Spectacular? Eurostar

Hi, boys and girls! It’s already at the end of September…but I have still been writing about my SUMMER trip!!

Two days in London had gone so quickly. But the next day, July 13th, my hubby and I had another excitement…taking the Eurostar to go to France!!
Eurostar is one of the most advanced trains in the world that runs throughout Europe. It whisks you from London to Paris, just in 2 hours and 30 minutes! There were not such big cost differences from the second class, so we booked the first class. It meant we were supposed to be served a meal in the train. How exciting it was!!
However, here was the fourth gap between our DREAM Europe trip and the REAL one. Do you remember? We had so many gaps between them…

DREAM=My friend, Virginia, said, “Oh, you will visit Europe with your husband! That would be great! The trip will be your SECOND HONEYMOON!! Enjoy it!!”
Yeah…it could be!! We will take the first class seats of the spectacular Eurostar. It would be really exciting when our train enters the Straits of Dover(the Channel)!! My hubby and I may hold hands to see the exciting moment because this would be our SECOND HONEYMOON!!

REAL=What…!? What is happening now!? The train is running backwards!! It makes us sick… I feel like…I am going to VOMIT!!!

In Japan, we can change the direction of seats in trains. Even though the same train runs round trip, it almost never goes backwards!! However, in spectacular? Eurostar…we were going the opposite direction!
We thought, “Is everybody OK!?” Most passengers seemed to be fine… Some of them were reading books, and some were playing cards. However, I heard some Americans say, “ I can’t stand it! I will move!!” and they tried to find the seats in the right direction.
My hubby and I? We tried not to care. We were looking forward to seeing the scenery of London’s suburbs from the window…but we were going back, it made us sick!
My hubby finally gave up and said, “Before I VOMIT, I’m going to change my seat! Sorry!”
I stayed there, but closed my eyes not to see the scenery.
The moment of passing the channel? My hubby and I sat separately, and we closed our eyes and couldn’t eat lunch because of the motion sickness! We didn’t even notice where we entered the straits!! It was FAR FROM the “second honeymoon.” Sorry, Virginia…
Maybe, going backwards is common in Europe? This story was from London to Paris. When we came to London from Paris, it was OK!!

Finally we arrived at the Paris Nord Gare. Paris! I had been waiting for the moment!! I kept saying to my hubby, “ I want to go to Paris! Paris!” Why ? Well...maybe, girls just love Paris !!

To save our money, we took the Metro with big luggage to our hotel. In metro, we could enjoy the Paris scenery from the window. Then, one lady who looked like Indian and stood next to us, grabbed out something from her big cloth bag. It was…a Karaoke machine!
“What is she going to do!!??”
She started…singing and dancing!! The music sounded like her country’s traditional music. We were really surprised! But other passengers weren’t surprised. Later, we met many musicians who played music in metros or trains in Paris. My hubby was already tired at that time because of the backwards riding in the Eurostar. Thus, his energy was sapped by the VERY energetic Indian lady!

Taking two metros & walking a lot to transfer, at last we arrived at our hotel. It was located near the Eiffel Tower. We entered our room, then…we felt the same gap when we saw our hotel room in London. I mean…it was TOO SMALL!!!

The room’s design was modern. The bathroom was not so confined, but there was no bathtub. In addition, there was no shower curtain! There was a glass wall, but it was too small to cover everything. Therefore, we should wipe up the bathroom after taking a shower! There was a big king-sized bed in the middle of our room, and…that was it. The bed occupied most space of the room. When I sat in front of the desk, my hubby always said…”Excuse me! I can’t walk! Don’t use the very precious free space!!” Maybe I should have taken a picture of the room to show you what it was like… But you know, we didn’t want to remember it!!

To get out of the confined room, we went out to have dinner. We took the Metro toward Opera Garnier… Look at the picture! It’s magnificent, isn’t it?

We went there because we heard there were lots of Japanese restaurants & shops. Probably, we tend to seek our country’s food when we arrive at unfamiliar places. Actually, there were TONS of Japanese restaurants(like the Sapporo Ramen, the picture...) in Paris! Our impression, Yakitori is more popular than Sushi or Tempura in Paris.

Because Japanese food is so popular in Paris, sometimes we could see Koreans or Chinese run Japanese restaurants. Coincidentally, the one we chose was run by a Chinese family. They served us Japanese food in a French way… So, the order of serving was beer(beverage), miso soup, sushi(entrée?), Yakitori(main?), and rice(They couldn’t decide which category it was…I hope they didn’t think it was dessert…)

After the Japanese-French way dinner, we stopped by a Japanese bookstore.
We have it in Chicago, but the Paris one, which name was Junku-Dou, was quite big! It was three-storied building. There were numerous Japanese books! I felt I were in Japan…but when we went down the basement floor, we realized we were in France. Because many French boys & girls were seeking Japanese books seriously! What they got so into was Manga. Most of these French young people wore kinds of costumes which reminded us of Japanese animated cartoons. Later, when we went to a French bookstore, we also found many Mangas and Japanese fashion books.
Wow! Being a Japanese might be cool in France now??

What will be going on our “summer” trip in Paris!? We’ll see…and I really hope I can finish this trip journal within this year!!!