Explorations and Japanese Food

So, I've had a very active weekend exploring more areas of Paris. On Saturday I went to the north side of my "quartier" (neighborhood) to a pretty well-known area called the Passy, which has shopping and lots of cafes and such. Kelsey met me there. I bought a new coat, a long, down one and I must say it was an essential investment. While it's still freezing out, I feel that I can bear it a little more with a better coat. For lunch, we found a really cute Salon du The, which is just another term for a cafe. I had an omelette champignons (mushrooms) and it was so delicious.

After lunch, we decided to go explore Montmartre and visit the Basilique du Sacre Coeur since Kelsey had never seen that area and I hadn't been back since my last (and only previous) Paris trip. Montmartre is a very touristy area but there are still a lot of cute cafes and shops, and it's fun to see where all the artists and writers used to live. We found the building that is supposed to be where Van Gogh once lived. The view from the Butte (hill) Montmartre, where Sacre Coeur rests, is absolutely amazing. You can see all of Paris. It was pretty foggy though so we want to go back on a clearer day.

At the site of Van Gogh's former home.

La Basilique de Sacre Coeur

For dinner, we met up with two other girls from USC in Montparnasse where there is this area with a ton of Japanese restaurants. I was so surprised to see how many Japanese and sushi places there are in Paris! I thought I wouldn't be able to have Japanese food for months so I was eating it so much before I left the States, but no. So last night we went to a Yakitori restaurant and it was so yummy. I had fish yakitori, and I have to say it was kind of comforting to eat Japanese food, made me feel more at home.

After dinner we walked around Montparnasse which is a very hip neighborhood on the Left Bank, next to the Latin Quarter and St. Germain de Pres. We went into a few libraries (bookstores) where I found and bought a Madeleine book in French. It made me very nostalgic. We also went to see the corner on St. Germain with the cafes that used to be popular with Hemingway and other expatriate writers of the 1930s. The cafes are Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots. Today they are actually pretty pricey restaurants, probably because they've become so well known.