Paris ♥

Finally back from the entire experience of Europe, the continent I have been awaiting to go to for 19years of my life. Best part was - our first stop was The City Of Love, Paris ♥. I have been looking forward to this trip all my life, to be able to walk on the streets of Paris filled with loving couples holding hands, cafes lining the streets, delicious pastries, pretty antique buildings and of course, most importantly Tour Du Eiffel ♥. 

The feeling at Changi Airport was that of enthusiasm and anxiousness, it was midnight and nothing could stop me from feeling all pumped up for Paris. Best part was it felt like a total dream come true! Every single time I was in Changi Airport I'd automatically check the departure board to search for the first flight to Paris, and now when I was checking it, I was actually going there! Omg, feel my eggcitement. :D But well, the only thing I didn't really bare to leave was my beloved H, who'd be missing me for 2.5 weeks before I finally return.

That night before the flight: Silly boy knowing that I'll be gng overseas. Then he placed his paw on my thigh Aww :)  Love him max <3

Flying to France didn't seem as long and tiring as usual probably due to the eggcitement brewing inside me. So we finally arrived on the 30th Nov, at 6am (France time - which would be 1pm Sg time) and we headed to our apartment. The sun hasn't rose when we were there and traffic was pretty congested due to the fact that our apartment was located in the center of the city.

 The view from the apartment overlooked the entire street which had a very English feel, similar to Singapore's Peranakan shophouses, giving an antique yet comfortable atmosphere. Buildings in France  had nearly the same conceptual designs and I figured that most of the buildings in Europe are somewhat same just some unique differences here and there. I really like the buildings nevertheless. Besides it was obviously very different from the HDB flats in sg, where due to the utilizing of space, it gave  more of the confined feeling instead of the feeling of home. 

In France, the atmosphere and ambiance is so serene and relax that it's comfortable. And it feels like a holiday/weekend almost everyday. Streets are filled with cafes, bars, pastries shops while pavements are covered with the fallen autumn leaves. Weather's not very fantastic during our entire stay due to the rain every other day. Rain in France is unlike the convectional rain now and then in sg but tiny drizzle lasting for an entire day. So rainy days are really gloomy and get somewhat annoying if you happen to be spending your entire day outdoors. 

Night falls around 4 plus pm everyday where it would look like 9pm when it's only 5pm. So it makes the days pretty short. The French's pace is relaxed unlike sg's hasty walking here and there. And the nightlife isn't very vibrant but I'd say they value spending time chilling out even on weeknights in cafes just catching up with one another, it's like as if they're celebrating the end of the day and it doesn't seem like they have any more work to do/rush. I'd like that very much, but I don't think the workload in sg allows us to be able to, although there are equivalent kind of cafes and bars lining Clarke Quay. 

Smokers are very prevalent in France and it's the same throughout Europe. They tend to smoke especially during cold weather as it helps to keep warm. So it's a common sight seeing pretty French ladies/girls smoking in the open-air cafes while chilling out with their company enjoying bread, wine and beer.     

Our apartment is a tiny apartment with a huge living room that spreads out to the kitchen and a another room with two single beds. The queen sized bed above with is decorated to give a princess-y feel is situated in the living room instead of being cornered off as an individual room. And yours truly had the honor of sleeping on it ^^V. The window view is the view that greets me everyday when I wake up. It's a really awesome feeling to just open the windows in the morning and feel the cool morning breeze brush across your face, after having snuggling in the warm bed and blankets all night. <3 The apartment's very nice and cosy, wouldn't mind to live in something like that next time :)

So we had our first meal in France in a cafe somewhere near our apartment, just down the street. They had a huge board for a menu and the interior of the cafe was decorated with a collage of pictures taken from a magazine. We ordered a few typical french dishes, bruschetta, linguine, pennes & creme brulee. The bruschetta and creme brulee was the best among all, I would feel. French really know how to make good desserts. *Slurps*

Having our stomachs filled we decided to start our journey of exploring Paris! So first stop was Musee Du Lourve. We made our way there on foot as it was pretty near the place we were already in. All of the streets look pretty much the same so people tend to get lost but luckily for me, I have photographic memory ^^V. So once we were there, we were greeted with a magnificent view of glass pyramids and historic buildings surrounding the Lourve. 

