Traveling Light Relay » paris

My Picture in Rick Steves’ iPhone App

Kwong Yee — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:17:33 +0000

A few months back, I received an email from some book company in the Bay area, asking for my permission to use a photo I took in Louvre Museum back in 2008. I was told it would be used in an iPhone App. Not having an iPhone, and too cheap to pay for an iPhone App even if I do, I knew I might not be able to see how it would look like. So it was a pleasant surprise to see my picture in some of the screen captures in iTunes App Store, with my name credited at the bottom of the picture. It’s nothing to brag about, but I’m quite pleased with it.

Paris January 2008

Kwong Yee — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:38:48 +0000

Early on when I was on assignment in Holland, I remember thinking I wanted to explore places in Europe that is somewhat less popular; I thought the chances of me going to those places on my own are pretty slim. So first place I visited outside of Holland was Brussels and Bruges in Belgium (not exactly unpopular, just relatively so.) And then I joined a couple of people in the Holland office, and went on a road trip to Berlin in Germany (still sort of less popular.)

Naturally the next place I visited was Paris… (I know, it’s only the most popular destination in the world.) Ok, it’s not exactly my idea. It just happened that a colleague of mine, Aaron, was on assignment in Paris for a couple weeks. So I thought it would be great to meet up with him in Paris.

Technically speaking, I have been to Paris once before, but I don’t think it really counted; it was a day-trip from London a couple years ago, and it’s not that I had a bad experience, but I was there for so little time, I didn’t get to enjoy much of what I saw. So this time around, I was determined to go to most of the same places, in double amount of time (two days!)

Day Zero – Flying from Amsterdam to Paris:
Hotel, Champs-Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, and Eiffel Tower

Instead of taking the train, this time around, I flew from Amsterdam to Paris on an early evening flight. It cost a little more, but it’s a bit faster, and I didn’t need to watch out for connecting trains.

9:00pm Holiday Inn Paris Bastille

To get from the airport to my hotel, which is in the city center area, I took the local rail and subway, and it took just under an hour to get there. The transport system is not too complicated, and it has a good website with trip planner. The hotel looks a little old from the outside, looks even older in the lobby, but the room was nicely furnished, so I was more than satisfied. Even though I had an relatively early flight, I wasn’t sure if I had the energy to go out after checking in.

11:00pm Champs-Elysees and Arc de Triomphe

Feeling that there was no time to slack off, I went out after a short rest in my room. My first stop is the Arc de Triomphe. I remember when I was there last time, it made a great impression on me as I climbed up the stairs from the subway station (mainly because it’s so close to the station.) So I thought I knew what I was expecting, except this time is after dark, and my eyes were lighten up when I saw it in a nice golden glow. I must’ve spent more than half hour, walking around the monument, and taking pictures.

12:00am Eiffel Tower from Trocadero Square

One thing I noticed while circling the Arc de Triomphe was that I could actually see the Eiffel Tower from there; the light show they have on the hour certainly helps getting noticeable from afar. After spending so much time at the Arc de Triomphe, I realized I need to get a good view of the Eiffel Tower for the light show around midnight. (I wasn’t sure if there is one at 1am, and I wasn’t sure if I want to stay out that late either.) Instead of taking the subway, I decided to walk to the Trocadero Square, thinking I would spend just as much time waiting for subway. The Trocadero Square is probably one of the best place to see the Eiffel Tower from a distance, but really, the tower looks great from any angle (it being symmetrical after all.)

Day One – Meeting Mona Lisa:
Louvre Museum, French Bistro, Arc de Triomphe, and Eiffel Tower

One strange thing my friends and I did last time, was to visit the Louvre Museum without going inside. Well, technically we did go inside, but only for restroom and its bookstore. Because it was a day trip, we didn’t really have any time to spend there. I suppose we could just look at Mona Lisa and go, but that seems a little too expensive to do that. So I was quite determined to visit Louvre this time around.

9:30am Louvre Museum

They say you could spend days in this museum (which also lead me to think it is dumb to pay full admission to see only the Mona Lisa.) Good thing that I was using a very good guidebook, called Rick Steves’ Paris; it highlights the artwork not to be missed there. It also provides very good commentary on each piece of artwork, makes it a bit more interesting for people like me who knows so little about art. Just as the book describes, it might be a little disappointing to see Mona Lisa for the first time; it is smaller than what most people expect, and it is a bit dark. The room where Mona Lisa situated was specifically built for the painting; something about the lighting, I think. It is the room where I spent the most for this visit, not for Mona Lisa, but because I was meeting Aaron there, who just got off the plane that morning. A few of my friends thought it sounds romantic, if only I was meeting a girl. But really, it is the most obvious “landmark” within the museum; they have many signs there, with a picture of the painting, pointing the direction to the room. But by the time Aaron got there, security people started clearing people out of that room, maybe Mona Lisa needed a breather.

