Leaving my mark

A good 90% of the walls (the old brick or concrete type) are covered with graffiti. Majority of them are just words, but there are a few nicely painted (or spray-painted) pictures, some looking like an extract of a comic strip, and some resembling an abstract art that ought to be exhibited in a gallery. That's my own opinion anyway.

"When in Rome, do what the Romans do."

Since I'm in Paris, I might as well have a go at what Parisians do. Will do what the Romans do when I'm in Rome, which will be a few weeks later.

Lost track of which day I'm at now

I've been working OT everyday, something which has never happened to me before. OT in France is especially bad, because the transport system here slows down considerably after 7 pm - some buses and trains arrive every half hourly or so.

Yan-dao and I usually cook our dinner, so that means we end up eating supper instead, almost every night, for the past week. And it'll probably be so for the coming weeks.

I can already feel myself getting thinner and thinner except around my waist which seems to be changing otherwise.

Not sure when I'll find the time - or rather energy - to blog again, so I'm making this blog entry a little longer than I intended to.

For some unknown reason, my room is getting infested with insects and spiders. Yan-dao, however has no such problems. I can't understand why a room that's used for cooking almost everyday doesn't not attract any insects while the opposite does.

Or maybe yan-dao has some insect repellant genes inside him.

If I were to note down every insect that has wandered into my room, I can turn this blog into a documentary. Alright, too tired to complain further. Shall go to bed now.

Day 12 - Mont St Michel

Great, now I'm lagging exactly 1 week behind time in my blog entries.

Located at the English Channel, we had to take a train to Rennes from Paris, and then a shuttle bus from the train station to this World Heritage Site. I've never heard of the term "world heritage site" previously, much less know of Mont St Michel's existence, until a few days before when a colleague who had been to Paris for training before me told me about it.

Such ignorance.

As the shuttle bus approached, about a few kilometres away, Mont St Michel revealed itself from behind the haze. I had thought it was a church from the introduction given me by my colleague, but it looked like a tremendous fortress built on ground that's isolated from the mainland during high tides. Actually, the place started out as a church and was used as a fortress during the Hundred Years War.

The temperature at the region was much colder than that of Paris. In fact, the moment I got out of the train station, I began to freeze. No idea of the drastic difference in temperature, yan-dao and I only brought along a jacket (good enough to fight against the cold of air-conditioning in Singapore only) each.

It was much colder at Mont St Michel, because the sea wind was very strong and it blew constantly. We only started feeling warm after climbing halfway up the colossal construction, though we became cold again after staying at the top to indulge in the breath-taking view surrounding the place.

For the journey back, we nearly missed the last shuttle bus departing for the train station, but we succeeded in missing our train back to Paris. What we didn't account for when we ate our dinner in Rennes (the closest city to Mont St Michel) was that Parisians don't regard speed as quality in service. They prefer to take things slowly and easy.

Our dinner consisting of a starter, main course and a dessert took about an hour to finish. We had thought that the half an hour of waiting for the train would be better spent on taking dinner. Guess not.

Fortunately we could take the next train back to Paris without paying any additional costs.

Day 7 to Day 11 - Time flies

Condensed version, since weekdays are less eventful but mainly because I'm too busy. I think my sleeping hours are longer in Singapore than in Paris. Even though the most of the city is pretty lifeless after sunset, except for the red light district, I still stay up late.

Why?

If your guess is that I'm up playing computer games like my old self, you're wrong. I don't think I'll ever get to touch the game that I had brought along with me for this trip. Mostly, after knocking off, yandao and I would go to one of the nearby supermarkets to buy food and some necessities (but mostly food). This is essential for cutting costs. Even the locals find it expensive to eat in Paris.

After grocery shopping comes cooking for dinner. And washing up. That will take about 2 hours usually. By the time we're done washing up, we'll be checking out tourist attractions in Paris, looking for accomodations in other countries that we've planned to visit, and of course keeping in touch with family and friends.

Yes, I try to keep in touch with Qiuping everyday, but I do have time for others too.

Side tracking a bit, everyone please make it a point to hang out with HCl more often while he's still unattached, because the moment he gets attached, he'll have absolutely no time for anyone else at all. Maybe not even time for his own bed.

Back to the topic at hand, by the time I've finished whatever I wanted to do, it'll be about 11 pm Paris time. Considering that I have to wake up at 6 am the next day for work, I need to sleep by 11 pm to get my full 7 hours of rest. However, I still have photos to upload, blogs to update, and email reports to type. All of them due to overwhelming demand.

And I've not included housekeeping - not much of it thankfully - into the list. Never expected myself to be so busy. Anyone help me iron my clothes?

Day 6 - where it all began

Big boss and small boss is not around. The little monkey starts to come out to play.



The history of France started in the present-day Ile de la Cité, and that was where yan-dao and I chose to explore on Sunday.

