GOT A JOB IN PARIS

They say once in a life time you got to YOLO, because you literally only live once. Unlike cats, but I really am suspicious about the cats have 9 lives logic. But anyways, let's talk about how I landed myself a job after visiting Paris. As some may say, "Paris is always a good idea" - Audrey Hepburn

So every time you visit a signature city like Paris, you never fail to miss out the things like the Louvre and in my case, here's a we-fie with the Eiffel Tower.

Well the fact that the weather in Paris was super kind, cold to begin with. But we decided to head out with lack of sleep to savior what we could for a nice day in Paris.

Riding the subway with a face mask was inevitable because it was so cold my nose was literally frozen I start developing a reindeer nose. Red and perhaps a little swollen.

When you're just too cold to pose for any touristy photos. Did you realize how precise they trim their trees in Paris? Fun Fact: All the trees in Paris are referenced and measured. And there are about 470,000 of them.

The Eiffel Tower is 324 metres (1,063 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-storey building, and the tallest structure in Paris. (Wikipedia, 2016)

Well, obviously we started to get overly excited over cherry blossoms in Paris. Apparently the best time to see cherry blossoms in Paris is in April (usually from the last two weeks of March to mid of April). Well, you can read more about the best places to see them when you visit Paris, here.

I came to realize in Paris, if you greet someone in French. Notice that smile on the other person's face? The likelihood of getting a far nicer treatment is just way higher. Some useful phrases to greet a stranger in Paris: Hello (Bonjour); How's It Going? (Ça va?); It's Going Well (Ça va bien); Good-bye (Au revoir); Thank You (Merci).

Just when you thought you were gonna freeze to death, our amazing friend - Summer happens to have a talent for french speaking. And we got ourselves some hot chocolate. And before you know it, hot chocolate has never taste better when bought under the Eiffel Tower.

Now, the view from the bottom to the very top, bet you can even see the cupola from here. Go up the Eiffel Tower using the lifts or the stairs if you really want to explore the tower from every angle and enjoy a long walk up THERE. The stairs which are open up to public reaches the 2nd floor (at 115m), atleast when you get to the top you will have a satisfaction of having climbed 704 steps.

A change of sight, arriving at the Trocadéro, you will see an Art Museum called Musée National de la Marine. Just take the bridge and cross the river to the other side, where more mini Eiffel Tower metal sculptures are being sold at a price as low as 3 for 1 Euro.

There were tonnes of Eiffel Tower photos taken at this point of a time, but I really appreciated the fact that sometimes the ugly shots seemed to look so warm and cozy when you meet people that you've probably not known your entire lifetime. You hang out with them like you're a group of sisters wearing the traveling pants, enjoying your day out in a romantic city called Paris.

While waiting for our friend to join us for a we-fie, an Indonesian solo traveller approached us. Good for the two of us, we were too lazy to entertain him, so we're here happily shaking our legs taking more potential viral selfies.

Hehe, us and the tower. Oh, and hot chocolate.

A scrumptious meal of mushroom, potatoes and pulled beef. Or something like that. I don't really remember.

I think we spent almost 45mins looking for the restaurant. But looking at the food, it would all have been worthwhile now. Those days, I use to drink so much coffee in a day, come to think of it. No wonder my stomach gets so upset these days, I would call it "coffee"-intolerant.

Here we are at Musée Picasso Paris. Behind us is Picasso and his sheep, also known as "Man with a Lamb".

I am pretty sure, somewhere along the line we weren't allowed flash photography or photography even. But Picasso is just creatively weird. Sometimes, I can barely understand why women in his portraits look so oddly sad and disfigured. Here's a brief art history on Picasso.

Half dead, but we had fun looking at the paintings. Descriptions were mostly in french or some language that I didn't understood, lucky enough we have a talented french speaker with limited vocab and a science student with limited memory of scientific terms, which kinda helped understanding some of the stuff. More over the Picasso paintings may look abstract, but if you see it, they're kinda simple to describe and rather fascinating.

Looking for crepes and gelato along the alleys of Paris.

Amarino's flower gelato looks pretty, tastes good too. Having it for the second time in Paris. Still tastes equally good.

Time to call it a day, with a spectacular night view at the Palais Garnier @ Opéra.

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Day 2 Started out really early. Apparently I crashed pretty early too. Those were the days where you technically get like 40 hours to sleep. But you choose to go out and roam and ended up getting only like 10 hours of total sleep. #sometimesinlife

Out early to grab lunch at Café at Rue de Rennes. Sea bass looks appetizing. And time to kickstart the day and go visit an awesome startup in Paris.

Here we are at Paris&Co's coshared office space at 76 bis Rue de Rennes. The office holds multiple startup companies. How did I end up here? I was in touch with the founding team in Hong Kong, known as OuiOpen. Which in Paris have been doing really well in the market with the company known as PopUpImmo. They are an online marketplace that connects artists, designers, e-commerce players and fashion brands to short term spaces available in Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, London and New York. I'm pretty sure they will become something really big some day, and here I am waiting to meet with one of the founders - Adrien. I won't be able to disclose too much, but the office gives a really good vibe. Things are intense, but I had a really good feeling about it.

So after the tour at PopupImmo's office, I was awaiting a conference call with another co-founder of the company - Mohammed. He's a very cool guy, he shared with me his story as how he became one of the masterminds behind this growing business. The business idea was super cool, and I could now still remember the setting at Paul, where there were people coming and going, and here I am, a tiny young insignificant human sitting at a corner trying to connect to WiFi and waiting for the interview with in my opinion one of the coolest companies in the sharing economy industry. How did it go you ask me, I ended up with a job offer in Hong Kong.

I kind of went berserk, so I ended up with plenty of stock from Pierre Herme and Citypharmacie. This Pierre Herme shop sells amazing Rose Croissants and the Citypharmacie sells cosmetics at reasonably low price, but buyers beware. The pharmacy is usually crowded with people from all over the world, when it's crowded it means you will struggle buying things at your own leisure. I kinda think it sometimes look like an Asian store on black Friday. Just kidding.

Looks kinda awesome, tastes really awesome too. The last I remember, it's 2 EURO for that precious.

After returning to Hong Kong, it took me quite a while to decide whether to take the job offer or not. But after 2 months I tendered my resignation and joined the amazing startup that I now no longer work at. It was hell of a roller coaster ride. My lesson to take away here. When you're young, don't afraid to try, don't be afraid to go all out for that something that you want to pursue. You have got to somehow learn to live with your consequences, but at the end of the day you will always read stories about how other people did this, and ended up like that. So perhaps going through things like this will teach you amazing life lessons, to teach you to appreciate and to never give up trying.

Goodbye Paris for now. Sincerely, hellowingwing.