The Shy Observer

The past weekend, two friends and myself journey to Amritsar from Dharmasala. With the aid of dramamine, our trio slept through most of the five hour journey. Once there, we saw: the Golden Temple, Pakistan/Indian border, and the Jallianwalla Bagh Massacre Park.

After seeing the temple during the day, we thought our chances of getting into the Golden Temple without waiting too long in the line would be better if we went early in the morning. However, at four in the morning we quickly learned the lines are even longer and uncomfortable. I unfortunately lost part of my digital camera in the baggage, so I have been using my friend's (these pictures are from hers).

Rachel and I at the Jallianwalla Bagh Park

Holding hands in the crowd WEEE

It is strange creating this post at home instead of in Florence. I will be creating another post to successfully conclude my summer travels blog after this one. For now, I hope you enjoy my last tastes of Paris.

The pizza dough defrosting. Unfortunately, I did not get to see K make the pizza dough. However, it made the process of creating the pizza much faster.

Smoothing out the tomato sauce

Second ingredient: mozzarella

Some dried tomatoes and parmesan is added

Out of the oven, deliciously hot and ready to eat!

The pizza had about five seconds of breathing life as a whole pizza before K quickly cut it up and divided it evenly between the three of us.

Dinner and movie! I rarely use flash, but I thought it gives off the theme of it being a movie atmosphere. We watched My Fair Lady which was pretty awesome even though I found out later Audrey Hepburn's singing was dubbed out.

Above is one of my favorite scenes from the movie

On one of my last days in Paris, S took me to the Orsay and Rodin museums, as well as a tiny museum dedicated to Monet's waterlily paintings.

According to S, the man who started this chain restaurant/cafe used to work at McDonald. This probably helped him come up with the idea of affordable yet heathy express food. We got eggplant paninis and apple juice to drink.

Later, K showed me how to make these cookie biscuits which apparently can be stored for a long time.

Crunching up some almonds

Yummy thick cookie dough

Rolling the dough into thick strips

Apparently my exhausted self took a little nap so I missed some of the cookie making process. Here, K is flipping the cookies so both sides are evenly baked.

All done!

K and S took me to a bistro where Obama went to when he was visiting

This was okay. It kept reminding me of an odd mixture of mexican food with the french cuisine. The top was a thick and sour cream like, while the bottom was a variety of vegetables.

K and S's appetizer of leaks. This was the only food item I could not shallow.

S's colorful platter

K's foie gras. Yum?

My happy salmon

And for dessert was this awesome dish called floating islands. K showed me the recipe in his recipe binder, saying it was one of the only recipe he could not repeat. This dessert was simply lovely, the "island" was light and fluffy and was an explosion of heaven delightfulness when dipped into the sauce surrounding it.

Mochi! I mentioned to S and her mother that I love Japanese food, especially mochi. The next day, S whisked me to a Japanese bakery/cafe called Toraya. It was one of the most beautiful and cutest cafes I have seen. I had such a difficult time picking out two pastries, or specifically different kinds of wagashi.

My favorite of the two was this little guy, which was mochi with bean paste in it.

This lovely flower was almost too pretty to eat. I think, now that I am past from eating it, I should've left it alone since it was more prettier than it actually taste. Not that it was bad, just different. Mine had apricot jelly in it, while Soyo and her mother opt for a yokan wagashi without the jelly since apparently theirs was named after S mother's dog.

It would not be fitting to eat these delightful Japanese pastries without some green tea!

Very cool plaza

The French have all these different transportation systems in hopes to get more people to stop using their cars. One of the coolest was this bike systems. Basically, an individual rents a bike for an amounted time and has to put it back into the specific ramps located all over Paris or the bike will lock up. Now that is pretty awesome.