The IMO 2006 Journey

Day 1 - Arrival

Monday, July 10, 2006

And so it began. The beginning of an adventure. We met at the airport at around 9. Kenneth, Daniel and Mr Teo came to send us off, making fun of us having to miss World Cup. We took some final photos before we crossed the departure gate, but not before I finished my coffee :P

As we boarded AirFrance, we wondered what would happen if France had lost the match. Planes with kamikaze tendencies smell scary. And we were betting that the Captain Pilot might just make an announcement if France did win World Cup. That aside, we wasted no time in gobbling up our food when it arrived, and all our fears of kamikaze pilots were conveniently cast aside.

Yummy Beef Pasta

I ate like a pig, and I then slept like a pig. Years of National Service had trained me to sleep in any position, and I just slept like a seasoned pig (Hmmm.. Why do I sound delicious??). So for our 13-hour flight I slept for close to 10 hours, and I was woken up by Jiawei, who wanted to ask Gary questions.

And I was really lucky, coz I woke up just minutes before sunrise. Now, sunrise as witnessed from above the clouds is truly a marvelous sight.

As the sun slowly illuminates the sky, the clouds began to take shape, transforming into solid white fluffs of floating cushions in the sky, as if beckoning us to go dive in them.

As we passed central Europe, we could just take a peep at the mountains just beneath those cushions.

These clouds came in various other forms. Some looked like forests of white clumps, magically floating on nothing, forming islands and pieces of 'white land'.

We soon had to puncture these clouds as we descend upon the beautiful land of France, and we arrived safely at Paris's Charles De Gaull airport, to transit to another plane going to Ljubljana, capital city of Slovenia. In the international transit zone, one of the most pressing questions was "So who won??" We decided to check out the French news-stand, and all the newspapers actually talked about the soccer match but there was no numbers!!! We finally found one English paper that actually described the penalty shoot-out. Well, so I guess that explained why all the French we saw were looking drained and not too happy.

On our way to the plane to Slovenia, we met the French team and the team from Mozambique, and we did talk to the French team momentarily, coz one of the French team members noticed that both Zhao Yan and Charmaine were wearing the Singapore IPhO T-shirts.

When we finally reached Ljubljana, it was BEAUTIFUL!! Ok, but it would have been a perfect experience, if not for the Slovenian officials stopping me, and asking me whether I carried any drugs. I had to open my luggage and the official ransacked my luggage, and saw all my medication. So I had to explain that Chong was surname, and my First name consisted of more than one word!! What do I look like? A terrorist?? A drug smuggler???

A Picture of the Ljubljana International Airport

On our journey to our accomodations, we passed by a very bright and green Slovenian backdrop. The trees were all alive with green and the sights were just spectacular. We "wah-ed" and "wow-ed" at the better scenery, so all the photos we got were the not so "wah" and "wow" ones. :p

We finally arrived at our accomodation, a 4-star hotel named "Union". The rooms are fantastic, the food is sumptous, and mix them together, it was a "wah-wow".

The Singapore team, apparently not so affected by jet lag, began some light training almost immediately after lunch. And the hostels they got paled in comparision to the hotels we got. Well, that is to be expected, of course. We observers had to pay to come to Slovenia!! Jiawei was more interested in jumping on our beds than training.

The jet lag effect soon caught up with us, and we could all feel its effect around evening time. After dinner, we just plonked onto our beds, and that brought an end to Day 1.

Apparently, Singapore was one of the first countries to arrive, so we didn't get any chances to interact with the other countries.

Day 2 - Opening Ceremony

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

On Day 2, all of us observers plus Mr Lim woke up early. We had a very satisfying breakfast at 7am. Zhao Yan came up with lots of excuses and somehow "got lost" and found himself at our hotel, so he joined us for breakfast. The rest of the team had breakfast at their hostel and would not come over to our hotel until 9.30am, so we had time to do some sight-seeing.

This is called aliteration. Try reading this!

This is actually a shopping mall!!

A beautiful scene of the rows of shophouses

A corny picture of what is actually below one of the bridges

Mr Lim was kind enough to treat me and Gary to authentic Slovenian ice-cream. The IMO couple had disappeared, as usual, and so no treat for the both of them. Too bad. Muahahaha..

The ice-cream stall

Some of the shops had very interesting names. For example, try reading out loud the following name (of course, the 'T' is silent):

There were also some interesting road signs:

I'm guessing the 2nd road sign meant "Don't cross the road, or Kaboom!!" LOL

In the afternoon, there was more light training for the Singapore IMO team, and they happily messed up our (me and Gary) room!! Grrr...

