Centre Georges Pompidou

The once controversial Centre Georges Pompidou is the home of the modern art museum in Paris. The building is basically built inside out with all the typical 'innards' of the building put on the outside.

Centre George Pompidou

The temporary exhibit we saw today was Alexander Calder . We had never heard of him, (not surprising since we are not fully tapped into the art scene). So off we went to see what it was all about. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures inside the Calder exhibit, and maybe that was a good idea as I don't think that photos can to justice to some of his work. Calder basically pioneered the use of wire as a medium to make art in addition to many other abstract and experimental art. Seems trivial today, but I guess that is the point of being a famous artist. No one did it until you came along! He also used in engineering background in his moving art pieces.

Many of his pieces of work are found on the foundations web site www.calder.org/home and on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Calder

They were also setting up for the Kadansky exhibition starting on April 8, so we will have to return to see that.


The rest of the museum is the permanent collection or painting and art. A few selected pictures are here.

Glass blocks, circa 1920's!

Jean Prouve, bicycle frame, 1941

More pictures on our photo page: picasaweb.google.com/dkspence76

Marche de la Bastille

Just a short post today!

Off we went on Sunday morning to the largest open air marche in Paris at la Bastille. Some guide books comment on the decline of the market activity in Paris, due to the prevalence of more ready made food, however today Marche de la Bastille was full of people, young and old, and it was a cold and cloudy day.

You can find all types of fresh produce, meats, cheeses and seafood. It's pretty self explanatory really. In addition there are other stands selling clothes, scarfs and kitchen wares but the food is the main attraction.

Parc Monceau - 17ieme arrondissement

Sunday's adventure consisted of heading to the upscale 8th and 17th arrondissement. Located just north of the Champs Elysees and east of the Arc de Triomphe is where you will find the Parc Monceau. The park is quite small by most standards, however Parisiennes definitely don't miss an opportunity to head to the park, especially on a sunny day in March with the temperature around 15 degrees. The 17th arrondissement is split into a working class area, and an upscale area near the park. In the upper scale area, the streets are definitely quieter, larger and don't have nearly the number of store fronts as in some of the other areas of Paris. Most of the ground floor establishments are finance, doctors, lawyers offices. Needless to say a good assortment of BMW, Audi's, Benz's and the usual fare of nice cars!

Parc Monceau is like most other Parisienne parks: gravel walking areas and no walking on the grass - at least until April at Monceau. There is a circular gravel path around the park that was simply a carousel of joggers and runners. There isn't a lot of green space in Paris, so runners and joggers are exiled to the few parks there are.

As you can imagine, the apartments overlooking Monceau are incredible. I can only imagine what they are like inside. I guess the closest analogy would be the apartments surrounding Central Park in NYC.

We also had our first visitors today! John and Megan arrived and we met up with them in the afternoon. We walked from the Arc de Triomphe to Notre Dame, and couldn't resist stopping for an afternoon sugar rush: crepes au chocolat!

more pictures in the web album

Entrance to Parc Monceau

I think I could handle living here!



Mmmm - Crepes au chocolat

Chinatown / Asiatown in Paris

Today Kim and I were feeling a bit homesick so what better way to cure that, when you are from Vancouver, then to go to your local Chinatown/Asiatown in which ever city you live in.

Considering the massive supermarkets in Paris barely have any asian food (1 size and type of soy sauce for Budda's sake!), you have to venture into Chinatown for all that you need to satisfy you asian palate. Also considering the population of China is over a billion it's really not surprising that a few got out and established Chinatown's in major centres (well i guess there is the fact that at least in Vancouver they were basically stolen away to build the railroad, but i digress).

So off we went, taking the Metro to Place d'Italie in the 13ieme arrondissement and walking south on Ave de Choisy. Unlike the Chinatown's I've been to in Vancouver, San Francisco and New York, the Paris version just sort of creeps up on you. It basically starts with the restaurant Le Kok and then a few more stores and restaurants appear. No big entrance gate with lions or dragons, temples or even buildings with the Chinese architecture that you would expect. All the stores and restaurants are on the ground level of your typically French buildings, or even worse, in stark, grey and dull 1960's high rise apartment buildings. Unfortunately these buildings are more common the further out you go from the centre of Paris. To save your eyes I didn't take any pictures.


Tang Freres: The Parisian version of TNT supermarket - but a bit smaller. Once we move into the centre of Paris, this will be our Asian shopping destination for sure. They have almost everything you need!



Of course no trip to Chinatown/Asiatown would be complete without eating. Luckily we passed a nice looking restaurant on our way in and made a note of it that we could eat there on our way back. Considering that Chinatown is only about 3 by 3 city blocks, we were back at the start quite quickly. One thing we definitely noticed is the Vietnamese influence as well. Considering France's history in Vietnam this isn't surprising at all. We also noticed what appeared to be a few high end / trendy / modern restaurants, so we'll have to try those later. Basically all the other restaurants in Asiatown are what you'd expect. A good variety of Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese restaurants, all reasonably priced and packed full on a Saturday afternoon.

So, back to the start of our little sojourn and to the Mondol Kiri Cambodian restaurant. I can honestly say that this was some of the best Asian food I've had, and I've had a lot. Hopefully this wasn't just my palate hungry to eat anything Asian kicking in! This place was great, and we will definitely return, with a larger group so that we can try more of their menu.



More picture in our Picasa web album

2009 Salon d'Agriculture - Food and Agriculture Show

We have safely arrived in Paris and are settling in to our new home. We are staying with friends ~40 mins by train/metro to the heart of Paris for now, until we find our own place in a few months.

This weekend was the last weekend of the largest trade show in France - no it's not the trade show for strikers, protesters and car burners, but the Food and Agriculture show. We didn't know what to expect but, in the end it was great: Everything to do with food and agriculture. Everything from equipment, livestock, animal competitions (i saw a nice brown rabbit that scored 95.5/100), to food (lots of sausages and cheese nonetheless), wine, banking and insurance for the food and ag industry, tourism, clothing, absolutely anything and everything you could possibly think of that had to do with animals, food and farming. Unfortunately it was the last of the 10 day show so it was absolutely packed with people. As you can imagine people living in Paris don't get to see the farm life too often! We went in the afternoon which made it even worse!

A few sample pics are here, with more posted on our photo site:

www.picasaweb.google.com/dkspence76

des Charcuteries et des saucisons secs (cured meats)

the prettiest duck i've ever seen

very ancient breed of work horse

Palais de Versailles

Looking out from the Palais de Versailles

Yes, I'm trying to save my pennies so that I can have a garden like this when I build our house!

Paris - Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame

Dave admiring the view of the Seine from the Eiffel tower