50% Off – French Handmade Textile Clearance Sale

Hurry! 50% off for our French handmade textiles. They came all the way from an old textile town, Lyon in France. Do you feel that your living room needs a bit of loving care after the festive season? Then these French cushions are a must – they will brighten up your old comfy sofas with warm colours and cute pom-poms. Also don’t forget to take a look at our French cotton rugs and throws. We fell in love with them when we first saw them in France – they are just so beautiful! Oh, just to remind you, they are all hand made in France and high quality.

More new items will arrive soon – please look at our website JasmineWay Home Accessories

Where is Spring?

Hi there,

Are you one of us patiently waiting for the spring to come? We are indeed very fed up here in Surrey, where lots of snow and cold wind made our town look like a winter wonderland! We have been patiently waiting for a sign, a tiny sign of Spring, but feel like we are nowhere near…..

But I was working in the garden yesterday and surprisingly the sign of Spring is everywhere! Apart from a snow damaged trellis for our white jasmine, small buds are appearing slowly. Our roses have little pink buds all over, and clematis too it has tiny green side shoots! Ah that’s why I love this country – we have beautiful four seasons, don’t we?

Also we are doing a bit of re-decorating. After Christmas decorations are all gone and boxes are cleared away, it looks a bit bare. Although the coat rack in the hall is still full of thick jackets and logs are piled up in the basket, home decor doesn’t need to be wintry, does it? To brighten up inside the home we bought a basket full of crocus bulbs and a bunch of tulips from a local garden center. Now our living room is very colorful, and we can almost smell the sweet spring in the house!

Don’t forget to look at our website for pretty home accessories to brighten up your home. You don’t need to be an interior designer to create beautiful home. JasmineWay Home Accessories

Take care,
Jasmine

My Enchanting French Life in Paris No.3 – Back to 1992

Sorry I haven’t updated you on my enchanting life in Paris! As usual lots of things to do…

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, about the noise in the apartment. Yes, it turned out to be somebody’s happy moment, but obviously it turned Fumiko and me absolutely cold. We looked at each other and just resigned… This is only the first night in Paris, but well looks like there will be a lot of things to learn. We were too exhausted to think deep about our lives, so finally went to sleep on horrendously soft French bed.

Next day was a busy day. I needed to enrol at Sorbonne University, so we set off early in the morning. The idea was for me to go to school admission office and Fumiko to see Cluny Museum in front of the school. I was very scared to go into the admission office alone, but of course didn’t show my fear and waved off Fumiko casually. I’ve got application form and my visa information handy, so off we go, I hit the entrance to the school.

Mmmm there were an awful lot of young people…. I would say they were all around 18 or 19 years old. The problem is I was already 33 year old, so not really in the same league. Anyway, the next thing I needed to do was to talk with the receptionist.

Hmmm, excuuusee-mowwa?

“WHAT?!” (from the receptionist) She didn’t look very helpful and actually she WAS very hostile.

Mmmm, I am looking for an admission office for Sorbonne (this all in French, but with heavy American accent).

“GO STRAIGHT!”

Now I already started to feel like I was going into an army camp rather than the world famous Sorbonne. I somehow managed to talk with one of the administrators there, and looks like I was finally enrolled successfully!

Sorbonne University offers a fantastic course for foreign students, and they teach things very systematically. I was immediately placed in a phonetic class with Korean students (apparently Japanese people have similar accent problem, but they didn’t know what to do with my American accent on top of that…). I was told that my day starts from 8 a.m. attending university lectures (of course in French), then in the afternoon various classes to study all about French language. Among 18 years old gap students – Yey!

Will write soon,
Jasmine

P.S. Don’t forget to check on our French style home accessories shop www.jasmineway.co.uk

My Enchanting French Life in Paris No.2 – Back to 1992

Hello I am back and keep you entertained with my life in Paris.

So this is still Day 1 in Paris. Fumiko and I just discovered millions of cockroaches in my apartment I rented. It is a tiny studio apartment with a kitchenette at the corner, where was the problem. When Fumiko opened a sliding door to the kitchenette, we saw these horrible brown cockroaches everywhere! It seems to be emerging from a draining hole in the sink, and yuck, it is a disgusting sight. Fumiko simply looked at me and closed the kitchenette door. What do we do? Well, shopping!

We again emerged on to the street and furiously looked for a supermarket to buy cockroach massacre kit. Fortunately Rue des Petits Ecuries was full of shops, and we soon found Bon Marche at the corner. We purchased various sprays, kitchen towels, plus some essential food (although we didn’t want to think about food at that time). Then back to the apartment.

