Paris-London 2018 Day 5 Part 1: Taking the train to London from Paris

When we travelled in May, we were worried a lot about the strikes that the different train companies were having. They do list the days that they are going on strikes so as long as you book your tickets in advance and there is no last minute cancellation of your trains, it is quite safe.

But Garu de Nord Station itself is notorious for pickpockets soooo as usual stay alert as you are handling your luggages and going through immigration.

We made sure that we caught an uber much earlier in case we couldn't get one but Uber has been really reliable and we never waited for more than 1 minute till our request was accepted and never more than 7 minutes for the uber to come so it's great!

I didn't take any pictures so just read these carefully.

When you enter Garu De Nord you will see loads of tains at first but this is not the Eurostar platform. If you look around you will notice stairs and escalators going up to the second floor, and hopefully a banner or a sign that says Eurostar.

I had to fill in the immigration cards and to my horror all the pencils and pens were worthless there they were either broken or out of in. Bring your own stationery. I even left one pen behind hoping it will help out someone else in need urgh.

After that pass through immigration as a family and you will be able to walk to your platform where your train is.

Be very alert as to the timing of your train coz I so kan chiong I made my family go down and almost board the train. Thankfully there was staff along the platform who insisted to see my ticket again and told me that you are at the right cabin and right platform but your train is the next one. Urgh.

I remember being confused because there weren't very clear like screens or signs or what sooooo do take note!

While waiting there is also food available like Costa Coffee, Paul etc, of which we bought a bit of food to make it through the train ride to London.

The train ride itself was uneventful. I personally don't find sitting against the train's direction to cause any motion sickness and my mum also commented that when she booked the ticket she couldn't tell whether the seats were facing the right way. But thank God she got it right so we just had one seat against the train's direction which I took.

When we arrived at St Prancas and then to King's Cross station, I could tell that we were at a new country haha it looked and felt so much more different. Vibrant and to some extent, a bit safer O_O

And at King's Cross station there were already a few shops to do shopping so I decided to just quickly head to the Harry Potter 9 3/4 shop :>

This shop was super crowded and I went away with 2 keyrings that cost a bomb yikes. But I didn't spend on anything else that was bulky coz not many close friends of mine are harry potter fans anyway.

As you can see from the pics you can also take a picture with the famous trolley but do take note that when it is after opening hours they will REMOVE THE HALF TROLLEY AND KEEP IT SAFE soooooo going there after certain hours will reveal to you a sad blank wall (thanks to my friend who landed himself in this situation now I know!)

The lines were really long though since it was a sunday and I decided simply not to queue and to just grab a picture from the side. The staff are really quite nice they will help you take the pictures and even pass you the scarf or help you to throw it so that it looks as though you are running into the wall.

I had a bit of an issue with UBER because despite putting my pick up location according to my GPS, there were a few places to be picked up and I cannot seem to find my driver. People I asked were not very helpful either so :(

Luckily the driver was nice so we only kena a late fee of 1 Pound which is like whatever la nvm one.

Paris-London 2018 Day 4 Part 2: Shopping and Sightseeing chiong ahhhh!

After visiting Musee D’Orsay, We took a quick walk to Place de la Concorde which was nearby to see.... see what I also don't know. Actually the bright sun by this time of the day made it difficult to take pictures so do take note of that too!

After this it was time to let my mum do her shopping!

Paris is well known for all the branded goods and things I do not understand so erm sorry I don’t have much to say except:

1) it is crowded and I heard that for some places you have to book days in advance to even see bags at the particular flagship store? Like whut? Why?! So if you walk in like us there wouldn’t be any person available to serve you or bother about you. Not the most pleasant experience.

2) there are a lot of smaller brands near our hotel area which we didn’t realise existed. Wandering around and entering any store we wished was a much more pleasant experience for shopping. We saw brands like Longchamp, Beruti etc.

3) the Chanel store I must admit is one of the stores that seemed more friendly? Maybe that’s why many people like to go there. And the iconic one is the one with Coco Chanel’s famous glass staircase so that was pretty cool too. Address: 31 Rue Cambon, 75001 Paris, France

In the midst of our shopping, we stopped by this restaurant that was nearby called Aux Delices de Manon (Address: 400 Rue Saint Honore, 75001 Paris France). We walked by and were attracted by the pastries although we were looking for lunch. It wasn't all that memorable to be honest, which was most of my paris trip anyway. Finding good food that satisfies was hard. Cup Noodle count has soared through the roof for just the past 4 days weeps.

Some pictures of lunch

Along the way I passed by Lauduree as well and I bought this huge salted caramel macaron and two smaller ones. Wah it was the best I regret should have bought more salted caramel ones T_T. It was as big as half my face and it tasted amazing T.T

We took a quick rest at the hotel before taking an uber down to the Arc de Triomphe to take pictures. Wah last warning the lack of toilets is gonna kill me one day. And the cost of using the toilet is 1 Euro. Heart break. I will never complain about paying 20 cents in Singapore for a public toilet ever again. 

In case you are also in need of the toilet I went to the one at the Publicis Drugstore, 133 Av. des Champs-Elysee, 75008 Paris

Some pictures at the Arc

We then took a walk along Champ Elysee's but it was. B O R I N G. I HAVEN'T BEEN SO BORED IN MY ENTIRE TRIP.

Okay so as I did the virtual walk on google maps and already I thought to myself.... this looks boring. But because it was our first time in Paris it wasn't my right to claim some place is boring just based on google maps so we went ahead but.... all of us were bored.

