1st day of our trip to Paris

British air managed to make the seat at it's smallest yet have Vivian say that it was the best flight of her life. Well designed but truly the seat can not be any smaller to pass. No complaint but finding a position to snooze is not easy at all. I sort of shut eye for a few hours. Food was great and great service too. Touch screen mini screen was a hit. Watched "before sunrise" and "funny face". They both have Paris in them which make them more delightful especially when we were about to set foot on it for the very first time.

Paris airport reminds me of old shanghai airport 20 years ago. The funny part is that we both did not believe the custom was such a nonevent. The signs said "passport" and we originally thought we headed wrong line up till a airport staff redirect us. Line up was very quick and not much of French queuing. An office had nano second glancing on my passport and sent me on my way. We thought that it must be the pre-exam so expecting to see a custom lineup some where else. We were at luggage pickup which made us ponder why we need to pick up luggage before custom. Got our bags from the only conveyer there is we were suprised to see that we could exit right away. Wow! That was it? We were totally prepared for more.

Got a taxi outside and a Chinese guy picked us up. From the convrsation, he came in1975 from Lao. Vivian and I had a chat with him and viv got use her French. The taxi was reasonablely clean and the ride was smooth. We rode into downtown and I started to have this tight feeling in my heart and almost went teary. Here we are in Paris but I felt that it reminds me of my beloved old shanghai. I totally did not expect that. Too strange. Here I am, in a city I have never been to but then I felt that I grew up here. Weird but cool.

When we arrived our hotel and got off the taxi, vivian and I gave each other a high-five. Nice quient as we hoped for. The inn keeper was nice enough to have us pick out our room. We picked a cute room with balcony to the street.

We felt so accomplished. Here we are, in a foreign country but feel at "home" quickly. Not at home as in Vancouver, but at home as in old Shanghai. Brilliant! Room is small but tidy and clean. We are happy. Charged up the iPhone and was able to text Daryl right away. So painless. Coolio! We headed out to Hard Rock Cafe to exchange our Paris pass. We got to use the metro. Good thing we did, took us a runaround to head to the direction we wanted. It would certainly made it easy to figure our way tomorrow. Vivian was in charge. She speaks good Parisian French and I am quite happy to see her take the reponsibilty of getting direction and use her French. The metro system is quite impressive. It connects the city's every cornor and it seems to have about 100 years old history. Works like a charm and not too hard to figure out. Train comes frequently. Wonderful! We surfaced finnally and found our HRC not too far. We decided to walk back to hotel after and looked for a nice place to eat. We ate at bistrot victoire and had our giant salad. Daryl would love this salad which almost had a pound of meat in it. Walked by lourve and crossed seine. Watched people picnicking ont
the crossing. Fun! Lots of people sat on the floor and having wine, cheese etc.

Traffic was pleasantly not too crazy. I loved the big trees along the seine, at least a couple of hundred years old. Shaded the road nicely. Again, my old shanghai back in live. Of course the trees in shanghai were not as big and old, but I still saw the resemblance. Visit ing Paris is healing my pain of losing my old shanghai. Put it this way, it preserved my memory and made it very French. We marvelled at details of each every building and no modern ones to be seen. We are truly thankful. Although we did find a KFC, Mcdonalds and Starbucks, it did not overwelme us. Thank God!

We managed to run into a little street stuffed with bars, cafes and a ice cream store. We were quite full, but I really wanted a taste a French icecream. We had a scoop of two flavor each and sat by the side of road enjoying our delicacy. On our way, I also got a cresant froam a snack bar. Although I was truly full, I did not want to wait till tomorrow to taste it.

Our lovely hotel is nicely cental located and we can not be happier.

Day one comes to a nice ending.