Paris / Brussels Tour

Yoz people� I am back from my 8 day trip. The whole thing was fun, despite it not really kicking off on a good start =P. Despite waking up early that morning, we still managed to miss our flight. (And we were only 5 minutes late!) Anyway Easyjet allowed us on their next flight without having to pay a single cent.

22nd December

After landing in Paris, it took a bit of getting used to and a bit of navigation before we found our hotel. Luckily for us, the owner turns out to be a China Guy! Ya, he was real nice to us, and showed us the places that we should visit. After chucking off our stuff, we went out in search of food. BUT� in the glorious city of Paris, we can�t find any restaurants offering decent French food! Finally realized after dinner (and when all the other restaurants open after 7pm) that the French have their dinner late. Didn�t really do much that evening� basically slacked in the hotel and planned next day�s journey.

23rd December

Woke up early and refreshed. First stop was Museum Rodin. This guy is a famous sculptor, the creator of The Thinker. You know, the naked guy who sits on a stone with his chin in his hands, stoning away. After that, we left for Museum D�Orsay, where many famous art pieces are kept, especially the Impressionists and Non-impressionists. Can you imagine the 3 of us actually spent 4 whole hours in there?

We wanted to go to Eiffel after that, but to our horror, the weather was so bad that half of Eiffel Tower and missing (I mean covered in mist). Have to postpone the trip, so we ended up walking towards the Obelisk. This is supposed to be shipped over from Egypt as some kind of friendship token, and it stands today with a few of the state buildings of Paris in the Area called the Concorde.

We walked beyond the Concorde and saw the Temple of Zeus look alike in the background. The thing about France is that even the simplest of Churches can �qie� all the rest of the churches that we have in Singapore. This Catholic Church is the Church of Mary St. Madeleine.

After that, (the sky got darker already), we walked along the Orchard Road equivalent of Paris, the Avenue des Champs Elysee to attempt to get to yet another famous architecture, the Arc de Triumph. This structure was built (erm�) some time back to celebrate (erm�) some victory that the Franks have against (erm�) some enemy. =P As you can see, my history isn�t that fantastic. Well, too bad the Arc was closed for restoration work, so no lights and no photographs.

24th December

Christmas Eve! I hope that it will snow tomorrow, so that I can have a White Christmas in Paris! (Excited). However, back to reality, it�s another wet and gloomy day as we set out for Versailles. This is the palace of all the medieval kings of France. Since it is on the outskirts of Paris, we have to wake up rather early and take a train out to it.

The interior of the palace were lined with loads of ceiling and wall paintings, with themes revolving around the Greek Mythologies. The chambers with all these paintings were also named after the planets: Jupitor, Saturn, Mars etc. We also walked through the Hall of Mirrors. This was where all the old Frankish kings held their state conferences, and this was also where the Germans signed the Treaty of Versailles after WWI. Cool huh�

We left the main building of the palace and went to the even bigger gardens. Its winter, so everywhere seems so dead. No trees, no flowers, but a lot of fog. It was supposed to be the grand canal, which stretches a kilometer long. But we can�t even see past 50 metres (not joking) because of the fog.

We left Versailles at around 3. Grabbed a quick lunch at Macdonald�s and boarded the train back to Central Paris. I was keeping my fingers crossed when we got off the train, hoping that the fog would be lifted, but darn, I still can�t see the peak of the Eiffel Tower. Disappointed.

We headed for the Cite (City) after that. Notre Dame was a sight hard to miss, since it was simply towering from the Metro Station we got off at! The architecture was breath-taking. We didn�t get the chance to enter the church was it was Christmas eve, and there we like thousands of people squeezing to get a place in the church for the X�mas mass.

By the time we got back to where our hotel is, we were simply shagged out and desperately in need of food. Heh� anyway we found a restaurant near our hotel, and it turned out to be quite an experience. Appetizers appeared in the form of 6 oysters, 3 almost raw prawns and RAW snails! Well, there�s a first time to everything� Glurp�

Christmas Day!

Woohoo! It�s Christmas, and I am in Paris =PpP. Left the hotel later than usual today, thus managed to get more sleep. We didn't expect most of the shops and attractions to be open today, so we basically walked around Paris. Visited some other churches, the Pantheon (whos houses the famous dead of France), yada yada...

Basically, the highlight of the day was the visit to Eiffel Tower (again). Finally, it is a nice and fogless day, hence after an hour's queue, we were on the second level of the Eiffel! (after a tiring staircase climb up) The view from up there was fantastic! We spent an entire hour up there enjoying the breeze and identifying the different places we went to!

Took a metro over to the north of Paris, where we had dinner, before we entered the RED light district.. Hey... decent intentions. Walked to the infamous Moulin Rouge, but we did not enter, cos it costs near to a hundred Euros! Yuks...

26th December

Woke up early today cos we wanted to make sure that we are not caught in an exceptionally long queue at Lourve museum. However, despite being there even before the opening hour, there was already a queue.

This is the museum where Mona Lisa was housed. Hence, before we even been to anywhere else, we rushed over to pay her a visit. Not that we are kiasu, but because there's usually a queue if you wish to appreciate the painting up close.

After that, the 3 of us spent the entire day walking through the thousands of paintings that were housed here, before we went to the sculptures. Of course, the Goddess of Venus must not be missed =P.

After a simple dinner (we are running out of money!), we went over to Notre Dame again, and this time since there's no crowd (hurray) we finally got our chance to enter this humongous church. The interior was supposed to be very beautiful because of all the tainted glass, but since it was night, just too bad =P. Went back to our hotel and retired early since we have to wake up real early the next morning.

27th December

Dragged ourselves up at 5am, packed and went over to the coach station. The coach was late, and we mean REAL late. Because of that, we arrived 2 hours later in Brussels. This is a real unfriendly place, cos when we tried asking for directions, the people here simply ignored us, or gave us crude answers. (Sad)

Anyway we finally got to the hotel. It was a fantastic place, with TV! Muhaha~ We did really do much today, and we gotten our rest finally, and enjoyed loads of TV programmes heh... of course, we did spent our time planning what we are going to do the next day...

28th December

Woke up early and dragged our bodies to our hostel, where we will spend the last night in continental Europe =P After that, we left for our first stop, the comic strip museum. This place boosts collections of many cartoon artists, eg. Tin Tin, Smurfs, The Triplets etc...

After that, we basically walked around Brussels. We arrived at this famous restaurant which served mussels. Since my tummy was still giving me problems, I gave it a rest. But Sinyee and Valerie ordered a BIG pot of mussels each. Haha~ Think they got quite sick of it after some time.

Went looking for the trademark of Belgium after lunch. It was supposed to be a statue of this boy taking a piss... But disappointingly, it was just sooo small. Nevertheless, the many other architectures found on their royal squares were impressive. Big and gothic looking =P.

We returned to the bar of the hostel after the day of walking to stone... literally. We each gotten fruit beer from the bar and jsut sat the night away. Started playing some real funny games after we got bored after some time heh~ Started writing stories in the travel journal, the kind whereby each of us writes a line each, but the person writing only gets to read the previous line written. Heh~

Last Day

We walked around Brussels for a couple of hours before we left for the coach station to catch the coach back to Paris. We went to eat Ice Cream at the famous Ice Cream Restaurant on St. Louis Isle. Woohoo~ its fantastic. Sinyee was complaining that the Rum Ice Cream taste as if she was drinking Rum literally!

Left for the Airport after that. Its back to gloomy London from a Gloomy Paris after a week. Cheers man~ (And the plane was late again...)