Frugal Bastard

Big sleep in this morning. Around 10 am before we got going. Headed to Montmartre to visit shops and the Sacre Coeur. The basilica was beautiful inside, but modern, so not a classic beauty. No photos allowed inside but that didn't stop too many people so I thought I'd take one myself. Heaps of souvenir shops and the crepes were pretty crap too. Settled on one souvenir shop with good prices and made our purchase. Going down the hill we found Pain Pain which won milleau of 2012 in Paris - must be an award for best baker. Bought a prize-winning baguette, a chocolate eclair and a croissant aux amondes. Lovely food. Then we found some cheaper souvenir shops - dammit. Lots of shops are run by Indians so English was no problem.

Steps leading up to Sacre Coeur at Montmartre

Overlooking Montmartre

Sacré-Cœur

Inside

Love this gargoyle

Difficult time of day to take a shot of the basilica

Streets of Montmartre

Took the metro to Saint Denis to visit the Basilica of Saint Denis. As it was under reconstructino there was a discounted entry to the royal burial chamber and crypt. The tombs of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were spectacular.

Ventured to some street markets. Fruit and veg were so much cheaper than our local greengrocer. We felt safer in a crowd of Negros and Arabs than at the tourist attractions where we'd always been very mindful of our belongings. It was obvious that we were tourists as every time we passed a fake La Coste shirt seller they approached me. So busy too. Long trip back by metro to Cluny La Sorbonne and the five minute walk home. Miky cooked gnocci and some meat we'd purchased. Such delicious food. After dinner she went out for a coffee.

Dirty streets around St Denis

The dirty streets are cleaned up quite quickly

Inside the basilica at Saint Denis

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

The missus and Marie Antoinette

The crypt

At 9 pm I journeyed to the Champ de Mars to view the Bastille Day fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. Arrived at 9;35 with no hassles but no grass left to sit on that had a full view of the tower. Settled for the top half view in a standing spot as thought that the wait would only be for 15 minutes. Beautiful symphony orchestra playing classical composers' music to the masses.

Crowd building for Bastille Day fireworks at Champ de Mars

Lights on

The tricolour

Fireworks started at 11 pm - when it was actually quite dark. I must say that the French do an extremely nice fireworks display. No cringeworthy songs playing during the show. After 37 minutes of fireworks it was time to brave the crowds using the metro to go home. The streets outside were mad with pedestrians mixing with impatient motorbike riders and car drivers. If ever there was an evacuation of Paris required they'd never manage it.

Fireworks on the Eiffel Tower

More fireworks

Yet more fireworks

Stood outside the train station for nearly 50 minutes before being able to get inside. The crowd was crushing at times and people were yelling out to stop pushing and that infants were being crushed. Bit stupid that the metro wasn't free.

Missed the first train as it was full. Got the next one OK. When we reached a full station there was a groan from the passengers but a cheer at a practically empty station.

Reached my train station at 12:54 am only to find that the last train had run. Thank goodness I had a street map with me or I'd never have made it home the two stations that I needed to walked (went in opposite direction to home initially). Arrived home at 1:30 am. Great experience.

The crowd waiting to use the metro. Forty minutes wait from here just to enter the station.

Packed in like sardines

Had a pretty decent Australia Day this year. There were lamb chops for lunch, cricket on the telly, played cricket in the park and watched the fireworks down by the Swan River. All in all a good day.

P.S. Forgot to mention that I had to call the fire brigade because there was a fire just down the road.


Australia Day fireworks (Lotto Skyshow) on Swan River, Perth

I took The Boy to the Canning Show last night. The Perth Royal Show is quite expensive, parking is difficult, it's crowded as it's held during the school holidays and we've been a couple of times already. Something different required this year.

Was a little bit surprised to see people leaving as we entered only one and a half hours after it had opened for the evening. Later on I realised why. We had to stretch out our activities for two and a half hours to see the fireworks. The scale of the Canning Show is much smaller than the Perth Royal Show. Budget was still the same for the number of rides to go on and sideshow alley games to play. We had a look at pretty much every exhibition on display and it wasn't a bad evenings entertainment.

Clothing prize winners

Cooking prize winner

Decorated Cake prize winner

Floral Art prize winner

Flower disappointed with second place

Flowers on display

Sewing, Knitting, Crocheting, Toys & Dolls prize winners

Sideshow Alley

Rides that we went on were Nitro (both), dodgem cars (both) and Super Nova (The Boy). Nitro was great, dodgem cars were good fun (managed to smash each other up a bit) and Super Nova was a "you must ride this" attraction. I guess the most eagerly anticipated item, apart from the fireworks, was the fairy floss. Actually, I don't think that The Boy has ever eaten it previously.