The highlight of the day was the Opening Ceremony, where we get to see ALL the teams.

Singapore team together with our very friendly guide

Italy team, happy from winning World Cup. Guy behind Italian girl actually carrying a soccer ball

Dr Tay!!! Yay!

After the opening ceremony, it was last minute prep talk to the IMO team and some revision on problem-solving techniques, before we parted. They had to go back to their hostel for dinner, and we get to rest for the night. Of course, because of this entry, I'm sleeping close to midnight today. Argh!!

Good night!!

Day 3 - IMO Day 1

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

In Slovenia, the sky starts to brighten up from 4am onwards. Being adventurous people, we decided to wake up early today and explore Ljubljana. Our roaming begins at 5am onwards, and the sky was so bright then, it was just like 8am in Singapore already.

We actually wanted to get ourselves lost and end up at Ljubljana Castle. We did end up at Ljubljana Castle but we didn't get lost. What we got were many beautiful sights. The morning sun together with the fresh air made our morning stroll pleasant.

The path uphill..

Basement View of Ljubljana Castle

Morning 6am Sun

We also managed to catch a glimpse of a loving couple over 70 of age, holding hands. How sweet!!

Rushing back for breakfast, we realised that breakfast every morning was the same. Nevertheless, we piled our plates full of yummy stuff and had a heavy breakfast. A few more heavy breakfasts, and I'm gonna get REALLY fat. We then met up with the rest of the deputy leaders and observers and boarded our buses to go for our excursion, something that was planned as part of the entertainment package while the contestants went for IMO Day 1. Talking about deputy leaders, we had an interesting conversation with the Portugese deputy leader. So he was into algebraic goemetry, and he wrote his PhD thesis while he was in Singapore, so he had many pleasant memories of Singapore. Our conversation soon went to the wide variety of food Singapore has to offer, and an amusing encounter he was describing about how he went to Sim Lim Square wanting to buy a camera, and when he bargained and offered a ridiculously low price for the camera, the shopkeeper agreed and offered him a camera without any lens.

For our excursion, we first went to Predjama Castle.

Front View of Predjama Castle

So the story behind this castle that was built out of a cave was that this high ranking official betrayed the king then, and he was imprisoned. But he escaped and came to this cave and built himself a castle. So there were soldiers at the bottom of the castle, and being sure that there wasn't food in the cave, they waited for him to surrender. Well, there was a secret passage out of the cave from the back, and so food was never a problem, and the soldiers waited like stupid pigeons (I think pigeons are stupid) for him to surrender, while he went about doing his daily activities. His servant had actually wanted to betray him, and there was one day when our hero was in the toilet doing his daily business, and the servant gave a signal to the soldiers, and the soldiers catapulted a heavy rock directly towards his toilet, killing him instantly, in his TOILET!!

Side View of the Predjama Castle that was destroyed(reconstructed of course)

View from one of the windows

Torture Chamber inside

One of the luxurious rooms

How they collected water..

The hole as seen from inside the castle

We later went to Postojna Cave. So this place is one of the largest cave in Europe and is visited by tourists most frequently. The cave had three layers, the lowest one being seasonally flooded by river water. We visited the middle layer.
The temperature inside was 8 deg celcius!! And we went deep inside, and witnessed many spectacular sights that took tens of thousands of years to form. It was amazing that an animal called Proteus (or the human fish) actually lives inside the river that flows through the lowest layer of the cave.

The rail train journey to deep inside

Not a good idea to be too tall

Ceiling

After the train ride, we had to walk 1.5km

A HUGE white stalagtite

The Spaghetti Chamber

Me!

After our excursion, we had lunch, and that was when we saw the problems for Day 1. Immediately, we saw that they were not as easy as the past year's IMOs. Question 3 was surprisingly an inequality!! And we were joking about the "Revenge of the Inequalities", as this year's inequality problem was not whackable. A while later, we met up with the team to find that all did Qn 1, while half of them did Qn 2, or so they thought. There were gaps in some of their proofs, and we were trying to patch their proofs. I spent most part of the day trying to patch up Jiawei's third problem, but I could only come out with a patch that was essentially the same idea as the official solution, so it was quite hopeless to get more than 1 mark for him.

