hello all! i am currently in Lisbon, Portugal. It is now 6:14am and I am gonna catch the 8am bus to Porto.
Will be returning to Lyon on the first of May. Till then..!!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
hola from barcelona!
Hello! i am now in Barcelona! Weather has been fantastic, but Barca is dangerous. I almost had my bag stolen last night.
The man U VS Barcelona match will be played here tomorrow. I will be visiting the barcelona stadium tomorrow morning before the match, and will be watching the match from my hostel at night. Will also be going to Mango and Zara tomorrow to shop for spanish clothes!
Tomorrow is also the Catalan valentines day, where guys will give girls flowers and in return, girls will give guys a book. :S
And on thursday, F1 in barcelona! I met a singaporean sailor during dinner who told me his boss owns one of the F1 Ferrari teams (Indian team). One of my hostel mates is also going to watch the F1. As for me, I will be flying off to Madrid on Thursday noon. Seeya!
(Note to tata: Sorry havent taken photo of what you wanted yet)
The man U VS Barcelona match will be played here tomorrow. I will be visiting the barcelona stadium tomorrow morning before the match, and will be watching the match from my hostel at night. Will also be going to Mango and Zara tomorrow to shop for spanish clothes!
Tomorrow is also the Catalan valentines day, where guys will give girls flowers and in return, girls will give guys a book. :S
And on thursday, F1 in barcelona! I met a singaporean sailor during dinner who told me his boss owns one of the F1 Ferrari teams (Indian team). One of my hostel mates is also going to watch the F1. As for me, I will be flying off to Madrid on Thursday noon. Seeya!
(Note to tata: Sorry havent taken photo of what you wanted yet)
Saturday, April 19, 2008
hello from rome!
hello .. all the way from Roma, Italy, the land where 90% of the words end with a vowel(yes, i am serious about that).
My trip has been quite a fun one so far. Met some fantastic people, saw many fantastic stuff, got into a disagreement with the train conductor and got chased out of a train.
I have been to milan, brescia (was not planned. we ended up there because i refused to pay an extra 5 euros to stay on the train to verona, long story.), verona, venice, florence, and now i am in rome. will be going to pompei tomorrow, and leaving for spain the day after.
Seeya guys soon!
My trip has been quite a fun one so far. Met some fantastic people, saw many fantastic stuff, got into a disagreement with the train conductor and got chased out of a train.
I have been to milan, brescia (was not planned. we ended up there because i refused to pay an extra 5 euros to stay on the train to verona, long story.), verona, venice, florence, and now i am in rome. will be going to pompei tomorrow, and leaving for spain the day after.
Seeya guys soon!
Friday, April 11, 2008
insa lyon
The NTU girls are leaving soon, so we decided to take a group picture of us singaporean exchange students (there are 12 of us here) in INSA Lyon. I'm glad the photo taking session turned out well. Many thanks to Kane for taking the photos and sending the email :D
Group photo outside Le Bleah (Bleah because the food there is comme merde, like shit), where we have our dinners and lunch (sometimes).
Against the backdrop of the industrial-like buildings of Insa.
The NTU kids, who are not here for exchange but for FYP and internship. Picture taken in a small park near campus, where the angmo undergrads love to go and lie on the grass.
The NUS kids.
The NUS ladies! From left: wangyi, heqi, me, fengxue. I'm the only singaporean.
I'll miss these guys because we've gone through pain, heartbreaks, struggles (with school), frustrations (with the langauge) and tears together. I guess throwing a group of people in a foreign land where language is a barrier can unite people.
Group photo outside Le Bleah (Bleah because the food there is comme merde, like shit), where we have our dinners and lunch (sometimes).
Against the backdrop of the industrial-like buildings of Insa.
The NTU kids, who are not here for exchange but for FYP and internship. Picture taken in a small park near campus, where the angmo undergrads love to go and lie on the grass.
The NUS kids.
