Disneyland Paris cos it’s MM’s Birthday Today!

It is Mickey Mouse’s birthday today thus I decided to dedicate a blog post on my day at Walt Disney Studios and Disneyland while I was in Paris. We did not reach the parks very early. We first lost our way at the train stations, then decided to visit the Premium Outlets for some shopping before dropping by the parks. Though late, we still enjoyed ourselves for the rest of the day.

Even though, my children were not with us on this trip, I still wanted to visit Disneyland. It is one off my bucket list and I am left with the last to visit, Disneyland Florida, for now and another upcoming one in Shanghai (opening in 2015).

We missed most of the shows and parades but it is all right. Pictures taken and place visited. I bought a 2 parks 1 day hopper tickets. So off we go to Disneyland park.

There is always something magical about Disneyland whether is nearer in Hong Kong or further away in Paris. Jonathan said, this is the only place with so many princesses (with the little girls dressed in their favorite princesses costumes). We seemed to be teleported into a fairytale land and for a moment, we were detached from the reality world, away from worries and stress. To children, this is a place where dreams come true and for adults like us, it is a place where we can live our dreams (even for the slightest moment). I love the Small, Small World rides, so vibrant. By placing the different countries’ culture in one place shows that everyone can live in harmony. The exciting and ‘life-threatening’ rides are no longer my cup of tea. Maybe I have grown older and became less brave. So glad that Kaitlyn is not here with us else, we would be forced to ride with her.

Of all the Disneylands that I have gone to, I love Tokyo Disneyland best maybe it bought back the most memories. I enjoyed that most even though I do not understand their language. It was my first time travelling with my first  and last batch of Primary 6 graduands (a graduation cum exchange programme to Japan). I recalled the planning of rides the night before looking at all the excited faces. I took the dangerous and lungs-breaking rides with them while they watched the calm and ‘lame’ (to them) Electric Night parade with me. 🙂 So is there any Disneyland trips that leave you with the deepest memories?

In this post, I hereby once again wish Mickey Mouse a very

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Moulin Rouge at Montmartre, Paris

 

Moulin Rouge, I first heard of in 2001 in the movie cast by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman. The touching story is about the love of a poet and a terminally-ill cabaret star of Moulin Rouge. Extravagant costumes displays and lovely use of popular music inter-twined into the story of the movie.

Cabaret is not one if without females dancers, high kicks, flamboyant costumes and some tasteful nudity. We are talking about culture and good behavior. If you think about getting into Moulin Rouge and look at a bunch of females with boobs, 🙂 you are in for the wrong reason. 🙂

Could  not decide on the River Seine cruise or the Moulin Rouge + Feerie show dinner, we booked the tickets only the night before the show. Jon called Moulin Rouge and was glad to secure two seats as I heard of the place being full house all the time, particularly popular with tourists. We decided to have a good dinner followed by the show.

Just ten minutes walk from our hotel, Moulin Rouge is just opposite Blanche metro station. Dinner was to start at 7pm but there was a already a queue forming when we reached at 6.30pm.

Dinner was awesome. Though a three-course dinner (appetizer, main, desserts), it lasted about two hours and was fulfilling. Why so long??? LOL, Food was served in slow pace, giving us a chance to really enjoy the food, soaked in the atmosphere and to have our casual conversations. We were given 2 set menus to choose from and we decided on Belle Epoque, with Sirloin steak as main. Jon had the Lobster thin Pie à la Parisienne, while I had the Duck foie gras with sea salt for appetizer. Waiter said all desserts were good and were Moulin Rouge’s specialties, so we just chose any on the list. In between meals, we sipped champagne while enjoying the live band music on stage before the real show started. The ambience was immaculately chic with lowly-lit red table lamps beside us. The only sad thing was that we were not allowed to take pictures the moment we set foot in the dinner cum show area. There were photographers around to take pictures for a price. 🙂

Show started at 9pm and ended at 11pm. There were two shows. The one that started at 11pm would end at 1am but if you are thinking of having dinner, you can only take the earlier show. The show, “Feerie” was exceptional good. Look at the  picture above with the long queue waiting to enter for second show after the first show ended and you will know. The show featured a troupe of eighty performers dressed in spectacular costumes, a jaw-dropping experience especially for me who likes musical. The frequent changing sets and vibrant use of lightings refreshed my senses with the colorful backdrops. Most amazed me was the gigantic aquarium which rose slowly in middle of the stage and the moving staircases which was lowered towards the end of the show.

