Paris: Bicycle

It's Friday, so here's a bicycle shot or two and a lovely green mosaic wall on the Rue de Rosiers.

It's a long weekend for us here in Toronto; Monday is "Family Day".
It's also Presidents' Day, for those of you in the States, so have a GREAT LONG WEEKEND!

Hawaii: Kaua'i: Hanalei Valley

There were so many gorgeous views whilst driving around the island of Kaua'i.

Here, the Hanalei Valley lookout point of the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge.

Feathers and scales

Just saw Gnomeo and Juliet, a very cute film that some of my friends worked on (so go see it!), and the plastic pink flamingo reminded me of some of the beautiful birds and fish in Hawaii.

The flamingos were on our Oahu resort; we saw them 3 years ago and were just as smitten this time. They're so gorgeous!

There was a huge koi pond at our resort on Kauai; they even had a morning feed time you could participate in. The adorable parrot was also on Kauai; he loved posing for photos!

Paris: Macarons

So, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE told us to visit Ladurée in Paris for their famous macarons! We found a little kiosk at the  Printemps department store. I was surprised that the lady didn't allow us to take any photographs of it, though.  Also, we decided to save them to eat in the Jardin du Luxembourg, but by then, they were smushed.  We liked the pistachio best. A couple of them tasted like soap. I wish everyone had told us which ones to order.

SNOW DAY!

Today's a SNOW DAY for some (not for me). These were taken last month, but by the looks of it today, we may have this beat!

Waterproof

The Canon PowerShot D10 waterproof camera was the best camera on this trip. It takes amazing under (and above) water pics and is sturdy enough for on-the-beach-type roughhousing.

Hanapepe Village

Meaning "Crushed Bay", this little town was quite littery crushed during the hurricane of '92.  On the South shore of Kaui'i, the town was started by Chinese rice farmers in the 1800s and mostly associated with bar brawls.  Films such as The Thorn Birds and Jurassic Park were filmed in the village or in the nearby Hanapepe Valley.  The Hanapepe Swinging Bridge is one of the tourist attractions of the village (rebulit after '92), but the town appears to be mostly deserted now, save for a few art galleries and gift shops.

When we arrived there on Dec 26, everything was still closed for Christmas. It seemed like  a ghost town.

Red Earth

It rained quite a bit while we were in Hawaii.

We rented a Jeep and drove around Kaua'i on a couple of those overcast days.

One of the stops?

Waimea Canyon!

Before we get there, though, let me show you the gorgeous iron rich red earth that Kaua'i is made up of.

Waimea means red water (wai = fresh water, mea = red) which floods the canyon after it rains heavily.

The red soil was very evident along our way. Our running shoes are still stained with the stuff. In fact, after the hurricane of '92, t-shirts from one t-shirt printing store flew into the red dirt and permanently dyed them red. Now, Red Dirt T-shirts can be purchased on the island.  We got ones with the roosters on them ;)

Okay, on to the photos!

Rooster I

Okay, can I just tell you about the ROOSTERS on Kauai?  The island is infested with them!  I use the word "infested" loosely because I totally fell in love with these guys, so much so that I haven't eaten chicken, since.

The history behind it, is that chickens, wild chickens and fighting cocks were brought to the island by early settlers and after the hurricane of '92, the distruction of the coops set the chickens free to roam the island.  They have since multiplied making them the Kings of the Roads (we even got t-shirts that say that) as there are no natural predators after them.

I miss the cock-a-doodling in the morning (and sometimes during the day and evening)!

Flash

Then it was off to see the Eiffel Tower at night! We had a reservation (which we booked online at the hotel) for 9:30pm. We still only got into the elevator past 10pm though, since the reservation line-up was long (certainly not as long as it would have been had we not made reservations)!

Needless to say, it was spectacular, particularly when the lights began to flash and dance.

Lil’ Ol’ Ladies

As seen along the Seine and in the Latin Quarter.

I can't believe how doubled over that lil' lady is!

Notre Dame

How could we have missed going to see this magnificent cathedral? We were too late for the tour, but it was still magical.

Kebabs and Petals

As we were walking around the Latin Quarter, we noticed many touristy restaurants, none of which looked that appealing.








THEN, we saw Amorino!
The famous gelato joint which was one of the must-dos on my list!

The line-up was huge, but the wait wasn't long until we had our very own giant cone with as many flavours as we wanted (that's right, as.many.flavours.as.you.want) arranged beautifully into a flower.

Ah.maz.ing.

Yellow + Scooter

= WIN

Bridges and Museums

Then it was a walk along the Seine and towards the Musée d'Orsay, which was simply gorgeous. No photography allowed, however :(