At last, I’m blogging the final chapter of my travel log in Paris. Something I should’ve completed 2 months ago.

The City of Love is also the City of Museums. Paris is a city dressed with too many musées and galeries d’art (that’s museums and art galleries btw).
Most travellers who come to Paris tend to only visit the Louvre and see the Monalisa smile, which is a pity really. Because my smile is so much better.

Kidding of course. 😉
With my two travel buddies away doing their girly stuff (eg. getting French manicure, dressing up as French maids, eating French fries, French kissing French guys), I found some free time of my own on to do my nerdy stuff. And that would include visiting art galleries and museums too atas for my own good.

Palais Garnier, the opera house that inspired smash hit musical The Phantom of The Opera, which was like High School Musical to the people back in its day

I highly recommend anyone going to Paris to get the Paris Museum Pass (€30 or RM150 for 2 days). It’ll save a lot of time queueing up at each attraction to purchase tickets. Also, download Rick Steve’s Audioguides before you go. An audioguide is good thing to have, particularly if you’re as clueless and unsophisticated as I am when it comes to all these artsy-fartsy-schmartsy stuff.

The first stop I made was at Musée Rodin (€6 or RM30), the former residence of 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
I’ve never even heard of his name before this trip (see I told ya I’m a kampung boy at heart), but I definitely remember seeing some of his artwork. The most famous one being The Thinker.

The Thinker is such an iconic representation of one man’s intense intellectual activity that replicas of this sculpture can be found in museums and universities all over the world.

Sadly, we have no replica of Rodin’s famous sculpture here in Malaysia, but that’s okay because we have our very own “Thinker”.

There are of course a lot other interesting sculptures to see at the Musée Rodin.

This one is called “The Kiss”.

This one is called “The Walking Man”, although I think it should be more appropriately titled as “The Man Who Lost His Head, His Arms And Pants”.

Blow-up dolls back in those days were kinda ugly.

Travelling musicians on the train from Musée Rodin to my next destination.
I really appreciate buskers like them entertaining the everyday commuter. You can never find people like these on the trains in KL because they’ll be classified by the authorities as “nuisance” and probably be detained under ISA.

My next stop was Musée d’Orsay or The Orsay Museum (€8 or RM40).
The Orsay is the next most impressive museum in Paris, after the Louvre. There’s a mind-boggling array of original 19th century French paintings here, including many famous one’s like Stifler’s Mom Whistler’s Mom.

If you are not sure where you’ve seen this painting before, most people will probably remember it from the Mr Bean movie as this.

This museum is one of those places where an audioguide would come in really handy.
There are so many paintings, and so much going on behind each painting that it would’ve been tough to appreciate them properly without some help.

Painters in the 19th century France were a lot like bloggers in the 21st century.
Like bloggers, every piece of their artwork convey subtle messages through the paintbrush. These paintings are exhibited throughout Europe, and people leave comments that can be positive sometimes, but mostly negative.

van Gogh’s painting of his bedroom. My mom would probably say something like “your 7-year-old nephew could paint better than that!

19th century France was a cruel place for painters. The like-minded artists cliqued together, while the unconventional ones that stood out from the rest were ridiculed simply because they were different.

Like Van Gogh, who shot himself with a gun to his death 9 months after painting this self-portrait.
Poor guy had no friends, no money, and his works weren’t even appreciated until the last few years of his life when he became severely deranged.

Before Van Gogh’s time, the typical style of art was “Idealist”.
A lot of artists at the time made money painting Greek goddesses and angels to near perfection. These things sell because they are pretty, and people at the time do not want to accept anything less than pretty.

An example is this piece, titled The Birth of Venus depicting the Greek goddess sleeping on water with her flawless skin, perfect naked body and pretty angels singing in the sky.
It was hailed as one of the great masterpieces during its time, but later people grew to hate it.