12:00pm Lunch at Le Comptoir du Relais

While I spent more than enough time looking at Mona Lisa, Aaron didn’t get the chance to see it, at least not when he just got there. We figured they would re-open the room a bit later, so we went for lunch in the mean time. I don’t usually do a lot of research when it comes to eating; I always think it could get expensive in places where tourists are, and even worse, it takes up time. But Aaron, quite a foodie himself, came fully prepared, having a list of places he wanted to try in his two weeks there. The bistro we ended up going have some tables set up outside. I’m not sure if you can call that patio because it is really taking up the sidewalk of the street. The weather was nice, not too cold or windy, so we chose to sit outside, doing some people-watching in the street of Paris, while having some good southwestern French country fare.

2:00pm Back to Louvre

After a nice relaxing lunch break, we went back to Louvre to see some more Mona Lisa and other art works. I am quite impressed by some of those huge paintings, and I like to take pictures of those paintings with people looking at them, to show just how big those paintings are.

4:00pm Back to Arc de Triomphe

After spending a couple more hours at the Louvre museum, we went to Arc de Triomphe (again.) All I really wanted to do is to get on top of it, to have a view of Paris. It is kinda neat to see all those streets (12 of them) leading to this great monument, but the view was not as great as I have hoped (I blame it on the overcasted sky.)

6:00pm Back to Eiffel Tower

The previous time I was in Paris, I got to the base of the Eiffel Tower, but I didn’t get to go up because I had to catch a train back to London; it was such a unfulfilling experience. So this time I made sure I have plenty of time to visit the tower, it did require quite a bit of time, as the line to go up was long. We stopped at all three levels of the tower, spent lots of time on each level, snapping tons of pictures. I agree with the guidebook that the second level provides a nicer view of the city than the other two levels.

Day Two – More Must See Attractions:
Sainte-Chapelle, Notre-Dame, Orsay Museum

On my last day in Paris, I finally got to visit a couple places I had not gone in my previous time; in fact, I had not even heard of them before (goes to show how unprepared I was for my first visit)

9:00am Sainte-Chapelle

We went to Sainte-Chapelle first thing in the morning, which is probably not the best time to visit. They say the best time to go is when the sun is bright, with sunlight shining through the stained glasses, lighting up the chapel like a jewel box. But we were there early, and it seemed to be another cloudy day, so there were barely enough light inside the chapel. I guess I would come here again if I have the chance.

10:00am Notre-Dame

I have been to the Notre-Dame in my previous visit, but like Eiffel Tower, I didn’t get to go up on the tower. Normally there would be a long line to go up, but since we were there early in the morning, it didn’t take us long to go up. From the top, it has a great view of the Seine river and the city.

12:30pm Orsay Museum

Surprisingly we spent more than two hours in the Notre-Dame area, cutting into our lunch time. We were planning to go to another eatery on Aaron’s list, but because I need to leave Paris and head to the airport in the afternoon, we chose to skip lunch and visit one more major attraction, the Orsay Museum. Just like the time at Louvre museum, I followed the tour in the guidebook to see all the major paintings and sculptures. The art works here are definitely modern, as Louvre museum has a more classical collection.

3:30pm Leaving Paris
Having to catch a 6:30pm flight back to Amsterdam, I thought I should have just enough time to get to the airport if I leave Paris before 4pm. Taking the subway again, I got there shortly after 5pm, but there was a problem; the airport got locked down. I never find out what exactly happened, but there were soldiers with heavy weapons guarding the entrances. I didn’t worry too much, thinking that even if I missed my flight, the airline should provide some kind of arrangement. After about an hour, they finally re-opened the airport. With everyone and everything rushing inside, I somehow managed to get myself check in at a kiosk fairly quickly. I even somehow got on a priority security check line where I should not have access to (I think the workers there just want to get through this rush of people as fast as possible.) So I ended up being at the gate just when they started boarding. So I had a rather favorable experience at the Paris airport.

London Day 2: Actually it’s Paris

Kwong Yee — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 04:16:51 +0000

Eurostar

Less than 12 hours after we arrived London, and we were on the move again, to Paris.

Departure time was 5:34am, and we had to get to the Eurostar train station about an hour earlier, so we got no more than 3 hours of sleep after that fancy dinner.

We naturally slept most of the way, but we did do some more last-minute research with the books I got from libraries in Toronto.

