Day 3: Paris (31 Mar 2010)

It's a nice day today, very sunny, and the first destination is Musée du Louvre:

On the side before going in. Well, I didn't actually go inside the Louvre cos I did before, and it isn't too cheap and it will take a long time to walk around, that's why I chose not to.

Louvre Pyramid by Chinese-American I.M.Pei (貝聿銘).

Me with the Pyramid, I kind of fall in love with taking photos for myself, haha!

I quite like this picture myself, blue blue sky with Louvre and Pyramid, nice!

And you can see La Tour Effiel from here: (see the thick clouds there?)

Weather is quite unpreditable here, just now there's blue blue sky and suddenly, out of nowhere the clouds came together and it rained:

This is actually took after hiding in the bookshop of Louvre, I have to say that the rain here, even if it's not heavy, it's quite useless to have an umbrella because it's windy!

Next destination - L'arc de Triumphe, and see the cars on Champs Elysee? Always so 車水馬龍. I walked from Louvre to here, it took about 15-20 mins I guess, not too far, and I like walking:

And time for lunch! I chose a cheap place, and the sun came back out, so I chose to sit out, but I got an uninvited "friend" to keep me company:

The bread is nice, not so much the cake though. And here's my "friend"

Yes, the pigeon! I tried so many times to make it go away, it didn't want to! And they symbolise peace? I think it's trying to make a war with me, and up close, they look ugly! I think these are the 風塵白鴿, don't think it's the same type as the peaceful ones.

And then I was already quite tired, but still went to the Virgin bookshop, it's huge! And I bought the thick Petit Nicholas which Mani has at home for myself, and bought 2 other thin versions as souvenir.

And I also went inside Sephora, just to have a look, and then left to go back, cos was really tired as my bag is really heavy.

I took a nap before having dinner with Matthieu at his place, he's an exchange student at PolyU, and it's so good to see him and his wife and daughter of 2 whose name is also Louise! Haha. Cute girl. The flat is nice with a mezzanine (a new french word from him) :). The dinner is in English, I mean our conversation, yea, my level of french still can't last for dinner long. Anyway, it's a very nice soiree. I am going to meet him again the coming Friday for lunch before we left for St.Michel Chef Chef for the long weekend.

Day 2: Paris (30 Mar 2010)

The second day I woke up at around 12 sth, and got changed and left at around 1 sth. I regretted it when I went outside that I wore so little clothes, but didn't go back to take the coat. I thought it would be ok. The first place I went, of course, La Tour Eiffel, but the sky was quite grey:

I was quite pleased with my self-serviced photo.

It was super windy and a bit rainy that day, and obviously I didn't wear enough. In fact, I waited under a cover for a few minutes from the rain before coming to this place for this photo.

And afterwards, I walked back to the Eiffel tower side to walk along the park, but the rain got heavier, so I hid inside a bus station, and waited for like 5 mins or so, still the rain didn't stop, so I changed my mind to not go to the Arc de Triomphe, but somewhere else, and I hopped on a bus, thought it was going to Gare du Nord side, to the Louvre direction, but then after 1 stop, the bus driver said "c'est le terminus" (it's the terminus), and I was like "..." I got on the wrong direction!! Such a waste of a ticket! (It's 11.6 euros for 10 tickets which can be used for metro and bus) and I had to run from the bus to somewhere covered. After 10 mins or so, I finally found a metro station called DUPLEIX:

So tired...and I was quite wet. After this tired got lost bit, I found my way to Rue de Rivoli, was gonna go to the Louvre, but I went...shopping!

The first thing I wanted to buy was a coat or jacket because it was way too cold, I ran inside ZARA, couldn't find anything for my size. Then went to Etam (don't think HK has this shop), it's on discount up to 50%. Finally, I bought a knitwear, felt much better afterwards! And also bought a pair of gumboots there, size 36, but it fits. After the shopping, I was already quite tired, so didn't bother to go Louvre, instead I went to a small cafe at Chatelet, drank a hot chocolate, wrote my diary and relax.

You can see that the sun has now come out, it was about 6:30pm then. The day time ends about 7:30pm nowadays in Paris. I was sitting by the entrance, in front of me is a Chatelet monument:

And then I went back home to meet Guillaume et Mani to go to the Salon de Livres. It's quite nice, but the entrance is 9 euros, unlike HK's cheap price, don't know why people are willing to pay to get in, ours were free from Guillaume's brother or sth. :) And we bought a book called Oscar et La Dame Rose, which is made into a movie, and the author was there, we were gonna get la dedicace, but it's too late, so we took a picture next to him instead:

And outside the bookfair, there was a piece of berlin wall, for some reasons it's there, so we took a picture too:

And finally, the moon was SUPER big and round, 難道外國既月亮真係月d?

Dinner was at a french brasserie, Guillaume said it's a 法國茶餐廳, but still has entree, plat et dessert = menu.