The NUS ladies! From left: wangyi, heqi, me, fengxue. I'm the only singaporean.
I'll miss these guys because we've gone through pain, heartbreaks, struggles (with school), frustrations (with the langauge) and tears together. I guess throwing a group of people in a foreign land where language is a barrier can unite people.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
I will be gone for the next three weeks. I will be going to Italy (Milan, Verona, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, Pompei), Spain (Barcelona, Madrid) and Portugal (Lisbon et Porto).
Amongst the three languages (Italian, spainish and Portuguese), I find Italian the most difficult. Oh well, hope all goes well.
***
As some of you guys know (yea, all 2 of you), the olympic flame was here in paris a few days ago. And lo and behold, some people decided to create trouble, some of which are not even from the region in question. A case of "eat already nothing better to do"?
And one of my friends said something very interesting. She said that the concept of "human rights" is a western concept, not an eastern one.
blablabla.
Amongst the three languages (Italian, spainish and Portuguese), I find Italian the most difficult. Oh well, hope all goes well.
***
As some of you guys know (yea, all 2 of you), the olympic flame was here in paris a few days ago. And lo and behold, some people decided to create trouble, some of which are not even from the region in question. A case of "eat already nothing better to do"?
And one of my friends said something very interesting. She said that the concept of "human rights" is a western concept, not an eastern one.
blablabla.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Berlin
Or "ber-lahn", as the french pronouce it.
First and foremost, I LOVED BERLIN, though I think it's the kind of city that you can only visit once, unlike Paris. Yea, Berlin has got to be my fav travel destination so far.
Touch down at Berlin Airport.
We had Germany soups for dinner at a restaurant (because everything else was expensive). I forgot the names of the soup.
After dinner, we dropped by a toy store located near our hostel. This toy store was quite small, but it was FILLED with toys!
The owner was very friendly too.
Ok, it's not that I am short, but our tour guide was REALLY TALL. We took a walking tour (not the free one), and I strongly recommend it to anyone going to Berlin. It's not worth going to berlin and not talking a tour because you won't enjoy Berlin unless you know the history behind it.
Fallen chair artpiece to commorate the war. Apparently during the war, some soldiers stomped into a certain lawyer's house one night and the lawyer tried to stop them and got killed. He fell over his chair and died and... viola. The scene was like that.
This is eastern berlin; the buildings in Eastern Berlin are mostly Brownish, while those in West Berlin are more modern looking and more colourful.
Bullet holes in the buildings still visible. Sometimes you'll also notice empty spaces in the middle of a row of houses; those houses were most likely bombed and beyond repair, so the gov just scrapped the whole building, leaving a gap.
World's largest Jewish synagogue. It is guarded 24/7 by policemen and is located in the red light district. So at night, you can see prostitues walking around and talking to policemen in front of the church. Sin, God and Death, all in one place. Nice.
Cool building. Berlin is SUCH an arty farty place! I loved the art scene; so spontaneous.
This is a building for budding artists. They only pay like 1,50 to rent a room here. And the building is filled with graffiti.
The courtyard.
Inside the building, you can open any door and if its not locked, you can enter any room you like. Yea, including toilet.
They even made use of the piano strings to make the fence. :D
Berlin's Green/Red man is another trademark. It came from Eastern Berlin, and it was designed so that little kids will wait patiently for the cute green man to appear before crossing the road.
Me gorging like a pig, so classic.
Anyway this is Currywurst, sausage with curry powder. Food is cheap in Berlin! I was shocked when I went to the supermarket; everything was cheaper than that in france! WHY WHY WHY did I not study in berlin instead!
The champs Elysee of Berlin.
The stereotype about Germans is that they are very strict and meticulous people. But numbering trees! gosh.
British Embassy. the Wierd blocks in the middle is supposed to resemble a SHIP. Well, it does not look anything like a ship to me. It is worth checking out the american embassy too; it's SWAMPED with policemen and you're not allowed to take pictures of the embassy, hence no pictures here.