Train ride took about 3 hours, and with one hour time zone difference, we got to Paris just before 9:30am. Compared to the Shinkansen in Japan, I think speed of Eurostar is about the same, maybe just a tad slower.

We were shocked to find out that you need to pay to use washrooms in Paris; at least we didn’t see any free washroom. The one in the train station even have shower facilities. Of course we didn’t try the washroom there, thinking we could go to one in restaurants. Little did we know that even washrooms in restaurants charge for a fee as well.

After wasting some time at the train station, we got our subway daypass and started getting around Paris. Most subway trains in Paris have this European feel, i.e. old. Actually it feels more like a streecar. They do have some nice new trains around. Subway stations were fine, not unlike the ones we have in Toronto, maybe a bit older. And because there are very few washrooms (coin-operated) in the stations, we always thought there was this strange odor…

Montmartre
First area we visited is Montmartre, highest point in Paris. The only “attraction” I heard of in that area is Moulin Rouge (but it was early in the morning, so nothing going on) But the real attraction is Basilica of the Sacré-Coeur, a Parisian Roman Catholic church.

A few of my friends had visited plenty of churches in Europe, but this was a first for me. As great as the buildings are, it gave me a feeling of glory in the past; they don’t really serve as a church, no more than tourist attractions with gift shops. It reminded me of all those temples I saw in Japan a few years back; the money they collect is really for maintaining the attraction. Now, what about all those great big churches in the States, will they fade out in the future and become merely tourist attraction? (Probably not, they’ll become convention center first)

Since it sits at the top of the hill, there are quite a few stair steps in front of the church. Supposedly this was featured in the movie Amélie (Vince K never forgive me for bringing him to see this French chick flick) but I don’t remember it; I just remember enjoy watching it.

French Lunch
We probably spent a little too much time in Montmartre, pretty much the whole morning. We had planned to go for a boat cruise around 1pm, so we went for a quick bite, naturally we picked a sit-in restaurant, Les Deux Palais, having the “Tourist Menu” (Should’ve seen it coming…)

So, we have the French Onion soup, French bread…

Salad (with French dressing?), “Steack” with French Fries…

We were going to have tap water only, but then we realized no one in the resturant drink tap water; either bottled water like perrier, or wine. So we ended up ordering a French wine… and to end it all, French ice cream, Napoleon (OK, it’s actually Neapolitan, but it sounds the same to us Chinese)

I thought the restaurant was not bad, given the price we paid, the amount of food we got. Although Margaret was not amused by the steak with a strange cut, Tyatt was impressed by the fact that it actually tasted good, even if it was a bit burnt. And of course we weren’t happy about the whole bottle of wine we got (when we only ordered a half bottle)

Boat Cruise
We barely made it to the boat cruise on time. I’m sure the boat cruise was fine, but I was half asleep most of the time. We were sitting on the top level open to the sky, but it was getting cold with traces of drizzle. We saw quite a few famous landmarks in Paris, but with such overcast sky, they don’t look much interesting; even the Eiffel tower looked dull.

Louvre Museum
We knew all along that we wouldn’t be able to spend much time in the museum; we just wanted to check out the area and the gift shop (I don’t think we bought anything there) Oh, that’s right, free washroom! That was unexpected surprise.

Notre-Dame
This is where the guys and gals spliting off; while me and Thomas went to do some more sightseeing, the gals did something more romantic, shopping… I guess Notre-Dame the building itself is more impressive, but I get this same feeling from the big church earlier.

Arc de Triomphe
Original plan was to meet up with the gals here at Arc de Triomphe (because it’s close to where they shopped), but there were some complications, so it was just me and Thomas again. We were really tired and cold, so we spent no more than 10 mintues in that area; we went for McDonald’s for some snack.

Eiffel Tower
After being revived by McD, we went to our last attraction of the day: Eiffel Tower. Me and Thomas made it just in time to see the “light show”; basically it makes the tower more sparkling.

The later or darker it gets, the more we appreciate how beautiful the tower is. We didn’t realize how big the tower is until we get to the bottom of it. The area under the tower is actually one big open space. Just when we thought we might go up the tower, the gals came calling: it’s time to go for our train ride back to London. And it’s the last train of the day, so we could not afford to miss it.

End of Day 2
Everything looks nicer at night in Paris, do they have special light bulbs to make everything more romantic? Departure time of our train was 8:43pm, and we got back to London around 10:30pm. (Gained the one hour back from the time zone difference) We were tired, hungry, cold, not feeling too well with this Amazing-Race-style of trip. I was thinking to myself, we got to take it easy, to make this trip more enjoyable.