The Lourve was divided into various sections which included Vatican & Greek Sculptures, Paintings of different centuries.. It's pretty fascinating learning how to appreciate art through different ways. The fine and detailed craving of the marble sculptures of Greek Gods, not a single detail forgotten. Every single toe, wrinkle line, muscle, craved in explicit detail. Paintings were mostly comprising and depicting that of Christianity, wasn't a total fan of it but it's amazing the amount of things you can infer through a single painting. The feelings of the people shown in the drawing, the atmosphere, the story behind the painting, the painter's view on the event... And when we reached the Mona Lisa, it was crowded with tourists trying to take shots of the famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. It didn't give to me that much of a 'wow' feel as compared to his other work 'The Last Supper' which was magnified probably 50 times. 

So after admiring hundreds of paintings and sculptures, we decided to roam the streets and shops nearby to take a look but we didn't last long. By that time, everyone was exhausted mostly due to the overnight flight, so we headed home and rest so we could have an early start the next day. (Haha, we were so tired we decided to skip dinner)

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Day Two: Paris Disneyland

We took the metro all the way to Paris Disneyland, one of the world's oldest and first Disneyland to be built outside of United States.

The metro in Paris is one of the oldest subway lines built in the world not as old as London's tube but it sure looks older and dirtier. Reason being that as night falls, it is transformed to being home to homeless people and other anonymous people who have nowhere else to go. So it gets kinda scary when you take the metro during evening hours as the cultural diversity of the people is very broad now that Europe allows entrance within countries without obligations. Besides this, some parts of the metro reeks of urine, fortunately it's not the train though. Rats are a common sight here and there, and so are dogs. Apparently the France is quite tolerant with dogs, I see dogs practically everywhere, in trains, restaurants, cafes.. So if I happen to migrate here, I'm definitely bringing H everywhere I go!

Disneyland is one of my favorite places in the world, it always gives me the magical feeling once you step into the place. Check out the clouds, it's as if everything's perfect for a change. Walking down the Walt Disney Main Street is totally amazing, especially when it's all decorated with Christmas Ornaments. There's even fake snow made of foam falling from the top of every building, it's as if it's really snowing. I had to take an instance to figure whether it's real or not. Incredible feeling, never gets old. Everything there seems very tumblr-y, feels like I'm in lalaland, where all my wildest dreams come true! And boom, I'm a little girl again. :)

 We bought Park Hopper tickets which means that we were able to hop between both parks, Walt Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios. Walt Disneyland was separated into various land as usual, Adventure land, Sleeping Beauty's Castle, Wild Wild West. It was more catered for kids, so rides weren't that adrenaline pumping, but were nevertheless fun! The queue timings were an average of 45 mins, which was considered pretty good due to the winter season. Walt Disney Studios is where all the fun was! Rides were awesome especially the Aerosmith RollarCoaster! That was definitely one of the best rollar coasters I have ever rode - loops, sharp turns, sudden drops, you name it!

Pity they didn't have fireworks at the end of the day but we enjoyed both the Walt Disney Theme Parks to the fullest. Boy, were we exhausted when we took the metro back to our apartment. So that ends our fun-filled, dreamland day two.

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Day Three: Breakfast, Arc De Triomphe, Musee du Rodin, Galeries Lafeyette, Tour Du Eiffel

To start of the day, we had a traditional French breakfast, which included pancakes, ham, sandwiches as well as the most popular Goose Foie Gras, liver to be exact. It's one of the French's delicacies, though it may look unappetizing, it tastes amazing, especially with toast. The simplicity of the taste is incredible, and the toast totally complements it. "Looks can be deceiving" hahaha.