I was so glad that I actually chose to experience Paris in such way. I would say not cheap for the dinner + show but for once in a lifetime experience. Worth it!.

Since there were no pictures, I would include a short video clip of what to expect from the show. Enjoy! 🙂

Price: €210.00 per person

which include Belle Epoque dinner + 1/2 bottle champagne and Feerie show

Moulin Rouge

82 Boulevard de Clichy, 75018 Paris, France ‎

+33 1 53 09 82 82

Website: http://www.moulinrouge.fr/?lang=en‎

Taiwan Trip 2010 Day 6

Finally, I am updating my last 2nd day of the trip. I will not be doing a travelogue of my last day as it was a short day to departure.

On day 6, we were in Taipei and was really happy to check in Taipei Grand Hyatt for the last night which is just a stone throw away from 101 Shopping Mall. A five star hotel at last. 🙂

In the morning, we visited the usual places of interests in Taipei.

We then visited National Palace Museum. No photos as all were crowded around the exhibits. It’s a place that holds the world’s largest collection of priceless Chinese art treasurers with almost 5000 years of history. We then proceeded to Yehliu to take a look at the natural rock formations. We were looking for this in Yehliu, The Queen’s Head.

Walking towards our destination, we saw some cute statues along the pathway. Couldn’t resist and started taking photos with them. 🙂

Okay, definitely trying to act cute. LOL

Walking on, I decided to take some scenery photos with Jonathan’s pro camera. Wanted to try out my photography skills also which I doubt I have.

What do you all think? I think not bad for first timer. Sometimes, it’s really nice to have a good camera on hand. 🙂

Finally a picture of mummy and daddy. 🙂

Picture of my daddy. People always say daughters are usually closer to daddy. My daddy is fun to be with cos he always has many interesting stories to share. LOL

Oh great! We found the head!!!! Hmm only certain angle looks like the queen’s head. 🙂

By the time we finished visiting Yehliu, it was about 5pm and the next destination was the YangMingShan TienLai Hotspring. Didn’t go for the hotspring as it was really cold. What did we do? We had coffee at the coffee house listening to gossips.

Taiwan is really a nice place to go to especially during the winter. Loves the cool weather since we don’t get it at all in Singapore. Planning for another one end of the year with family members. Hope we can all go together. 🙂

Awesome Nat + Taiwan Trip Day 5

Before I moved on to my Taiwan Trip updates, I am gonna share you a video of Kimmy’s daughter, Natacia, being captured in her daily training for her Cold Storage Kids Run 2011. Kimmy and I were from the YWC (Young Wives Club) set up by ourselves randomly. LOL There are 6 gals in this club. Studying together but young, we were all attached or married at that time. Hahaha, now we are known as OWC (Old Wives Club). Ladies, it’s been a long time since we meet up.

Anyway, Natacia is awesome to the max in this video and the video is well made. 🙂 Support Nat by viewing the video. The closing date for the video contest is 13/5/11 at 2359:)  We are looking at the view counts. Go on and click, click, click. A new star arising…..

——————————

Now back to the Day 5 of Taiwan Trip. We are travelling back to Taipei. Early in the morning, we boarded a train from HuaLian to SuAo. The main reason was to cut down the time taken to travel on bus and also to experience the train ride in Taiwan. I was glad that I bought the data SIM card. With my iph, I spent the 1 hour ride watching shows from YouTube. 🙂

As we did not have our luggages with us, the train was pretty spacious. It was very comfortable and happy to say that, I am satisfied with the ride. 🙂

Almost reaching Taipei, we visited the NaTien Temple. It is a landmark of NafanAo (南方澳). This temple is used to host the 妈祖, a goddess which was said to be there to guide and bless the fishermen. In this temple, we could see  the goddess statues made with three different types of materials. Besides the goddess, the view of the harbour is breathtaking.

I was totally mesmerized by the architechtural structures, the dragons and the red tiled ceiling.

Ooooo, then we spotted the peanut ice-cream crepe. It was a disappointment. 😦 It was not as good as the ones we had in ChiuFen.

The “Yakcult” in the 7-eleven also caught my attention. It’s so much bigger in size than the ones we have in Singapore. 🙂

Oops… I bet you can’t see the size difference. LOL but yes, it’s about double the size of our Singapore Yakcult.

