Paris and Disneyland (27-30th may ’05)

The journey started off on Friday night after work as 8 of us ( 6 guys and 2 gals) took the night train to go to Paris. We reached at around 9 am in the morning and my friend, MH came to receive us at the train station-Bercy.
Since we were not able to book a hostel in advance, we headed to Gare de lyon station to get information about the availability of hostels. Fortunately, we were able to get a hostel- blue planet.

After checking into the hostel, we embarked on our 2 short days in Paris. Our first destination was place de la bastille which signifies the 3 days of revolution in Paris.
A few of the famous heroes were buried at this place. We managed to have our brunch at Quick outlet. This outlet is only available in france and Belgium.
There after, we headed to notre dame cathedral which is famous because a writer wrote a book to disagree the government’s decision to demolish this historical church.
On our way, we passed by the city hall where the mayor stays, parliament, opera house ( new ), and a piazza ( square).
We went into the cathedral but didn’t queue to climb up the church as our main aim was to visit Lourve museum where mona lisa painting is located.
This museum is really big with wonderful architecture. If one were to ask what’s the difference between Vatican city and this museum- I would say they are 2 different entities. However, most of the art pieces and sculptures are collections from italy,Venice, and Spanish.Hence, all the things in it did not really amaze us except the sculptures from Egypt.

This museum is really big, and hehe, most of us were dead tired- there are 3 different wings(denon, sully and Richelieu) in this museum and we headed to the denon wing as this is where mona lisa painting is placed.
After this tiring tour, we decided to get a grab at one of the Chinese restaurant. We had our stomach filled to the brink before embarking on our night tour. Basically, the day is bright even if it was 9 pm. It only started to get dark at around 10 pm.
We went to see the old opera , place de la concored and the arc of triumph- located along the champs elysees( famous shopping street- just like Milan).
After about 45 min of walk we reached Trocadero to have a nice view of the Eiffel tower- Yes, finally the long awaited moment has arrived.
There was a long queue to go up the tower- only 2 sides out of 4 were open on that day. We queued for about an hour before we got to go up to the top most part of the tower.
The experience on 1st, 2nd and the top most part of the tower is indescribable. One has to be there to savour each and every moment. One bad thing was there were strong wind blowing and all 8 of us didn’t bring any jacket, all of us practically shivering all the way up.
No pain, no gain- this is true even to visit this tower, because after reaching the ticket base, and up to the 1st floor, we had to queue again to get to the 2nd floor of the tower and thereafter another queue to the top most part of the tower. In addition to that, when we headed down to the basement, there were more queues awaiting us.
The lights on the tower- blinking white lights were on from time to time, and the spot light on 4 parts of the tower really emphasized on how small everything looks like from on top.
Everything is as small as ants- this shows how great God’s creation is.
After this visit- we rushed back to the hostel for fear that we missed the last train.
In short, this visit for the day was great! We managed to see almost everything except Moulin rouge and montmatre street.
In total, we covered a distance of 15 km in about 11 hours- we were really tired at the end of the day.

Disneyland
I decided to ask my friend to company me to go to Disneyland since I covered everything that I wanted the day before- all thanks to him!
We reached Disneyland park at around 10 am. At first glance- this park is really big compared to the gardaland- theme park in italy I went last month.
There are 3 parts to this park – Disney village, Disneyland, Disney studio ( newly open).
I visited Disneyland first of coz- there 4 different parts to it namely, the discovery land – where there is the space motion ride which was really great! It started off in a catapult motion and then roller coaster in doors. I had a fun time ! I also visited the Kodak in this land.The frontierland- there is another roller coaster ride- big thunder mountain ride. I didn’t get to sit this as the queue was very long, but I managed to visit the haunted mansion-phantom manor, Pocahontas village, maze in the caves etc.
Adventure land – there is another amazing roller coaster-indiana jones. This ride is faster than all rides I have sat except one ride I had in gardaland. I also went to the pirate of carribean ride , adventure isle, pirates beach and la passage enchante alladin
Fantasy land- this was my first stop! I went to visit the sleeping beauty castle, pinnochio fantastic journey,and le carousal de lancelot. Hehe, I really love this place!

After all this rides and taking sufficient of photos, I walked down the main USA street- before exciting Disneyland. Again, I didn’t get to visit everything but I am really satisfied with what I managed to cover in less than half a day.

Thereafter, we headed to Disney village where I stopped at each and every outlet. I finally found out where MacD is , which Dan went last time. AND, I discovered there is hot air balloon!!!!But it was too late for me to try out as my train was scheduled to depart at 820 pm and my watched showed that it was time to head back – 4pm.

We reached the hostel at around 5 pm and I took my luggage before we headed to a Japanese restaurant for dinner- I really miss jap food though I just had it in italy 2 weeks ago. This ramen noodleis not as nice as the one in italy- but I am just as satisfied.After this, my friend treated me to a cup of hot chocolate at gare de lyon station before heading to Bercy train station to meet the rest of my gang.

This whole weekend I have walked around 25 km in 1 and a half days.

Till then, ciao!