Paris --> York

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I spent about one hour to pack my luggage last night. It was the last night to sleep with Jeanseb in the same bed, huh, sort of miss it...At about three or four, I was awake and found my friend was sleeping in the only gap between my head and the bedside, looking funny yet feeling we are getting closer and closer. At the moment I was about to fall asleep again, I felt my right shoulder got heavy, so I looked...omg he slept on my shoulder...I tried to wake him up but failed, so I gave up at last and closed my eyes again.

At about six sth, I said goodbye to one of my best male friends. I didn't cry, just feeling a bit sad. I wasn't sure when we'll meet again but I know we'll do this for sure. I put down my luggage in a locker in the train station before heading to Musee d'Orsay. It was still early, so I decided to have a breakfast nearby. There were not many restaurants and the breakfast wasn't cheap at all, which takes around eight to ten Euros on average for a breakfast. Crazy!! This is my average expense for dinner in HK. Suddenly I feel so lucky that Jeanseb took care of me for a whole week. My breakfast included a piece of 6-inch baguette, a large croissant, some scrumble egg, a glass of fresh orange juice and a cup of lemon tea. Frankly speaking, in terms of size of the breakfast, charging at eight Euros was a bit too much. Yet the decoration is comfortable and classic, demonstrating a taste of 60s, and I must say that the baguette was so crispy~~yummy~~. It should be a marvellous time to read newspaper while eating breakfast here, I guess.

I returned to Musee d'Orsay at nine. The museum was once a train station, and I noticed one of the landmarks of the Museum--the big clock. Musee d'Orsay was larger than I expected and it displayed so many masterpieces that I could only recall some works of Van Gogh.

The time spent on Musee d'Orsay was longer than expected, so I decided to do some final shopping and buying souvenirs for friends (which I haven't done yet!!) instead of visting science museum. I ended up in the Morgan de Toi at Champs Elysees again and bought a nice jacket..hehe...Though Arc de Triumph is close to the shopping district, I didn't have enough time to pay a visit. What a pity!

I went back to the train station at around 11:45 but the bad feeling that had been with me for the whole morning was still there, and I realised why when I took my luggage-- first it took me 20 minutes to get back my luggage, which got me nervous; then all of the self-ticket machines broke and there was a long queue! I asked about it with staff and they seemed confused about the situation, continued with their "walking pace" without an intention to open another counter to separate the queues. This really pissed me off. Man i spent half an hour on the queue where there were three staff serving about 10 people in front of me. Jesus I was getting crazy. How could they have such a stupid brain and low efficiency, and I was so proud of being a Hong Kong citizen. I couldn't help burst out four-letter words. I swear it's my first time to be impolite in the public and I wish I won't experience such situation any more.

15 minutes later, I got into a train and found my seat. When I bought my lunch at the kiosk I waited for 10 mins again!! Even the few guys in front of me were starting to be out of patience and complained about it to the staff. On the way I got back to my seat, those guys invited me to their train party. Given that there was free champaign and snacks, I said yes of course. haha. There was a cool-looking boy who was around the same age with me. Man he told me he's a model. Wow~~He signed for me as well!! Later the guy standing next to me asked me in a low voice, "Do you want to have fun under the sea?" I said, "No thanks." And I thought, "Don't treat me like a fool. Even if I want it, definitely not with you." He courted a rebuff and slept, and we didn't talk any more on the rest of the journey.

I put down my luggage in Waterloo station once I arrived at London, and hurried to London Aquarius. I took out my coins and counted one by one slowly, then the handsome staff gave me a blink, took 8 pounds (children and students' fare) from me and said, "OK this is enough." Hehe so glad that he did me a favour. I was a bit disappointed with the aquarium because it looks like to the one in Ocean Park, and it seems that Ocean Park has more species. Yet, I appreciated that the aquarium mentioned many water pollution problems in River Thames besides providing with information on different oceanic species, which served as a channel to educate the next generation about environmental protection. Also, London Aquarium set up an interactive zone and one of them is to touch Eagle Ray (also known as Devil Ray). I saw a baby who tried to put his little hand on the back of the fish without succed and gave up at last. Oh he looked so cute~~I believe kids earned a lot via this aquarium, better off than boring class in schools. lol

Next I paid a visit to Dali Universe. The arts museum separates into two levels, quite a small one. Passing the long mystery corridor with sayings from Salvador Dali, I came to the exhibition hall. Although the decoration was simple, the colourful surreal paintings and weird but funny bronze statues all gave you a blast, and I was unexpected to find that Alice in the Wonderland is a surreal work as well!! What's the most surprising was a work introducing things that carry erotic metaphors, and I haven't heard of all of them except "Keys and locks". Really interesting.

After Dali Universe I met Hector, my friend since I was a child, in Kingscross. He tooked me to the "Harry Potter's 9 and 3/4 platform", haha. Then we had a quick dinner in McDonald's (sigh, my first dinner in UK was sth I could have in Hong Kong). um....McDonald's in UK kept their standard as in 2000, i.e. low. Later I went back to the station and got on the train to York.

York station was built with bricks. Maybe because the town was quite small, facilities of York station was not too good. There were no elevators so it was a bit inconvenient to carry the luggage. Since it was quite late when I arrived, I took a taxi to the youth hostel. This youth hostel looks no different from camp sites in Hong Kong, i.e. oridinary. However the decoration inside the building revealed a taste of Victoria period, and what impressed you the most was that my room was so warm and neat (most important: no bed bugs), so it's easy to stay in bed until the next morning.

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