If Only Inflation Has a Name

Arrived at Paris Gare d'Est at 0940 hrs, full of excitement of revisiting this city once again (I was sincerely hoping that this visit will change my impression of this supposedly charming city as I was pretty disappointed the last time round as I have been telling everybody on how lousy the place turned out :p) Took the overnight train and whew, it was really terrible. I can now finally conclude that if possible, avoid taking the sleeper trains unless you are willing to pay for the sleeper trains are actually worse than the normal trains. At least i get a full comfortable 2 seaters, rather than having to squeeze with 3 other people in a 6-seater cabin... In addition, even if one is willing to pay 30 euros more for a bed, its still a 6-bedder with an extremely low roof :(

Anyway, enough for the negative stuff. I had pretty much prep myself for the worse train ride ever for there was always the luxurious hotel awaiting for me at Paris :) Checked myself into the Banke Hotel and was extremely surprised that it actually had 5 stars on its name plate. I had planned only to give myself a 4-star treat so voila, c'est tres bien! Willl be posting up the pictures on Facebook soon but the room was not bad. A bit small and without a reading table but the comfy bed, bathtub and flat screen TV more than made up for it. Hee hee...

I was most determined to chill out in the city, given that this is a repeat visit and I did cover most of the sights in the city before already. Thus, i began my day chilling out at a cafe right by the Louvre. Given that i was previously tricked by the menus before, i did pay special attention to the menu again but ^*#*)& I kena conned again when this guy pointed to the menu and told me 12, 50 euros when it was glaringly telling of 15,80 euros. Nevertheless, given that i was in the chill mood, decided to be willingly taken in and sat down. (The additional 3 euros was for the pancake dessert i was told which i feel was totally not worth it. Bland and boring...) But i must say that apart from the dessert, the fish and the white wine that came along was good and that did cool my temper a bit.

Walked past the Louvre and was in a dilemma as to whether I wanted to enter it. Already had my dose of art in the Alte Pinathotek in Munich and thus wasn't that enthusiastic about it already compared to the time when i had initially planned for the trip. Decided to give it a miss and instead walked down the Seine to Notre Dame, humming Fish Leong's tune and doing some ppl watching at the same time. Pretty amazed by how the French has this inherent ability to pick up girls, regardless of their age. There was this old uncle who was cycling along the bridge when he saw this obviously deep in thought Japanese girl and the first thing he did was to stop his bike and started chatting up with her. I was impressed sia.. Anyway had this small brush with a Korean girl who bumped into me. Saw her again somewhere down the bank where she looked a bit lost and was looking at the roadside map for directions but the shy me did not dare offer help She's quite cute i must admit and I was tellng myself that if i did saw her again, sure must go up and talk to her. And guess what? No i didn't get to see her again so alas, so much for a romance in Paris.

Went over to the Bastille after visiting Notre Dame and had a bottle of Coke that cost 5 euros!!! Yes the price is really jaw dropping but well the idea of sitting by the terrace and watching the world go by was just too tempting an offer to pass up. Anyway just for the record and to do some justice to my entry title, that is not exactly very expensive in French terms because apparently inflation has caught up in the 3 years that I had not visited the place. The average price of a bottle of coke at restaurant is indeed 5 euros and if i were to do the same thing at the Champs Elysses, it would cost me 7 Euros!!! Even a bottle of Coke at the Supermarket cost me 1,50 Euros so that's the Paris 2009 for you. Being one that had been spoilt on 1 euro Coke at McDonald Germany, one can imagine my disappointment when the cheapest McCoke cost 1,30 euros. Anyway, back to the point, sitting by the terrace at the Bastille was a most relaxing experience. There were power-suit executives with their handphone rushing on to another appointment, chic looking office ladies who just did their shopping, lost tourists fidgeting with their maps, college girls giggling and gossiping and couples holding hands and doing their usual spontaneous PDA out of the blue. This was Paris as it should be and i was bent on savouring every (expensive) moment of it :)