Last minute Paris trip

First are my general thoughts. I went on an extended weekend trip to Paris because I've wanted to visit Paris for quite a few years. The most unexpected part was that the air is very dirty and grimy so I needed to shower often or the grime built up on my skin.

Next, in order to use bathrooms, be it near tourist attractions or in a restaurant, the facilities required payment, anywhere from fifty cents to a euro.

Then, there is being on L'avenue des Champs-Élysées or les Champs as it's called in French, it was like being transported to Elizabethean times but not in a good way, more like when people didn't bathe so they covered up their stench with smoke and abundant perfume. The air was like this all up and down les Champs. It made it hard to breath a bit and like there was no fresh air.

For more in-depth sections, I share more details about food, transportation, accomodation, and my sights in Paris.

Food

Now let's start with the best part of Paris, the food. There was lots to eat whether it was eating out or shopping at the grocery stores. Also, the lower bar for food quality was all acceptable which is harder to find in other cities, making it less stressful to find the right spot.

But some of these meals were pretty low fiber so next time I plan on hitting up the grocery stores or outdoor markets to get my daily fiber by eating veggies and fruit snacks. Grocery stores tended to be pretty common in some areas, like three in the same three block radius. Whereas other areas were full of restaurants and bakeries so grocery stores were harder to find. But either way, food was always nearby.

As for the grocery stores, Carrefour city was a corner store that was often opened late despite Google listing it as having shorter opening hours. I often bought the red Oasis drink which is like a mix between apple juice and Ribena. I highly recommend it along with Orangina if you want to try a local drink.

On my first day, I passed by an outdoor market which sold lots of foods, especially fruits. Being there reminded me why I generally don't prioritize making food or looking for food, because I grew up in a similarly food abundant place. In a way, it felt like coming home, relaxing and not needing to meal plan much. Back to the market. There I ate delicious apricots, strawberries, and loquat. In review, the strawberries were a bit tart. Meanwhile, the loquat was quite large and a little fragile after being smushed by the strawberries all day but it was still great.

Afterward, I had assorted house made dim sum at Shin Ye. It was good but tasted more like homemade dim sum than professional restaurant dim sum. The wrappers were all a very similar texture, thickness, and flavor. Whereas restaurant quality dim sum usually has a variety of textures, some thin and others translucent. Within the assortment was xiaolongbao, which were great because they had soup inside, which unfortunately isn't always the case when eating xiaolongbao despite it being its signature feature.

Later in the day, I went to Malabar where I got bavette, shrimp, and a warm ube latte. It came with some deliciously sweet sliced baguette on the side. Both dishes were amazing. The ube latte was okay.

In terms of snacking, there were lots of bakeries and pâtissier. On my second day I got a croissant and pain au chocolat at a bakery, Boulangerie du Champ de Mars, which has pretty unique pastry bags with lots of words on it. It was within walking distance from my hotel. I highly recommend their croissant. It was delicious. They also sold large pistachio macarons with flavors like coffee, chocolate, and lemon. Another snack was soft sesame nougat from a chinese restaurant called traiteur asiastique DZ. it was delicious. Their website is traiteurdz.fr I also had a nice peach lemon boba tea from Beitea.

For lunch, I ate vegetarian pho at Dong Phat, a popular lunch spot. Also, I ordered the duck which was delicious but poorly cut. The waitstaff there understood Mandarin so that's an option for anyone who isn't comfortable with their French or English.

For dinner that day, I had a delicious chicken alfredo linguine at Bar du Central. The meal also came with complimentary slices of baguette, as like Malabar. This might be a general trend at Parisian restaurants. As an aside, their waitstaff understood both English and French. This establishment is open late which was a plus when I was trying to fit a lot into my day as well as dinner.

On my last day, I went to La Parisienne Mickaël Reydellet. The website is boulangerielaparisienne.com and I got three items: a brioche cadre sweet, a strawberry tartlet and a chousette de pomme. Chousettes de pomme were found in nearly every bakery so I felt like I had to try at least one before leaving the city. The one I ate was very flakey. I liked all three but since I didn't eat the tartlet until I got to the airport, it was a little worse for wear structurally by then. As a bonus, the bakery was just around the corner from my hotel so I didn't have to wander far to find it.

Transportation

I flew into Orly airport and flew out of Paris using Charles de Gualle (CDG) airport. When comparing the airports, Orly airport is easier to connect to Paris itself. Whereas, CDG has confusing transfers from Paris to CDG. I needed to use RER to get to CDG, and then RER B specifically for the last leg of the journey. But taking the bus to RER did allow me to see the sights one last time. RER is not a metro. Maybe they could be considered trams or trains. CDG seems to be in zone 5 of the public transit map.

For transportation in Paris, I took public transit. I also used physical paper Navigo tickets. They were convenient to use and could be used for both the airport trips and regular daily use. The tickets could be reloaded using the app, reducing the need to use the transit machines at each station. I used the paper tickets so I didn't need to be worried about my phone running out of battery and no longer having an accessible ticket. Navigo trams were convenient but took a bit of time. Almost everything took 20-40 mins to travel between. We mostly stayed in zone one of one to five. Maybe, I went out of it to visit La Musicale Seine, but I'm not sure. I only bought a day pass for one of the three days I was in Paris since most sights that I wanted to see were within walking distance.

When finalizing my tax-free shopping, I thought CDG had convenient duty free machines. But the system was sometimes a bit delayed in synchronizing between machines, making me try several times to finally get my money back.

Accommodation

A bit of background information first, all hotels in Paris must pay a city tax depending on the hotel's star rating. I stayed at a four star hotel, Hotel eiffel 7, which was decent. It also offered free luggage storage. However it had a stinky elevator which seemed to be the only way to my room. The hotel was located on rue amelie. Their website is malonehotels.com and use promo code: WBACK for a discounted rate for the next stay. It'll discount/make free most tarifs/taxes in the price.

Sights

I visited an eclectic assortment of attractions ranging from Muji, luxury stores, sightseeing and book shopping.

For one, I visited Muji for their thin pens and socks since it was raining most of the time and I hadn't brought enough socks. Luckily it was connected to one of the train stations so I didn't have to suffer the weather to get my pens and socks.

Luxury stores often have a waiting area to enter and theyre on the same street as the arc de trioumphe which is at the end of the famous les Champs. But I didn't connect with anything in these shops so I didn't make a purchase.

Bateaux Mouches was €20 a person for an hour long ride up and down the Seine. We took the first boat ride at 10:00. Since it wasn't crowded, there were plenty of seats for everyone. The boat was less than half full. The boat trip provides a scenic view of over ten tourist attractions. The notable ones are The Eiffel Tower, Pont Alexandre III and Cathédrale Notre-Dame.

The trip provides an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower, better even than being next to it. The company had a loudspeaker announcing the sites as they appear in multiple languages, some of which were English, French, Spanish and Mandarin. But it's not possible to hear the announcements when seated in the bottom interior seats. So I had to sit on the upper outdoor seats to hear them.

I popped into quite a few bookstores and they had Le petit prince but not often Le petit nicolas. As I was looking for the latter, not the former, I was out of luck. And there ends my memories of my trip to Paris.