Hotel Aldon, the ritz of berlin, situated right outside the Brandenburg Gate. It's where Michael Jackson did the baby-swinging thing, at the 3rd story balcony.
This is the interior of one of the buildings next to the Brandenburg Gates. Supposed to resemble a fish swimming.
Viola! Brandenburg Gates! And I just spoilt the picture for you by posing in front of it, ha ha ha!
Picture of how the Berlin Wall was built AROUND the Brandenburg gates.
The line paved with stones represents where the Berlin wall was. If you wanted to cross from East to West Berlin before 1990, you would have to: climb over one wall, run through guards, run through barbed wires, run through many many other obstacles, climb over another wall. IT was not easy at all. Some people made it, many others didn't.
Reigstag, the parliament house. It was burnt in 1933 before the elections, and after that the Reichstag Fire Decree was put in place to punish anyone who was against the nazis. Who burnt the parliament house is still a mystery.
Entry to go up was free, so of course we went. This is the view of the glass dome.
ME
Interior of the dome.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe aka Holocast memorial. Very controversial memorial which cost 25 mill euros to build. From the outside, the cement blocks look very short... but when you go in...
Yea, they are NOT short. Some thoughts that I felt as I walked through the memorial: the walkways are one-person wide, so you are forced to make a solo journey through it. It's also very easy to lose your friends in there (because of the sharp edges of the cement blocks).
Can hardly see much of the sky.
:) I made it out alive.
Checkpoint Charlie, the disneyland of paris. You've gotta pay these guys to take photos with them, and they are strippers by night.
I ABSOLUTELY love this signboard, i don't know why.
BERLIN WALL (there is only a small section remaining).
Kane on the West side of berlin, me on the East.
Decorated pieces of the wall. Lots of berlin people own a small section/piece of the wall. There were good and bad consequences of the fall of the wall, but ultimately I think capitalism works better than communism. One East Berliner I talked to told me that he was really happy when the wall came down because he could watch the lastest James Bond movie.
Hitler's baby photo. I belong to the "hilter is crazy" camp, but I still think he was incredibly eloquent.
This is a memorial of empty book shelves outside a library in berlin (Bebelplatz),and there is a plague beside this memorial that quotes a phrase from a German Writer:
"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen"
(Where they burn books, they will also burn humans in the end). Very chilling parallels to what happened there in 1933, considering this phrase was written more than 100 years before the book burning event.
This was where Hilter and his wife of less than 40 hours commited suicide, 50m below in a bunker. Lots of people like to stomp/piss at this patch of grass.
:)
I love berlin!
First and foremost, I LOVED BERLIN, though I think it's the kind of city that you can only visit once, unlike Paris. Yea, Berlin has got to be my fav travel destination so far.
Touch down at Berlin Airport.
We had Germany soups for dinner at a restaurant (because everything else was expensive). I forgot the names of the soup.
After dinner, we dropped by a toy store located near our hostel. This toy store was quite small, but it was FILLED with toys!
The owner was very friendly too.
Ok, it's not that I am short, but our tour guide was REALLY TALL. We took a walking tour (not the free one), and I strongly recommend it to anyone going to Berlin. It's not worth going to berlin and not talking a tour because you won't enjoy Berlin unless you know the history behind it.
Fallen chair artpiece to commorate the war. Apparently during the war, some soldiers stomped into a certain lawyer's house one night and the lawyer tried to stop them and got killed. He fell over his chair and died and... viola. The scene was like that.
This is eastern berlin; the buildings in Eastern Berlin are mostly Brownish, while those in West Berlin are more modern looking and more colourful.
Bullet holes in the buildings still visible. Sometimes you'll also notice empty spaces in the middle of a row of houses; those houses were most likely bombed and beyond repair, so the gov just scrapped the whole building, leaving a gap.