At night, I went over to their hostel and joined them in a few games of table tennis, and made sure they were not worrying too much about Day 1's problems. Gary and Charmaine were tired and remained at the hotel. After all that sweating, I headed back to the hotel, and on my way back, I met some of the contestants. In particular, I talked to Andrei Frimu and Vitalie PatrÃ®nica, both from Moldova. We were talking about how China was going to be number 1 in the world again, and gave our predictions for the nature of the problems on Day 2.

I went back to my room exhausted, and I plonked onto the bed into deep slumber.

Day 4 - IMO Day 2

Thursday, July 13, 2006

We went over to the hostel in the morning to wish them good luck. Charmaine was especially anxious to go over, naturally. When we reached there, we saw a very calm Singapore team. In fact, many of the other teams were making their way to the examination hall, while the Singapore team was still taking their own sweet time. Jiawei was especially late because he could not find his favorite mechanical pencil.

On reaching the hall, the team wasted no time in settling down, getting mentally prepared for another 4.5 hours of problem-solving.

Photos of Jiawei and Junwei not available as they were in another exam hall

I also wished Andrei and Iurie (both from Moldova) good luck, although I really suspect Iurie does not need luck at all.

The contest soon started, and we found ourselves 4.5 hours free. We decided to go look for a supermarket. As we had expected, communicating with the locals was a challenge, even when they knew English. Words like 'supermarket', 'supermart' and 'convenience store' were foreign to the locals, and one of the locals directed us to somewhere far away from where we asked her. It was only later that we found out we were almost next to a convenience store where we asked the lady for directions!!

So, we walked quite a distance, looking for our supermarket, and finally we chanced upon a street of what looked like shops. I guessed the word 'Mercator', which we kept on seeing, had something to do with merchandise or shop, and my instincts told me that we were heading towards a convenience store. Charmaine was so sure that it wasn't a convenience store, but I went towards the 'Mercator' sign anyway. As it would have it, it WAS a convenience store, and Charmaine was complaining that she wouldn't have known it was a convenience store. Ok, whatever..

Alcoholic drinks were quite cheap, and I immediately bought a few Bacardi Breezers. Yay!! Plus some coffee. That was all I need to survive. Bacardi and coffee.

Bacardi flavors: Pineapple, Watermelon, Orange

We then hurried back to our hotel, and on our way back, it turned out that most of the 'Mercator' signs had convenience stores hidden somewhere very nearby. Well, we had to hurry back because we had to check out of our hotels and shift to somewhere 100km away, by the sea-side, where we would do the coordination for the IMO scripts.

After putting our luggages on our coach, we visited the examination hall one last time to see the contestants for 1 hour, before we really get separated by over 100km.

Day 2 questions was quite mad. Qn 4 was trivial, but Qn 5 was hard, and Qn 6 was insane. Meeting up with the team, we were greeted with exasperated and worried faces. No time was wasted as they discussed what they wrote in their scripts. Zhengkang was very worried as he did not solve Qn 4.

Courtesy of the Official IMO 2006 Website

We didn't have much time to worry in front of them, as we had a time schedule to follow, and we were soon on our way to PortoroÅ¾, a sea-side town that was over 100km away from Ljubljana.

A view of the night life from our hotel balcony

We met up with Dr Tay and discussed with him the team's solutions, after which we spent the rest of the night disecting their scripts. It was a super tiring night, as we tried to patch up proofs and see whatever marks we can squeeze from their scripts in Dr Tay's room. After a hard day's work of squeezing, we headed back to our rooms and returned to the comfort of our comfy beds.

Day 5 - Coordination Day 1

Friday, July 14, 2006

On this day, our smoking skills were put to the test as we went to negotiate with the coordinators for marks. It was a long and draggy process, and we only finished coordination for Qn 1 at 10am. The contestants came to visit us at PortoroÅ¾ in the late morning, and since we had time, we met up with them and became their tour guides.

Dr Tay seen here giving an intro to the place

Gary and Junwei taking photos of each other, while I took a photo of them :P

As we strolled along the beach of PortoroÅ¾, we saw tons of tourists. Many of the kids were completely naked, and quite a few ladies also went top-less. I guess in Europe, nudity is more easily accepted, as many of them had no qualms about changing in the open, making us wonder whether the changing rooms were necessary or not.

A picture of the beach (with a few nude people on the jetty)

Jiawei couldn't resist jumping into the sea, so he changed into his swimwear. The rest of us weren't so adventurous.

