Paris and Disneyland

Semy who's studying in Paris lent a helping hand in locating the Halal shops around Paris. I met her for 3 minutes before she needed to leave for Lille.

I knew I had to start writing about my recent trip to Europe lest I would just let it go and write something else. This was what happened in my previous European trip posting. I stopped at Neuschwanstein and left the whole chunk of Austria and Germany (Salzburg, Vienna and Frankfurt) unwritten. So I'm sorry if you were waiting for postings on that. I have reached the point of no return! I told myself to write something..anything about the trip is still better than nothing. After all, it's only Paris and Amsterdam...and if you count Disneyland as another place. Oh, so you can see I found blogging a chore now!

I had a "triangular" tour doing London-Paris-Amsterdam. I took the Eurostar to Paris. It was a wonderful experience taking the European bullet train and crossing the Channel Tunnel. There's nothing I could see in the tunnel, so let's not shout about it. But the train, I must say was a much smoother and quieter ride than the shinkansen (bullet train) in Japan. Maybe the trains in Japan were much faster, hence the noise. I met Aeni, Fairuz, Rizal and Alia in Paris. They came from Glasgow by flight.

I really have no idea what to talk about Paris. I was so loaded with information and photos that my 1GB memory card was filled with photos and videos. Paris was a great place and a romantic city (I know this is so repetitive and said like millions of times already). Let me quote the Lonely Planet:

La Fayette Shopping Mall

"Everyone has an opinion on Paris, whether they have travelled there or not. Melbourne is affectionately referred to as the Paris of Yarra, Shanghai and Hanoi all lay claim to being the Paris of the East....but Paris is the Paris of the Parisians, the Paris of France, the one and only Paris. Nothing comes close."

It was a very bold but true statement.

The Louvre

As an engineer, I see Paris as an organised city. Some parts of the city are organised in circular order, like a ripple effect, some parts in grids. We started our walk from Louvre Museum, where the Da Vinci Code was filmed or where Mona Lisa was kept and all the way to the Champs Elysees. Champs Elysees was a straight and long boulevard with the Arc de Triomphe at the other end of the road. It was a pleasant walk and the weather was great except for the sporadic drizzles along the way.

Arc de Triomphe

It's not what you think!

Notre Dame Cathedral

Before Louvre, we went to the Notre Dame Cathedral. If you remember the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the gargoyles, that's the place where the animation was centered on.

Church of Sacred Heart

Eiffel Tower

Of course, we went to the icon that people associate the city with, the Eiffel Tower! I could never have thought I would be standing under the real thing one day. I could still remember the miniature tower seated on top of the TV in my living room in Malaysia . It was a souvenir that my mom bought when she was here, perhaps two decades ago or more. So, being able to see it was a breathtaking experience.

Night scene from Eiffel Tower

It was 8pm when we were there, the sky was still bright like Malaysia's 3. So, we took lots of photos and waited until 9pm when the sun was setting and queued to go up the tower. We went up to Platform 2, about mid-level of the tower. It cost us €7.80 to do that but the journey up there and being there, though scary if you're afraid of heights, were worth every penny of it. The tower overlooks River Seine and the entire city. The night scene made it even more special because of the lightings.

Things that people can do with the Eiffel Tower - Lift it? Wear it? Lean it?

Excuse me, I said I want 5 tickets, not billiards! Or did you mean billets?

The next day, we went to Disneyland. Disneyland is located at the outskirt of central Paris, Zone 5 if I remember, at the Marne-la-Vallee. This year they are celebrating their 15th year aniversary, so there were alot of limited edition peripherals. It was my second Disneyland trip though. The first was Tokyo. There were some new rides in Paris which were not found in Tokyo and some of the attractions in Tokyo were taken out and put in the Disney Studios instead, quite a big place when these two parks combine. But we were lucky to have visited the Disney on a weekday, so we were given a student discount. Two parks for €36.40. Very cheap! It would have cost us €43 for a single park entry on a weekend!




The Paris Disneyland allows visitors to take individual shots with the mascots

My past Disneyland experience worked to my advantage. We went in at the opening time and headed straight for the Fastpasses. It was a smarter way to beat the queues and get the ride within minutes rather than hours! I can't believe we managed to get in all the "highly recommended" rides in less than four hours! It was unfortunate I didn't get to ride the Space Mountain in Tokyo because the queue was 2 hours long! Paris has the Space Mountain Mission 2, and it was incredible. We were spun and turned and spun again like a seal playing with a ball in the circus. To make it scarier, the ride was in a totally dark area and you can't even see your hands!

It was such a terrifying ride! Watch this...

We finished most of the rides by 4pm and went to Disney Studios since we bought a double park ticket. We thought Space Mountain was the best so we didn't think Studios would offer anything spectacular. But not until we sat the Rock n Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith (what a name!). We thought, Aerosmith??? Ah, must be no more than a piggyback ride or so. To our surprise, it was "worse" than the Space Mountain! I can't even stand properly after getting out of the ride. My legs were wobbly and everyone was like..."Oh my God! That was crazy...hahahahhaa!!!". I probably can't describe in words what happened but this is as far as I could remember:

Started from rest to a speed like 80kph in a few seconds. You can imagine the G-force at your back. It was pitch dark and suddenly it made a sharp turn, and then it dropped like 2 seconds before it did 2 cockscrew turns facing downwards. Don't forget you can't see your hands so you can only pray that your head or spectacles doesn't fall off or hit the rail tracks or so. Suddenly there were flashes of lights, and then it went up real high and threw us back into free fall for another 3 to 4 seconds on an 80deg slope or something. Gosh, you prayed that the ride ended immediately because you can't take it anymore and just when you thought of doing that, it does another two more cockscrews to make sure those thoughts we swung out from your brains! When it finally ended, you check if you still had your head. Ermm, and how does one check if they still had their own heads?? O well, that's how you'd think or can't think when you just got out of the Aerosmith...