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.

Waiting @ KLIA

I'm surprised that KLIA has FREE wifi Internet access while Changi requires you to pay. In this aspec, I think KLIA is better than CIA.

Took a while to transfer flights as had to take a train.

Ok, they are calling for boarding now, gotta go.

Waiting ... again ...

Now at boarding gate F31, waiting to board. No free wireless access so standing at one of the terminals here to write this. Hope the flight is not too full going to CDG.

Anyway, just received an SMS from Wifey that it is snowing in Paris! Wow, so suaku both of us. Hope it will snow again in the next few days.

Out for now.

Waiting for my hair to dry ...

It's past 4am in the morning and I've just finished taking a shower after coming back from ... work!

It's been a pretty eventful evening I should say. Started off after work when I metup with Dad and my Bro+SIL+Nikki for dinner. It was my Dad's birthday. We had cheap "zi cha" at Cactus Road near my office.

In the middle of the dinner, I received a call from a customer about their system having some problems. So after dinner and sending Dad back, it was off to customer's place, and eventually spent the evening and early morning troubleshooting with 2 other engineers (and chatting with each other when we realised that the fault was not with our system). The problem was finally fixed and by the time we left, it was 3am.

Its been a long while since I am out till so early in the morning. Enjoyed the nice drive back on empty roads and expressways. Highlights on the way back: 1) about 50+ cabs waiting outside St James Power station but don't see any crowd ... ; 2) Police road block along Woodlands Road which stopped and checked all vehicles about 1km from my home.

Ok, hair almost dry, time to catch some winks before some last minute tasks tomorrow.

Trip Preparation

Just dropped Wifey off at the airport. Her flight is at 2350hrs so should be in the air by now. Another few more days it will be my turn. Most of my stuff is already packed in a haversack, just left with the toiletries and some electronics.

Wifey is a "lister", so I got a list of chores to do tomorrow. She also listed down stuff which I have yet to pack. Hmmm, better keep the list properly and not lose it. (It is kinda freaky that my horoscope for Feb 3 also talks about planning for upcoming trips and making lists!)

Hopefully there will be free wireless Internet access somewhere near the hotel for me to post daily updates to this blog through the PDA. If not, there will be silence till I am back on Valentine's Day ... :-)