My mum had this image in her mind of us chilling at a cafe along the road and drinking coffee while watching the world go by. Well... when we were there and we saw how crowded the road was and how dusty it was given the high volume of traffic. No go man. The stores weren't attractive either and there was no motivation to go in and explore. Nothing caught our eye. 

We walked through the entire stretch of champ elysses (minus the stretch that was the park) in a short span of an hour and we really didn't see anything interesting save for this one disney shop :/ Which interestingly enough had the famous Chip cup that was completely missing at Disneyland T_T But no I bought another cup already I cannot get this too. 

We went to Le Relais de L'Entrecote which was recommended to us for their famous steak and fries (address: 15 Rue Marbeuf, 75008 accessible from Champ Elysse). However when we reached there... the queue was way too long and if we joined in we would have to wait for almost 20 people ahead of us to get in and finish their meal.

Mission aborted!

So we took an uber to Trocadero Garden area, particularly to this restaurant Cafe Kleber which was a place Joan (youtube: Joanday) visited while in Paris and was a backup restaurant on my itinerary. As you can see from the pictures below the food was okay la. But the service was really not bad the staff were very efficient and hard working (in comparison to other places in Paris).
Amongst the food the french onion soup and creme brulee and fries were good. The mixed platter was not nice. the meat didn't taste good imo. 

Same issue about dusty roads if you wanna have a view of the Eiffel tower you should walk around this stretch until you find a restaurant with an empty table outside where you can sit, eat and enjoy the view. Er but since the outside was really dusty we sat inside Cafe Kleber. My dad went around scouting after we ordered our food and said the next time we come we should visit other restaurants which had a view of the Eiffel Tower, which Cafe Kleber didn't have. 

And then the highlight of my entire trip. Standing at this platform near Place du Trocadero and taking pictures of the Eiffel Tower from dusk till dark. I also caught it glittering with the lights but the sky was the most pretty. We didn't walk down the garden to go to the foot of the Eiffel Tower since we didn't have enough time. I explored taking a lift up and all but looking at all the youtube videos of people who did... the view from the top isn't really all that breath-taking as compared to looking at the Eiffel Tower itself.

Look at the crowd! But it is still possible to get a nice picture coz by the time it gets darker you can barely see the crowd. Also there were a ton of crazy people jumping past the barracade to stand on the ledge in order to take a picture of themselves leaning against or pushing the Eiffel tower. To be honest they just endangered their own lives and spoiled the landscape soooooooo. hmm

There were also a lot of people so do be careful of your own belongings, stay close to your family and take care of each other. There were also a lot of people selling merchandise and roses etc but as long as you ignore them and not make eye contact you would be fine.

Ah yes timing. the light up happens at 10pm (at least, when we visited in late May) and 9.30pm was sundown so I stood there for about an hour to take all the pictures I wanted before we took an uber back to our hotel.

Paris-London 2018 Day 4 Part 1: Happy Cafe and Musee D'Orsay

We first got breakfast at Happy Cafe (address: 214 Rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, France). It got a super high review on trip advisor for some reason so we visited it.

The coffee was so so, bread off the counter was a bit hard but the crepe I ordered, ham and cheese, was huge and super value for money with super a lot of cheese and was very nice. I wanna try a sweet crepe next time. Get the crepe when you are there!

Also the dude there really know how to talk in all sorts of languages. Great for business. Haha. Makes for a fun stop. He spoke to us in English and a bit of chinese also. Interesting

This served as breakfast for us and we made our way to Musee D'Orsay

AND WHY. WONT GOOGLE MAPS TELL ME. WHERE THE ENTRANCE IS.

SO I TELL YOU OK. In order that you don't waste your life walking one round like me... The entrances to the museum is near the RER train station Gare Musee D'Orsay. We wasted time walking the wrong way.

Anyway. It was a Saturday and we were worried about long lines that people kept talking about in blogs and vlogs. 

We already have our tickets so looking at the clear signs at the doors, we went to Entrance C that has a much shorter queue since you only need to do a bag check.

But.

Halfway.

The security guards escorted everyone in queue C away from the queue and into the corner of the building. No one knew what was happening, security was clearly preoccupied with instructions from their ear pieces also.

Wah a bit scared leh. Maybe someone discovered something in someone else's bag.

Whatever it was, I was annoyed because that meant that if the museum closes i have no chance to see it this trip. :(

Thankfully after 10 minutes of uncertainty, we were allowed to requeue but poor thing la those in front. They clearly lost their queue advantage.

Minus all the hooha, we reached about 9.50am and got in within 15 minutes. Great no queue! And it was even a Saturday.

Got in and were made to put all our bags at the counter that handles all the cloaks and bags. Rmb to take our all your valuables and all your cameras ok.

Musee D'Orsay is my preferred museum compared to the Louvre. While there is a lot to see in this museum also, I somehow had a more pleasant experience admiring the art and taking a walk around. Perhaps the display was less cramped and the rooms and segments were coloured differently from each other. Made me feel like I was making real progress through the displays, rather than a never ending journey.

Here are some of the pictures, we were there especially for the Van Gogh section. 

If you go all the way up to the fifth floor, you can actually access the rooftop area to take pictures.

There is also a really beautiful restaurant there but I merely walked past it so I'm not sure its name or whether you need to book it etc

Remember to leave sufficient time for yourself to look at the souvenirs shop before you go. I had so much I wanted to buy here (compared to the ugly souvenirs at the Louvre) like their postcards and their files and their tote bags. My dad even picked up a big poster of starry starry night that art piece. I think he wants to frame it somewhere. 

We then left at about 11.30am. And queues to enter were not long either! Highly recommended visit :D