Date: 07 March 2013 Thursday
11:00 AM Galeries Lafayette
A: Antoine et Chocolat [Pont Marie Station]
B: Chaussée d’Antin – La Fayette Station
Total travelling time = 16 minutes
A: Chaussée d’Antin – La Fayette Station
B: Galeries Lafayette
Total walking distance = 0.21 km
The lovely ceiling of Galeries Lafayette.
All the restaurants in the mall, even McDonald’s, were not opened yet. I was famished so we walked out of the mall searching for food.
11:30 AM Café Sofa Studio
A: Galeries Lafayette
B: Café Sofa Studio
Total walking distance = 0.26 km
We found this restaurant not far away from Galeries Lafayette.
Mango & Orange juices
Cheese Omelette
Smoked Salmon Sandwich
We left the restaurant with a satisfied stomach and headed back to Galeries Lafayette for shopping. While walking towards the entrance of Galeries Lafayette, we were stopped by a lady. She was holding onto a clipboard and asked if we understood English. She pushed her clipboard in front of us and requested for our particulars to support the deaf association. I recalled reading somewhere prior to the trip that there is this clipboard scam in Paris and told JR to ignore her. JR told her politely that we weren’t interested and we hurried off. At this moment, a group of ladies rushed towards us. One of the ladies even pulled JR’s jacket! JR hit off her hand and shouted “DON’T TOUCH ME!”. JR pulled me close to him and we ran into Galeries Lafayette. The “clipboard gang” didn’t follow us into the mall. What an experience! We didn’t expect that to happen to us. We calmed down after some time and began our shopping for the day.
12:45 PM Eiffel Tower
A: Galeries Lafayette
B: Iéna Station
Total travelling time = 14 minutes
We left Galeries Lafayette for Eiffel Tower. While waiting for the train at Chaussée d’Antin – La Fayette Station, we decided to get a bottle of drink from the vending machine. The train chose to arrive at this moment and we panicked. We grabbed the drink and ran up the train, together with a group of 5-6 girls. We didn’t really paid attention to this group of girls until we were surrounded by them. The girls looked very young and pretty. It was their beauty that attracted me to notice them. All of them had the same sling bags and their hands were under their bags. It was actually very obvious that they were up to no good. One of them came up to me and asked for the time. I knew what was going on and shook my head at her. JR felt hands touching his pockets. JR pulled me closer and pushed them away. An old aunty, a local, was also trying to avoid them. She held her handbag above her head while looking at them. The whole incident lasted only about 30 seconds. The group of girls turned and walked away from us and stood near the next train door. They ran out of the train when it stopped at the next station. The old aunty then spoke to us in French and we sort of understood her hand language that the girls were pickpockets. We were lucky that we lost nothing. All our belongings were well kept. JR was extremely disappointed and disgusted after the 2 incidents that morning. He became very paranoid and was in high alert mode for the rest of the day in Paris.
Out into the cold again from Iéna Station. We were still about a km away from Eiffel Tower.
A: Iéna
B: Eiffel Tower
Total walking distance= 0.9 km
There were many street vendors selling Eiffel Tower souvenirs as we neared the Eiffel Tower. We bought 1 big and 4 small Eiffel Tower souvenirs at €10.
We didn’t go up the Eiffel Tower. We left shortly after taking some photos.
13:40 PM Shopping Time in Paris!
We spent the whole afternoon shopping along Champs Élysées. We even went back to our apartment to drop our shopping bags and went back to Champs Élysées again for shopping.
Pierre Hermé Paris Macarons ♥. Got 2 macrons for myself…
08:30 PM Le Deauville
It was already 8+ PM when we completed our shopping for the day. We walked up and down Champs Élysées for a nice place for dinner. We managed to find a good French restaurant but it was full. We were placed on the waiting list and were told to return at 10:30 PM! We were hungry and tired so decided to choose another place for dinner. We got into a random restaurant which is along Champs Élysées.
Special menu for the day
Waiting for our food.
A bowl of popcorn is provided at each table.
French Onion Soup
Escargot
My Steamed Breast Chicken
JR’s Black Angus
JR didn’t like the steak. The beef was stewed with onions instead of the usual grilled. Perhaps this is a french way of cooking. The restaurant also has ice cream from Berthillon but we were too full to order deserts.
Le Deauville
75 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, 75008 Paris, France
09:30 PM Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile
A: Le Deauville
B: Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile
Total walking distance= 0.4 km
We left Le Deauville and walked towards Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile. While walking towards the Arc, the highly alert JR realised that there was a lady following us. She really looked suspicious. We stopped a distance away from the arc and took photos. She walked off after some time, maybe after she knew that we noticed her since we kept looking at her. We continued walking after we lost her.
We took the metro back. It had been an exciting and tiring day for us.