Paris on a Segway...

.. is gorgeous, efficient and exhilarating!!! It would probably make some people's blood boil to know that I had signed up for the Paris City Segway Tour mostly for the Segway than the city. Yes, I'm that type of tourist so yea, my priorities are plebeian and purely experiential. but who cares its SO DAMN FUN. I'm telling you, the Segway has to be the funnest human transporter ever. Serious. Try one if you can. Also, when you're on a Segway, you automatically become a celebrity. People look at you and gawk. HA! OK, so maybe they gawk at the Segway and not you, but by association, they're also gawking at you! :)

Take a look at the pics and the videos

This was on the way to the Eiffel (the start point). Saw this old-ass Porsche. I think it's so cute. soooo cute horrrr. like a Mini.

Aha! The grand dame.

So this was my Segway - the Seginator. Ok, they had lamer and funnier names like :

Segosaurus.
Segs on the beach.
and the best...
...
..
Nicholas Segcozy!

Everyone trying out their personal Segways.



This was me trying to film my reflection. Hmmmmm.






So off we went! That lady is not wearing some fashionable outterwear, its just a rain coat. Quite funky actually, seeing it billowing in the wind.

At les invalides.From wiki: Les Invalides in Paris, France, is a complex of buildings in the city's 7th arrondissement containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose.





Ok , i think this was the view as we approached les invalides. Not too sure, but yea. I'm trying very hard to keep the photos and the videos in chronological order.



This is in front of Les Invalides.

The procession as we left the invalids.



This was when we were travelling to the Pont Alexander III bridge. From Wiki: Pont Alexandre III is an arch bridge that spans the Seine, connecting the Champs-Élysées quarter and the Invalides and Eiffel Tower quarter, widely regarded as the most ornate, extravagant bridge in Paris^{[1] [2]}.

This is the tour guide! Billy from the States. He studied in Texas so he has like a rather thick Texan Drawl. He has such an enthusiastic and warm personality, really fun guy. Like the way he simplifies all his explanations too. hehe.

'Yallllll' according to him is efficient - 'You all' is just too long.

Also, in Billy's words: "the Pont Alexandre is just France's way of telling the whole world that if they bomb russia, they're bombing France." Yea... hokayyyyyyy. LOL.

Do you see the photoshoot in the distance? ahhhh it was really gorgeous. The model and the photographers and all.

So next, we headed to place de la concorde:


That place was the site of many executions during the French revolution. As the tour guide said in his texan drawl: "Like many people were slaughtered here ya know, and like for months after, the horses and cows refused to enter because of the smell of blood. Ya know, the animals, they geddit, they geddit. " Hmmmm. yeaaaa, they geddit. I geddit too. We all geddit. Anyways, so I have learnt MUCH about the French revolution while I was here, and well... it was a tragic past I guess.

So next, we went to the tuileries gardens. From wiki: The Tuileries Garden covers about 63 acres (25 hectares) and still closely follows a design laid out by landscape architect Andre Le Notre in 1664. His spacious formal garden plan drew out the perspective from the reflecting pools one to the other in an unbroken vista along a central axis from the west façade, which has been extended as the Axe historique.

Gorgeous garden, very relaxed, laid back, BUT ! we had to push our segways through it because that place does not allow bicycle riding or any riding thing. I realised after that the Segways are actually quite heavy.

Had a little Parisian break while we were there. This lady, upon seeing the huge ass sandwiches that were served, commented, " Everything in France is so fancy. But I'm still looking out for the small portions!". I haven't seen any either but that's only probably seen in fine french dining and given that I'm not exactly a fan of fine dining, well, I don't think I'll be seeing any small portions any time soon!

Just before leaving the tuileries. Still pushing, still pushing.

This fat pigeon was sunning itself in the middle of a busy path way. Pigeons really are stupid. They look stupid and act stupid. Stupid pigeons.





This was us leaving the tuileries. On the left is the Louvre. Went back there the next day and had my brains smushed from all the information. I will blog about that soon, but not now, cos this is a looongggg looonggggg post.

So after the Louvre, we sort of made a beeline back to the shop. Was great cos we got to go FAST on the segway. And i mean fast. Lovely. If you have played the vids, you'd notice that the segway makes a nice whirrrr whirrrr sound. Quite therepeutic.

On one of the bridges on the way back.








Views of the Seine on the way back.





I REALLY didn't want to return the Segway. Ho hum. We should ask Pa to get one for himself then we can play with it. I have a strategy: "This is really a great tool for transportation. I think it's really great on large expanses of land, like on a golf course. Wait, Pa, you golf right??! You should get one!" Good strategy, good strategy. Now I just need to ask my brother to implement it.

