Paris, oh Paris. The city of love, as people would normally say. Not us, lol, we hated the city, we love Chessy (suburbs area of Paris). We almost get ripped ten steps from the metro towards Eiffel Tower, and I managed to get away with only giving them €2 (lucky me, bcs everyone on the list has been giving out €100, €200 (phew)). But! The city itself is beautiful, with all the old buildings and beautiful architectures. I don't love the city for the vibes (it just doesn't click for me) but the scenery and the buildings are gorgeous.
10 steps from here, we almost got ripped - advise: cautious of a group of ladies casually gives out 'salam'
The rusty, steel structure everyone raves about
The struggle to get this full body shot is real
Housing along the back alley towards metro
A 'park' or what they call a park
Arc de Triomphe - one huge arc in the middle of one huge roundabout
Avenue de Champs-Élysées
- the infamous street, filled with designer names
The beautiful building next to the Louvre Pyramid - this building is actually continuous surrounding the area
The pyramid - just a glass, with overcrowded humans
Another majestic arc, unfortunately name unknown
In terms of transportation, Paris isn't that bad. There's an app you can download on playstore/appstore that offers offline navigation for metro services (within the city). It's easy to navigate and similarly as Seoul, each train line has its own colour and number, so just look out for the right colour and number (AND! important, do take note if you're going either south or north bound). Paris city is divided according to zone, where our hotel is located in zone 5 (suburbs), therefore for our city day trip, we purchased one day pass all zone (pricey but worth it) where it can be used for all metro line from zone 1-5 for that one whole day. It is advisable to use this pass, but if you are more comfortable buy as you go, by all means.
We also went to Disneyland~~! I made it my resolution to visit each Disneyland there is in this world, and I have managed to go to two of it, left only two, which hopefully will be done in coming months. The pros for going to Disneyland (or anywhere that is) during winter is, ITS COLD! you don't sweat at all! Bonus plus plus plus! Tho, comparing to Tokyo (we went during early summer days), there aren't that many people. It is huge crowd, but not as huge as Tokyo, surprisingly. We don't actually ride that many attractions, as we already did it at Tokyo, we only decided to ride the ones we didn't ride in Tokyo or the ones that aren't in Tokyo. Mostly we just walk around, as winter means it gets darker quickly, it feels like we've been there for hours although its only for 6 hours! Disneyland during winter is beautiful, the decorations are top notch, although the parade isn't as grand as Tokyo (Easter Parade is LOVELOVELOVE!), it still have that Disney vibes all around. As I said, we stayed at Chessy (one stop away from Disneyland), and it just perfect. There's this mall, HUGE MALL, with rows and rows of designer brands, and if you walked out a bit, you'll be walking through rows of cute cabin-like stores for high-end brands (something like JPO). This is why my parents love staying here in Chessy, and we do too, and not even regret not staying nearby the city. We booked at Relais Spa Chessy (here, for more details) for 3 nights, it just gorgeous, it comes with kitchenette so you can cook instead of eating out, and at the mall i talked about, there's this grocery store (something like Mydin/Aldi/Tesco) where you can buy groceries and bonus point, there's halal meat section! So we cooked I think most of the time we're there, we only ate out once, the night we arrived because we're hungry and tired, we just want to fill our stomachs and sleep.
City Hall - ask the staffs for an empty room for prayer, ablution has to be done at external toilet (right next to it)
The wreath, after the entrance
Centre piece - the majestic Christmas tree
Not exactly what we imagined it will be
A maze that you can actually get lost in - you assumed its small, but nope
A ride through various Disney fairy tales - from Little Mermaid to Oz
Cute train, mainly for kids, but still thrilling enough for 24 & 26 y/o adult
View from in front of Phantom Manor - the Manor isn't as scary as Tokyo's
With Snow White castle - it's cold don't let the sun fools you
The castle it its full glory
note: all pictures taken using HTC E8, no filters applied Total spending in Amsterdam Eurostar (LDN-Paris Nord): £152/2 pax Disneyland: £114/2 pax - online purchase Hotel: £260/3 nights + €9.90 Hotel VAT Transportation (2 pax): ~€83 (incl. one day pass all zone) Food: ~€83 (incl. lunch at Disneyland, snacks, groceries) Shopping (incl. souvenirs): ~€245 (incl. 2 trip to Sephora ><)