It's been a nice day walking alone in Paris.

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Day 1: Paris (29 Mar 2010)

The flight HK - SH - Paris on China Eastern was far better than I expected. And the pleasant surprise on the flight from HK to SH:

Yeah! Chocolate Haagen Daz ice-cream! Wow, I thought I was on CX. Haha! Although I have to mention that the German guy sitting next to me was a bit ma fan (you know, with a Chinese girlfriend and thought he's a king that type of caucasian.). Anyway, after landing, I went through the customs, which I didn't expect it because I thought connecting flight doesn't need to, and thus I didn't bring my back-to-china card (回鄉咭), so there was a female police who escorted me to the gate to my flight, I felt so important. Haha!

There was free wi-fi at the Pudong Airport, so I immediately took out my iPhone to get online on MSN, and it also made the hour long wait shorter. The airport:

And then the 13-hour journey began...

It wasn't too bad the flight, the plane is big and quite new, I chose the exit seat, this bigger seat which most people desire turns out to be unsuitable for me, because...my legs are too short! :P So I couldn't rest my legs on the seat in front which made it difficult to have a nice sleep (cos I usually curl up like a ball), so it's a no for me next time. The food is the same as the previous flight, fish noodle and chicken rice. Although it's not the best seat for me, I did manage to get some sleep after all.

It felt quite fast for the 13-hour journey, and the wait at the carousel was not too long also. I took my big suitcase to find the RER to my friend's place - Cite Universitaire, good that I could use the trolley for half way, and then I pushed it to the RER platform, the ticket was 8.5 euro, which is ok cos it goes straight from airport to the station. There was a guy who kept shouting Paris to people who want to get on the train, I looked at him and he wasn't wearing a uniform, so he's not a staff of the train, and a couple minutes later, he was handing out a card to the passenger, it said "I am a refugee, need to take care of 1 brother, a mother...1 to 2 euro or ticket restaurant is good for me...etc." And then I immediately think "Get a job then!". After like a few seconds, he collected the cards back, I don't think anyone has given him anything. Well, such a waste as a human being.

The train looks like as I remember it: windows with scratches, seats a bit dirty. But still on time. It took about 40 mins from airport drectly to Cite Universitaire, when I got off, I didn't see my friend, so I pushed my suitcase to get out of the station, still don't see her, so I went to the phone booth to try to make a call, the pay phones here don't allow coins, just local bank cards or credit card, but after two failed attempts of my two cards, I didn't know what to do. I stood there and waited for a bit, and then I tried again, still failed, finally I saw the number for calling the operator, I gave the guy my card number and card details, and finally I got through to her. After about 15 mins she arrived, she told me she set the alarm, but it's because the day before the day time saving starts and she forgot to change the time on the phone. Haha. Anyway, we then took the tramway for 1 station to go to her place. Her place is on the 4th floor, which means we have to carry the suitcase up. The move was actually not as bad as I expected.

We rested and chatted for a couple hours, and then I got changed and went out, took a bus to a place called St.Michel, where Notre Dame located. Had a nice relaxing lunch, walked around, took some pictures:

We went to this famous book store: Shakespeare, it was in the film of Before Sunrise or After Sunset, it sells English books, and it's very nice inside:

Everything is very old inside, the bookselves, table, chairs. Very nice vintage feel.

And then we walked around the area, went to Notre Dame, but didn't go inside this time:

And we also walked inside a park where we saw this cute baby:

This wrapped up my first day. It's nice to be back in Paris! :)

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Eurostar cheap tickets

One of the things I learnt from the preparation of this trip is that Eurostar's CHEAP tickets sold REALLY FAST! One night I was checking for tickets from Paris to London, and the price was 157 euros (return), so I was like "ok, it's too expensive, I will skip London this time."

The next day, I was checking my not-too-often-check hotmail email account, I found the Euro star newsletter (above), I clicked and key in the same days as before, the price was 88 euros (return)!! So cheap, but I wanted to ask my friend first cos I will be staying at her place, just want to check if the return time is ok...etc.

The next day, I got her email saying ok. But when I checked again, the 88 euros are gone!!! :( And then I was really thinking of giving up London...however, after a few hours of pondering, since I love Camden Market so much, I finally got it for 119 euros (return). Not as bad as the very beginning at least.

So, make sure you subscribed to Eurostar newsletter for special promotion.

Follow me to Paris & London

I am going to Paris + London 29th Mar - 10th Apr, 2010. Exciting!

The initial plan now:

Paris: 29th Mar - 2nd Apr

A small town in France: 3th - 5th Apr

London: 6th - 8th Apr - Camden Market, Opera, Notting Hill (??) 

Paris: 9th - 10th Apr

Hopefully I would have the persistence to write up blog posts daily, or presque que daily.

Stay tune!