We ended right where we started - the Eiffel. Was a great day cos the sun was at its brightest, the weather was excellent and well, the company was fun.

ok, will be blogging about the Louvre, the Centre Pompidou & going up the Eiffel tomorrow!

By the way, I will be in London tomorrow, so see you all in London!

再见/ Au revoir!

Why is 再见 and Au revoir the same meaning, but 'Good bye' isn't? Hmmmm. Or maybe it is. Hmmm. What does 'Bye' mean anyways. hmmm ok side tracking. Ciao!

Sacré-Cœur

Sacre Coeur has to be the most beautiful place in Paris. Ok maybe that's cos I haven't really seen much of Paris, but Sacre Coeur has to be one of the top 5 at least! I didn't really look forward to going there because it involved a rather long walk and it was after all just a Cathedral (I don't intend to be blasphemous, but there are Cathedrals everywhere aren't there!). But now , after seeing that place, man am I glad I did.

Before we start, from wiki: The Sacré-Cœur Basilica Roman Catholic basilica is a popular landmark in Paris, France, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city.

Will just let you guys see some photos:

It's very charming how from between the alleys, you can see SacreCoeur looming up in the distance. Very majestic, very gorgeous, very awe inducing. Totally not what I had expected. I mean, I had travelled to SacreCoeur on google earth (ok some of u will slap me for saying that) so I didn't think it would be as nice as it was la! I mean, Google earth's 3d Buildings are very realistic okay.

In the alley leading up to Sacre Coeur. You can see the iconic carousal at the end of the alley.

At the base of the Cathedral

Just midway up and the view is already splendid. Of course it does help that all the buildings within Paris are made to be low. (La defense, their CBD, has high rise towers but that is not within Paris, it is in zone 3)
I like how the people just lie on the sloped lawn enjoying the gorgeous summer day. Wanted to do that myself but oh well, not in my Singaporean mentality. ^^

I felt this was a nice angled shot. haha. Wadever.

I took a shot of the Eiffel from the back of Sacre Coeur, thought it was quite nice so I edited it on photoshop. Scary how it looks old and antiquated but I like how the tree branches frame the Eiffel nicely.

The doors into Sacre Coeur which are not used. The entrace is by the side of these 2 doors.

LETS REMIX!!!! From the very top of Sacre Coeur, you can see almost the whole of Paris, all the way to La Defense.

Sacre Coeur and the masses. Ok I didn't like that there was a guy standing in the middle of all that people , singing hippie english songs on his guitar with loudspeakers. And people actually CLAPPED after each song. *puke*

I mean, it's like a French Cathedral and so people are there for the French experience. At least sing FRENCH folksy songs with an accordion la! I just came from New York, so I don't really need any more English, poppish, pseudo-emo/emo/wadever songs thank you vrai much.

AND. he also HAD to sing R.E.M.'s 'Losing my religion' with lyrics like this:

"That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight, I'm
Losing my religion"

I mean, it's a nice song and all and I'm not religious, but IF YOU WANT TO LOSE YOUR RELIGION, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO LOSE IT.
Freaking irritating.

Ok. Irritation aside. I need to think of nice things. I need to think of nice things:
WOW, LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS THE VIEW IS:

The slopes are actually quite steep as you can see from here. But , nice to lie on! A natural recliner. heh.

The iconic carousel.

Ok so Si has been buying these little glass bottles of goodness, just wanted to let u guys see. ha. cost about 5 sing bucks each! but so very very good.

Okies. Done with Sacre Coeur.
I will continue blogging tomorrow on the SEGWAY TOUR I HAD AROUND PARIS.
The Segway has to be the FUNNEST thing EVER.

Nightey Nights.

Good bye Big apple, Salut City of lights.

if you're wondering why im blogging on facebook, I'm not! This is appearing in facebook because I just linked it to 'notes in facebook'. amazing facebook!

So now I'm blogging after a 16 hour nap and a great day with Si, but my journey to the City of lights (very gorgeous) was not smooth sailing. NOT smooth sailing at all.

It all started with a 45 minute delay for the New York - Washington flight from La Garbage that decided to morph into a full fledged 4 hour wait (fog here, fog that, fog whatever) and ultimately ended with the murdering of my connecting flight from Washington Dulles to Paris CDG. So that saw me heading back to Manhattan, crashing at Yihan's place for one night, and returning to La Garbage at 8 am in the morning. Alot of $ and alot of time wasted. Ho hum.

The good thing about that rescheduled flight was that I was definitely going to get a connecting flight from Washington to Paris. No fog, no godzilla, no nothing could beat a 6 hour lay over in between. But hmmm. 6 hour lay over you say. Ho hum hum.

