Monday, August 12, 2013

Honeymoon: First Night in Paris

From Amsterdam to Paris
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I hope no one is suffering from post long weekend blues. The 4 days spent at home was absolutely fantastic. I spent quite a lot of time in front of the comp researching on our trips. Yes, after a grand 9 months working my ass off this year, we are heading to Hong Kong for a short trip in Sept. I'm looking forward to re-visiting Hong Kong again since our last trip was way back in 2008. Anyway, from where I left off previously, we did a quick freshen up and roamed the streets of Paris.
 Arc de Triomphe - the first thing that we saw once we reached the main road. This monument honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution & Napoleonic Wars. I studied history during JC days, so being able to see historic monuments up close and personal was really an eye-opener! As this monument was close to where we will be staying, I kept telling Leecher that we should have time to visit the Arc during the duration of our stay here. So off we went in search for food!

While walking down the streets, we realized that several areas were being cornered off and policemen were out in full force patrolling the streets. It turned out that there was a presidential election going on & results will be broadcasted on the same night. Leecher, the market watcher, then filled me in on each candidates profiles and their policies.

The famous Champs Elysees, lol! Everything is just expensive here, lol! I wished I was walking on the street with lots of shopping bags decorating my arms. 
 
 Haiz, sad to say this didn't happen :(
  
Leecher with my shopping bag, lol! Hums the tune of "pretty (wo)man, walking down the street ...... "
I 
I thought only Singaporeans like to queue up, but looked what we found in Paris? People queuing up to get into LV boutique. Nah, I didn't join in the queue for I was looking at something else instead.

There are lots of cafes on the street. We wanted to dine at Fouguet's, but changed my mind after spotting 
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Instead of having our first authentic French experience/meal in a french restaurant, we opted for McDonald's instead.  
Across the world, McDonald's menu vary and cater to local flavours (beef rendang burger, durian mcfluffy etc). In France, McDonald's is known as 'McDo' and their menu were displayed in french. I ordered the Croque McDo (melted Swiss cheese and ham pressed between two English muffins). I later learnt that this was under their Happy Meal item. Leecher ordered Le Charolais, which is McDo's version of McDouble.
McDo
140, Avenue Champ Elysees
75008, Paris, France
 
Dropped by Paul & got a couple of pastries for our breakfast tomorrow. The initial plan was to sit down for some desserts, but the shop was so packed with people that we decided to do take away instead. 
PAUL 
84, Avenue Champs Elysees
75008, Paris, France
 
The famous Laduree macarons! Everyone wants a piece of it & I had to queue 20 min before I could lay my hands on these prized macarons :) The cafe was under renovation, but we went to another outlet for a meal & it was absolutely wonderful! More on that in another post.  
Laduree 
75, Avenue des Champs-Elysees
75008, Paris, France
We caught a glimpse of Toyota's concept car, FT-Bh. The name actually stands for Future Toyota B-segment hybrid. This car was designed based on 5 key concepts - mass reduction, optimum aerodynamics, powertrain efficiency, thermal energy management and electricity saving. 
 Leecher itching to get a "feel" of the car, lol! Being out on the roads for almost 20 hours straight, we were pretty tired by now & decided to call it a day. Before that, we popped over to Marks & Spencer to get some food.

Our supper for the night! Did I mention that I love champagne? They are my new found love, lol!

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