Yay, my first opera in Paris!

When I was young, I had this impression that opera are meant for some old and rich couples who don’t know what to do with their free time. That was until I gave it a go at the Arena di Verona. I saw Aida that fateful summer evening, and I was hooked. Since then, I’ve returned to Arena di Verona a few more times as well as watching operas in Dublin and in Vienna. I’ve seen many of the most popular operas.

Most operas in Paris are nowadays shown at Opéra Bastille; Palais Garnier is more commonly used for ballet performances instead. However, Anne and I found out that Mozart’s last opera – The Clemence of Titus – would be performed here instead, and given the reasonable price that we could find, we snagged two seats for tonight. The arias were well sung, the location opulent and indulgent, the set carefully altered at each scene, and the orchestra played beautifully indeed. It was a very good night out.

If you ever wonder, if someone is spying on you from an abandoned building, then there is probably something there. Maybe not a person per se, but possibly a trompe-l’œil that somone is tracking you from behind a small curtain. I guess this can be spooky at night.

This building on rue de la Glacière is marked for tearing down and rebuilding. Cranes can be seen peeking through the metal barrier put up to prevent public wandering onto a building site. There is an air of neglect, which made this trompe-oeil even more striking. Can you feel the loneliness radiating from this boy behind his hiding place?

There will never a short supply of French pastries in this city but for a change every now and again, foreign(-inspired) pastries are much welcomed too. I, for one, could not resist the durian macaron from Pâtisserie de Choisy, or matcha and azuki bean cake from Sadaharu Aoki. Today, I discovered Russian-accented French pastries.

Café Pouchkine can be found at the ground floor of Le Printemps. The cafe may be small – bar/counter seating for about 10 people? – but the pastry selection is solid and they pack quite a flavour in them too. Only two pastry varieties were tested today, so I will be back to check out some others. Hopefully soon.

Given we still have very sunny spells for now, the last of the flea markets are taking place in a few locales around the city, one of them being Butte aux Cailles. What is normally a quiet and small street – well, more like a lane – was completely jammed today! The photo doesn’t lie.

I have browsed my share of brocantes since I started living here. You know, it is actually common enough for these flea markets to be very busy, but mostly of people browsing rather than buying. It also appears as if the vendors brought everything unwanted from the storage an try to offload them whichever way possible. Let’s just say I am no longer surprised at seeing a rusty old bicycle frame being put on sale. No wheels. No lights. No basket. Just rusty frame. One man’s trash, another man’s treasure ;)

Artists and performers unite. As the sun set, Nuit Blanche will take over the city and transports interested art revellers into new worlds, some more peculiar than others (let’s face it, we don’t all understand every art movement there is), through various parcours that has been designed for the night arts festival.

Even as I walked about the city today, I’m already seeing unusual presence. A bit like, say, the world of Harry Potter colliding with the muggles’. This guy was spotting a pair of hoof-like feet, thus towering over everyone (he must have had 2 feet advantage of me!) and when he walked, you guess it, it sounds like a horse is coming through. He became a faun, all in the name of arts.

First day back in Paris and already have a loooooong to-do list on hand. Happily though, we are having a spell of Indian summer at the moment, so it’s not too big of a shock to be back from Malaysia. Additionally, the presence of sunshine makes me very happy.

So I decided to walk home this evening and on rue de la Glacière, I came across a florist that not only does beautiful flower arrangement, they even put on smart window display by creatively use fruits to transform it into something new. In this case, meet banana-dog. Isn’t he adorable?

Over the years, I have visited a lot of Buddhist temples, perhaps even more churches/cathedrals, a handful few Hindu temples, and peeked into a synagogue once (not properly visited though). I’m only really missing out on visiting a mosque now, no? The one photographed here is only a small one. Regardless, given I am non-muslim, mosque visit is pretty much out of bound.

I should have probably gone to one in Dubai or Abu Dhabi when I was in the UAE last year. Not in Sharjah though (one even was clearly marked at the doors – non-Muslims forbidden to enter). There are a couple of rare ones that are open to everyone that I know of. However, Abu Dhabi was too far from Sharjah where I was based, whereas Dubai has a fixed guided visit time at 10am that simply wouldn’t work when taken into consideration the morning office traffic flow from Sharjah that could see me stuck for 2-3 hours even at 7am departure. One word – eeek!

Ok, I’ve been on temple overload this month and it seems you’re on the receiving end too. Between Sri Lanka and Malaysia, I have seen enough statues of Buddha to last me for a while, and taken enough photos too that while sorting through them, I’m getting confused of which is which! Additionally, in Sri Lanka, a shrine can be found easily even along any main road that one takes, so I couldn’t even tell you where I have seen which. Ooops.

This will be the last among the temple-related photos for now though. I’m heading back to Paris tomorrow, but before that, a visit to our local temple is a must, for a prayer of safe journey for myself and good health for my family. The tiger god is a guardian spirit of the temple and from where I stand, it looks calm yet alert and stern, ready to confer its protection. I feel strangely serene here.

Ipoh is a former tin mining town, surrounded by caves within limestone hills, a number of which are pilgrimage sites for Buddhist devotees and for visiting tourists to the area. Among the most famous are Perak Cave, Sam Po Tong and Kek Lok Tong, each with impressive temple settings as well as scenic views atop the hills.

In the distant, from Kinta City, one of them can clearly be seen, except with my poor orientation and carelessness in not noting exactly where I was looking, I can’t tell you which it is. I can only deduce that since we were in the south of Ipoh, it would be either Sam Po Tong or Kek Lok Tong? Who wants to play guess the cave temple? ;)

Deity worship usually includes praying to idols that are culturally relatable to the community. Afterall, pilgrims need an image they could believe in. For example, for the Chinese community, there’s a perception of the kind of clothes these deities would wear. You certainly won’t find Christ’s style loin-clothes on an idol around here. (Or at least none that I am aware of.)

There are exceptions of course. This particular deity (Zhang Gong Fa Zhu) has its root in Fujian Taoism, and is particularly interesting, because not only it can be found in black, it is also found in depictions of red or green, pending on its intended purposes. This black idol symbolises its role as a saviour and a protector.