Finally back in Taipei. Today, the tour guide took us to all the historical sites. Firstly, we stepped into The Chiang Kai-Shek ShiLin Residence Park which was a homage to the former president. Besides visiting the home, we got to embrace ourselves in different flowers and garden scenary. To avoid getting lost in the big park, we sought the help of the map.

This is the house where the former president lived.

We are surrounded by flowers. 🙂

The Shine Cafe in the Park. Love the nostalgic feel to this place. Old vintage photos and decorations make this cafe comfortable to be in. I think is one of the attractions in the park as many people were sitting outside the cafe enjoying the scenary and coffee. 🙂

Next destination was the Martyr’s Shrine where we got to watch an elaborate ceremony of changing guards. Anne and I actually walked all the way into the shrine to view the whole ceremony despite the hot sun. 🙂 The guards are very professional. The funny thing is tourists who were there would follow the changing guards from main shrine to the main entrance. LOL

Oh, somewhere in between the trips, we dropped by the Grand Palace Hotel which was established by the former president Chiang’s wife, Song MeiLing. It’s really grand and according to the tour guide, some feng shui was taken into considerations in building this hotel. High hotel rates as well.

Finally, it was dinner time. This time round, we had the famous Xiao Long Bao for dinner. Dumplings in different skin flavors and colours. Not to be missed was the Sweet and Sour Soup. *YUMMY*

After dinner, we were given time to stroll along Hsienmenting (西门町). The first thing, we looked for was the Ah Zhong Mian Xian. Thumbs up for that one. Never to miss if you are at Hsienmenting. 🙂

Taiwan Trip 2010 Day 3

Day 3 was on 25 December 2010 thus was Christmas Day. It’s great to be able to celebrate with family members. Jamie and Victor had also planned Christmas party for the two kids over at Singapore.

The first stop we arrived was the 日月潭 (Sun Moon Lake). Remembered 5 years ago that I went with Jonathan, that was a beautiful lake. I think is due to the quake that has left the place in ruins and on the mist of rebuilding. Why is it known as Sun Moon Lake? Seems like in the northern part of the “Guang Hua Island” (in the middle of the lake) looks like the shape of a sun and the southern part like the shape of a moon. We visited the 文武庙 (WenWu Temple) which worships Confucius, Guan Gong and Yue Fei.

Picture description from L to R: The entrance of the temple, The temple staff explaining the procedures of the praying, The well-wishes that we could place in the temple, the entrance from the other view.

Since we were given quite some time to wander around, how could we miss taking pictures of the scenery. 🙂

Yea to family picture. Thanks to the tour guide who is “well-versed” in photography, we got this nice picture taken. 🙂The three little children from the same tour group. Seeing them, I missed my two children at home. 😦

Can’t remember when was the last time I took picture with Daddy….

Sista with Daddy. 🙂

Leaving our footprints, we walked to the bus. Could not resist the Taiwan sausages stalls just beside the bus. 🙂 It was quite a long journey to the next destination. Took a pit stop for coffee and snacks…. and I caught someone in the act.

Hahaha… That’s my tourguide. Check out his equipment for phototaking. He carried these camera stuff throughout the journey.

Finally, we reached the 美浓客家村 (Mei Non Hakka Village). Purpose? To know more about the Hakka culture. Definitely the easiest to know them is through their food. We had a sumptuous Hakka lunch following by strolling around the village.

Everyone was so curious about this old man who could create music with different household items. The most amazing one to me was the toothpaste. “Impressive” is the word Kaitlyn uses. 🙂 Besides that, he appeared in different TV shows and one of the mediacorp show had him featured.

Dropped by the 85 Building for a city sight and mountains. The elevator easily took the group up to the 75th deck in just 43 secs which is 600 feet per minute. *Fast*

Oh before I moved on, we were at Kaoshiung. So we must visit the Love River. Took a 20minutes boat ride without taking any nice pictures. 😦 Too shaky and cold to hold my cam.

Daddy and mummy before we boarded the boat.

The sun set early due to the season which meant it was time for dinner. Fun days always passed by extremely fast. 🙂 For the past two nights, we were at the night market. The third night, we visited a shopping area cum night market. 🙂 We were only given an hour half to roam the place. Totally not enough for hardcore shoppers like us. After we reached the hotel, we took a cab down to 新崛江夜市 (New Chueh Chiang Night Market) for 2nd round of shopping. 🙂

Sister and mummy checking out the socks for they were really cheap. Probably due to the weather. 🙂

Day 4 was really short cos most of the time was spent travelling on the bus. We will be in Hualian on Day 4. Check back soon. 🙂