TRAVEL REVIEW: Paris

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I have visited Paris…wanted to review it quicker but I couldn't get past the awful experience I've had in Paris. I'm not sure if this will be an encouraging post for you to visit Paris, but it might be highly useful for you to avoid the same bad experience I had.

What's nice about Paris?

French pastries, everywhere. 

You can even get them in McDonalds!

Lovely, gothic architecture. 

Streets in France looks very dated, but not as though they were about to crumble and fall apart (unlike in Singapore…ahem). They are pretty well maintained for most part of the facade.

What's not nice about Paris?

Rude, rude, rude people. 

When people have said that the French were rude and snobby, I thought it was an over exaggeration. While we did meet a few nice people, most French were indeed just plain rude. Be it the angsty cashier to the pedestrians who elbow you to get their way through, people there are just not very nice.

It's not safe.

Hell, two bunch of people tried to pickpocket me on the same day of my arrival in France. Then, thug-looking men followed us in the hotel because they wanted to snatch my mother's phone. Worst of all, the hotel manager threatened to report us to the embassy when we wanted to upgrade a room to a family room as we had booked a double room for a night for 3 persons as there wasn't any option for a family room elsewhere and we were pretty desperate. It was half an hour of this awful man yelling at us as though we were criminals when we were just tourists wanting to travel around France.

Anyway, it's doubly unsafe if you're Chinese or Chinese-looking because pickpockets will target you wherever you go.

The streets are dirty and litter-filled.

Yeah, they said Paris was a romantic place. What they did not tell you is that near these romantic touristy spots, are pee-filled streets. It's like everyone took a dump there at night because they could not afford to go to the washroom (which is…quite expensive).

It is very hard to find toilets.

Yeah, no toilets on the streets. No, nein, non. McDonalds is your best bet but there will be tens and hundreds of people queueing up for the toilet. Well, if you do happen to find a toilet on the streets, chances are it will cost you 1 or 2 euros just to pee. Yeap.

Anyway, I do not have really good photos to show you in this post as I did not dare to even whip out my phone in public in Paris after several incidents which happen to my family.

Till next time~