I am very particular about restrooms, especially those public ones. I like them to be clean, and I suppose so does everyone else.

When I am out at a place where the state of the restrooms does not have a good reputation, I would avoid going to them as far as possible. For instance, I would try to find another restroom that is more acceptable by my standard, and hopefully not too far away, where possible.

We have all seen our fair share of restrooms, lavatories, or anything that is improvised to serve the means of that nature as we travel to different countries. If I am in the mountains where it takes just a huge rock or some bushes to answer nature’s call, so be it. Or if I am in some places where the restroom cubicles with no doors are just separated by walls that are knee-high, so be it.

Or if, worst of all, when having to do my business in the middle of a journey in the middle of nowhere, I have to bear with flies that are patronising someone else’s bodily excretion left around before me and at the same time avoid losing my footing over it, again, so be it. There are situations where you know there are no better options and you tell yourself, “Just do it,” and you do not even want to take a deep breath or close your eyes before telling yourself so, for fear that you may step on something you do not intend to with your eyes closed.

In a more civilised environment, my expectations on sanitary facilities would naturally be set higher. For instance, in Singapore, I avoid calling on restrooms in coffee shops and hawker centres. I do not rank them highly on my list of “destinations with a pro-business environment”. I know that I can find better ones around.

Today in Paris, I came across the mother of all public restrooms. The address is 26 Avenue des Champs Elysees. Take a look. Can you guess where was this picture taken?

Yes, it was in the restroom, but WHERE in the restroom?

The answer: the cubicle. These shelves were facing the cubicle’s door and they would be what you would see when you head straight into the cubicle.

Before you enter the restroom, the sign at the entrance to the restroom facility announces that you have arrived at the “cleanest toilets in the city”. This was probably true. A pleasant aroma welcomes you once you enter the facility, and I mean it when I said “pleasant aroma”. It smelled of some aroma therapy oil, the kind that they use in spas, and not the kind of air fresheners that smell of antiseptic used to drown out whatever odour that is coming from inside the facility.

A young man greets you behind a counter and asks you the type of facility you wish to use – lavatory, a room to put on your make-up, a place to change your baby’s nappies, and I cannot remember what else they had. Oh yes, it was a young man at the counter and not an auntie who collects 20 cents from you and reluctantly hands over to you a few folds of toilet paper.

Speaking of toilet paper, they had plenty in that little space next to the counter where the young man was seated. They came in different colours and even different patterns and each roll was neatly arranged on shelves placed against the wall behind the young man as well as the other wall facing him. Obviously, the way they were arranged on the shelves was meant for them to be displayed.

There were a couple of other shelves that held items other than the rolls of toilet paper, such as toilet paper stands, toilet brushes and other bathroom items. It turned out that this was a bathroom boutique of some sort. The rolls of fanciful toilet paper were for sale. The price of a roll? Several Euros. I am very bad at remembering numbers and I cannot recall exactly how many Euros each roll cost. However, I did remember that the price of each roll was enough for me to conclude that I would not want to pay that money just to have my toilet paper be black or red in colour, or to have a checkered print.

Using that restroom was a pleasant experience. It was just like going to a nice and clean restroom in a 4 or 5-star hotel. Who would want to complain about a restroom when it is nice, clean and has a stock of supplies you need, such as paper and soap? Using it did come with a price, though – 1.50 Euros. Imagine this, given that some people already scream when they are charged 0.50 Euro to use the bathroom elsewhere in town.

Well, there are restrooms that you may want to avoid for various different reasons. However, sometimes looking for another option is simply not an option. You know what I mean.

No one sentence can describe my fondness of being in France. I have been there three times, if my memory does not fail me. I am going back again, this weekend, to Paris.

There are places in this world where I have definitely spent more time living in, but when it comes to France, there is this thing in her and this other thing reciprocating in me that makes me feel SO at home when I am there. Whenever I am visiting, I do not feel like a visitor. The feeling is not quite like going to a place called home yet, but I feel as if I am going to a familiar place, even though some of these places can be completely new to me.

Maybe a lot of it has got to do with me having spent half a year there, at a stage of my life when an experience like this has the capacity to set the course of my mind. Maybe it is that desire back then to want to live in this country for a couple of years some time in the future. I think, today, this desire has become a wish, hidden somewhere deep within me, making me look forward to every opportunity to go to France.

Perhaps the other reason is that I have been so in tune with things that are French that it makes me take offense if I am given the label of “a typical foreign tourist” in France. For somebody whose life has absolutely nothing to do with French, and with that I mean not living in France, not having to work conversing in French and not being married to a French, I do see myself not as an average tourist – with the kind of French I speak, the French current affairs that I follow and the bits of knowledge on the country that I have gleaned over the years.

Fine, I know part of this could be an ego thing. However I explain it, going to France to me is not simply a matter of “going” to France. It is, rather, closer to the lines of “going back” to France, except that this “going back” is different from how a native person from France would go back there after being in another country.

This time, I am “going back” to Paris. Paris – a city that always makes me go “Oooh! Paris…” at the thought of every prospect of going there. I am really looking forward to this trip.