And thank God that the weather was simply amazing throughout the four days we were there. It was warmer than England has ever been!
Ahem... forgive my lack of knowledge of which picture was taken where. All I wanted to do was to visit a different country and I'm a pretty lazy traveler as far as travelers go. Despite knowing the kind of life EyeBee-Mers has, I still passed the buck to KC to plan the entire trip SINCE he was so gung ho about exploring Paris.
But when we got to Paris he admitted he eventually didn't manage to get all the planning done, so we 'recycled' the itinerary of Adrian and Grace's, who had visited this part of the world a month before KC. So the result of this was me tagging along wherever KC pointed the direction to.
A map of Paris
Urm... somewhere before we hit Champs Elysees
This is supposed to be Napoleon's tomb. "Supposed" because we read somewhere else that Napoleon said he wanted his ashes to be thrown along the river. So we concluded we got swindled out of our Euro8.
Arc de Triomphe
Ten flights up to the top of Arc de Triomphe. Still not that bad. I think Batu Caves more dahsyat. Somewhere on the 8th floor, an older lady was 'scolding' her son, "What?! Another hundreds of flights of stairs!?! How can you make your mother climb this much stairs!!?!"
"No ma, we're nearly there! See! We're here already!!!" "I'm an old lady! How can you make me climb this much!!?"
Obligatory picture of Eiffel Tower on top of Arc de Triomphe
Obligatory Paris cafe experience. High end mamak.
One thing I really love is the French heritage of art, and I love how the buildings resonate that heritage. Hehehe... I could have chosen a less urhh 'artistic' picture, but I like the bright colours of this wall painting
Mona Lisa. Now I can say I've been to du Lourve.
I've found out in this trip that I despise over-commercialised and over-tourisy places. I can accept some of it, but not when it starts having a "follow-the-sheep-in-front-of-you" feel to it. I drove KC a little nuts with my fiery rebel-hands-in-the-air, against-the-institutionalised-norms ideals, while him being urh, normal, just couldn't understand my sentiments.
The first day we spent the day together. The second day, we split off for a few hours to do our own things before we met up again at du Lourve. The 3rd day, I refused to go to Versailles because it reeked of commercialised tourism, so we parted ways. KC went to Versailles (which he came back saying the tour guide could pimp his grandmother and convince them she was made of gold) while I went to explore the streets of Paris to take in the lives of Parisians.
Look at ze pink bike!
Being too cheap, I decided not to buy a day pass on the metro but to do some real exploring on foot. I basically decided to go where my feet thought would be nice to go to. And if I didn't, I would not have found this marvelous French Saturday morning market near Quarter Latin! I was thrilled to find it!
Look at the amazing art on the walls!
The market was so quintessentially French!
Including the French poodle
But not everything is beautiful and enchanting looking. Tents set up by homeless people along the river.
It's so easy to be caught up and to be enchanted by comfortable wealth surrounding you that desensitizes you to the reality of how much sin has robbed us of the greater wealth found in the beauty of God alone. I'm glad I was reminded of poverty, even amidst the beauty of Paris.
I rather take joy in the pain and suffering of life if it reminds me of the joy of salvation that comes from Christ alone, rather than to be taken up with the joy of temporal satisfaction in material wealth leading to eternal grief of loss of heaven.
It's so easy to be caught up and to be enchanted by comfortable wealth surrounding you that desensitizes you to the reality of how much sin has robbed us of the greater wealth found in the beauty of God alone. I'm glad I was reminded of poverty, even amidst the beauty of Paris.
I rather take joy in the pain and suffering of life if it reminds me of the joy of salvation that comes from Christ alone, rather than to be taken up with the joy of temporal satisfaction in material wealth leading to eternal grief of loss of heaven.
Labels: Travels