Peugeot, Carousels and Everything French..

Happy New Year to all.. maaf zahir batin..

yeah.. ok.. anyway.. why do we always seems to get excited for new year when no one really feels excited abt it? just that coz everyone else is partying for a public holiday? coz therez another excuse in getting drunk and pop the champagne?

Happy New Calendar to each and everyone of my friends.. thatz more like it..

dont get me wrong.. i'm not being an ass abt other ppl celebrating.. just that i had never truly been bothered abt a new year..

anyway... greetings from Paris..

i just found out a few hours ago that i have free internet access in my room.. so here i am blogging before i forget what i did..

arrived in Paris in the early morning on 31st Dec 2005.. which is actually yesterday.. not really as cold for a winter morning as i expected.. at 7am, it was at a nice 7 degrees.. which gave hope for a nice afternoon..

slept for a couple of hours.. really.. just 2 hours.. before being woken up for lunch by the crew..

after lunch at our favourite Vietnamese restaurant here.. headed down to Champs Elysees with the set of crew.. in which the senior crew left to allow the rest of us enough time to walk around and stop at every shop.. so it was left with me, Ahmad, Shanling, Lay Li and Stephanie..



with Shanling along Champs Elysees



ok.. this store is probably like the biggest cosmetic store in the world.. so i've heard.. called Sephora.. girls would sure to love this place.. and inside.. u get model-like store assistants... gays.. and makeovers and ppl shooting pictures like those photo-shoots kinda scenes..

Champs Elysees is basically the shopping street of Paris.. where u can get all the branded items that ppl always talk abt.. and if u wanna do serious shopping in Paris.. this is one of the major places to go.. the other would be at Galleries LaFayette and Printemps.. which i didnt go to this trip..

at the beginning of Champs Elysees.. or end.. depending on how u start ur shopping spree.. is the Arc de Triomphe.. this arc was built ages back to commemorate a certain victory in war.. i think by Napoleon.. dunno.. go check up ur history books if u wanna know..



me at the Arc de Triomphe



along Champs Elysees, with Arc de Triomphe in the background..

but the really nice and strange thing abt this arc is the road surrounding it.. a roundabout..

there are abt 12 roads leading to this roundabout.. without the aid of traffic lights.. and therez no freaking congestion..

anyway... u get really good drivers over here in Europe.. reminds me of one particular time in Zurich, Switzerland.. when i was about to cross a small road.. so i was waiting for the very few cars that were nearby to pass before i cross.. in the middle of the road.. not like i was at a junction or what..

but the car that was passing thru stopped and let me and my friends cross.. and so did the other driver at the other side of the road..

if it was Singapore, none of us would even do that.. for Singaporeans to achieve the same kind of mentality like the Europeans.. no way..

we think too much of ourselves.. drivers in Europe are more conscious abt other road users.. and they dont need freaking laws and freaking signboards and freaking fines or demerit points to remind them of courtesy.. but they still do it..

i dont think we can do that here in a million years..

we went to several stores.. and checked out the Peugeot on display.. all the cars inside this store are concept cars.. which means that they might not go on production..



a single-driver concept car..



itz more of a covered motorbike, doncha think? the handle replaced the steering.. and it has 4 wheels.. more of a motorbike-automobile hybrid..



this looks like a Formula-1 car.. the engine, size and wheels are like F1.. just that therez double seats and itz plush inside.. itz really A FREAKING BEAUTIFUL CAR.

i wonder how it runs..



and i'm sure u guys would love this place.. the Louis Vuitton superstore.. but the queue was too freaking long.. and they tend to limit the amount of items that u can buy.. but they dont really need ur money, u know that?

anyway.. after going to the end of Champs Elysees, we walked back, and stopped for coffee at a cafe here..

a typical French cafe would have seats facing the street.. the French are obsessed with this.. they would sit out there and watch the ppl go by.. which is really cool.. but coz this is winter, no one is that silly to do that..

