J'aime Paris

The flight to Paris started off wrong. I wanted desperately to kiss someone goodbye but I was too timid to. I will forever regret this. Lugging around my luggage in Tokyo reminded me of the grandness of having a boyfriend to carry your stuff. Fuck feminism, guys are definitely the stronger species and all I could think about that time was how I needed one. Someone suggested that I leave behind all my underwear to lighten my load. I thought the idea was brilliant at that time. Imagine if I was silly enough to follow the suggestion, I would have returned to Japan chafed! I had problems with my credit card so I had to call home and ask them to wire me some money in Paris. When I got to the airport the post was already closed, so I braved a new world with only 50 euros in my wallet. Surprisingly, there were some nice guys in the airport who gave me a map of the Metro so I could get to the hostel that I booked online. The first thing I noticed about Paris were the graffiti on the side of the railroad, they were a welcome sight after Tokyo's eerie, antiseptic look. I started imagining the young girls and boys who painted them, free and ready to make mistakes. I saw musicians playing at the Metro who reminded me of home. In that instant, I fell in love with Paris. People were affectionate, I saw parents who held their kids' hands, couples kissed everywhere. I thought, people should be having great sex in this lovely city! After all they invented the menage de trois. I stayed in the Latin Quarter, my metro stop was Place Mange. It was already 10 at night when I arrived at the quarter yet it was still bright outside. By this time I was so tired from the flight that I was dragging around my luggage like an old woman with osteoporosis. I was going up this flight of stairs thinking to myself that I don't want to die just yet, I have so many places to see and people to listen to. There were two young French boys on their way down, who saw my bedraggled state and said something to me in French. I did not understand a word and thought "please don't hit on me, not when I desperately need a shower and besides I may look like I'm 19 but I'm really a 60 year old weary soul trapped in this delicately beautiful body." They gave me a frustrated look, grabbed my luggage and started carrying it to the top of the stairs. I was so moved by their sweetness, I got all tongue tied and forgot how to say thank you in French. And here I am all along thinking that I am a good judge of character. Then a realization hit me, people are too complex that judgement is futile. From then on I vowed that I will never judge people again, just separate those I like from those I detest. Like the Canadian hags I was unlucky rooming with. I don't understand why girls paint their faces and dress in skimpy clothing to attract men. I actually like to give men credit, some of them are smart enough to see through the cosmetics and many of them have impressive imagination. The mental exercise of undressing women will do their brains good. I slept through the sound of girls plotting their sexual conquest for the night. My last thought was, even though the world could really do away with hags like you, I still urge you to use protection. The next day, I went to the post to get the money my folks wired me. I saw kids on their way to school and wondered whatever happened to the boy I used to walk with in grade school. He used to tell me I'm going to grow up pretty, such foresight.

First thing I hit, the Louvre. I always loved museums! And the Louvre is the grand archon of museums. I could have stayed there forever! There was one cute guard who I could have married, we would have cute, little French tykes, little Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, little Cupid and Psyche running wild and free amongst the lovely paintings, sculptures and other brilliant madness that is art. Our kids will already be married and living in distant foreign places and we still have not seen the entirety of the Louvre. I went to the Triumphe de Arc and walked the streets of Champs Elysee. The strange faces and even the stranger language made me long for home. I called my family and told them how lovely Paris was and how lovelier it would have been if they there walking with me. My sisters would love sitting at one of the tables in the street, checking out the well-dressed Parisian men walking by. I checked out the Eiffel Tower which supposedly was very romantic. I don't understand how could that place be romantic! There were noisy tourists in long queues everywhere. I was surprised by how huge a structure it was. I liked looking at the city of Paris from high and as what I always do when I'm looking at the world below, I let out a silent scream of "hello there! how's life treating you?". I like navigating through the metro and I noticed how the French people can be like the Filipinos, always laughing. The train was stranded for awhile but someone managed to yell out something funny amids the crowded train. Well, I assumed it was funny, everyone who understood French laughed. The trip to the catacombes was memorable. It was like walking through the horror room in grade school, but this time there are no people pretending to be ghosts, only bones of the dead and the ghosts of the past. I got scared walking alone in the middle of a long tunnel so I stayed there and waited for other tourists to come by. There was a couple from Japan who kept saying "sugui, sugui" the entire time. I walked with them, I figure it was better to be irritated than scared. There was one skull that particularly drew my attention, I imagined it to be of a 16th century Parisian bourgeoisie. She was a very religious, lovely lady who was forced into a loveless marriage. She bore her doctor husband three children. She never experienced passion. Her life was like a rosary, beaded days of service to her family, penance and nostalgia for happiness she could never grasp. And her she was centuries later, trapped in this cold underground world. Hundreds of tourists would stare at her everyday.

I visited Jim Morrison's graveyard to thank him personally for sharing his music to the world. I was in awe of the Notre Dame and I loved the small stores along the river Seine. They were selling old books and records in French. I imagined it would be romantic walking there with a loved one, some cold winter night. Well not as romantic walking on the abandoned highway of Urasa in autumn. And lastly, Montmarte, my favorite place in Paris. I love the flea markets and the restaurants. I was intrigued by the sex shops that lined the streets. I wanted to enter one but they were those guys who linger outside. They would look at me with their eyes saying "oh let's corrupt this innocent looking Asian girl with our sex merchandise and introduce her to our little hedonistic world!" Excusez-moi, I watch American TV, read voraciously and made friends with some perverts, I have been corrupted many times over.

I left Paris with memories of cute French boys in their motorcycles, dainty French girls and their impeccable fashion sense, friends laughing over dinner, kids hanging out in the plazas at night, guys who don't buy tickets and jumps over metro turnpikes, and bustling train stations. It was a city full of life and love. I wish I could go back someday.