It was raining the entire morning as we headed out kind of late, the sky was gloomy and the wind was ultra chilly and strong so we were all equipped with scarfs and umbrellas. So we walked to Sentier, the nearest metro in our area and headed down to our first destination :)

Arc De Triomphe - a tremendous wall in the shape of an arch in commemoration of Napolean. One of the two major arches built in France, the other is La Defense. Cravings on the Arch depicts the entire timeline during the civil war in France, more prominent ones showing Napolean leading his troops to victory. The second picture features the scene after the war where Napolean and his troops first return back to France after gaining victory. While the last picture features the shipping of Napolean's coffin from an island back to France, black mast were lowers from the top of the Arch as a form of upmost respect for their always loved leader. He was the only one to have such a grand appearance performed at Arc de Triomphe till today.

As usual the place was flooded with tourists, taking photos and making their way up to the top of the Arch to see the view of the city. We didn't make our way up due to chilly and strong winds that day, so we sat at the stone steps beneath the arch and listen to my mum educating us about the history of France and the arch. I swear my mum makes an absolutely awesome historian/tour guide.

Since the weather was pretty cold we decided to head for somewhere warm and cosy, which makes museums the place to be at that moment. So we headed down to one of the most well-known museums in Paris, Musee du Rodin.

Auguste Rodin was famous for his sculptures, typically marble and clay. His  most notable sculpture, the same one that rose his reputation and popularity was 'The Thinker'. The one featured above is the original sculpture, there are up to 30 imitation sculptures of 'The Thinker' all over the world. Another one of his most famous sculpture is 'The Gates of Hell' which is also one of my favorite sculptures throughout the whole trip. 'The Gates of Hell' is the combination of all of his sculptures, it depicts his feelings about death, the afterlife and what he foresees. Rodin took 36 years of his life working on it, and it was only completed in the last year of his life, leading to his death. It was one of the most well-known sculptures ever since, became tremendously popular cause of his death.

Rodin's work is one of the best works I have seen, it depicts his entire emotions within the sculptures, seen through the explicit details of the features and the exquisite craving of every single emotion. This can be seen in another one of his sculptures, 'The Kiss', also seen above. Amazing, simply amazing.

My dad bought one of his sculptures back - 'The Hand of God'. So after educating ourselves artistically, we decided to head for late lunch/early dinner. Apparently we are only having two meals in Europe cause of the huge portions, it fills our stomach till nightfall :)

Onion soup, one of the must-tries when you're in France. Absolutely delicious, it's cooked with a layer of bread soaked in the onion soup. The taste of the soup is so rich and fragrant, it makes you just want to have another! Apparently this is one of the best onion soups we have tasted cause after trying this, we went to practically every cafe/restaurant we ate in and ordered the exact same soup but it didn't taste as good as this one :(

So after dinner we headed to Galleries La Fayette, one of the biggest and most popular shopping centres in France. Seeing the Christmas decorations in the area immediately degrades Singapore's, counting on the fact that Christmas is such a huge deal in Europe. I like the Christmas-y feeling everywhere I go, it's like as if everyone is really celebrating it.

"Here's the season to be jolly, tralalala lalalala~"

Tour Du Eiffel - The very place I have been dreaming of coming to ever since I first lay my eyes upon it. When my dad first sent me a postcard on my fourth birday from Paris cause he was there on a business trip and couldn't make it back in time for my birday. Ever since I have been asking him to tell me about how the Eiffel Tower is like, the experience he had with my mum. He told me about the fountains lining the green fields towards the Eiffel Tower, how couples would lay on the fields during summer just admiring the it. How the tower is painted in different shades and would give you an entire new feeling whenever you change angles looking at it or when sunlight shines upon it. He told me about how my mum and him would sit on the bench, looking at the lit Eiffel Tower and chatting under the starry skies. And how they would go home at wee hours after spending a lovely night talking about the nicest things.

