women and their hair

Marica needed some product for her hair. Good thing I only use natural juices and berries.

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A beautiful Day in Paris

red light special

In the red light district

Mol you should be looking at the view of paris

Top of the Sacre Coeur basilica.

paris, tokyo

This was shot at the Tokyo Museum. I ventured to this part of town for a store called Black Box. It's the gift shop in side the museum that has some really great items but this artist named Andre. When i was in tokyo i saw his character all over the place. I had no idea who he was. Come to find out he is an accomplished graffiti artist/street artist turned lifestyle brand. He has a hotel called Hotel Amour (or maybe he just designed it) and several collaborations with other brands. here are a couple images of his graf from the streets of japan.

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journey to the eiffel

Yesterday i saw the Eiffel tower for the first time since the last ime i was at Kings Island in Cincinnati, Ohio. I'm sorry but as grand as it may be, all the year visiting the amusment park and or driving to cincinnati via i71 numbed me a bit. I've not seen it lit up at night yet and maybe that is when I will be truly awe inspired. Or maybe in a situation that marcia discribed on her wonderfully written blog:

"The couples made it more beautiful. 

I know its a cliche, but lest we forget, I am a girl and I do have a great big heart.  Seeing these two couples standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, one young, one older about twenty feet apart from one another standing  on the great big lawn/garden. They were both embraced, the younger couple just staring out across the at Paris, taking everything in, the older couple alternately kissing and looking up at the tower, whispering to one another in that secret language that two people in love share. "

read the rest 

We also took a little stroll through the Luxembourg gardens.

these last two shots are marcias.

Montmartre

My Location

 

Hey, just to answer the question as to where i'm at exactly: View Larger Map

Also, the round about cost of coming to Paris: $615 - Airfare. I used kayak.com to find the flight.

$12 - Train ride from the The airport to Paris

$1,029.14 - Cost of the apartment for the week. (650 Euro - it is about average)

Everything else is the same price point as NYC but multiply it by 1.56. so a Starbucks coffee would cost you 5 euro or $7.92.

Notre Dame de Paris

The books in art history class could not prepare me for this place in real life.

Where I sleep: french edition

I was having quite a hard time finding a place to stay. I really felt the need to find a hip, boutique hotel for at least the final 3 nights. I found a place called the Five Hotel that seemed to fit my style perfectly but i was still without a place for the first 4 nights. Sonya and her sister visited Paris last year and i remember her saying how great it was to have rented an apartment for the week. So i started looking for a little apartment in the Latin Quarter / St. Germain area of town. After several days of not finding anything and having a hard time contacting a few that were avaible Marcia (who has been in paris for a week already) discovered this great little place. I was going to only stay for 4 nights and then switch off to the hotel for the final two. Well, once i got to the area, walked up the 4 flights of stairs and saw how perfectly french this place was, i immediately wanted to stay all 6 nights here. Instead of the 450 euro she was asking, i paid the full 650 for the week and that was that. No boutique french hotel this time.

The place has two rooms, a great bathroom, a full size and a half size bed, kitchen, free wi-fi (pronounced wee-fee by my french folks) and unlimited calling to the U.S.

1st Arrondissement

For those who haven't been to Paris, the city is broken up by around 18 neighborhoods called arrondissements. I'm staying in the 1st. We dropped our bags and the owner of the apt cleaned a bit while we walked around the neighborhood

A friend wanted to get stuffed in my suitcase but we figured that wouldn't work out so well. Instead she sent a photo and kindly asked if she could join me in various places in Paris. Here is molly riding the subway from the airport with me.

Bike rental stations throughout the city.

observing the lovers carvings along the Seine River

Yes, i'm going to come home with these tweed chucks.

hamburgers in france

Please read marcia's account of eating a plate of raw hamburger meat:

Last night, being the daring traveller that I am, I decided to try steak tartare. I think that because of the name, I expected raw steak, raw steak which seemed not so bad in the scheme of things, when considering how much I eat steak rare to the point that its only brown on the outside. Besides, I'm gutsy. I'll try anything once. When in Rome?

go to teenybooks for the rest

oh little mars, glad you could join us for dinner. I wish you didn't drink so much of our wine though.

I asked for a bottle of Bordeaux and just crossed my fingers hoping that it wasn't the 60 € (90 us) bottle. And instead of asking how much it was before i ordered the second bottle (i tried but failed) i just asked for another and again hoped it wasn't super expensive. turned out to only be 18 €.

I'm Here!

I can't write a long post cause it is time to go out to eat. I just want to say i arrived safely, met up with friend marica (who found the most amazing 17th century 4 floor walk up apartment to stay at for the week) and have taken a few photos. Stay posted for more soon. - bk

Countdown to Paris: Amour Mixtape

It is universally understood you can't go to Paris without thinking about love, wishing for love, or being in love. So in the spirit of Love, I present to you my first digital mix(or mux)tape: wordbk.muxtape.com

Since i'm currently not in love, you don't have to worry about only playing this at night, unlike the mixtape in the photo below. It was mixed by my boy Ramel freshman year back in the dorm rooms of Hampton University. It may be one of the best slowtapes i've ever heard. This old tape was meant to only be played with a women in the bedroom (and maybe at the Hotel Amour).

The Muxtape Tracklist:

D'Angelo - Feel Like Makin' Love Stevie Wonder - Hey Love Clipse - Ma, I Don't Love Her (Featuring Faith Evans) N.E.R.D - Backseat Love The Roots - Act Too (Love of My Life) Featuring Common Robin Thicke - Would That Make U Love Me Etta James - A Sunday Kind Of Love Sade - Lovers Rock Cee-Lo - All Day Love Affair Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game (Live) John Legend - Used to Love U Jay-Z - Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)

Countdown to Paris

marica

This lil' lady here will be my travel partner for the week. She left for Paris this past sunday and is already seeing, doing and tasting all the things i can't wait for. Read her stories now and next week look at my photos (and you should probably still read her stories then too)

Marcia's blog: teenybooks.com

kanazawa to nyc

Kohei and I met while I was at a store in Kanazawa. He told me he was visiting NYC this year and was hoping we would have a chance to hook up. We met at Union Sq. and walked from there down through the East Village around Lower East Side, over to NoLita and ended up in Soho. It is a good place to take folks who visit the city. East Village and Lower East Side still seem to be the area's most don't venture to on their own. Especially if you are coming from another country and speak a little bit of english.

This is a new museum in NYC called The New Museum. Since i only peeked into the bookstore, I'm not really sure what exhibits they have going on. I'll have to go back and take a look on a week day when it is less crowded. (the joys of working for our own thing)

Blazey's video of Argentina

The video i wish i would have made for Japan. It is a little melancholy. I see sonya and her sister and I think that they didn't make it back. Blazey will be in charge of the video for Australia for sure. p.s. anybody who is skilled at html/css can you please tell me why vimeo video's break my layout? it shifts all of the post below it to the left. what the eff?

little brother test

Loren and I shot some test with make-up artist Merrell Hollis link. This is one before any retouching (not including color processing).

adida antelopes

These are my all time favorite shoes. I bought them at a department store a few years ago and have been looking for a new pair ever since. Oh how excited i was when i saw a pair in a little design store in Tokyo. The only problem? They were the originals from the 70s and cost 1,500 dollars. (149900 yen to be exact). I'm wearing my old beat up pair in the previous blog post.

Best Friday Night of the Year

Blazey and I have been chilling watching internet video, smoking hookah and drinking a little bit and are just about to order indian.

the best moments came from watching the hd video channel on vimeo.

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