I tell you, Fumiko got such an angelic face and all, but her action was savage and swift. She sprayed all around kitchenette and bashed so many roaches with a spatula, and oh, she looked like a goddess! One last spray on the counter top, and BANG!, she closed the door again and declared that we were not to look at it until the next morning.

Well, I was still wary of them and having a serious thought why I decided to come to live in Paris… But too late now to lament. After the excitement of “operation massacre” we were a bit tired and collapsed on the bed at last. I was just about to fall asleep dreaming about my quiet life in Tokyo. Then it happened.

Ahhhhhhhh!! AhhhhhhHHHHHHHH!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

The noise was coming from nowhere, but it seemed to vibrate in our apartment. Then it was vibrating in the entire building… It sounded like somebody was just about to get killed. Fumiko and I shot up from the bed and opened the front door to see a horrific crime scene. Noothing. We saw only a dark corridor in front of us. Then we heard it again! AH AH AH AHHHHHHH!!!

What do you think it was? We soon discovered that simply somebody was getting laid! We didn’t realize that French old buildings were made of stones and sound echoed so much.

Even though… We couldn’t believe the noise we were hearing, really. Oh well, what a start to my dream life in Paris…. More later.

Jasmine
P.S. Don’t forget to look at beautiful French style home accessories at www.jasmineway.co.uk

My Enchanting French Life in Paris – back to 1992

Hi there,

Oh well, I’ve been thinking about telling my story to everybody for a long time and I just need to start blogging! It’s about my life, and why we ended up starting our French style home accessories business. It is also a story about love and hate, as it enfolds you will find how lovely and hateful Parisian can be…!

It was in 1992, I was freshly divorced and working very long hours in an American bank, and FED UP. What I needed was a new thing to excite me. So I looked at all the possibilities, I’ve got a little money from my divorce settlement and there were several options, 1) go to grad school for an MBA, 2) travel around the world, and 3) just live somewhere for fun. At that time I was in Japan, so looking around the world you can imagine there were many places I could go to. Since I couldn’t decide which option to pick, I met and talked with many people for a while, mainly my crazy American girlfriends who were living in Tokyo at that time. I also went to see a French grad school that was offering one year course in various European cities including Paris, Rome and New York. The school rep was a really nice French man, of course, very charming. We were chatting about the possibility of me enrolling for the following year, but the fact that the school would take me around the world in such a short period was a bit daunting. Deep down I knew I wanted to spend quality time in one place, so moving from one city to another every 3 months was just too much. So in the end I decided against the grad school. Then one day an article in the newspaper caught my eye. It was an advertisement for Sorbonne University in Paris. They were offering a course for foreign students to study everything about France, culture, history, music, architecture, philosophy, and of course French language. My major at university was French, but I could hardly speak the language. So I decided this is a good idea! All preparations etc. happened very quickly. I found a French girl in Tokyo who was willing to rent out her apartment in Paris for a year. And I was all set – here started a true adventure!

I landed in Paris on a sunny day at the end of August. My friend Fumiko offered to come with me so that I wouldn’t get homesick (!?) Oh how I loved her when I got to Paris. To begin with you have to remember it was in 1992, so French people were still very stubbornly very French, probably they understood English, but never tried a word of it. And I tell you, Paris is worse… At the airport my life in Paris started miserably. I was shouted at and prodded about by a scary French customs officer, and I tried to utter a word in French, but it all came out wrong… She shoved me to an exit almost spitting at me! I heard her saying to her colleague “what a stupid Japanese girl”. Of course I was so discouraged…

Anyway, Fumiko and I found a taxi (somehow, don’t remember very well) and headed to a street called Rue des Petits Ecurie in 11th arrondisement. The quartier is now a very trendy, popular place for young artists and luxury boutiques, but at that time, it was just the pits! Full of immigrants and dangerous looking card parlors for gentlemen, and you could be in the middle of Harlem. Taxi dropped us in front of my apartment building, and with a security code given by the owner we hesitantly opened the heavy metal door. It was actually a modern apartment building, which is unusual for that area. My new apartment was on the 6th floor, and the good news, a working elevator! We eventually emerged in front of my new place. I let Fumiko lead the way and she opened the door….she steps in…..me following…

AHHHHHHHHHH (Fumiko), GRRRRRR (me), millions of cockroaches!!!!!!!

They were coming out of the drain pipe under the kitchen sink! What are we going to do?

Well you need to wait until my next blog – promise, I won’t disappoint you! Don’t forget to check on our website for beautiful French style home accessories www.jasmineway.co.uk

See you soon,
Jasmine