itz abt 10 degrees i think.. in the afternoon.. which is unusually warm.. but it got colder in the evening.. dropped to somewhere around 3 to 5 degrees..

got back to the room at abt 6pm.. it gets dark in winter at abt 5pm.. so itz basically nite.. and i took several hours nap..

at abt 8pm, went down to Julian's room.. and most of the crew in the set came down to have our New Year's Eve congregation.. we always find reasons to congregate anyway..

we decided not to go out for the countdown coz it was too cold at that time.. so we just hangout together and counted down in ENGLISH till 2006..

heared some shoutings from the streets from those drunks outside.. who counted down to 2006 without sobering up.. and heard some sounds of the fireworks from the nearby celebrations at Arc de Triomphe..

and so.. yeah.. we crossed over to 2006, 7 hours after Singapore..

today.. woke up at 11am, and met the crew for lunch.. after which me, and the 2 other crew, Shanling and Lay Li, went out for sightseeing..



inside the Metro train station near to the hotel, Porte Maillot..

i dunno how many times i had gone around Paris.. but i did it again..

first stop was at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.. in which u get the famous story of the Hunchback Of Notre Dame... but sorry.. no monsters here this time.. i think he died ages back..



Rivoli.. like most of the buildings in France and most of Europe, i should think that itz dated like a hundred years back.. if not longer..



a carousel near to Notre Damn.. somehow the Parisians are obsessed with Carousels..



me at the river near to Notre Dame..



the Notre Dame Cathedral

the queue was too long for us to get in, so we decided to move on to the next stop.. Monmartre..



the stairway leading to Monmartre..

Monmartre is actually located on top of a hill.. so u end up going thru a long stretch of stairway out of the Metro station, and this stairway up the hill..



the alley leading to Monmartre..

anyway.. i had been to these places several times.. and whenever i go around Paris.. it reminds me of my trip here with my mom.. one of my best trips..

Monmarte has this place called the Artist Village.. i dunno the actual name for it coz i dont speak French.. and this is where u get the famous theatre Moulin Rouge..

itz a very beautiful place.. and if any of u decide to visit Paris.. dont skip this place..



at Monmartre, with the city of Paris in the background..



thatz the church, i think.. up the hill of Monmartre..

we headed down to Eiffel Tower not long after that.. coz we had to make sure that we get back to the hotel by 7pm for a New Year's celebration dinner..



the Eiffel Tower in the background.. like as if u wont know that..



beautiful, isnt it?



a public toilet near to Eiffel.. out of nowhere.. there are several of these kinda coin-slots pay toilets in Paris.. along the pathways..



and again.. the Parisians and their obsession with Carousels..

the Eiffel Tower is beautiful by night.. nothing much but a tower by day.. and for a few minutes every hour, it will light up in glitters..

it dropped to abt 3 degrees at this time.. but i got myself fully insulated from the cold so it wasnt that bad..

Paris, on this trip.. had changed my perspective from the previous trips that i had.. itz cleaner now.. coz they decided to place rubbish bins.. in the form of transparent plastic bags..

previously, u might need to walk back to the hotel to get to throw ur rubbish.. bins were non-existant.. so ppl end up throwing things everywhere..

the French are known to be snobbish and hates anyone who speaks English.. coz of a feud that they had with the English for hundreds of years..

but surprisingly, we came across a lot of French ppl who were nice and attempted to speak English to us.. in fact, they are all polite to us and very approachable..

and the French girls.. ermz.. wow..

just that summer would be very much appreciated.. i hate rain and snow and hail and anything cold..

we got back to the hotel by 7.. and got ready for the dinner..



at the New Year Dinner at the hotel..

finished our dinner and celebration at abt 10.30pm.. and got back to the room..

and here i am..

i'm going back tmrw morning.. so dont miss me too much yah.. i'll be back to haunt soon enough..