New Orleans

New Orleans is located in the South of USA, in the state of Louisiana, and is often referred to as the "most unique" city in America.

It is well known for

• its distinct French Creole architecture
  
• its cross cultural and multilingual heritage
• its cuisine (creole and cajun cuisine)
  
• music, particularly as the birthplace of jazz and
  
• its annual celebrations and festivals, most notably Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday", referring to the practice of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season, which begins on Ash Wednesday. Popular practices include wearing masks and costumes, overturning social conventions, dancing, sports competitions, parades, etc.

Taking the St Charles Streetcar and moving along the Garden District and Uptown area, we saw beautiful and large mansions of the wealthy population in New Orleans. And as Halloween is round the corner, several of the houses had some really interesting and spooky decorations!




It is not uncommon to see musicians and dancers performing on the streets.

The days that we were there, there were these lighted parade trucks that were moving around every evening, and the people on it (appears to me like they are tourists) would throw strings and strings of colourful beads to passerbys. It was interesting but I still have no idea what it was all about.


Cafe Du Monde is an extremely popular and CROWDED coffeeshop and is opened 24/7 (except for Christmas day). It has a very limited menu - which is not a deterrent factor for people to stop by, because everyone is here only for their famous beignets (french donuts) and cafe au lait.


I kind of thought the texture tested like our butterfly fritters in Singapore, just with additional confectioner's sugar on top - a close "taste of home".

Louisiana Creole cuisine is a style of cooking originating in Louisiana which blends French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Asian Indian, Native American and African influences, as well as general Southern Cuisine.

Fried oyster and shrimp po-boy
traditional submarine sandwich from Louisiana. Consists of meat, usually roast, or seafood, usually fried, served on baguette-like New Orleans French bread, known for its crisp crust yet fluffy center.


Crawfish etouffee
on base of roux (cooked mixture of wheat flour and fat as thickening agent) dark brown in colour seasoned with cayenne pepper, paprika, white pepper, garlic, parsley, salt and others. Served over rice.


To the wetlands for a swamp tour of American alligators!


Raccoon vs Alligator (over marshmallows)

Alligator feeding - not for the faint-hearted



A glance at the Audubon Insectarium and Audubon Zoo

At Audubon Zoo, the animals seem particularly lazy on the day of our visit..






Except this young orang utan He's so cute! Holding a rubber tub with his feet and swinging around!
We also visited the World War II Musuem and enjoyed the 3 hours there. I love history and always prefer a history museum to art museum. Art requires the skills or mentality to be able to appreciate it, while History is something that easily relates to everyone.


Amidst the flourishing tourism, I can hardly imagine New Orleans as the city which was worst-hit by Hurricane Katrina in Aug 2005. 80% of the city was flooded and and it is still on its recovery to pre-Katrina days.