Wednesday, December 31, 2014 - [NYR 2014 ]
So I wrote this post in Jan 2014 and it's a couple hours from 2015. Let's see ...
New Year Res for Zac and Aye
go horse-riding
budget better (I guess we did seeing as we can afford our own place)
travel somewhere ... ANYWHERE (Sorta? I went to UK, Zac went around to Melb and other parts, but we didn't get to travel together hmm.. )
ice skating
Ayesha
- fuarken get license
- jog regularly +take up pole
- learn to sew
- learn to use worbla + heatgun + gluegun
- skydive (maybe 2015)
-cook 5x new recipes :D (MUST LEARN PAELLA)
- save to buy a keyboard
- choreograph a dance (2015 probs after grads)
Zaaaak
- see snsd concert
- buy more Good clothes
- not spend money on consoles (JK buy 17 consoles)
- save for an SSD
- fix teeth
OMG .. We failed so badly D: oh dear oh dear
New Year Res for Zac and Aye
go horse-riding
ice skating
Ayesha
- fuarken get license
- jog regularly +
- learn to sew
- learn to use worbla + heatgun + gluegun
- skydive (maybe 2015)
-
- save to buy a keyboard
- choreograph a dance (2015 probs after grads)
Zaaaak
- see snsd concert
- buy more Good clothes
- not spend money on consoles (JK buy 17 consoles)
OMG .. We failed so badly D: oh dear oh dear
bits of me revealed at ..
10:00 PM.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - [Day 6, 7 ,8 but Day 2, 3 and 4 of Parree ]
- It's gonna be a long post because I'm back in London now!! Much stuff to say about the previous 3 days in Paris, internet was too weak to type back there -
Day 2 was like a Monopoly day for Paris, you know what, that's gonna be my word for going sightseeing: Monopoly Day! Because you know, famous places.. and there're so many variations of the Monopoly board now.
We started by taking the train to La Defense! Which is the CBD area here. This is the Grand Arc ~ The last time I came here it looked much whiter and cleaner XD.
It's massive ! But I don't know what it's for, just marks the middle of the CBD I guess :o
See that wonky black part at the bottom of the panorama? XD Dad's hands weren't steady when taking it, I took the one below :3
Alright so this is me taking a selfie from the Grand Arc of the walk we're about to go on towards the Arc du Triomphe, which is The Victory Arc. Yesss you're so clever C:
Now I realize that picture above isn't so great,
so here have a little zoooooooom!
Can you see it now? :D
Yup, it's gonna be a looooong walk. But apparently I've done it before when I was here at 12. So off we went. It wasn't a stroll or anything, in fact it was quite a fast-paced walk D:
We passed through the CBD and it was very odd that there was no one around anywhere! In Singapore, Raffles Place would be packed like sardines from 8-6pm or even later. There was just no one .. O_O ! It was a fairly cloudy day and I'm lazy so the next few pictures are rather .. overcast.
We crossed the River Seine.
This isn't the pretty part of the river, you'll see that in Day 3.
12,000 steps later, we made it!
The Arc du Triomphe as you can see below, is in this huge uhh.. roundabout intersection thingy, so we had to stand in the middle of the road to get these pictures.
Turn around and there's the Grand Arc where we started! I hope you don't need a red circle to see it :o Sister is 2seconds away from crying in this picture because she hated the walk and wanted to sit down many times but we pressed on XD
Look at her trying to suppress those tears HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
She magically stopped crying when we said our next stop is the Eiffel Tower.
Productive Days!
Took the train from the Victory Arc ~ because we were all aching, my back hurts alot when I walk. I need to see a chiropractor ._. It hurts all the time whenever I have to walk or stand for a long time. UGH, my legs and feet are fine but my back cripples me.
"Bir-Hakeim" station.
While dad queued to go up, we ran around the area snapping photos :3
Large and rather unsettled horse that was kicking about, probably frightened of the crowd at the tower and has blinker-induced tunnel vision :o
TADAH~ or as the French say
Viola !
La c'est magnifique ~
When I was here in Summer, there were people sitting in the park around the tower and dancing, and playing instruments, it looked so fun C: too bad I wasn't into photos and videos or blogging yet. The memories and images exist only in my head.
Up we go!
Yeeeeaaaahh, survived the journey up (will be in 1second everyday video!) It's quite chilling :3
Happygirl92
Now.. after getting Vertigo from the video you'll see at the end of the trip, look back at this picture and realize that the Burj Khalifa (which we might see when we got to Dubai) is 2 and a half times taller than this already massive tower.
*shudders*
She was too terrified to even hold the railing herself XDDD
Doesn't Paris look boring from here?
Everything's the same colour. The natural beige colour of buildings. They don't paint any of their buildings .. Can't tell if lazy or planned.
Bye Eiffel.
So on day 2, after 12,000 steps between the Arcs we walked more ...
(The 16, 727 steps day was Monopoly day in London!)
No time to rest, onward to Day 3 !
My sister is only 8 but I'm pretty sure she's already experiencing PMS because every day, some part of the day she gets mad and throws a tantrum, but maybe it's just Paris.
On day 3, we got separated from our parents because we headed back to the hotel after a most disappointing MacDonalds breakfast to grab some stuff and our parents said they would follow and meet us there. But they didn't.
And it was raining.
We got our friendly "King Thibault" the concierge to call them many times too.
Eventually we found them after wandering the streets for about 20minutes.
Damn parents.
You know there's really nothing much to do in Paris after seeing the Arc and the Eiffel tower. The food isn't good here, it's raining again, the roads are crazy I don't know how there aren't accidents every minute. But alas I decided to go visit a place I didn't last time - Notre Dame! Conveniently 30minutes walk from our hotel.
