Day 1 - Paris

Woke up like 4 am in the morning , drove down to Heathrow airport and flew to Paris charles de gaul airport. We decided against travelling by train as it cost more and its well slightly slower.

Sneak a wink while waiting for the plane

After the touch down , confusing at the airport kicks in. I forgot to get the immigration form on the plane , thinking i could get it at the airport but oh man there wasn't any to be found not even the information counter. In the end i have to explain to the counter guy about it and finally i get a chop on my passport.

Charles De Gual Airport

Walking to the shuttle bus and looking the bus was quite a problem as most of the signage is in french. Thankfully we got direction from the bus helpers, and manage to catch the right bus to Gare du nord in paris. Journey time is about 41km about 20 mins to arrive.

The moment i step out of the bus and up the steps to the metro station . I could smell the ammonia smell allong the way , gosh do they clean the steps at all? The weather was bloody hot compared to london almost like singapore . The mineral water cost a bomb like about 2 euro each.Purchasing tickets

In the metro train you can see folks basking in the train playing violins or even just mumbling their plight from cabin to cabin.

in the metro train

Queued up to get our day passes from the ticket booth and head straight for Les Invalides the tomb of napoleon one of france most famous conqueror and other war heros. Its also housed the France military museum from medieval to both the 2 world war. Things to take note the museum commentary text are all in french. So better pick up your french language before coming here. None the less if you are a war buff this is the place to be!

War museum

Napolean's final resting place

I realised in france all of the top tourist spot you will find a souvenir medallion vending machine from monnaie de paris which is the paris mint. So i try to get a medallion for each of the tourist spot.

I got to say every Parisian are all dressed up like celebrities especially at cafes all the chairs will be facing out into the street and most if not all in sunglasses. As if the street is the cat walk.. and they are like fashion buyers. Now i know what the feeling of being stared means.

Next stop is the Eiffel tour (tower), the most famous landmark icon, without it is like cake without icing , flowers without its petal... i can go on forever.
This structure is huge .. TV and photos does not do justice to the size of this icon. I really wonder how they did it..
Unfortunately we did not go up the tower as the throngs of crowd is created a long snake queue. Instead we decided to head to the Arc de triomphe . Another icon of paris its a large arc that stood in the middle of the round about.
Oh remember to take the under pass to the arc and not jaywalking across the road. The tunnel is just next champs-elysee road.

Below the arc below has a tomb of an unknown soldier from world war I , with the eternal flame burning on it and above it hang the huge french flag. Guarding the tomb are soldiers from the french army and navy ( thats guard duty to me)
And to get up the arc viewing platform you have to climb up the 300 over steps or if you are old and handicapp can take the lift up.

The view from the top?

Simply breath taking! Eiffel tower is the only structure that stick out among all the other Parisian building!

After the Arc we went abit of a window shopping at the famous champs-elysee the orchard road of paris. Most of the designer boutique and car boutique can be found here, we checked out some of stores like mercedes , toyota and the most famous of them all Louis Vutton.

Fortunately we came late thus not so much crowd inside but for ryan who was getting some leather goods there. Seems like only a few models have stock. Nonetheless he got 2 purse and a small pouch. And best of all theres a VAT rebate for tourist thats almost 20% off the price compared to singapore.

The spanking new rental bikes for Parisian

After walking the whole day its time to head to the hotel to check in . Our hotel (Montparnasse Daguerre Hotel Paris) is in the business district of paris and well its rather quiet during the weekend. We also was kinda shock to know that the room has no aircon only a desk fan. thats the problem with a budget hotel (payed about 280 bucks a night). We took showers and lazed around till 7pm before heading for dinner, the day is long and so it doesn't seems like its evening.


We grab a meal at the La porte oceane restuarant just around the area. I had beef steak and side dish of eggs with mayo. I must say the beef is really tender even though its well done . The favor is really out of this world. Only problem in france is that the service tends to be slow and having a meal may last 2 hour or so. And do remember to call the waiter in french! coz sometimes they do not respond in english!
Last but not least we drop by at the famous moulin rouge which inspires the movie of the same name. Well unfortunately we did not get in to watch the can can but the scenery around this area is well interesting enough.

Feeling tired after a long day I decided to head back to rest, while the two of them went for a drink at one of the clean pub. That is also when i realized that i lost the 2 day pass ticket which i bought!.. What the @#$!@$ do they come up with a tiny ticket!...