In came Edouard Manet, who attracted a lot of controversy when he painted Luncheon On The Grass.
It was controversial not only because it depicted prostitution in an infamous park in Paris, but the nude girl in the picture wasn’t even painted to look pretty! She even had fats showing in her stomach.

Olympia – showing a prostitute waiting for a client

On top of that, Manet seemed to have rushed his painting so much it looked like a sketch, and didn’t even bother to correct or cover up his mistakes.
But prostitution is something that happened rampantly in Paris during that time, although no one dared to talk about it. When these pieces were exhibited, Manet was whacked left right and centre because it was too real, and too different to the near perfect gods and goddesses people were so used to during that time.

Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette

These are “Realist” paintings that challenged the perfectionists’ “Idealism”.
“Realists” depict everyday life as truthfully as they were, even when sometimes when they may be ugly or taboo. At first people rejected them for being anti-mainstream, but eventually as poverty grew and people became disillusioned, they accepted and even admired these artwork because they so accurately showed that the world is not perfect, that people make mistakes, and that these are the realities of life that everyone has to accept – good, bad and ugly.

Maybe that’s the same why some people prefer reading blogs to newspapers, why some people prefer Xiaxue over Dawn, why movies like Crash won an Oscar, and why Raja Petra is more believable than Najib.
Idealism is a fantasy, and when people’s lives become harder, they are finding it increasingly difficult to remain optimistic.
It doesn’t mean all those idealistic things are impossible. It just means that people nowadays are more ready to accept the reality, as ugly as it may be.

I left Paris feeling as if my IQ just increased by 10%. Up from my original 50.
Paris is an absolutely amazingly romantic city. Four days was way too short to experience all that the City of Love has to offer, but it’s time to say Au Revoir!
As short as our trip was, it was enough to make us realise how gorgeous France is. Given the chance, I’m not gonna hesitate exploring the rest of this great country yet again.
Of course, that’s not gonna happen anytime soon.

Because traveling costs money, and I’m a realist!

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For someone whose first name is “Dawn”, she certainly sees very little of it.

Throughout our trip, our travel partner was rushing for her Uni assignment deadlines half the time.
Some days I’d wake up at 6 for my morning run and that poor girl would still be awake staring at her laptop. Then when I’m ready to go out and do some sightseeing, she’d be in bed fast asleep. I told her about the irony and she joked that she’s called “dawn” because that’s time she goes to bed.

Normally I’m perfectly okay with going sightseeing alone, but I have reasons to be worried in this instance. Les Marais (the place we were staying), apart from being the Jewish enclave in Paris, is also the gay centre of France.

If Notre Dame is the heart of Paris, then Les Marais must be the penis.
Every morning as I walked out to the train station past the cafes, pairs and pairs of gay couples would be sitting together holding hands, looking at the people.
Apparently, Paris is such a romantic city that even men and men fall in love with each other.

When I do meet up with the two girls, it’d be for dinner, after I’m doing with my sightseeing and they’re done with their shopping.
Dawn and I are both big fans of chillout music label Hotel Costes.

They produced a lot of music I listen to regularly, including my favourite holiday song “Sympathique” by Pink Martini, which I’ve used in the Saddam Hussein visiting McDonald’s prank video I did earlier this year.

Hotel Costes is also the name of an actual hotel near the Champs Elysees. We thought it’d be a sin if we travelled all the way to Paris and not visit this legendary hotel.

Even if you’re not a fan of the music label, Hotel Costes is still worth a visit for its opulent French decor and awesome courtyard.
Not to mention their lovely barmaids.

We decided to stay for a drink and enjoy the DJ spinning our favourite lounge music while we’re there, feeling slightly under-dressed among the suits and gowns here.
The atmosphere is so warm and cozy and posh and opulent in here that I almost felt obligated to pay them for the air we breathed.

I knew drinks were gonna be expensive alright. Sport stars and celebrities come to this place. But I truly had no idea how expensive some of the drinks are until Dawn jokingly asked me to order a “King Louis XIII Black Pearl” cognac for fun.