Jiawei changing and being harassed by our cameras

Some of the other teams were more adventurous and enjoyed the Slovenian sun and sea.

Bulgarian team (Courtesy of IMO 2006 Website)

(Courtesy of IMO 2006 Website)

Zhao Yan and Charmaine didn't join us, and they conveniently lost themselves along the beach, spending quality time in each other's arms, but somehow they came back in time, when the team had to load up back on their buses, while we observers continued our coordination.

Picture of Jure, coordinator for Qn 5(Courtesy of IMO 2006 Website)

After the coordination for Qn 5, where we met Jure, we had a very long conversation with him. It was during this time when I really felt like a spokesperson for STB, telling him the history of Singapore and Malaysia, talking about the Japanese Occupation during WWII, describing the rise and fall of communism in South-east Asia, the Confrontation, and explaining the diverse cultures found in Singapore today. We also debunked the chewing gum myth, and we explained the political system in Singapore, giving details as to why Singapore separated from Malaysia without a war, and what was National Service exactly. Of course, we also talked about the education system in Singapore, and I also had to explain why my first name was SO long. LOL

Jure and us Singapore Tourism Board spokespeople

After dinner, under the suggestion of Dr Tay, we had an evening stroll to Piran, one of Slovenia's oldest towns. Dr Tay said the 'stroll' should take at most 40 minutes, but it was a very bad estimate! It was more of 1 hour of brisk walking!

Our walk to Piran (taken at 9pm)

Sky starts to darken at 9.15pm

Piran!!

A statue on Tartini Square

The Birth Place of some very famous violinist

Having walked so far, we became adventurous and navigated our way to the top of the castle in Piran. It wasn't easy as there were many dead ends, but we persevered and when we finally reached the top, we all agreed it was worth the climb. It was a panaromic view of the Adriatic Sea, with the twinkling city lights of Italy in the far distance as a reminder to how vast this world is, yet how small we can see. As we squint our eyes, our eyes caught just a few larger boats in the distance. Too bad there was too little lights for photos to be possible.

It was a very long journey back to PortoroÅ¾ from Piran, but we made it back somehow. And it was quite amusing that of the many bars we passed, the song "Hips Don't Lie" was the number one favorite song there. We went back, totally exhausted from all the walking.

Day 6 - Coordination Day 2

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Today was another hectic day of coordination as we coordinated the rest of the questions. I met Valentin Vornicu, founder of Mathlinks, who was the coordinator for Qn 3. It was a cruel battle-field out there as we tried to fight for marks for Qn 4 and Qn 2. When we finally completed coordination for the Singapore team, most of the other countries hadn't finished, and we had to wait for them to finish. Naturally, one of the pressing concerns we had was the cut-offs for the medals. As we continuously refreshed the latest score updates on the IMO intranet, we began to worry, as the number of contestants with a score of 15 was rising rapidly.

The situation was this: There is this IMO policy that not more than 50% of the contestants can get medals. The number of contestants with 15 points or more was 4 contestants more than the 50% mark, but there were a total of about 65 contestants with a score of 15, which meant that if the policy was enforced strictly, it would mean that only 38% of the contestants would get medals. The problem was that 2 people in the Singapore team got 15 points!

Furthermore, since the gold, silver and bronze cut-offs were based on the total number of medals given out, it meant that if the bronze cut-off was 16, then the silver cut-off was 22. But if the bronze cut-off was 15, then the silver cutoff was 19. It meant that either Singapore gets 2 silvers and 3 bronzes, or 3 bronzes only!!

I personally knew how painful this policy would be to the contestants, as I was a victim of this policy back in IMO 2003 held in Tokyo, where my points was above the 50% mark by 2 contestants!!! That year, the policy was strictly enforced without any negotiations, and I got a HM instead of a bronze!! Ouch! And this year, I also felt the pain for them, as there was a high chance that bronze cut-off would be 16.

Our luck took a sweet turn, as during the Jury Meeting, we had a discussion on this policy, and the cut-off was put to a vote, and it was a unanimous vote for the bronze cut-off to be 15. YAY!! So Singapore gets 2 silvers, 3 bronzes, 1 HM!!

Jury Meeting

During the Jury Meeting, we also witnessed 2 of the Team Leaders arguing for marks in front of everyone, but everything was put to the vote, and all countries, being selfish, voted for no extra marks for these 2 countries.