World's largest Jewish synagogue. It is guarded 24/7 by policemen and is located in the red light district. So at night, you can see prostitues walking around and talking to policemen in front of the church. Sin, God and Death, all in one place. Nice.
Cool building. Berlin is SUCH an arty farty place! I loved the art scene; so spontaneous.
This is a building for budding artists. They only pay like 1,50 to rent a room here. And the building is filled with graffiti.
The courtyard.
Inside the building, you can open any door and if its not locked, you can enter any room you like. Yea, including toilet.
They even made use of the piano strings to make the fence. :D
Berlin's Green/Red man is another trademark. It came from Eastern Berlin, and it was designed so that little kids will wait patiently for the cute green man to appear before crossing the road.
Me gorging like a pig, so classic.
Anyway this is Currywurst, sausage with curry powder. Food is cheap in Berlin! I was shocked when I went to the supermarket; everything was cheaper than that in france! WHY WHY WHY did I not study in berlin instead!
The champs Elysee of Berlin.
The stereotype about Germans is that they are very strict and meticulous people. But numbering trees! gosh.
British Embassy. the Wierd blocks in the middle is supposed to resemble a SHIP. Well, it does not look anything like a ship to me. It is worth checking out the american embassy too; it's SWAMPED with policemen and you're not allowed to take pictures of the embassy, hence no pictures here.
Hotel Aldon, the ritz of berlin, situated right outside the Brandenburg Gate. It's where Michael Jackson did the baby-swinging thing, at the 3rd story balcony.
This is the interior of one of the buildings next to the Brandenburg Gates. Supposed to resemble a fish swimming.
Viola! Brandenburg Gates! And I just spoilt the picture for you by posing in front of it, ha ha ha!
Picture of how the Berlin Wall was built AROUND the Brandenburg gates.
The line paved with stones represents where the Berlin wall was. If you wanted to cross from East to West Berlin before 1990, you would have to: climb over one wall, run through guards, run through barbed wires, run through many many other obstacles, climb over another wall. IT was not easy at all. Some people made it, many others didn't.
Reigstag, the parliament house. It was burnt in 1933 before the elections, and after that the Reichstag Fire Decree was put in place to punish anyone who was against the nazis. Who burnt the parliament house is still a mystery.
Entry to go up was free, so of course we went. This is the view of the glass dome.
ME
Interior of the dome.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe aka Holocast memorial. Very controversial memorial which cost 25 mill euros to build. From the outside, the cement blocks look very short... but when you go in...
Yea, they are NOT short. Some thoughts that I felt as I walked through the memorial: the walkways are one-person wide, so you are forced to make a solo journey through it. It's also very easy to lose your friends in there (because of the sharp edges of the cement blocks).
Can hardly see much of the sky.
:) I made it out alive.
Checkpoint Charlie, the disneyland of paris. You've gotta pay these guys to take photos with them, and they are strippers by night.
I ABSOLUTELY love this signboard, i don't know why.
BERLIN WALL (there is only a small section remaining).
Kane on the West side of berlin, me on the East.
Decorated pieces of the wall. Lots of berlin people own a small section/piece of the wall. There were good and bad consequences of the fall of the wall, but ultimately I think capitalism works better than communism. One East Berliner I talked to told me that he was really happy when the wall came down because he could watch the lastest James Bond movie.
Hitler's baby photo. I belong to the "hilter is crazy" camp, but I still think he was incredibly eloquent.
This is a memorial of empty book shelves outside a library in berlin (Bebelplatz),and there is a plague beside this memorial that quotes a phrase from a German Writer:
"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen"
(Where they burn books, they will also burn humans in the end). Very chilling parallels to what happened there in 1933, considering this phrase was written more than 100 years before the book burning event.
This was where Hilter and his wife of less than 40 hours commited suicide, 50m below in a bunker. Lots of people like to stomp/piss at this patch of grass.