So here I am, staring at the magnificent Tour Du Eiffel and how it lights up the entire night sky.The view, the atmosphere, the ambiance, the lights, has never failed my impression of it. We headed to Tour Du Eiffel after shopping. By then, it was around 8pm and a tiny drizzle has started to fall. There was a short walk from the metro to the tower so I was very anxious and eggcited to just get a glimpse of the tower. And once it finally came to view, although from a very far end, the eggcitement inside of me rose, like a little girl who has just saw the most beautiful thing in the world.

I wouldn't say that everything was perfect counting on the fact that I couldn't take a decent polaroid photo due to the low exposure and all the pictures taken by my dad's dslr weren't perfect as well. (Especially if there were people in the picture) So yeah, I was a little disappointed, after all I came all the way to Paris just to view one of the seven wonders of the world and I couldn't take a decent shot with it :( And the thing was that my dad said we wouldn't have time to make another trip back cause we had plans for tomorrow already :/

The night view of the Eiffel tower was simply beautiful, what made it even better was there was a lighting show for around five minutes. It showed the Eiffel Tower being lighted up like a Christmas Tree and all the lights were dancing around it. It took my breath away. <3

So we spent the rest of the day spamming photos and having loads of fun with the torchlight and the iPhone camera cause the flash on my dad's dslr had too much exposure. I love my family, we have fun everywhere, and I'm so glad to be spending my virgin trip to Tour Du Eiffel with them :)

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Day Four:Musee Carnavallt, Tea at a random Pastry shop, Center Pompidou, Shopping


The focus that day was most shopping as we would be leaving for Amsterdam in a couple of days. Souvenirs from Paris was one of the must-do things on our list, cause apparently Paris just gave us the romantic french feeling and eventually everything there would be nice. But that wasn't entirely true due to the fact that most things featuring stuff regarding Paris wasn't actually sold there but was sold in Singapore instead. So it was probably imported and made from somewhere other than Paris itself.

Musee Carnavallt was another one of the typical museum featuring mostly on the life of Louis the Fourteen. Artifacts on display were mostly furniture, sculptures as well as the ornaments and decorations of the lifestyle that the emperor was living. Louis the Fourteen lived a life of luxury, with a huge appetite on food and would spend up to 4 hours just for a single meal. Hence loads of the cutlery were specially designed and of elaborate patterns. Wooden floors were customized and every plank of wood was specially arranged in such an unique manner no two planks were of the same size. Furniture and room decorations were amazingly elegant and of different themes.

Most of our stomachs were half empty by the time we finish touring the museum so as we headed towards our next destination, we got attracted mouthwatering desserts at one of the pastry shops lining the streets. So we got some of the most random desserts, sat outside the cafe and enjoyed them with the cold chilly wind blowing in our faces.

Well, all I can say for the desserts are that it's as good as it looks! French really serves the best pastries, it's as if they really put every effort, passion and love while making them. My favorites are the lemongrass creme tart on the upper right and the caramelized with a tint of alcohol sponge cake on the upper left. :)


The streets were filled with tonnes of pastries shop and we decided to get one of these, a strawberry filled sweet cake kind of bread. Not too sweet and tasted incredible. Helped up counter the strong chilly wind that day.




Center Pompidou: One of the most well-known places in France, it's another museum featuring modern and contemporary art, which includes paintings, artifacts, literature, movies.. What made this building unique was of course the exterior design of the building, which is generally made of pipes and electric cables. As you can see, the museum is color coded so as to differentiate the different genres of the exhibits. Besides this, it is also a public library.