Voting Time! (Courtesy of IMO 2006 Website)

Valentin Vornicu and the founder of the AoPS(Art of Problem Solving) Forum proposed that their enterprise help to make an official IMO general website, but their kind offer was turned down quite harshly. And somehow, we got a taste of what an international meeting would be like.

It was a long and hectic day for all of us, and we didn't have many opportunities to take photos, as we were inside the coordination building most of the time.

Day 7 - Excursion

Sunday, July 16, 2006

In the morning, we had to check out of our hotels, as we need to shift back to Ljubljana in the evening. While waiting for the bus to pick us up, we had an interesting conversation with Yuji Odaka, Team Leader of Japan. So we found out that he represented Japan in IMO for 2001-2003, so all of us observers might have seen him! He was interested in Algebraic Geometry (just like the Portugese Deputy Team Leader), and this was his last IMO ever, as he will be heading to Tokyo University for his PhD studies in Algebraic Geometry. He was probably around my age, and he is one of the very few good-looking Japanese guys I've ever seen! We exchanged details about the IMO training program in our countries, and the Taiwan Team Leader soon joined our conversation. So in Japan, there was this problem of meeting up for training, since Japan is very big, and the Taiwan Leader said that it wasn't a problem for Taiwan, since it takes about an hour to travel from the north to the south of Taiwan, by plane of course. I then added that in Singapore, we can also travel from one end to the other in less than an hour, by car, and all of us laughed. The concept of what is near and far is very different in Japan, Taiwan and Singapore.

From morning to evening, we went for an excursion. Our first stop was this place called Bled, where we get to see the one and only island in Solvenia! There was a castle on that island, and on the opposite side of the lake, there was another castle in the backdrop.

One and only island in Slovenia!

The castle on the opposite bank

Ducks residing on Lake Bled

Me on a boat trip around the island

The guy who made our boat trip possible

We also visited that castle in the backdrop, and there were quite a lot of exhibits depicting the old Slovenian life.

The view from the top of the castle was great! We could see far into the distance, and we wonder whether the mountains beyond were part of Austria.

Another view of the island

Inside the castle

We then made our way to Kranjska Gora, location of one of Slovenia's most famous ski resorts, where we had lunch and stayed for the rest of the afternoon.

There was nothing much to see there, considering that it was a ski resort and it was summer! Thankfully, there was a basketball court there.

I shot some balls together with Valentin Vornicu(Romania) and PrzemysÅaw Mazur(Poland), and also played an actual game with the whole New Zealand team some time later. Dr Tay, Jiawei, Brian and Zhengkang joined very much later, and it's too bad there wasn't enough time to show the New Zealanders just how powerful Dr Tay was.

In the evening, we went back to Ljubljana, and after dinner, Gary and I rushed to the hostel to join the team for table tennis! But not before I gulped down another bottle of Bacardi Breezer. Oh NO! I think I'm addicted to Bacardi!!

It was quite an eventful day for us, and we went back to our hotel exhausted again.

Day 8 - Closing Ceremony

Monday, July 17, 2006

In the morning, there was a Go(Wei Qi) competition on the top of Ljubljana Castle. I have never played Go before, and on our journey up the hill to the castle, Yuji Odaka was explaining the rules of Go to me. We also talked about the school life in general for each of our countries, and it was quite a pleasant stroll uphill, chatting with a Japanese mathematician.

So I played Go with this Slovenian who claimed he was a beginner. I cannot remember his full name, but his first name was Alexander. We talked about our lives, and we exchanged our experiences on National Service in our countries. I also described to him about the diverse cultures in Singapore, and once again, I was a STB spokesperson. STB should really pay me for promoting Singapore!!

Jiawei VS Yuji Odaka

Later in the afternoon, I indulged myself with a huge ice-cream. You see, ice-cream in Slovenia is very CHEAP!! You just need to pay 83 euro cents for one large scoop of ice-cream, and you can choose from so many different flavors. There were even some places where it was 63 euro cents! Yummy and sinful!! I went exploring Ljubljana on my own, and I just love Slovenia!

In the afternoon, there was the Closing Ceremony, where all the medals were given out.

IMO 2006 Perfect Scorers
[From Left to Right: Alexander Magazinov (Russia), Zhiyu Liu (China), Iurie Boreico (Moldova)]
(Courtesy of IMO 2006 Website)

It was also during this closing ceremony that I found out the Polish I was playing basketball with at Kranjska Gora was actually 5th in the world for IMO!

We were also treated to a few authentic Slovenian folkdances and music pieces.