:)
I love berlin!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
MERDE
The cost of the tram tickets has risen!!!
xin (En ligne) says:
DAMNIT
the cost of tram tickets has went up
poopy is addicted to traveling says:
yes it went up on 1st april
xin (En ligne) says:
DAMNIT
how did u know
poopy is addicted to traveling says:
on the paper
xin (En ligne) says:
why no strike?!
poopy is addicted to traveling says:
........
GREVE GREVE GREVE!!! I will gladly join the greve contra l'augmentation de la prix du billet.
***
I bought a book today called "talk to the snail, ten commandments for understanding the french".
Getting really busy studying. Yea, I'm in deep merde and on my way to failing at least 2 modules.
xin (En ligne) says:
DAMNIT
the cost of tram tickets has went up
poopy is addicted to traveling says:
yes it went up on 1st april
xin (En ligne) says:
DAMNIT
how did u know
poopy is addicted to traveling says:
on the paper
xin (En ligne) says:
why no strike?!
poopy is addicted to traveling says:
........
GREVE GREVE GREVE!!! I will gladly join the greve contra l'augmentation de la prix du billet.
***
I bought a book today called "talk to the snail, ten commandments for understanding the french".
Getting really busy studying. Yea, I'm in deep merde and on my way to failing at least 2 modules.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
random
oh Man the weather is CRAZZY. Its gonna snow in the north and north eastern part of France tomorrow. And it's APRIL! And its gonna be 0degrees tomorrow morning here. COLDDD!!!
I watched benjamin britten's a midsummer night's dream at the l'opera de Lyon last night. I am not a fan of modern works, and found it a little difficult to appreciate this opera intially. I also didn't read the synopsis before going so I was a little lost in the beginning. But things picked up after awhile and I enjoyed the opera very much! Definately worth the 10 euros I paid, and I got pretty good seats. There was even an orchestra there in the pit, and the sets were fantastic.
I can't wait for Porgy and Bess next month :D
I cooked char siew for lunch today. Yummy stuff! This was the first time I cooked pork, and I was quite disgusted after handling the pork because raw pork smells bad. Like, seriously disgusting. But yummy to eat.
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And I cooked the best steak meal I've done so far for dinner today. It took me TWO FREAKING HOURS to prepare this meal. The steak was done the way I liked to eat steak: 1/4 rare, and the rosti was good.:D
.jpg)
After dinner, I popped by Florian's room to catch up on stuff and I tried some of his interesting food. This is russian bread with poor man's caviar- the fish eggs. Costs 2 euros/bottle but tastes just like caviar. I also had asparagus with mustard+vinegar, fromage blanc, and Camembert cheese. Yums!!!
I watched benjamin britten's a midsummer night's dream at the l'opera de Lyon last night. I am not a fan of modern works, and found it a little difficult to appreciate this opera intially. I also didn't read the synopsis before going so I was a little lost in the beginning. But things picked up after awhile and I enjoyed the opera very much! Definately worth the 10 euros I paid, and I got pretty good seats. There was even an orchestra there in the pit, and the sets were fantastic.
I can't wait for Porgy and Bess next month :D
I cooked char siew for lunch today. Yummy stuff! This was the first time I cooked pork, and I was quite disgusted after handling the pork because raw pork smells bad. Like, seriously disgusting. But yummy to eat.
.jpg)
And I cooked the best steak meal I've done so far for dinner today. It took me TWO FREAKING HOURS to prepare this meal. The steak was done the way I liked to eat steak: 1/4 rare, and the rosti was good.:D
.jpg)
After dinner, I popped by Florian's room to catch up on stuff and I tried some of his interesting food. This is russian bread with poor man's caviar- the fish eggs. Costs 2 euros/bottle but tastes just like caviar. I also had asparagus with mustard+vinegar, fromage blanc, and Camembert cheese. Yums!!!
Friday, April 4, 2008
paris, je t'aime
I spent my birthday in Paris, the most visited city and the supposedly most romantic city on earth (not true).
