Our Journey in Paris -- Day 1

Our red eye flight to Paris landed in Charles De Gaulle (CDG) around noon Paris time. We had a great flight since the plane was half full and we got a row of seats all to ourselves. Landing in the small terminal 3 of CDG, my first impression was "it's a storage facility-looking large room with two LONG lines through customs". And no, they were not like Toronto where there are more than 10-20 officers getting people through, there were only two -- one for EU passport holders, one for non. We said to ourselves, this was going to take long. But before we knew it we went through without a hitch and that's when I figured out why it was so fast, because the customs officer did not speak English at all and just waved everyone to go through once the passport was checked. That must have been the easiest customs' check ever.

I was relieved that the wait was over and we were ready to start our adventure. And adventure we got! We took their train into Paris city centre and was asked to get off before we got to our stop because the train went out of service. We wandered onto the platform that was suppose to take us to our stop and waited, and waited, and waited a good long 20 minutes. By then, there were only tourists with suitcases waiting with us. We were asking ourselves, why did all the locals turned around after one look at the platform? We looked up and saw the evidence, in française, something about this train not running, please take Metro 4 to get around it. Hey, I think I did pretty well with my limited French knowledge. We abandoned the tourists and headed for Metro.


Our place near Champ de Mars/Tour Eiffel was amazing. It was not downtown city centre, but it was a charming little neighbourhood filled with local shops, bars and cafe. After dropping off our stuff, we headed out toward the Eiffel Tower. Along the way, I enjoyed a hazelnut crepe and with Eiffel Tower as the background, this is definitely the life~


Eiffel Tower, although not as tall as CN Tower, was definitely way more magnificent. The architecture, the colour, the view spoke for its designers and engineers. Walking up the Eiffel Tower was not tiring at all, but rather fascinating. The rusty bronze of the crisscross beams told a story with great deal of history. Every couple of floors up, a completely new view of the city appears. Although we've all seen the Eiffel Tower in pictures, on TV, and in movies, but standing there on the tip of the tower was a view I could not capture with a camera, my little digital or an SLR. It can only be captured in our memory.



We marked our next stop while we were orienting ourselves with Paris using the beautiful birds' eye view and off to Palais de Chaillot we went. In the evening sun we looked for the place we wanted to eat at -- Tokyo Eat. I know, I know, it doesn't sound like a French restaurant at all, but we definitely made the right choice walking in. After walking in we understood why it was called Tokyo Eat. The restaurant was situated inside the Palais de Tokyo. The decoration had both Asian and French influence. His expression after seeing the menu was precious. Too bad I couldn't catch it with my camera. It was all French and only French. I used my limited knowledge of the language and ordered two seemingly strange dishes.


He had carpaccio de boeuf au Roquette, fromage de chèvre, feuilles de basilic, d'huile d'olive citron, copeaux de parmesan, et tomate fraîche. This dish was complex yet simple. The taste was complex with depth, but the ingredients were simple and fresh.







I had the lasagne d'aubergine. Layers upon layers of fresh noodles, cheese, eggplants and spices. It might be a simple lasagna, but it sure tasted great 'til the last bite.







As the sun went down, we strolled back to our home away from home. We walked through the busy streets filled with people drinking on the bar patio, across the river, and underneath the raised subway tracks.






We got back in time to enjoy the great light show Eiffel Tower had put on for us on our balcony. With an espresso in hand we watched as the lights brought life into the now quiet city of love.