expiration date 

after a whole week of blue skies and warm days, today the temperature dropped about 10 degrees from the previous day. and it’s supposed to rain, too. so, we finally got a taste of the cold weather…

that’s okay. we were leaving to singapore anyway. thank you god of travelling, for the kind weather while we were here!

after taking a shower and packing up the rest of our stuff, we left to find some gifts and cheese to bring home. surprisingly, there were still plenty of room left in the suitcase.

remember the Love Padlock bridges from two days ago? well, before we left Singapore, Lisa had told us about it and reminded us to bring our own padlock. so right before leaving, we bought a new medium-sized padlock with us. and last night, ari engraved our names on the padlock, by scratching our keys onto the padlock body.

when we’re done, aina insisted that her name should be in there too. so we put aina and snowy on the other side, and she was pleased with that.

so before going for cheese shopping, we stopped by Pont de l’Archevêché, the one that’s closer to our studio, not the wooden one. we looked around for an empty space, since the railing was pretty crowded with locks of all kinds.

some of the padlocks look really cool… like this fishy one

aina wanted to be next to the flowery padlock, so we put ours there… with our name facing front, instead of aina’s and snowy’s… hehe, don’t tell her.

aina took this picture :D

we then walked through the river side of the Notre-Dame. and finally, the scene looks like winter… cold and grey. something that we haven’t seen since we arrived in Europe.

on the way to the cheese shop, we bought some souvenirs in a gift shop right across the park from the studio. when we got to the cheese shop near Maubert metro station, we found an open-air market that just opened right in front of the shop. it turns out that we were at the Marché Maubert, the oldest market of Paris, which only opens every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. how lucky!

so, instead of going to the cheese shop, we went crazy in that market. we hopped from one stall to another, buying all kinds of pate, cheese, mustards and sausages. i was soooo happy with the shopping session today :)

the goods from Marché Mauber

when we’re done food shopping, the plan was to walk around the St. Germain Des Prez. but the weather was getting colder and the wind is blowing harder. since the weather forecast said it was going to rain, and we didn’t bring any umbrellas nor the rain cover for the stroller, we decided to abandon the plan and went back to the studio.

on the way back, we passed Flagrant Délice Restaurant and decided to have Cheese Fondue for lunch. i have had cheese fondue once in my life, which was during my college years. but honestly, it didn’t taste like the one i had in Paris. this one, i guess the real one, was soooo goooooood!

the restaurant crew had to give us examples on how to fondue the right way…

the little restaurant was cute and the coffee was great. but we had to run home right after lunch because it started raining. but of course, the rain was nothing like the rain in Singapore or any tropical countries. it was more like a light drizzle, and aina was like, “what rain?”

but still, it got even colder as it started to rain.

so, we went back to the studio and started packing the goods we just bought. and we finally got to meet Ghislain, the apartment owner. he stopped by to put drop the extra bed for the next guests. i was glad to meet him and was able to tell him in person how much we love the apartment. and he told us that the building is 400 years old. four hundred years old! what a piece of history! we wish we can stay there again on our next visit to Paris.

at 2pm, we left the apartment and took the local RER B (instead of the express one). we had so much time before our flight leaves Paris because we abandoned the plan to walk around St. Germain Des Prez. and we ended up hanging out at the airport for a while…

the flight to Heathrow was quick, and the flight back to Singapore was pretty uneventful, except for its horrible service and bad food. seriously, British Airways… that blonde flight attendant bloke should look for another job that doesn’t involve service.

we arrived home at 9-ish at night, greeted by a very happy koda. she was so happy that she kissed everyone, including aina. and i think, aina must’ve missed koda too, because this time, she allowed koda to kiss her (where usually she would slap koda’s snout if it comes near her face).

home sweet home…

the rest of today’s pictures are in the flickr’s 17 march 2012 archive archive.

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addresses:

Marché Maubert
18 Place Maubert,
75005 Paris, France
only opens on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday

Flagrant Délice
16 Rue St Séverin
75005 Paris
phone: +33 1 46 33 42 52 ‎