Paris - Day 1

Luckily the flight was not full. Got an empty seat beside me so quite spacious. Didn't bother to watch the inflight movies cos they were not really the latest. Spent most of the time sleeping. Guess the flight can be summarised as follows:

Takeoff...eat...toilet...sleep...wakeup...sleep..wakeup ...sleep...wakeup...sleep...wakeup...eat...landing

Going through immigration was a breeze, no need to fill up any forms. However, after that, things got a bit confusing. Supposed to take the RER Line B but there were no signs showing where I should go. Finally asked the staff at the Information and was told to take Bus No. 2. Managed to find and board the bus. Had no idea where to alight so just followed the crowd. Again, followed the crowd to buy tickets to Paris and board the train.

Alighted correctly at Gare Du Nord to change to the Magenta RER Line E. Nearly took the wrong train going in the opposite direction. The right train, however, was PACKED! Worse than the MRT back home during peak hour. Literally have to force ur way in and hold ur breath. Luckily, peak hour Parisians seem to be well groomed and do not have any BO!

Finally reached the hotel at 0830, just in time to catch wifey as she was leaving for work. A quick freshening up and I was out of the hotel (very near St Lazare) at 0945.

Went to the following places:

- St Lazare
- Place de la Concorde
- Champs Elysees
- Louis Vuitton :-D
- Arc de Triomphe
- Palais de Chaillot
- Tour Eiffel
- Champ de Mars
- Ecole Militaire
- Hotel des Invalides

If you need an interactive map of Paris, this one's not bad.



Along Avenue Kleber (between the Arc de Triomphe and Palais de Chaillot), I met a desperate Italian man. He waved at me and stopped his car in front of me. He told me he is in the fashion business and was here for an exhibition. He showed me 3 nice jackets in Italian leather and told me he approached me because they were the right size for me. Next, comes his story...

Apparently, he has gambled away most of his money at a local casino and spent money on girls. He also maxxed out all his overseas credit cards, so he wanted to sell me the 3 jackets for 200€ for petrol back to Italy. Initially, I thought its some sort of con, but then later I find that he sounded quite genuine. I told him I was short of cash and only had 50€. The "bargaining" went on and eventually I managed to get 2 of the jackets for 70€.

Back at the hotel I tried them on and they fit very nicely! The leather was soft and comfortable. I decided to start wearing one of them immediately.

So Dominic (that was his name), whether you were genuine or not, I hope you managed to get back to Italy.

Dinner was at one of the restaurants called Hippopotamus. They have a lot of branches over Paris. Food is nice, at least I tried their "authentic" French Onion Soup.