The cost of it?
€14,000.

No shit. That’s RM70,000!
What a ridiculous price to pay, considering it still comes out as piss in the end.

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After spending four days in Paris, we began to get a pretty good idea how to pronounce certain words in French.

View from the top of the Arc du Triomphe

The golden rule of thumb here is that we should never pronounce French words the same way as they’re written in English.

That’s one reason why I will never be able to date a supermodel. I’m most definitely gonna EPIC FAIL when it comes to pronouncing all those difficult French designer names.

You can’t blame me really.

My English teacher never taught me that Louis Vuitton should be pronounced as “LOO WEE VOO TONG”, not “Loo Wiss Vooi Teng”.

Givenchy is pronounced “ZHEE VON SHAY”, not “Give Wen Qi“.

And of course, Yves Saint Laurent is pronounced “EVE SANG LONG”.

Most definitely NOT “Yes, Santa Lao Ren”!

Anyway, we ate at a Chinese dim sum restaurant in Paris one day and to our pleasant surprise, the Chinese immigrants here actually speak very fluent French!

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If those PRCs can speak French, then it shouldn’t be too difficult that a native Chinese speaker like me to speak French too, right?

Translation: “Many commented lesbians baguettes have standards”

I did a bit of reading, and apparently A LOT of French words sound awfully similar in Chinese. Seriously!

Lemme give you a few examples.

“Bonjour” is good morning in French.
In Chinese, it’s ??.

“Bon Soiree” is good evening in French.
In Chinese, it is ??.

“Bon Apetit” is have a nice meal in French.
In Chinese, it is ????.

See? It’s not that difficult to master French after all. If the Chinese can speak it, so can we.

We just have to observe a few rules when we’re speaking the language.

Kenny: How do you pronounce that word? ‘Crime’?
Dawn: No, I think it’s pronounced ‘creamy’.

In general, “ch-“ in French is pronounced as “sh-“, “g-“ in French is pronounced “zh-“, and the “s” at the end of every word is not pronounced at all.

Kinda like French chicks, really.

Their ass at the end also not pronounced at all!

There’s a famous shopping avenue in Paris called Champs Élysées.

For the whole four days we were in Paris, I have absolutely no idea how to pronounce those words.

Among other atrocities, I have pronounced it “Champs Ee Lee See”, “Chomp Eh Lai Sees”, but the worst thing I did was calling it “Cham Ee Leh Sai”, which sounds like some disgusting toilet mixture in Hokkien.

The correct pronounciation of Champs Élysées is actually “SHAM ZAY LEE ZAY”

To give credit where credit is due, it is indeed the most beautiful shopping avenue I have seen anywhere in the world. Bar none.

Many cities around the world have attempted to duplicate the romance, beauty and liveliness of Champs Élysées on their shopping street. Many have failed.

Bukit Bintang in Kuala Lumpur, Orchard Road in Singapore, Nanjing Lu in Shanghai, Swanston Street in Melbourne are all wonderful shoping streets in equally great cities. But none of them even came close to the original and best.

The crown jewel of Champs Élysées is Napoleon’s massive and monolithic Arc du Triomphe.

Another thing equally massive and monolithic on the Champs Élysées is the flagship store of Louis Vuitton.

It is so big, it’s absolutely mind-boggling. We’re talking about a six-storey high building stocking everything LV in the largest Louis Vuitton boutique in the world.

This must be what the tai tais and Datins imagined HEAVEN to look like.

Even more mind-boggling are the prices of the goods inside.

Why the hell would anyone wanna spend 170 Euros (RM850) on a small plastic keychain just because it has the words “Louis Vuitton” on it? It baffles me.

The SAD thing is? Everyone around me were pulling out their credit cards like crazy to buy.

There’s even a freaking queue at the cashier terminal.