Paris is truly a walking place, the Notre Dame, the 2 Arcs, the Galleries LaFayette department store and the Opera and the Madeleine and the Louvre are all within walking distance of each other.
Of course it's tiring but as dad always says "That's how you see the city" and he'll say "You come to Paris for holiday, you have to walk everywhere otherwise it's not worth it!"
The only consolation is that Paris isn't as cold as London, strangely, even with the rain, infact the rain made the air feel warm and humid. And before you start thinking about why all of us have no change of clothes.
1. It's cold so we don't really sweat
2. We came by train to Paris so the 4 of us had one tiny suitcase for undergarments and toiletries
3. It's friggin Winter! Everyone wears that one winter coat and one pair of jeans every day XD
But honestly, the inside layers change but you can't see them. Obviously.
Just 100metres from our hotel is the Louis Vuittion Headquarters C: I used to hate that brand so much as a kid, the brown and orangey pattern looked so old and boring but now .. I have vastly different thoughts XD one daaaay I'll afford something from there !
We crossed the Seine again, sad that the weather was bad, otherwise the river looked amazing from there.
Can't help thinking that my stepmom looks like a Sith here. :o
Hide inside the cathedral from the rain!
Question for you dear readers: Do you know the difference between a Church, Chapel and a Cathedral?
My my my so humongous :O
Walked again ~ more walkinggggg ~ to lunch! Every day .. because of the halal restriction, we only eat Indian food or Kebabs or Lebanese food ... ): I miss you Singapore and I miss cooking in Bris.
We were all pretty tired so we went back for a nap and back out again for more walking, because Paris = walk. The final famous place - The Louvre Museum which holds Mona Lisa :o
Funny how the place is teeming with tourists taking pictures of a recently built glass pyramid when the real attraction lies inside ..
Aaaaaannd walked to the Eiffel Tower again, just because it's the world's favourite structure.
It started to glitter for us , awww thank you Eiffel Tower :3
Dinner at a Lebanese place :3
Wasnt that yum :x Infact none of us managed to finish our food, not even Dad, or mighty Alisha who eats about 6 times a day and eats bigger portions than us :o
Last day in Paris! woooo, I sound like an ungrateful brat but I was so glad to be leaving, because Paris really isn't great at all.
Went to the Louvre again to see it in the day time C: was quite spectacular, we were lucky to arrive before the throngs of tourist groups arrived!
Dat top right and bottom left patch of black from dad's unsteady hands. XD
As we were leaving the Louvre, we were stopped by a group of .. hippie gypsies? I don't know the term hippie very well ._. ok that's what I'm going to call them. Anyway they were cheats coming to steal from us.
So one of them asked "Excuse me, speak English?" and shoved a clipboard at dad and said she needed help to sign a petition for disabled children, her hand covered the top of the clipboard which actually states you're required to donate a certain amount of money and shit like that.
Dad said no and they followed us abit and stopped.
After a few steps one of they yelled really loudly HEY!! and I turned thinking something had happened and one of them shoved the clipboard at me and I felt a something slip into my pocket so I backed out.
Nekminnut, my stepmom said "Where's my phone?"
All of us looked at her looked at the gypsies and back at her.
My stepmom slowly pointed her finger at them at said "It's them"
Dad's like "It's gone, you won't get it back"
I just started in disbelief, THAT MORNING, I had just suddenly decided I didn't want to carry my phone and if I had it would have been in that pocket where I felt something slip in. That day I was only carrying gummies and my lip balm. Oh the divine intervention that made me not carry my phone for no reason, I always have it on me !
We all just stood and stared at the 3 of them and one of them looked scared and said give it back. Reluctantly the one the shouted at us took out my stepmom's iphone from behind her and said "Sorry it dropped, so I picked it up"
Dad said like 10 times .. "You're the luckiest person ever, it should be gone forever, you would never get it back"
DAMN YOU PICKPOCKETS, TAKE ALL MY GUMMIES YOU'LL NEVER GET MY PHONE! Load of bullshit, it dropped, without a sound, and no one else saw it drop, but somehow you have it ._.
Walked a deceivingly long way to the Opera as well. It looked so near when we found it but it took about 1hour and a bit to walk there. Like I said, Paris = walk! We were too tired and lazy to cross to watch the band that was playing outside the Opera. I think the tiredness was just accumulated over the days of walking and walking and waaaalllkkkiinnnggggg...
Oh yea, some funny collectible condoms I saw along the way :p
Aaaand goodbye Paris! We arrived 2 hours early for our train at Gare Du Nord and literally sat for 2 hours because none of us wanted to move or go anywhere anymore. I had gotten punched on the metro train to the International Train station by some careless woman who randomly swung her fist. My feet got rolled over by a reckless woman pushing her twins or you know the pram that can hold two kids. One of the swinging doors at the train station was so ridiculously heavy the woman infront of me pushed with all her might and as I moved forward to hold the door, it just swung so fast it would have snapped off my fingers if I did manage to hold the door in time.
Bloody hell Paris.
So in conclusion
- all buildings look the same
- overflowing with smokers
- most of population still don't speak English, but was better than a decade ago
- population still rude
- place is still dangerous because of thieves
- place is very expensive
- roads are bad
- people jaywalk at every corner, so bloody dangerous!
Labels: arc du triomphe, CBD, eiffel tower, grand arc, la defense, louvre, monopoly day, Notre Dame, paris, pickpockets, river seine
bits of me revealed at ..
5:38 PM.
