April 15, 2001. France Travelogue - Champs-Élysées, Paris.
For this two-day trip, the main focus was Disneyland Paris on the second day, so I had done very little homework for the city tour.
Along the route from the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe toward the Louvre, there were many famous buildings, but all I could do was take photos as proof that I had been there. Even now, I still cannot quite tell who is who. @.@'"
If any passing readers know, please feel free to teach me. I also hope that the next time I visit, I will have a chance to spend more time walking around the city.
The whole route began with driving from Milan to Lyon, then taking the French high-speed train, the TGV. At over 250 km/h, we sped from Lyon to Paris -- about 450 km -- and arrived in roughly two hours.
The Paris-Lyon high-speed rail route is the busiest in France, and possibly one of the busiest in the world. Since opening in 1981, passenger numbers grew rapidly. At one point, two TGV trainsets were coupled together, but that still could not provide enough capacity and required longer platforms for boarding and alighting, so the double-decker TGV Duplex was eventually designed. (Excerpted from Wikipedia)
By the time we reached Paris, it was already afternoon. So we could only choose the essentials: a half-day "Champs-Élysées" tour. Hehe...
Getting into this shop was not simple. First, we had to line up outside for nearly 20 minutes. Before entering, we also had to register our passports. I do not know whether the rules have changed now.
Once inside, of course the decor was magnificent. The products were also the latest of the season, and the prices were much cheaper than in Taipei. Note: in 2001, the euro was about 1:28 against the Taiwan dollar.
But for CH -- that's me -- and Chris, my former girlfriend and now my wife, LV was not really our favorite.
So we went in with the mindset of making a pilgrimage and having a look. Since no one came over to serve us, we did not mind too much.
After walking around once and getting ready to leave, I realized that this way of shopping was completely wrong. No wonder no one paid attention to us.
In front of the checkout counter, there was a long line of Japanese customers. Each person had a catalog in hand, flipping through it rapidly.
When their turn came, they pointed at the pages they had folded earlier: "これ..これ..これ...一緒にいくらですか？" -- this one, this one, this one... how much altogether?
So this is how one is supposed to shop at the LV flagship store. @.@'" Come to think of it, in this situation, they probably did not need a salesperson hovering around anyway. ~.~'"
After seeing the world and gaining some knowledge, we were hungry.
Just as we were looking for a restaurant to have some snacks and afternoon tea, two middle-aged women stopped us:
"Young people, can you help us? Come into LV with us and buy a few bags. After we come out, this meal is on me!"
After asking a bit, we realized they were compatriots from across the strait, here to demonstrate the consumption power of a great nation -- or maybe they were doing small-scale reselling? I could not really tell.
Because LV limited how many bags of the same model each customer could buy, they had to look for people on the street to help carry goods. @.@'"
"Um... sorry... just lining up to get inside takes 20 minutes, and then there is checkout. If we do all that, won't our whole day be gone?"
After being tangled up with them for a while, we finally got away and sat down in a restaurant, ready to eat properly and recover some strength. Then the girls at the next table shocked us again. Judging from their accents, they seemed to be Chinese girls.
It was afternoon tea time, and the two girls ordered a plate of oysters. Of course, there is no rule saying you cannot eat oysters at afternoon tea.
But that plate had at least a dozen oysters, each about the size of a palm. Two girls... how could they finish that?
Maybe they had also come to broaden their horizons, and had not expected such a huge plate. Watching them close their eyes and swallow one oyster after another reminded me of a horror joke...
The following is 18+. If your heart is not strong enough, skip this section and continue enjoying the photos... or shut down the computer and go to sleep. Do not say I did not warn you~~
Once upon a time, a rich landlord gathered all the beggars in the village and said:
"I have a big bowl here. Whoever spits a mouthful of phlegm into it will receive one tael of silver." Very quickly, the bowl was full.
Then the landlord said, "Whoever dares to drink one mouthful will receive 100 taels of silver!"
After a long time, a beggar so poor he was almost being dragged away by ghosts jumped out and said, "I'll do it!"
Then he boldly picked up the bowl and gulped down the entire thing.
Seeing this, the landlord kept his word and gave him 100 taels of silver.
But the landlord was confused and asked, "I said one mouthful was enough. Why did you swallow the whole bowl?"
The beggar answered, "Because... because... once it started sliding down, I couldn't stop it~~~~"
All right. After you are done throwing up, let us continue the route toward the Louvre.
We walked all the way from the Champs-Élysées to the Louvre that day. By then, it was already getting late, and we had also missed the time to go inside.
But the Louvre was not really the purpose of this trip anyway, so that night we went straight back to the hotel to rest.
Further Reading (Coming Soon...)
France Travelogue - Disneyland Paris
France Travelogue - Nice
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