It was almost like a supermarket

The even SADDER thing is that I thought Louis Vuitton has some of the ugliest bags in the world.

Hasn’t anyone gotten sick of the ubiquitious brown-coloured LV monogram handbag already? Why would anyone still wanna buy something so overrated and overpriced?

The cheapest handbag I saw in there must be about 600 Euros (RM3,000) and to be honest, it didn’t look any different than a RM150 imitation you could get in Petaling Street.

If you’re a tai tai already living the lifestyle of the rich and famous, surely you can still pull off a fake handbag that costs 5% the price of the original and nobody is gonna question ya.

If you’re an auntie who is so thrifty that you steal the spoons and forks from MAS planes, then even if you’re carrying a real RM3,000 LV bag, people are still gonna think that it’s a fake.

But you wanna know what is the SADDEST thing?

Despite me thinking that LV is ridiculously overrated and overpriced.

I still ended up buying something from there in the end.

Sorry! I couldn’t help being caught up by the excitement and prestige shopping in a Louis Vuitton store in Champs Élysées. After all, it’s not everyday I get to go to Paris.

I bought an LV brown monogram belt. It costs me 250 Euros (RM1,250) but I got 30 Euros (RM150) back after tax refund.

It is the first time I have ever spent money on a Louis Vuitton product. I had bought it as an encouragement for me to complete the 42km Singapore Marathon I’ll be doing in 5 weeks time.

The belt is still in the box and I haven’t opened it yet. My bet for myself is that if I finished the 42km, only then I’ll open the box and wear the it like a champion belt. But if I didn’t finish, then I guess I’ll have to suck it up and give it away as my punishment.

Even if you have no intention of spending any money there, the Louis Vuitton flagship store is still a worthwhile place to explore. It is a tasteful and well done part shop, part exhibition space befitting of such a global luxury brand.

I spotted this photograph book by Hong Kong superstar actor Chow Yun Fatt on display.

This one is from the set of Curse of The Golden Flower.

Never knew Chow Yun Fatt could handle a camera so well. The actor apparently has a habit of taking his SLR camera around on his film sets. The photographs he took was eventually compiled into a book, then commissioned and published by Louis Vuitton.

On my way out from the LV store, I noticed a huge crowd gathering outside Le Lido across the road.

I went over to have a closer look when I realised it was a red carpet premiere of the movie Righteous Kill. Or in French, “La Loi Et L’Ordre”.

And guess who I spotted there?

The Godfather Al Pacino!

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We shall now resume our regular programming of kennysia.com‘s travel log in Paris, which actually happened more than six weeks ago.

After our disappointing and disastrous first day experience, *Belinda, Dawn and I were determined to make the most out of the remainder of our trip.

Like any other major global city, Paris is scarily huge and daunting.

Fortunately, it has also one of the most efficient public train systems in the world. But after taking nearly 10 hours worth of train rides the previous day, the last thing we wanna do is to board another train.

On our first full day together, the three of us went for a morning stroll along the River Seine to take in as much sights as we could. It was a decision we never regret.

Paris is absolutely gorgeous. No wonder some call it the most romantic city in the world.

How is it possible not to fall in love with this city?

We walked across one of the many arched stone bridges over the River Seine, admiring the classical black Parisian lamp posts over our heads and sighing at the gracefulness of the meandering water flowing past beneath our feet.

Along the banks of the River Seine, pairs of lovers found their perfect spots underneath the shades of the wispy trees to enjoy the company of each other.

Being surrounded by so much beautiful scenery and attractive people can be very soothing. I feel like impulsively jumping onto a lamp post to sing and dance, pretending I was the lead actor in some romantic comedy.

That is, until I caught my own reflection and realised I am too ugly to play lead actor.

Paris has such romantic and wonderful effect on all our senses. As we continue strolling along, we imagined the song La Vie En Rose quietly playing inside our heads.

Before long, we found ourselves at the footsteps of arguably the most famous cathedral in the whole of Paris.