Nitro

Nitro at night time

The Boy on Super Nova

Super Nova in action

Super Nova up high

Dodgem cars in action

Fast action on the dodgem cars

Fireworks

Fairy floss aftermath

Nitro ride at Canning Show


Dodgem cars at Canning Show


Super Nova ride at the Canning Show


Fireworks at Canning Show

I think the Chinese history book has been rewritten. Apparently China is celebrating being China for a grand total of 60 years on October 1st 2009. Excuse me? Sixty years old? What happened to the "5,000 years of history" we've all grown up on? Didn't China invent fireworks? Wikipedia says that fireworks were invented by the Chinese in the 12th Century. I have an inkling that the 12th Century was a tad more than 60 years ago.

Wikipedia goes on to say that papermaking was invented in China in the 2nd Century. Last calculation indicates that paper has been around for more than 60 years.

Wikipedia talks about the Four Great Inventions of ancient China. These include the compass from the 4th Century BC, gunpowder from the 9th Century, (aforementioned) papermaking and printing which is known prior to 220 AD (or CE if you wish to be secular about it).

Wikipedia has an article on Ancient China. Yes, I know we Generation Xers think that it's very funny to poke fun at Baby Boombers and the like as being "ancient" but surely 60 years can't be considered as ancient.

Don't let the communists pull the wool over your eyes people. It's just a load of propaganda. China is at least 100 years old. Now that should be considered ancient. Perhaps some of the people involved in writing Japan's history books were involved in the rewriting of China's history or maybe something just got lost in translation.

2009 couldn't have come any quicker, could it? Hopefully it will see a huge turnaround in our fortunes. Or half-fortunes for those who invest in the stockmarket. Whilst we had a quiet Christmas we had a loud New Years.

The plan was to head to Dome Cafe in Northbridge for a meal, listen to some music as there were three stages set up and watch the Gloucester Park fireworks from Burswood Casino. We arrived at Dome, which The Boy had been looking forward to taking his aunty visiting from Korea to, sat down, chose from the menu and then were told when I went to order that the kitchen was closed. Closed?! The time was 8pm. On one of the biggest nights of the year?!

I popped down to the Diamond Chinese Restaurant nearby, another Northbridge eatery that we like, only to find that it was closed for renovations. Strike two. Ended up eating at the Dragon Seafood Chinese Restaurant on James Street. They are famous for their steamboat, which most people were having, but we wanted to order from the menu. Can't say that their photos in the menu look too appetising as they do mainland Chinese style and that doesn't appeal to us too much. We chose salt and pepper squid, king prawns in garlic butter, vegetarian delight (bit of an oxymoron I reckon - what on earth is delightful about vegetarian?) and special seafood fried rice. After some 25 minutes of waiting we decided to ask how long our meal was going to be. The waitress didn't want to help and said that some of the wait staff were helping in the kitchen because it was so busy. We finally convinced her to ask how long our meal would be and then she ended up bringing the first couple of plates back. Man, the food was worth the wait. It was very good.

Following that we headed to Icey Ice for shaved ice cream with all sorts of toppings and drinks. It was full of young Asians out enjoying themselves, as was much of Northbridge. Well, I guess it is our version of Chinatown so what else do you expect? By this stage it was 10pm and there were several drunk/stoned idiots heading towards Northbridge. We sat and watched music videos and read Japanese fashion magazines for about an hour and then watched the Jazz band set up at the end of Lake Street. They were very entertaining and were quite enjoyed by all the people watching.

New Years Eve 2008 - Northbridge is alive.

Northbridge is well and truly alive.

Jazz Band.

Jazz Band doing their stuff.


At about 20 to 12 we made our way towards Burswood and the fireworks from Gloucester Park started about a quarter of an hour out from the New Year starting. So we viewed them whilst driving over the Windan Bridge and managed to find a place to jump out from the car to see the end of the fireworks. Mind you, I was still in the car driving around the car park when the fireworks finished but didn't miss it. The Boy was asleep in the backseat though although he had seen the majority of them.

It was a good night out.

Last night was bulgogi night. I know what you're thinking, it's wasn't Sunday so old Frugal has flipped. Well, instead of going out for lunch on Sunday we decided to go, by all accounts, the best pasta restaurant in Perth, Spaghi. They don't accept bookings so you need to queue. Luckily we went straight in. They may be the best pasta restaurant in Perth but I don't think much of paying $19 for lasagne and not receiving any garnish. Just a big lump of lasagne, not all that big either, and nothing else? You must be kidding me. Miky's chicken and pasta was very nice however.

Anyway, back to the story. I was cooking the bulgogi in our electric frypan when there came about more fireworks than at the Beijing Olympics. The extension cable exploded. Twice. That was pretty interesting. I switched it off and disconnected it before feeling the cable. It was pretty warm in one spot and that's when I discovered a blackened hole. Closer inspection revealed a short between active and neutral. Amazingly the fuse didn't blow. I was able to plug in a heavy duty extension cable and continue cooking. Hmm, that cable was very old and only light duty. Luckily nobody was hurt. It's now in the bin after cutting the leads off.

Exploding extension cable