Hong Kong & China

To be put up.

Paris - the city of Love

Caught the Eurostar from London to Paris today. It’s a high speed train system that links the two countries; overall the ride was fairly comfortable. The plane would have been a lot cheaper but we wanted to experience everything. For the first night we booked a hotel close to Garde Du Norde  station and celebrated our first night in Paris with a steak dinner at a cute little restaurant where no one spoke English.
 
We were up nice and early the next morning ready to find our second Hotel in the Suburb of St Paul’s. France has a fantastic subway system and Jacky mastered the maps very quickly. After we recovered from carrying our luggage we went out in search of food. This proved to be a rather difficult task since everything was in French. It was wrong to assume that we would be ok communicating in English. Not being able to speak their language definitely made us feel very helpless at times.
 
In the following days we made a big effort to see all that we could. We did a lot of shopping at La Defense – France lives up to its title as the fashion capital in every way. We visited Notre Dame, and made our way down Champs –Elysees making sure that we popped into the Louis Vuitton shop while we were there.  The Louve looked magnificent; we didn't have enough money to go in to see the Mona Lisa so we just ran around the outside of the building and peeked in the windows.
 
We spent a whole day at Disney Land Paris and became kids again. I took a picture with Winnie the Pooh and visited Cinderella’s castle. We went on many rides and some very embarrassing photos were taken right as the rollercoaster dropped. Jacky made sure that he bought all the pictures.
 
The greatest moment in Paris was when we went to the Eiffel Tower – it took my breath away! The view at the top is exhilarating; it must have been one of the most beautiful sights that I have ever seen. I was extremely caught up in the moment and realised that I was this one little person in a massive world. Suddenly all the negativity, stress and worries that ate at me disappeared and I was able to let many things go. Standing there at the top of the Eiffel Tower over looking Paris was a life changing moment for me – one that I can’t really explain; I have never looked back and often try to re-capture the moment whenever I feel overwhelmed or lost.
 
We spent our last day in Paris catching up with family friends and were treated to a very fancy French restaurant with the finest French cuisine. It was really sad to leave such a beautiful country and I felt so lucky to have had this experience.

London - Star Trek Exhibition

For those who know Jacky he is a major Star Trek fan – and just our luck a Star Trek exhibition was on while we were there. So there we were off to Hyde Park to join all the other geeks…I mean fans.
 
Jacky found it really interesting with flight stimulators and the recreation of actual props and sets from various movies and episodes. I on the other hand was determined to find other ways to amuse myself – I tried to embarrass Jacky by walking up to people and telling them to “beam me up Scottie” giving them the ‘live long a prosper’ hand signals.

Beam me up Scottie

London

After spending the morning in Central Park we caught a free ride on the subway to JFK airport. Our bags were extremely heavy and the stairs were really tough, we were tired and our arms got really sore. The journey to the airport took over 1 and a half hour.
 
At check in we had requested a window or an isle seat, however when we went to find our seats we had been put in the middle row with passengers on either side of us. The flight to London was extremely rough and there was a lot of turbulence. We felt really sick and just wanted the flight to end. We reached London very early in the morning and were picked up by Jacky’s family friends.
 
At first London just looked like Sydney, they even drive on the same side, but once you hit the city and you see all the great buildings and architecture you just think – wow!
 
London is extremely expensive! We were really fortunate that all our accommodation and breakfast was paid for (Jacky’s dad’s friend). We stayed at the Holiday Inn in which rooms start from £99 a night, this would have cost us $2079 just in accommodation if we had to pay ourselves. I can’t express how grateful we are.
 
In the following days we went to Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey. We took pictures at Trafalgar Square, Green Park, Hard Rock café, and shopped all down Piccadilly Circus. We spent a whole day at Harrods and were astounded by the magnificent food hall. We went to the Shrine that was dedicated to Princess Diana and saw the massive diamond engagement ring that was given to her.  
 
We survived on sandwiches (as you do) and were often shouted dinner. London is COLD! It averaged 6 degrees while we were there, which was a lot warmer than Canada how ever the cold seems to chill you to the bone. It also began snowing which was rather rare for that time of the year.

New York

Stepping out to New York was extremely exciting. We caught a cab from the airport to the Hotel and caught a glimpse of what there was to see. I think I was most excited when we went past Central Park, it was exactly like sex in the city!!

The weather was beautiful , New York definitly lived up to expectations. The day we arrived was New Year's Eve, after a short nap we headed down to secure a great location for the countdown. We ended up in a great sport right in Times Sq. in front of where the ball drops. The following 8 hour wait was quite gruelling, it was cold and we were tired. We scored heaps of free stuff, whistles, bells, streamers, balloons, beanie, glow sticks and mints. As the time drew near, the place got packed! We saw Avril Lavigne perform and when the actual countdown started, the atmosphere was electric.

 

At 12am, the ball dropped and confetti was shot into the air, fireworks went off and everyone was kissing and singing. I was so emotional I burst out crying. For the rest of the trip we visited many tourist sites and explored Manhattan. We saw the Empire State Building, MTV Studio, Macy's (the largest department store in the world), Maddison Square Garden, Manhattan Mall and saw a 4 level Toys 'r' Us that had a Ferris Wheel inside. New York has a very efficient Transport system with a $4 US Metro ticket getting you everywhere you need to go. Canal Street (chinatown) has heaps of cheap and good restaurants, Jacky and I had many enjoyable dinners there.

Another touching experience was when we went to ground zero and saw the tributes and actual sites. It left an overwhelming feeling of sadness and makes you question how anyone could do such a thing.

We finished off our trip by visiting the Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island, the ferry was very cold and the statute had been closed since Sept 11th but we're so glad we went!

Next Stop London...

   
                 Ground Zero                                                             NewYearsEve -Times Square