The Notre Dame Cathedral.

This 800-year-old church is one of the grandest and holiest of all in France, housing such important relics as the crown of thorns of Jesus Christ.

But today, it is a bustling tourist site better known for the Hunchback from the Disney cartoons.

The inside of Notre Dame was a little too dark and gloomy to be exciting.

It’s possible to climb to the rooftop of the cathedral. It is worth the long queue and the exhausting climb up the narrow spiral staircase.

Once on top, we were rewarded close up views of the famous stone gargoyles guarding the cathedral.

I couldn’t resist imitating them.

It’s fascinating to think how these intricately carved works of art survived 800 years of war, civil unrest and environmental effects.

The sweeping views of Paris, City of Love, on top of the Notre Dame Cathedral is absolutely stunning. It’s possible to see as far as the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

And the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Montmarte, featured heavily in the movie Amelie.

We spent so much time snapping photos on the rooftop that if we stayed on any longer, we would’ve turned into stone gargoyles ourselves.

Oh look! The Hunchback of Notre Dame!

Looks a bit Chinese.

Across the road from Notre dame is the Saint-Chapelle. It is a much smaller church that features very tall stained glass windows. When the sunlight shines through the windows, the church look exceptionally stunning.

According the legend, King Louis of France built the church to house the Crown of Thorns he purchased from Turkey. The crown costed him four times more than the amount he used to built the church!

Our lunch. This one is called “Croque Monsieur” and “Frites et Salade”. It’s 9 Euros (RM 45)

Most of the French food we had in Paris was quite a let down. We don’t know where to find reasonably-priced restaurants to dine at, so we were tried our luck at random restaurants. The ones we had, they taste really quite mediocre.

This pet shop nearby sells a hamster cage for 38 Euros (RM 190). What a rip off.

After lunch, we continued walking towards the Louvre Museum, aka the Da Vinci Code place.

A lot of people I know tend to think that museums and art galleries are boring places to visit. In general that’s true, but the Louvre is a museum like no other.

I’ve been to many, many museums in my travel.

Most of the ones I’ve seen are small. Some can be quite huge.

The correct term to describe the Louvre I think is fucking humungous.

Seriously, the Louvre is so freaking large it’s like the Godzilla of museums.

It used to a palace where the royal family lives in, but now it houses some of the most amazing collection of artworks from the Renaissance period. The amount of artsy fartsy stuff there is to see here is incredible.

Michaelangelo’s The Dying Slave. This pose is exactly how I look like when I wake up in the morning.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Some say it’s the most beautiful painting in the Western World.

I say, “HAR? SO SMALL ONLY ONE AR?”

Then there’s the “Venus de Milo”, perhaps the most well-known female statue with no arms.

The Louvre is so damn huge that after spending two full hours going through the statues and paintings, we only covered 5% of the entire venue. At the end of it all, I was so overwhelmed by art that I walked out of the museum looking like this.

This one is called, “Kenny Drinks Milo”.

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What are the chances! I can’t believe I bumped into Paris Hilton!

No, not the blonde bimbo hotel heiress.
THIS Paris Hilton.

To be fair though, I think the hotel version of Paris Hilton shares many similarities with the human version of Paris Hilton.
For example, Paris Hilton has a very wide entrance.

Every day you see people go in and out, in and out, in and out, in and out.

But most importantly, when you see Paris Hilton, you know you’re not too far away from a huge erection.

I went into the hotel, ordered hot chocolate at the bar and the waiter said “Careful.”
“That’s hot!”

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Before I was in London for Tiger Translate, I wanted to go for a little detour.

Since my flights to London were all sponsored for by Tiger Beer, and I thought why not make use of the opportunity to visit another country nearby. After all, it’s not everyday I get to travel to Europe.
The good news is, London is surrounded by many fanscinating cities. But inside me, there is only one place I really wanted to go.

