i see london, i see france

BONJOUR!

so this is weeks late buuuut i had 2 days between London and Paris before heading to Boracay, Philippines for a week and since i've been back i've been catching up on regular MTV work along with other stuffs- trying to clean the house (my apartment is complete shambles right now, some sort of swirl of laundry, travel clothing, christmas presents, and the random accumulation of the past month of my life.... SO to start here's a quick recap of my european adventures....We took the redeye out of singapore and arrived in london at 6am... driving from Heathrow to the heart of the city in the early morning darkness looks like New Jersey.... not the prettiest city BUT London justified herself later... 

ANYWAY we got to the hotel godawfulearly and they wouldnt let us check in because none of the rooms were available yet... nothing was open... not even the hotel restaurant SO we sat in the lobby couches and i finished reading Paolo Coelho's The Fifth Mountain... when the hotel restaurant finally opened we ate a nice long 2 hour breakfast waiting to see if we could check into our rooms at 10- when we couldnt i slapped on some make up in the lobby bathroom and we grabbed our gear and headed out to shoot.
London day 1 was SO LONDON. Gray, dreary, drizzling, FREEZING and sad out.... we hit the Buckingham Palace then walked through the park to Big Ben and the church then the London Eye then took a boat to Tower Bridge- stopping to shoot footage all along the way and stopping every so often to take pictures- a difficult task for most, but silly me, in my hurry out of the hotel i forgot my gloves- i thought i'd lose a few fingers on

 this trip... almost did! I was so so cold i couldnt even type an email on my blackberry to my

 mom and my roomie letting them know i got there safely.Anyway we finished shooting at 2pm and headed back to the hotel to check into our rooms, shower, change, and then we met up with my producer's cousin who lives in London and offered to take us around... soooo at 3 we finally regrouped and headed out for a quick bite of Japanese then charged the streets to shop shop shop in the 2 hours we had left before all the shops closed at 6 (it was a sunday, unfortunately)... we basically only made it to topshop and h&m - i would go back to london just to go to that damn topshop!!!! it was the retail equivalent of the titanic and i woulda lost all my money if it werent for the time crunch.... soooo 2 solid hours of shopping later (i actually didnt end up with too much! everyone in my life should rejoice haha) we finally headed to dinner. 

I wanted to hit a pub, grab some truly London tastes and a beer or two before going back to the hotel buuut when we finally got to the recommended pub, they were closed sooo we wandered the London streets for a bit longer before finally settling on a cute little italian deli. Dinner was good but nothing beat the last few hours of the day, wandering the British streets, seeing what life in London is all about... i LOVE LONDON!So we turned in early for the night, unfortunately but we did have to be up and out early to head to the eurostar station... long story short... we waited around the eurostar station for AGES - literally hours- until Take That showed up and we were able to ask them 2 quick

 questions before everyone was herded onto the train for the 3 hour ride to Paris. We got to

 Paris and after mass confusion and more cold rain, we finally made it to our hotel where we all checked in then went for a stroll to find a spot for dinner... dinner was MMM MMM

 MMMMMMMMM... then we headed to the TAKE THAT launch party- Circus themed (to match the album title no doubt) with a flame thrower out front and people on stilts and a bunch of girls dressed as the people who sell snacks at the circus annnnd a pretty ballerina girl who was totally nonchalant and tatt'd up- i LOVED her. We waited around with the rest of the papparazzi/ camera people for another hour or two before take that showed up, we took a few snaps at them then grabbed a few drinks, heard the first 2 songs then a handful of us peaced out. It was way too pushy up in that little club and a lot of the guests were... obnoxious. Not my kinda crowd.
I spent the rest of the night galavanting around Paris with Alvey (channel V vj at large and all around awesome guy)- 

we were the only 2 still up to be out and about so we walked the dark parisian streets 

then caught a cab to the eiffel tower just in time for midnight when the tower lights up and dazzles... it sparkles and shimmers and i have to admit i felt my breath catch in wonder.... 

the world can be so beautiful thanks to men.... hard to believe sometimes that we're slowly killing the

 planet... Anyway after that little escapade, we headed back to the hotel for another quick night of sleep.
Day 3 we're up and out early again, we've all got scheduled interviews with TAKE THAT at their awesome little boutique hotel a few blocks from ours so we head over to prep and set up... an hour later i'm talking to the guys about the new album, their old stuff, and when Robbie's gonna rejoin the group, laughing about football and all kinds of random stuff til it's time to cut it all, give Alvey his chance to ask a few questions then me and the channel V team (my team LUCKY THEM arranged to stay on for another few days of play) are off to the eiffel tower again for a little photo op before we catch the train back to London and then head to Heathrow to catch our flights back to asia...
So that in a nutshell was my trip to London/ Paris... i'm now in love with london and i've been in love with paris for years now... SUCH a beautiful city... i cant wait to go back and spend more time there... i could totally live in paris for a while... italy too- i LOVE italy... sigh. But here i am back in my messy little apartment in Singapore trying to wrap up work, bake christmas cookies for the office, then pack my bags to fly home for the holidays :) YAY! That's right folks i'm flying back to california for christmas and new years... SOOOOO STOKED to see my family and my friends and to cook in MY kitchen and drive my car and BE by the beach...

which reminds me of my trip to the philippines... but i'll post that separately....

so many adventures, so little time.. LOVE!