Paris is simply HUGEEE. And there are SO MANY LITTLE STREETS in paris, making navigating there a pain in the arse. Even the metro lines are confusing. Lyon only has 4 metro lines; paris has like, 8 + RER lines. Gosh.
I reached Paris on sat morning via TGV. The lyon-paris TGV line is the fastest around. And I was lucky to get first class seats, though I was stuck seating behind a group of noisy american kids throughout the journey.
PARIS! Something really funny happened; one of my friends who could not read french was cursing away because he thought that the C on the tap meant COLD, only to turn on the tap and find hot water flowing out.
Well, C stands for Chaud, which is HOT. F stands for froid, which means cold.
There was a manifestation going on down the street from where I lived.
Yea, viva la france! et les manifestations! et les greves! quoi d'autres?
This manifestation was for the handicap, because they only get 628euros/month and they want more.
Fantastic string ensemble outside the Louvre. The acoustics around there was fantastic. You feel as though you are living in Mozart's time, walking around the old buildings and listening to classical music being played along the sidewalk.
LOUVRE!!!!! I was soooo happy to finally see the Louvre in full glory! I snapped many pictures of the darn pyramid from different angles. All pictures came out more or less the same.-___-
Mini arc de tromphe.
Eiffel tower!
Notre Dame de Paris. It was so insanely crowded and there was a lonnnnnng queue to get in, so I gave it a miss.
I went into the Louvre musee on my birthday, 30th march. It is simply impossible to finish the Louvre in one day. C'est PAS POSSIBLE.
The louvre consists of 3 buildings having 4 stories each.
Speaking of my birthday, I got cheated because the daylight savings time kicked in on my birthday (at 30th march 2am, the time jumped to 3am), so I lost 1 hour. Yea, 23 hour birthday. I spent 30th and 31th march being very confused about the time because some of the clocks in Paris were not adjusted to the correct time.
Anyway, LOUVRE!
The inside of the glass pyramid.
Famous painting La Liberté guidant le peuple by Eugène Delacroix. Notice that the two victorious subjects are minorities.
THE FAMOUS MONA LISA!!! There were soooooo many people crowding in front of her, making it impossible to admire it for long at close range.
Aphrodite, aka Venus of Milo.
Next day... visit to the Eiffel tower!
At Champs Elysee.
Eiffel tower, the mega lightning rod of Paris, hehe. When it was first built, the parisians hated it. When the Louvre pyramid was first built, the parisians also hated it. And when the esplanade was first built, the singaporeans hated it too. hahahah.
Eiffel tower again! We had a choice to walk up or take a lift up. Since the queue for walking was short, we walked up. The key to visiting attractions in Paris is to go as early as possible to beat the insane queues.
From the top down.
View from the 2ieme etage.
OYSTERS for lunch. The fantastic thing about paris is, all the road-side resturants I ate in served fantastic food. The thing about french cuisine is that there is high weightage on presentation and service. We had oysters(flat Belons! Bretagnes!), crevettes and escargots. So french! And the meals are not very expensive; you can get a 2 course meal for around 20 euros.
Monday was spent in Disneyland (the only disneyland in europe)! I made a mistake and used the wrong ticket to take the RER to disneyland. Instead of using the 6 euro ticket, I used a normal 1 euro ticket. So we had to climb over the barrier to get out of the train station.
Disneyland is made up of 2 parcs: the studio parc and the parc with all the fun rides. Since I knew we won't have time to cover both, we bought the ticket for one parc.
Studio parc.
fun parc! :D:D:D
GOOFY!!!!!!!! I had the guts to take photos with these characters because I was the only BIG KID doing so.
Mickey! Mickey speaks french.
Sleeping beauty's castle.
Roller coaster. I rode all the scary roller coasters, those with high limits. Yes, I managed to ride them even with the high limits, I am not THAT SHORT. Out of the 4 scary rides, 2 of them had 360degree turns, so this was my first time doing those.