Paris.
The City of Lights. The City of Love. The City of Fashion.
The city where if people insult your mother, you can headbutt them in the chest.

I went to Paris with Dawn and another friend of ours *Belinda (not her real name ‘cos she’s shy and wanted to remain anonymous).
Obviously, we were very excited in the days leading up to our trip. Who doesn’t want to go to the home of champagne, Louis Vuitton and Ratatouille?
Paris is a city crammed with plenty of attractions. Since we’re only spending four nights there, we wanted to make the best of it. Being the anal travel planner that I was, I spent TWO FULL DAYS doing intensive research on the Net and came up with… Kenny Sia’s Most Kickass Too Fast Too Furious Superman Paris Travel Itinerary.

It was the best travel plan I have ever prepared.
I’ve got my tickets, accommodation and schedule all sorted out and deposits paid for before I even stepped on the plane. I showed the girls what I have prepared and needless to say, they were impressed. They even said to me, “Wow Kenny, you’re good!”
And to that I say, with a wink, “Yes ladies, I know. I get that a lot.“

However, the trip didn’t start off as well as we hoped it would.
Getting from London to Paris was supposed to be the easiest part. The two big cities are connected by high-speed Eurostar train, which runs from the centre of London, through the undersea English Channel tunnel, right to the middle of Paris. If you book early, you can get tickets real cheap. I got mine at 49 pounds (RM300) return, which is even cheaper than flying from Kuching to KL.

But if there’s one thing I learnt in life, it is this.
No matter how good your plans are, the things you LEAST expected could happen and everything you planned for could very well… fuck up.
Pardon my French.

The first unfortunate event happened even before our trip started.
Two days before I was set to depart, we received this wonderful piece of news in the papers.

My heart went crashing down further than the US stock markets.
I was in a state of panic. The fire in the tunnel was still going on even as I boarded my flight to London. Throughout my 13 hour journey, all I could think was whether or not I might lose my deposits for our accommodation booking.
I even checked the live news report on the plane’s computer continuously to see if the fire has been extinguished. More importantly, if my train to Paris has resumed.

As soon as I touched down London Heathrow, I shot a text off to Dawn and Belinda to find out their whereabouts.
Belinda informed me that train services have only partially resumed. She was lucky enough to grab hold of a seat and managed to get to Paris. Dawn was still stuck in London. Because our original trains were cancelled, we’d have to catch the replacement train the next day.
I myself had to scramble for a place to stay in London last minute because I hadn’t had any booking. Needless to say, I had a crap sleep.
Moral of the story is: buy travel insurance.

Next morning, I headed to the Eurostar station bright and early to meet up with Dawn. That was when the second of our series of unfortunate events occured.
As if it wasn’t bad enough to not have slept all night. I was tearing out my hair because: 1) Dawn was nowhere to be found, and 2) she was not answering her phone either!

I was frantically searching for her all over the Eurostar station and just as I was about to give up, Dawn suddenly appeared out of thin air and tapped me from behind.
Kenny: “Where did you go? I’ve been trying to call you!”
Dawn: “I dropped my phone in the cab!”
Kenny: “WHATTTT!!! How now!?”

The cab driver was nice enough to deliver her phone back eventually, but that was too late to save me from heart attack.
It was only the start of our trip and already it is turning out to be quite a chaotic nightmare.

Despite the earlier mishaps, taking the Eurostar train across the English Channel was fun. One moment you can see English signboards, then it’s complete darkness for a while inside the tunnel.
Next thing you know, sunlight shines through the windows and everything is in French.

Welcome to Paris!

We lugged our heavy luggages through the massive Parisian subway stations, got off at the Jewish quarter and arrived 13 hours late to meet Belinda at our rental apartment.
Finally, some decent rest at last!

This was the apartment we stayed in. It is small, but very clean and modern.
The apartment has only one bedroom with a queen sized bed.