(Courtesy of IMO 2006 Website)

(Courtesy of IMO 2006 Website)

We had a sumptous banquet after the closing ceremony, after which we had a long photo-taking session with the other teams.

The Singapore team with our guide Tadej Pesjak

Singapore and Korea

Singapore and Japan

Singapore and Nigeria

The next 17 photos are taken from the official IMO 2006 website, just to show the various countries that took part in the IMO. Photos can be clicked for larger versions.

Hong Kong with guide Spela

Puerto Rico

Columbia

Korea

France

Slovenia

Macau

Taiwan

Turkmenistan

Hong Kong

Mexico

Russia

Georgia

Australia

Latvia

Portugal

Trinidad and Tobago

As we take numerous photos, we knew that the IMO journey was coming to an end.

Day 9 - Venice

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

We had to wake up for breakfast at 5.30am, as the bus for Venice was leaving at 6am. It was a long and draggy 7 hour ride to Venice. There was a major traffic jam along the way in Italy due to an accident, and we learnt that when there was an accident along the highway in Italy, traffic will not be slow, it will stop! Another interesting experience we had was when we crossed the Slovenia-Italy border. The authorities never bothered to check most of our passports, and we never got any stamps in our passport. The authorities only scanned the passports of those who looked Arabic. So the whole team from Trinidad and Tobago had to let their passports be scanned, while the rest were wondering why our passports weren't needed. Officially, we never entered Italy.

We finally reached Venice, and one of the things that struck us first was that Venice was SO CROWDED!!

LOTS of pigeons in Venice!

Trying to feed the pigeons..

Scooping Venice water

Pinocchio

Huge Chocolates!!

Disney Toy Shop

'Live' Statue

Another 'Live' Statue

Some morbid toy I bought at Venice
Some Italian IMO contestant in the background

Glass figures at a Glass Factory on one of the Venice islands

More glass figures

It was a long day at Venice, and when we finally went back to Ljubljana, it was past 11pm. But our minds were quite fresh, making plans to go to Paris the next day.

Day 10 - Paris

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Today was our last day in Slovenia. The bus to Ljubljana International Airport was leaving our hotel at 1.40pm. The whole morning was spent shopping for last minute souvenirs. I bought quite a lot of stuff, including some home-baked cookies, chocolates that supposedly do not melt, a nice jacket, clothes, and other little souvenirs. Of course, being the last day in Slovenia, I couldn't resist buying myself two big scoops of ice-cream!! LOL (Ok, I skipped breakfast today, so I don't feel as guilty :P)

Gary and I went to this place called Pizzeria (they sell pizza), and had a very satisfying european-style lunch. I ate some turkey steak, while Gary ate some pasta with some sause whose name I cannot remember. Prices were reasonable, considering that it was a restaurant with good ambience. Later, we found out that all places that sell pizza were called Pizzeria.

So our flight from Ljubljana to Paris was from 4pm to 6pm, and while waiting for our flight, I wasted no time in buying another Bacardi Breezer (Gosh! I'm an addict!!) We reached Paris at 6pm, and with all the haste we could have, we rushed to take the shuttle bus at 6.30pm to Paris, and we reached Paris a few minutes past 7pm. Thankfully, it was summer, so it was still very bright in the evening, and we could take lots of photos!!

Our bus journey to Paris

Taken in one of the French tunnels

French Jam

Arc De Triomphe

Jiawei left his camera in his luggage

Arc de Triomphe again

beautiful streets

Original French Toast found here

Eiffel Tower in the distance and getting closer to it..

Same view close-up

Le Corner

Le Cool Street de Paris LOL

First English words we saw

A restaurant serving tennis balls??

Cafe Klebber (very close to the Eiffel Tower)

Le Eiffel Tower!!!!!

And how can we not take some corny photos of the Eiffel Tower?? Hahahahaha..

More Eiffel Tower photos!!

Unfortunately, we didn't have much time, so we moved along.

Looking up..

A bottle of water here is sold for 3 Euros!!!!!

Acting cute

Jaguar!

It's quite strange that at 9.40pm, when we took the bus back to Charles de Gaul Airport, the sky was still quite bright. Thankfully, at least we could see quite a lot of Paris in so little time. We reached the airport at 10.10pm, as there was no French jam this time LOL, and we boarded the plane at 11pm, this time really saying goodbye to what had been a magical IMO journey.

3 Countries.
1 IMO.
Countless friends made (including one shuai Jap guy).
Precious memories that will last a lifetime.