So when I reached Paris, I was greeted with 1) a half hour wait to the customs, and 2) a 50 min wait for the CDG-Paris shuttle. Ho hum hum hum. In all honesty, that wasn't too bad considering what I had been through actually.

So anyways, my nerves aside, I arrived in Paree safe and sound. :)

Paris is gorgeous, both in the day and in the night. Just really quite absolutely stunning. It's clean, nice, and the roads, surprise surprise, have NO POTHOLES! whee. The first thing that strikes you is that the architecture is all really quite similar and just very pretty. The second thing is that the buildings are all not taller than 6 storeys! The third is that there's alot of art in this city. The shuttle to Si's place saw me pass by 2 roundabouts (dunno what they are) with gorgeous sculptures in the middle. Really nice to have such fantastic art dotted all around the city.

The city of Paris is in erm, zone 1 and the concentric circles around paris are like zone 2, 3, so on and so forth. It's like zone 1 and 2 are Manhattan, zone 3 onwards is Brookyln/Queens sort of. Or in Singapore, then well, maybe erm, the whole of Singapore is Zone 1 , 2 and 3. ha. I don't really quite get it, but yes thats how it is. I'm like, "Isn't zone 4 Paris?" but no, its not really. hmmm.

So upon reaching Si's place, she decided to bring me out of Paris, to its suburbs in zone 5 for a BBQ held by a Singaporean family. Though the trip there took like 1.5 hours (a trauma considering that I just had a 7 hour flight), it was real worth it because the company was great, the food was awesome, and well, I got to see more of Grande-Paris (thats what si says all the zones are called together)!

Train out to the suburbs.

Si and I.

introducing my new friends, the trains Vick and Sara. Lara is bitchy so she's not my friend.

Ok, I know what you're thinking but no, the suburbs are not like rural. This is just one way to get to a great gorgeous lake near the place of the Singaporean couple's place. In fact, the suburb we went to was really quite gorgeous. Clean and neat, think of Wisteria lane in despo housewives. haha.

Sara, Lara, Hara, Fara and Zara.

Some Architecture by a famous architect in the middle of the lake.

The man in the black jacket in the middle is Mr Chandran Nair, one of the hosts of the gathering.
As I rip from online: Chandran Nair is a Singaporean poet and retired Director and Mediator of UNESCO in Paris. Impressive huh. and he paints as well. amazing. The Lady on the right is Aurora's Mom and she works at the Singaporean Embassy in France.

Mr Chandran Nair's daughter on the left, Rika. She's been born and raised in Paris though, so I think she's more Parisian than Singaporean!

Mr Nair's wife, Ivy. She had cooked and prepared the whole sumptuous feast. That above is just the desserts. AMAZZZZINGGGGGGG.

Jevon and Si having a good laugh.

This was the next day, after a 16 hour nap. YUMMMM.

One of the unis in Paris.

BY THE WAY.
I STRONGLY ADVOCATE FOR A SINGAPOREAN TRAM SERVICE!!! it would be GREAT if singapore had a tram service plying the down town area. They should get trams and have as few buses as possible. The trams in Paris are cute, airconditioned, and make futuristic whirring noises. There's this tram thing called the 'worm' and in between the tracks is GRASS! A brilliant touch there. It looks great (grass looks so MUCH better than concrete/gravel) and is environmentally friendly!
Singapore really should have a tram service. I heard rumours that LTA is looking into having one downtown and I really hope that plan materializes.

Talking about environmental friendliness, there's this bicycle renting system in Paris where u can get a bike and ride it all around Paris and then park it at any of the designated spots.

Louvre.

Man dunno picking what at the Louvre (coins i suppose)

You can see the L'arc the triomphe within that nearer arc. SEE IT? If you don't see it, don't fret. You're just far sighted.

This is the entrance to Sorbonne- the Uni that Si goes to. It's the oldest Uni in France (think like 800 freaking years old!!!!!!!!!!) and very prestigious. There's like a strike going on now so notice the board at the bottom? they're posters FOR the strike and AGAINST the strike. haha. funny.

More bicycles glowing eerily green outside Sorbonne.

And now for my masterpiece, NOTRE DAME PHOTOSHOP STITCHED TOGETHER!!:

Because I did not have a DSLR I could not capture the whole of the Notre Dame with my cam, so I took a few pics and stitched it together using photoshop. Just had to capture the beauty of that place for you guys.

Hmmmmm. yes.

So anyways, tomorrow I should be headed to the museums and then if everything goes well, on Tuesday I should be going for a SEGWAY TOUR OF PARIS!

G'night!