About a decade ago I spent almost a month at Paris. For business trip. Still remember how we rush every morning to catch trains to Anthony. Since we lived around Porte Maillot (zone 1), it need about 1 hour+ to be at Rue Jacques Rueff, Anthony (zone 4).

Around 19h afternoon, we’d be back to zone 1. Usually I will spent the night wandering around St Germain or Quarter Latin, usually with Mas Hanny. The rest of the group choose to go straight to nearest McD and back to the hotel. If I have nothing to do (usually Friday night) i walked a long Champs Elysees, from Arc de Triomphe to Louvre back and forth. You could walk through Place de la Concord to Jardin des Tuileries until you reach the Louvre pyramids, or turn to rue de Rivoli and come back via Quai des Tuileries following the river banks of Seine.

There were funny things also. We ended up having dinner in an Indonesian Restaurant (the owner from Surabaya) in rue de Vaugirard where we actually wanted to go to Pigalle *rofl* Edhiem phone fell of the metro platform and he jumped down to take it while people were screaming. It was Siemens something, the most expensive phone at that time (well compare to what displayed in stores around Paris). My colleagues brought so many bread from hotel breakfast for snack and lunch because they couldn’t eat salmon steak everyday like I did. Hey, it’s big yummy salmon steak with delicious french fries and I like it. I asked nobody to eat what i eat :P And it’s only 10 Franc (or less, i forgot about it).

This September, I’ve got a chance to visit The City of Light again. Air France now has direct flight from CGK to CDG with 2 hours transit in Singapore. But i miss ANA :( The (japanese) food, the entertainment, smiles and hospitality of the cabin crew. Well, Air France is OK, but nothing special actually.

Landing at CDG around 7h, very long queue in the immigration with only 5-6 officers on duty. Took me 1 hour to pass the immigration. FYI, French immigration is well known as the “friendliest” immigration for Schengen visa holder. Try to enter via Frankfurt, you’ll be asked many questions.

Basically, there are 3 ways for you to get to downtown Paris:

1. By taxi, you’ll enjoy the ride, watching the view from the suburb of CDG area until entering the classic city of Paris. But it will cost you about EUR 50 or more. I used it a decade ago so not for this time.
2. By bus, it will cost you EUR 10, and the stop point is at Paris -Opera. There are also EUR 6 bus with stop point at Paris-Nation or Paris Gare de l’Est. Not my choice. Travel time is about 80-90 minutes and I’m not planning to wandering around Nation/Gare de l’Est with my luggage.
3. RER B. This train will take you downtown in 30 minutes, cost EUR 9.75. I can stop at Les Halles and change to Metro 11 to take me to my AirBnb apartment. But I choose to stop at St Michel – Notre Dame instead.

The RER B station is located 1 floor below the arrival hall. It’s easy to find it, just follow Paris by Train sign. If you’re wanting to buy a simple train ticket to Paris and you have a [label style=”red”]smart chip credit card[/label] or [label style=”red”]Euro coins[/label], you can use these [label style=”green”]green Billetterie[/label] vending machines to purchase such tickets. Don’t worry, there are also vending machines where you can exchange your 5-10-20 euro notes to coins.

And this is what i’ve got… vending machines are not at service. I thought there are strike from SNCF employee. Employee/labour strikes happened quite often in France. Heard some officers said that RER might not operate that day so we have to use bus. Arrghhh!!!

After getting your train tickets, you can continue to turn towards the train platforms which will require descending another set of escalators or stairs onto Level 1. The Paris Train platforms are marked as “Voie” (“platform”) 11 and 12 and also show “RER B Paris par Train“, the Regional Express Network trains that operate between Roissy-Charles de Gaulle and Paris city centre.

My RER was got delayed because of the incident, so i have to wait until 12h to get on the train. Such a waste of time. But finally we knew that there were accident in Le Blanc Mesnil that interrupt the RER B traffic from/to CDG2.

So, spent my lunch time around Notre Dame and rendezvous with Winstem an hour after that. I’ve managed to ‘smuggled’ packs of tea for him hehehehehe :) You wont find Teh Poci in there :P

After that, me and Winstem go to 96 Rue de la Fontaine au Roi, the place where i will stay for the next 7 days. Thanks to Airbnb :)

Bon retour au Paris, la ville de la lumière, la ville de l’amour

These are some photos from my X100s