From London to Paris

I arrived London Heathrow Terminal 3 at 5:50 a.m. on 6^th June, 2009. Due to my experience of the long queue at the immigration checkpoint at the Beijing Capital International Airport, I allocated a 2-hour buffer for immigration clearance.

However, there were not many flights arriving at London Heathrow Terminal 3 on that day at that early hours and it took me only less than half an hour to get through the immigration. So, I was already at the arrival hall at just half-past six.

I followed the signage to the London Underground and the station was quite a distance from Terminal 3. After buying the Oyster card with £7 stored value, I was ready to go!

The Underground trip took me about an hour, so I started shooting the people inside the train. There were not many people boarding or alighting along the stations near the airport.

At about quarter to eight-of-clock, I had already reached the King's Cross St. Pancras Underground Station. My train to Paris would not depart until 12:29 p.m., so I tried my luck to board an earlier train to Paris but to no avail because my train ticket was a non-flexible one.

It was raining in London on that day, so I couldn't go outside of St. Pancras International.

Out of boredom, I did some camwhoring at the train station. It was only 9:00 a.m., another three-and-a-half hour to my train to Paris.

So, I walked around St. Pancras International to see if there's anything to shoot to kill my time.

It wasn't until 11:00 a.m. that I was allowed to enter the Eurostar departure hall. I waited for another hour there before I really boarded the train to Paris.

It wasn't until 15 minutes before departure that the passengers were allowed to board the train, so I walked at a fast pace to the front of the train to take a short before walking quickly again to the coach with my seat.

When I booked the train ticket online at the Eurostar website, I couldn't get a cheap Standard seat ticket. I was given a choice of upgrading it to the Leisure Select for another £15, so I upgraded.

The seat was roomier and cosier, and it came with welcome drinks and a meal served on board.

My choice for the main course was grilled chicken breast with sumac spice on Moroccan tomato sauce served with vegetable couscous. It was quite delicious. I liked the bread very much that I had three of them. The rocket, parsley, soya bean, radish and dill salad was claimed to be organic too.

After the meal, I was also served a cup of gourmet coffee. I think all these were well worth the extra £15 for the upgrade.

It took about two-and-a-half hours for the train ride. When I arrived at Gare du Nord, it was already 4:00 p.m.

I said goodbye to the stewardess.

And I also said goodbye to the Eurostar train.

Then I started to look for the way to my hotel in Paris to kick start my 5-day stay in Paris.