It was kind of a pity we didn't manage to get to visit the place as the queue was tremendously long that day :/ So we decided to head to shoppinggggggggg :)

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Day Five, Last day in Paris: Versallies, Tour du Eiffel, Notre Dame, Musee du Lourve

So we started off our day by taking the metro all the way to zone 5, to the Versallies. Versallies is a palace, home to all the royalties that has ruled France for the past few centuries. Through the centuries it has expanded it's buildings and structures to what you see today. It is massive and really impressive, one of the biggest palace I have ever visited (not that I have visited a lot) But as seen through the pictures you can see how huge it actually is. The last picture is the garden and it stretches all the way to the lake you see at the far end and even further, so I guess that will give you an idea how huge the palace actually is. We went there on a Monday if I wasn't mistaken and it was a real pity cause the Versailles isn't open on Mondays. Which makes us unable to visit the museum within it.

Lesson learnt: Always check the dates in which attractions are open/closed. Museums usually operate 5 days a week, some 6. They would have 1 day for cleaning and refining of the artifacts. If we've planned properly we would be able to see the mirrors of versallies as well. But it's kind of okay, because of the closure I suggested to my dad to visit the Eiffel Tower to see the day view! (I just can't leave Paris without a proper Polaroid photo of my favorite place!)
*Reminder to self: Must visit Versallies not on a Monday next time I come to Paris*

Here we are again, back at Tour du Eiffel, and can I say it was the best decision to come back to view the day version of the Eiffel Tower. The atmosphere of the Eiffel Tower in the day is so much different from that of the night, due to the fact that now you can actually see the whole steel structure of the Eiffel Tower instead of the silhouette of it through the lights lighting it up. And the ambiance is amazing! Did you know that the Eiffel Tower is painted in 3 different shades of metal, different at each level. And it will appear to be of different colors at different angles as well as depending on how the sunlight shines on it.


There are two ways up the Eiffel Tower, either by the lift or by the stairs. The tower is divided into three levels, the first and second is accessible by stairs while the third is only accessible by the lift. However the queue for the lift is insanely long, so we went up by the stairs. Going up by the stairs has its advantages and disadvantages, if you don't have a good heart or you don't exercise much, don't try. You'll be breathless halfway and you'll feel like dying by the time you're on the first level. The flight of stairs isn't extremely long but it's long enough to be climbing it for around 10 mins with short breaks in between. But the scenery at the top is so worth the climb. I could have stayed there all day/night.

I was telling my mum that day that I have lived life and if I die I wouldn't regret. Cause now that I have been to the Eiffel Tower, take awesome pictures (including polaroid ones, my life has been more or less fulfilled) hahaha,

Notre Dame Cathedral: One of the most famous cathedral located in France, famous for the stained glass panels depicting the story of Christ surrounding the entire cathedral. The beautiful display of stained glass bathed in sunlight gives the cathedral a magnificent atmosphere. Once you ascend the stairs to the second level and you first lay your eyes upon the glass panels it overwhelms you with a definite "wow". It doesn't seem that amazing in the pictures probably due to the low exposure not being able to bring out the contrast of colors. However, the cathedral is pretty small in size and chairs are lined around the perimeter of the cathedral to allow people to be seated and admire the vast scene. If you have never experienced the feel of stepping into a cathedral, this is the place to go in France.

Later that day we went to finish up the last of our shopping as we were leaving the country the next day. So in the night we decided to make a final stop at Musee de Lourve to catch the night view of the glass pyramids. However, it was too dark to be able to see anything that day, but instead we found the famous inverted glass pyramid instead.

So this ends my entire experience in France, Paris. It is indeed an experience, but quite a pity that the weather didn't permit us to visit more attractions and have more fun. My dad kept insisting that we should have came during the summer instead as the weather would be much warmer and days would be longer so shops wouldn't close by 8pm. But summer would attract more tourist so eventually everywhere would be filled w people. Just imagine thrice the amount of people queuing to go up the Eiffel Tower during summer ._. Which reminds me, my next dream: To go to the top of Tour du Eiffel with the love of my life and ....... hahahhaha

I love Paris, always have, always will :)
(Sorry if my long whiny post has made your eyes hurt :/ )