (RM150) back after tax refund.

It is the first time I have ever spent money on a Louis Vuitton product. I had bought it as an encouragement for me to complete the 42km Singapore Marathon I’ll be doing in 5 weeks time.

The belt is still in the box and I haven’t opened it yet. My bet for myself is that if I finished the 42km, only then I’ll open the box and wear the it like a champion belt. But if I didn’t finish, then I guess I’ll have to suck it up and give it away as my punishment.

Even if you have no intention of spending any money there, the Louis Vuitton flagship store is still a worthwhile place to explore. It is a tasteful and well done part shop, part exhibition space befitting of such a global luxury brand.

I spotted this photograph book by Hong Kong superstar actor Chow Yun Fatt on display.

This one is from the set of Curse of The Golden Flower.

Never knew Chow Yun Fatt could handle a camera so well. The actor apparently has a habit of taking his SLR camera around on his film sets. The photographs he took was eventually compiled into a book, then commissioned and published by Louis Vuitton.

On my way out from the LV store, I noticed a huge crowd gathering outside Le Lido across the road.

I went over to have a closer look when I realised it was a red carpet premiere of the movie Righteous Kill. Or in French, “La Loi Et L’Ordre”.

And guess who I spotted there?

The Godfather Al Pacino!

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