There are 3 main buildings to visit on the island itself - Sainte Chapelle, Conciergerie and Cathedrale de Notre Dame. Though all are constructed within the small island, it took us a whole day to visit all of them.

These buildings have centuries of history inside them. It's hard to believe something so ancient is still around (with some restoration work done on it of course) and I'm standing right in the heart of it. Most of them are impressively huge (and disappointly empty) structures. Huge because of the purpose for which they're built, empty because time and war wrecked almost everything.

It's hard to imagine how visiting 3 buildings on a little island can take up the entire day, but you'll understand when you're visiting them yourself. I don't think I'm going to upload photos into my blog, because the whole process is too time consuming.

Day 6 onwards

I have no time to blog (except to write a few sentences now)! I don't even have enough time for sleeping. Probably by the time I can really start writing down my experiences in Paris, I'd have forgotten my feelings at that time.

The least I can do is to upload my photos on time, after every outing on the weekends. Feel free to look around.


Time to clean up and sleep now.

This is not an update of my stay in Paris

Inevitably, there are some people in this world who have no time for anything else except for their other half when they are attached. I think it is necessary for me to state clearly: I AM NO SUCH PERSON.

A friend of mine actually didn't want to look me up after I've gotten attached. If not for a mutual friend who told me about it and I then sounded him out afterwards, I think he probably would not look me up ever again.

To think I regard him as my buddy, I wonder what kind of friend did he take me for, after we've been through all these:











For the record, I'm staying up at midnight Paris time looking for old photos to post in this entry. Supposed to wake up at 6 am the next morning for work. Wonder if he's worth the effort or not...

Day 5 - tour de Paris

I should have mentioned this on the first blog entry made in Paris, but I didn't have the time to upload any photos then. If you can read between the lines, you should understand the good news now. Anyway, just click here to view the newly uploaded photos at Multiply.





From left: Qiuping, Grandma, God-mum, God-sis, Mum, Bro, God-pa.

I was the only one who had people sending me off on my trip to Paris. In fact the turnout was considered to be pretty big (7 people in all), and it made me very touched. More souvenirs to buy. Wonder if I have the luggage capacity...

My tour of Paris starts today. We started off with the nearest attraction, which happens to be 15 minutes walking distance away from our apartment - La Défense. The place is a central business district with its modern buildings and skyscrapers, but its history dates back to 1883.

My colleague were wondering what kind of a tourist attraction is the gigantic hollow square structure laying smack in the middle of the city.




La Grande Arche


It is actually the office for the local Ministry of Transport (and some other departments), an art gallery, and a viewing tower rolled into one building. Interesting combination, but the French have a penchant for combining art with everything.

There are artistic statues and structures scattered all over the the region (the same applies to the rest of Paris). Seeing them made me went trigger happy and resulted in about 100 megabytes less space in my laptop harddisk.

And also 100 megabytes more uploads into Multiply.

Since it was our first time wondering around Paris, yan-dao and I decided to make things easier for ourselves and tour the most prominent attractions in Paris - the Eiffel Tower and Arch of Triumph. Both could be spotted from La Grande Arche's roof top.




At the end of the road, somewhere near the centre of the photo, is the Arch of Triumph


Walking around the streets of Paris, we noticed that the architecture of their older buildings were decorated with very intricately carved stones. According to my colleague, who has played a lot of Civilisation 4 (a computer game involving history of modern nations), France was formerly part of the Holy Roman Empire and therefore, the older buildings share similar architectural designs.

I always knew that playing computer games are good in some ways, but some people will never be able to understand that fact. If only I had played as much Civilisation 4...

Day 4 - today is my book out day

The work culture in France is very relaxed compared to that of Asian countries - they work 35 hours a week, take tea breaks (and smoking breaks) in between, and best of all, they allow me to use the telephone to call home during working hours!

Pity though, that the reception is quite poor and I had to switch to Skype to make phone calls. Everyone should get this program if they're travelling overseas for a period of time and has access to the internet.

A short while after I sat down at my desk, 1 of the staff came over and told me that in France, everyone (mostly anyway) works 35 hours a week, and therefore, I can go off after half days on Fridays.

I must be dreaming.

But no, it's true. And off we went, at 12 noon. My colleague (time to give him a name, let's call him yan-dao, which means handsome) and I decided to go shopping at the little town centre near our office.

The shopping mall had a reasonable number of shops for its size but that was quite enough for me, because that was where I finally found clothes that fit me nicely! It's a miracle come true! Only people of my build will understand how it feels to go through so many years wearing nothing that fits.

I seem to turn into a shopaholic suddenly (like those women that I hope not to hang out with, what an irony) trying on almost everything that looks good and of reasonable price. Poor yan-dao had to wait for me. Must have been hard on him.

So far, I've found out that C&A, Celio, H&M and Zara offers clothes of a reasonable price range. And best of all, they fit me without having to be tailor made. Think I'm going nuts.