The perpetually smiling cat from alice in wonderland.
Alice in wonderland maze.
Alice in wonderland house.
"its a small world after all" ride!
They had little dolls representing all the continents. This one is obviously France.
Dolls!
Pluto! There were so many kids crowding around him to get autographs, it was so paisae to ask him to take a photo with me.
Space mountain! I got a little car sick after this ride.
Before leaving Disneyland, We managed to catch the march pass of the little disney characters.
Beauty and the beast.
Snow white.
There were many other characters like aladin, mickeymouse + co, sleeping beauty, little mermaid.
escargots!
I went to the most posh boutique I've ever been to my life in Paris-the Cartier boutique. They actually hired one dude to just open the door, and two women to stand near the door to dish out honey-coated "bonjour"s and "au revoir"s to you. It's just Crazy. If you are a poor man like me and go in, you'll certainly feel very uncomfortable.
The real Arc de Tromphe.
THE LV shop in Paris. It's 3 stories filled with LV stuff- clothes, shoes, watches, wallets, bags, jewelery.
Inside of the big LV store. Of the 5 days I spent there, I went to LV 4 times. Twice to the big LV, twice to the small one in Gallery Lafayette. Talk about LV overdose, I don't think I want to see another LV bag in the next 3 months.
One amazing thing about the LV boutiques was that it was FILLED with asians. Like, 3/4 of the customers were asians. At Gallery Lafayette, almost all the service staff were asians too. It felt as though I stepped into Chinatown. But it was also heartening to know that asians are getting more affluent. :)
Our loot! Nar, I didn't buy any LV bags for myself, though it felt really cool to go up to the salesperson and say "Je prends ca, ca... et ca" when helping my friends buy their stuff. I got the chance to see the LV bag I have been eyeing since last year up close, and boy was I disappointed! It didn't look as nice up close. :(
Oysters and crevettes for my last dinner there.
I love oysters =)
Paris is simply HUGEEE. And there are SO MANY LITTLE STREETS in paris, making navigating there a pain in the arse. Even the metro lines are confusing. Lyon only has 4 metro lines; paris has like, 8 + RER lines. Gosh.
I reached Paris on sat morning via TGV. The lyon-paris TGV line is the fastest around. And I was lucky to get first class seats, though I was stuck seating behind a group of noisy american kids throughout the journey.
PARIS! Something really funny happened; one of my friends who could not read french was cursing away because he thought that the C on the tap meant COLD, only to turn on the tap and find hot water flowing out.
Well, C stands for Chaud, which is HOT. F stands for froid, which means cold.
There was a manifestation going on down the street from where I lived.
Yea, viva la france! et les manifestations! et les greves! quoi d'autres?
This manifestation was for the handicap, because they only get 628euros/month and they want more.
Fantastic string ensemble outside the Louvre. The acoustics around there was fantastic. You feel as though you are living in Mozart's time, walking around the old buildings and listening to classical music being played along the sidewalk.
LOUVRE!!!!! I was soooo happy to finally see the Louvre in full glory! I snapped many pictures of the darn pyramid from different angles. All pictures came out more or less the same.-___-
Mini arc de tromphe.
Eiffel tower!
Notre Dame de Paris. It was so insanely crowded and there was a lonnnnnng queue to get in, so I gave it a miss.
I went into the Louvre musee on my birthday, 30th march. It is simply impossible to finish the Louvre in one day. C'est PAS POSSIBLE.
The louvre consists of 3 buildings having 4 stories each.
Speaking of my birthday, I got cheated because the daylight savings time kicked in on my birthday (at 30th march 2am, the time jumped to 3am), so I lost 1 hour. Yea, 23 hour birthday. I spent 30th and 31th march being very confused about the time because some of the clocks in Paris were not adjusted to the correct time.
Anyway, LOUVRE!
The inside of the glass pyramid.