This was the bed that Dawn Yang and I slept in.
For four nights, we shared this bed, made love all night long and performed hardcore kinky sex utilising every single sexual positions known and unknown to men. We made a lot of noise when we did it missionary, cowgirl and doggie style.
We even tried the difficult ones like The Wheelbarrow.

The Helicopter.

The Windmill…

…at least that’s what the busy bodies in the gossip forums would like to believe. 😉
Apparently if I travel with a girl and the place we stayed has double bed, automatically those people would jump to conclusion and think that *gasp* we must be screwing each other! RIGHT?
Sorry guys, but unfortunately the truth is far less interesting than made-up fiction. In actual fact, Dawn and Belinda shared the bedroom while I slept on the sofa bed in the living room alone.

All jokes aside, there was one thing we did correct in this trip. We made a smart decision to stay in an apartment instead of a hotel.
Accommodation is bloody expensive in Paris. Even with a 50 Euro (RM250) a night budget, the best I could find are smelly and old hotels in the red light district of Montmarte. It’s too far away from all the attractions and too unsafe for the girls.
Considering there’s three of us and staying for four nights, the rental apartments are a better deal.

We booked our apartment through parisaddress.com for 135 Euros (RM675) per night. Split among three, each of us paid 45 Euros to stay in a clean and centrally-located swanky apartment.
Throw in free internet, a kitchen and a washing machine, it’s a damn good deal by Parisien standards.

An old Jewish man handling the cash register at a shop outside our apartment

Anyway, we were determined to start our holiday after a bad start to our trip. With our late arrival throwing the spanner in the works, the kickass itinerary I planned earlier was as good as used toilet paper. Still, we compromised and tried to make the best out of it.
We got changed and got out of our apartment. Two steps out our doorway, I heard the two girls screamed “VINTAGEEEEEE!!!” and immediately they scuttled into this old-fashioned vintage store like rats in Ratatoille.
Then they proceeded to stay there for ONE HOUR.

Note to self: remember to keep the girls far far away from shopping.
Our first tourist stop is not in Paris, but in Versailles. Versailles is the old capital of France located 40 minutes away from Paris. There’s a Palace there where French kings used to stay many centuries.
We arrived in Versailles after a long train ride. First thing we noticed is that for some strange reasons, everybody seems to be walking OUT of the palace gates.

When we went to purchase our tickets at the reception, we encountered the third unfortunate event of our Paris trip.
Due to a private function, the Palace was closed early and we couldn’t go in!

That means we just wasted 2 hours travelling back and forth to Versailles for absolutely nothing! By now the girls were probably thinking what a lousy tour guide this Kenny Sia person is. First trip with him and already everything was going wrong.
Dejected, defeated and utterly disappointed, we made our way back to Paris.
Got off at the Palais de Chaillot, and that’s when we saw it.


The Eiffel Tower!
We hugged each other, wiped the tear off the corner of our eyes as we gazed upon the 325m of iron structure in front of us, recognised all over the world as the definitive symbol of Paris.
It is so beautiful.

Finally, that’s one thing crossed off the list of things I wanna do before I die. 🙂

“We’re going to Paris tomorrWOW! No… actually, we’re already there.”

When we had enough camwhoring at Trocadero, the three of us rented a bike for only 1 Euro (RM 5), then cycled down to the base of the Eiffel Tower during sunset.

It was a quintessential Paris experience, and I highly recommend everyone to get on a bicycle when you’re in Paris.

No matter how many times I look at the Eiffel, I can never get tired of it.
At night, the tower lights up and it looks even more spectacular.

We were satisifed at last.
The beginning of our trip was the worst nightmare anyone could ever imagine. Train got cancelled because tunnel caught fire, phone dropped in cab and the only tourist attraction we went to closed early.

But as soon as we saw the Eiffel Tower, it’s as if all our earlier disappointments just instantly vanished.
Such is the magic of the Eiffel.

Sure beats the “Eiffel Tower” we have on Batu Lintang Rd in Kuching.

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