Day 3 - business as usual

My colleague and I tried to resume our normal pace of working life, you know, like going for tea breaks twice a day, that kind of thing. However, my stomach insists on growling during Singapore's meal times, and my brain insists on shutting down after 6 pm Singapore time as well.

Otherwise things were going fine.

The staff of the company I'm attached to are very friendly. They told us to help ourselves to the pantry, taught us how to use the washing machine in the office pantry (free laundry!), and mostly how to get around in Paris.

After work, we went down to the hypermarket again. I'm beginning to get an idea of how it feels like to be the-only-man-in-the-house (instead of just a man-of-the-house).

The weather was pretty cold in the morning, a little colder than the aircon in my office at its maximum effect but I could still survive 15 minutes of it in my usual work attire (long sleeved shirt and pants), assuming there wasn't any strong winds.

The winds make a really big difference. It makes you feel just like you're at Genting Highlands.

On the other hand, the office gets really hot in the afternoon due to the heater. In fact, it feels like I'm back in Singapore, where the weather makes everyone feel lethargic. I'd rather they keep things a little cool. The heat makes me feel sleepy.

It'll probably be a while before I remember that I'm in Paris instead of a place where people 'air-condition' the exterior while the interior feels as though it has been absorbing hours of infra-red from the sun.

Day 2 - late for work

Well, if the French can get lost in France, why not the Singaporeans?

[Quote]
Paris has a very complicated network of trains that brings you to every corner of the city.
[End quote]

That was what my colleague, who has toured Paris for probably a month, told me. I felt that she only told me half of what I needed to know. The other half was: "provided I know how to use their transport system".

There are countless (I haven't counted them yet) different train routes, some sharing a few stations, some just intersecting one another for only 1 station, and all serve bring you to wherever you need to go (as well as to confuse you)

The place where I stayed is near a station where several train routes intersect, which made things worse. Luckily my colleague and I were late for only half an hour. When we arrived at the office, the staff there said that getting lost on the first try was pretty commonplace. That was some consolation for us.

The whole day passed by pretty much like it did when I was working in Singapore. Right after work, my colleague and I went straight to the nearby hypermarket, Auchan, to buy food and other necessities. It was pretty tough on the brain deciding what to buy, especially since we were still suffering from jet lag and our brain was used to sleeping by that time. After that, it was carrying all that shopping back to our apartment.

I feel myself growing more mature and independent, bit by bit, slowly but surely.

Reporting (a)live from Paris

At last, I get to log into blogger!


My third day in Paris, and after much 'ordeal', I managed to get my internet connection up. Anyway, that's just a straw in the entire haystack.

Day 1 in Europe

A few minutes before touching down at Paris, I was sitting up in my seat looking at the dawning sky through the window of the plane, wondering if I would be able to catch a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.

"See that tall structure over there?" The Australian lady beside me pointed, "That's the Eiffel Tower."

So it is.

I followed the stream of passengers out of the plane to collect my luggage. Not long after I've set foot on Charles de Gaulle Airport, I had a pretty good idea why Singapore managed to hold onto the honour of having the best internation airport for so many years. I least expect a city like Paris to have an airport wasn't beautified in any way, to say the least.

And not forgetting the complicated network of travellators within which reminded me of the moving stairways of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series.

There was someone waiting to pick us up and bring us to the office. Yes, you got it. We were going to work right away, and we had to find our own way back to our apartment afterwards.

The weather was excellent when we arrived at Paris - the sky was blue and cloudless, temperature was nice and cooling and extremely comfortable even though I wore my thicker-than-usual T-shirt. It was a good start.

I didn't want to whine like a spoilt brat (which is what I'm doing now) and thus told myself this is a good training to become more independent. However, lugging more than 20 kilograms of luggage and dashing 50 metres after a bus was more like training for a SAF Physical Training Instructor than a product design engineer. And there was still another kilometre or so to travel before we reached our apartment.

It was a good thing I downloaded Google Earth and studied the map of Paris before I went over. The extravagantly unique architecture of each building in Paris allowed me to recognise where I was rather easily. I could locate my apartment without any difficulty.

The apartment was pretty good, bigger than I had expected but it seemed that the place was just reworked - the smell of paint filled up the entire room and dust smothered the floors and shelves. It was so bad that even lazy me couldn't stand it and took one of the bath towels provided to wipe the place down.

And thus day 1 ended with me feeling tired, more from the work I did than the jet-lag.



Author's note:

I had initially wanted to blog about things of interest daily (including uploading photos which everyone has been requesting for), but I didn't have the time to do so (note that the blog for the day 1 came 3 days late), nor did I have the luxury of taking photos because I spent most of my evenings shopping for things to cook with my colleague.

Hope to catch up with the time lag as soon as possible. Photos are coming, please be patient.