Famous painting La Liberté guidant le peuple by Eugène Delacroix. Notice that the two victorious subjects are minorities.
THE FAMOUS MONA LISA!!! There were soooooo many people crowding in front of her, making it impossible to admire it for long at close range.
Aphrodite, aka Venus of Milo.
Next day... visit to the Eiffel tower!
At Champs Elysee.
Eiffel tower, the mega lightning rod of Paris, hehe. When it was first built, the parisians hated it. When the Louvre pyramid was first built, the parisians also hated it. And when the esplanade was first built, the singaporeans hated it too. hahahah.
Eiffel tower again! We had a choice to walk up or take a lift up. Since the queue for walking was short, we walked up. The key to visiting attractions in Paris is to go as early as possible to beat the insane queues.
From the top down.
View from the 2ieme etage.
OYSTERS for lunch. The fantastic thing about paris is, all the road-side resturants I ate in served fantastic food. The thing about french cuisine is that there is high weightage on presentation and service. We had oysters(flat Belons! Bretagnes!), crevettes and escargots. So french! And the meals are not very expensive; you can get a 2 course meal for around 20 euros.
Monday was spent in Disneyland (the only disneyland in europe)! I made a mistake and used the wrong ticket to take the RER to disneyland. Instead of using the 6 euro ticket, I used a normal 1 euro ticket. So we had to climb over the barrier to get out of the train station.
Disneyland is made up of 2 parcs: the studio parc and the parc with all the fun rides. Since I knew we won't have time to cover both, we bought the ticket for one parc.
Studio parc.
fun parc! :D:D:D
GOOFY!!!!!!!! I had the guts to take photos with these characters because I was the only BIG KID doing so.
Mickey! Mickey speaks french.
Sleeping beauty's castle.
Roller coaster. I rode all the scary roller coasters, those with high limits. Yes, I managed to ride them even with the high limits, I am not THAT SHORT. Out of the 4 scary rides, 2 of them had 360degree turns, so this was my first time doing those.
The perpetually smiling cat from alice in wonderland.
Alice in wonderland maze.
Alice in wonderland house.
"its a small world after all" ride!
They had little dolls representing all the continents. This one is obviously France.
Dolls!
Pluto! There were so many kids crowding around him to get autographs, it was so paisae to ask him to take a photo with me.
Space mountain! I got a little car sick after this ride.
Before leaving Disneyland, We managed to catch the march pass of the little disney characters.
Beauty and the beast.
Snow white.
There were many other characters like aladin, mickeymouse + co, sleeping beauty, little mermaid.
escargots!
I went to the most posh boutique I've ever been to my life in Paris-the Cartier boutique. They actually hired one dude to just open the door, and two women to stand near the door to dish out honey-coated "bonjour"s and "au revoir"s to you. It's just Crazy. If you are a poor man like me and go in, you'll certainly feel very uncomfortable.
The real Arc de Tromphe.
THE LV shop in Paris. It's 3 stories filled with LV stuff- clothes, shoes, watches, wallets, bags, jewelery.
Inside of the big LV store. Of the 5 days I spent there, I went to LV 4 times. Twice to the big LV, twice to the small one in Gallery Lafayette. Talk about LV overdose, I don't think I want to see another LV bag in the next 3 months.
One amazing thing about the LV boutiques was that it was FILLED with asians. Like, 3/4 of the customers were asians. At Gallery Lafayette, almost all the service staff were asians too. It felt as though I stepped into Chinatown. But it was also heartening to know that asians are getting more affluent. :)
Our loot! Nar, I didn't buy any LV bags for myself, though it felt really cool to go up to the salesperson and say "Je prends ca, ca... et ca" when helping my friends buy their stuff. I got the chance to see the LV bag I have been eyeing since last year up close, and boy was I disappointed! It didn't look as nice up close. :(
Oysters and crevettes for my last dinner there.
I love oysters =)
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