Bordeaux

Bank holiday!! Such a welcoming break. In true Annie military fashion we rose bright and early, took the 730am Eurostar from St Pancras to Paris-Bordeaux. I am so slow! Just realised Eurostar leaves from St Pancras and not from Waterloo anymore, apparently the change happened one year ago ^^;;

The train journey took a good 6 hours to Bordeaux, but given it is summer the night was still young after we checked in at 5pm. First stop was a deserted submarine base near the north west part of Bordeaux. Wondering around the deserted part of the city, we hurdled across many rusted metal baracades, encountered a seemingly contraversially named 'MacDonald's Gym', saw the cutest Pomerian puppy in the world. Walking along side La Garonne, we soon reached Antoine - the best patisserie in Bordeaux which sold canneles, macaroons and other delights. As I gaped at my housemates satisfyingly chomping down the coffee macaroons they purchased, we soon arrived at La Place de la Bourse and Miroire D'eau, a large square with a layer of water overlooking the Pont de Pierre. We splashed and ran in the water in true juvenile fashion till later, before heading for dinner, where yummy foi gras and giant sized scallops awaits..

Second day was a day at the seaside. Early train to Acachon, followed by ferry to Cape Ferret. We deliberately missed the first line of restaurants as we arrived at the Cape, knowing they are more likely to be tourist traps than not. As we head deep into the bay, the number of restaurants became scarce. Mr Mak started to worry that there are no oysters being served in the area until at last, the true definition of heaven decended upon as we encountered a fresh fisherie that sold all types of seafood. We purchased 3 dozen oysters for a mere 15euros and ate on the sandy beach. After spending the afternoon sunbathing we headed towards La Dune de Pyla, Europe's biggest sand dune. It's an amazing formation, and the feeling of pure sand under one's feet; without shells or gritty bits, the feel of coarse and fine at the same time; is a truely interesting sensation to experience.

On the last day we visited St Emilion. UNESCO heritage for its wine and vinyard, as well as hosting Europe's largest monolithic church. The tourist info is a truely useless one, first giving us

incorrect info on an opening of a vineyard, then told us the wrong duration for the underground tour. This caused large grief due to our likelihood of missing the train, and was most comical to see when Yifei literally overid JJ's politeness with the French information centre guy and shouted, 'I want a taxi, and I wanted NOW!!!' St Emilion was the birth place of macaroons, which started from the people staying with St Emilion wanting to earn a living. Unlike the commercialised macaroons, these are made of flour and almond and tastes very different, but very yummy indeed! After sampling the wine of St Emilion, we purchased three bottles of very nice sweet white Sautern wine (if only I could carry more). Annie was in true snappy happy form and took lots of photos of fluffy clouds, vineyards, grapes, wine etc.

La Plagne

Ate so much Foi Gras on hol...

Steak with blueberry sauce - very interesting combination and they complement each other soooo well!
Floatant = meringue + custard
BIGGEST snowflake i'm seen in my life!!
From right to left: Freddie, JJ, Cyn, YM (with angry brow) and a slightly clueless Annie

Highlights of the trip:

- Being catapulted by Fred out of a ski mobile, as he freaked out whilst going down a steep slope and accelerated instataneously from 10 to 80 miles per hour.

- Unlimited source of gorgeous food: steak with blueberry sauce, yum; foi gras, yumm; toasted goat cheese salad yummm!

- Being entered into the wrong class and forced down an off piste on the first day. Completely lost confidence as literally just tumbled down the uncompressed snow. Luckily a pair of good looking French brothers stayed behind with me and made sure that I was able to put my ski back on...maybe I should have just faked death and then they could have carried me haha. It was quite a painful experience actually, having twisted my knee and not being able to ski for a day. Hopefully that is a first and last.

- Playing pictionary and losing badly, vague memories of JJ drawing on my face that eventually made me look like an Amy Winehouse transvestite, and having to scrub my face with sandpaper to remove maxfactor lipfinity doodles off my face.

Les Arcs Ski Trip

So I worked right until 9pm on 23rd December, came home and threw all my ski gears together before going off early on 24th to Les Arcs, France. This is the first time I was not solely responsible in the organisation of the trip, and was able to relax and literally enjoy the ride :D Mr JJ Lew did a splendid job with the holiday logistics and we slowly proceeded towards our ski chalet. It was a very cute apartment at the edge of Les Arcs resort, with a little balcony and cooking facilities on the ground floor and room to sleep5 on the floor above.

As we arrived at 9pm on Xmas eve, we ventured towards town in hope to find an accommodating restaurant for the evening. French food is sooo yummy~~for 15 euros we had a three course meal with melted cheese for starters, tender steak avec le frites for main course, and home made vanilla ice cream-stuffed profiterole with intense chocolate sauce for dessert! Yum yum!! We also had a fondue and raclette feast! For those we are unfamiliar with Raclette, it is basically a piece of top quality cheese placed on a hot plate being melted and eaten..Spectators Yifei and Jimmy to the event both felt uncomfortably full after watching JJ, Fred and Annie battle through the mounts of cheese and consume at least 2kg in one single meal.
fondue mania


Though tempting, we were good and cooked in our apartments for the rest of the week. The supermarket stocked top quality products, despite its location 2000m above sea level it ironically contained fresher materials compared to supermarkets in London where I live. It was back to the student budgeting days as we cooked away every evening, forming a product line making sandwiches for lunch the next day.

Enough about food, the actual skiing part was brilliant too!! Les Arcs is such a beginner friendly resort!! I spend most of my time zooming down blue and red slopes gaining the adrenaline rush by the minute. I think I fell a total of 3 times this week on the slopes~~very confidence boosting :D:D:D My intermediate skiing instructor was sooo cute and young at heart! He taught us how to spin 360 degrees on our skis, how to parallel turn and break effectively in different snow conditions. He also took us on lots of different routes showing us the breath-taking views of the mountain ranges; following off piste rabbit and fox tracks at the spur of the incident~~In terms of information gathering, this has definitely been the most productive week I had during my very limited skiing career!
skiing above the clouds


There’s also a milka cow! He/she dishing chocolate on the ‘milka run’ down the mountains to children! I sighted this purple and white cow on my first day afternoon, having tempted to chase after the cow I got lost in the mountain with no map!! =_=;; Luckily with my very limited French and navigation skills I found my way back to Les Arcs 1800. Everyone else managed to take a photo with the cow except me L Despite my attempt to wait on the milka track for 20 minutes one afternoon pretending to be helpless and hungry~~so unfair!!!
milka cow!


We also visited an ice grotto at the top of the mountain. Despite the resort being packed full of people the grotto itself was eerily quiet. With a circus theme there was ice carvings of clowns, lions jumping through hoops, elephants, seals~~sooo cute :D



It’s been such a welcoming break…now I have to go back to work on Tuesday. I guess it’s all about…work hard and play harder!