Paris is (surprisingly) friendly. You will meet a lot of people that are very happy to greet you in a friendly way. I know most of you might think I’m being ridiculous, but I really mean what I just wrote. Paris is definitely one of the friendliest places in the world for international travelers, even when your French is not very good.

I also proved my theory regarding why Paris is considered one of the most romantic places in the world. It is not the flowers or other individual elements, but the whole unique mix of settings and ambience that makes Paris very pleasant to visit.

Shopping for the best fashion pieces in Paris is certainly awesome! I have never seen a more exciting shopping district than the Paris Department Stores District; even the fashion shopping districts in New York – the famous Upper East Side and Avenue shopping district – are not as exciting as the grand complex of department stores.

Food is also very good in Paris. It is very easy to find international meals, but giving French cuisines a try is also a must. I didn’t go as far as trying escargot or anything, but it was still very fun. That last visit to Chartier also proved that dining in Paris doesn’t always have to be expensive.

I guess that’s the end of my journey to Paris. I’ll see you guys when I get back. X

After a thorough research, I discovered that the best place to start would be to get all my documents in order. Passport and visa along with plane tickets and hotel booking info are now stored in one handy bag that can be placed in my carry-on bag.

A friend also told me that it is necessary to go through medical check and make sure my shots are all up to date. There are several necessary vaccines that needs to be up to date when visiting Eastern Europe, and my physician should be able to inform me on this matter.

I may also need to notify my banks just to avoid having to go through all the troubles should I lose my credit cards or can’t use my ATM card on ATM machines in Paris. I should also withdraw some cash for backups.

With all the basic things already prepared, packing would be the next thing to do. Since Paris is pretty warm this time of the year, so I don’t need to bring thick faux-fur jackets or anything such. My personal tops of choice are comfortable t-shirts and casual shirts, paired with jeans or shorts.

That’s it! I’m ready for my trip to Paris. I will definitely post a lot of interesting stories as I enjoy my trip to one of the most romantic cities in the world. My camera is also ready to take some (hopefully) amazing pictures. Be sure to stay tuned for more updates from my trip!

Love, by definition, is a strong positive emotion of regard and affection. This means love can be directed towards anything in live, whether it is your partner or the work you are doing every day.

However, I now see love as the extra drive to accomplish a goal. A simple example would be love for one’s work. I personally love my job so much, especially since it allows me to explore so many new things and learn about all of them every single day. The joy and excitements I feel every time I go to work makes the end results of everything I do relatively better.

The same goes for love towards another person, whether it is a partner, a friend, or even a part of your family. With the presence of love, any situation can be dealt with swiftly and pleasantly; you simply care for the person and will end up accepting them the way they are.

Any part of your live, when mixed with love, will be pleasant and enjoyable. Love acts as a catalyst, the extra drive, that makes the process so enjoyable that the end result will naturally be better.

The concept we just talked about is actually very true. In fact, you can give it a try and apply the concept of love to your own live. Pick a thing you love and see how everything related to it is always positive and enjoyable.

First stop: the Louvre-Tuileries and Faubourg Saint-Honoré district. This one literally amazing shopping district nonetheless, with top retailers including crème de la crème designer outlets, some of the best pop home furnishing stores, and of course top beauty products all being part of the main attractions here.

If you think the Faubourg Saint-Honoré is not good enough, wait till you stop by the Paris Department Stores District on Boulevard Haussmann. Don’t say you have been to the largest department store – or a complex of department stores to be exact – if you haven’t visited this amazing shopping center. I think it is safe to say that you will find every single item you need right here on this place.

Paris fashion shopping scene only gets better. After exploring the first two sites – took almost ¾ of the day to complete that – we went out for lunch before continuing to the famous Avenue Montaigne and Avenue des Champs-Elysées. These are the two main roads when it comes to designer shops; top brands including Louis Vuitton, Chanel, and Dior can all be found on this shopping area.

After a long day of exploring one outlet after another, I realized that I have spent more than I actually budgeted. Luckily, my friend knew exactly where to dine for dinner. We went back to the Faubourg-Montmartre street and visit Chartier. The meal was delicious yet it cost nothing more than $20 for the whole three-course dinner.

All in all, another amazing day in Paris. Too bad I have to return to California soon; I would really love to spend another couple of weeks just sitting at classical brasserie enjoying a nice cup of coffee while reading a book.

The first stop is of course Arc de Triomphe, along with the Champs-Elysées. If you are visiting Paris, Arc de Triomphe is definitely a must-visit. Even after visiting the Eiffel Tower, you can’t really say that you have visited Paris if you don’t visit the Arc de Triomphe.

Arc de Triomphe is basically a monument commissioned by Emperor Napoleon I. it was built to show just how powerful France military and commemorate triumph. Keep in mind that this great monument being built over 160 years ago. You can’t help but feel fantastic yourself when seeing the Arc de Triomphe with your own two eyes.

Before lunchtime, we swing by the Louvre. This is by far the most visited, most popular art museum in the world for all the right reasons. It shows great masterpieces including the Mona Lisa – which, when seen directly, can really shake your heart with the portrayed mysterious smile – and the Venus de Milo.

We continued our journey by visiting none other than the Eiffel Tower. After some intense picture session with everyone in the party, we started exploring this amazing landmark. I know Eiffel Tower is much more beautiful when visited during the evening, but just to be safe visiting this glorious work of architecture is considered top priority for the day.

We discovered an interesting tour around the Seine River after we saw a pick-up point near the Eiffel Tower. Of course the chance of being able to see Paris while cruising through the beautiful river isn’t to be missed and we took the tour straight away.

Art is a large component of Paris. You can see street artists in almost every corner of the open spaces, while artistic statues and interesting galleries make the city even more exciting to explore. Intensely themed artworks commonly seen around the city are among the things that make Paris very romantic in a way.

The architecture of Paris may not be as classical as that of Venice or Rome, but it is certainly no less beautiful. In fact, Paris and Rome cannot be compared against each other because the two cities have different genres of architecture, resulting them to have unique ambience altogether.

Love, as cliché as it may sound, is also a large part of life in Paris. You can see couples everywhere, with public display of affection very commonly seen as well. It is actually interesting in a way, because seeing two humans exchanging love and affection can really take your minds of all the hustle and bustle back home.

These ingredients are what make Paris romantic by nature. Of course, the lovely cafés and brasseries along with tons of tourism attractions to visit also make Paris a very interesting city to explore.

This is just my first day in Paris so I haven’t really explored much of the city. However, I really love how Paris feels and will certainly enjoy this short visit to the max. Stick around for more updates! Mel, out.

The trip to Crystal Cove State Park was pretty smooth. We arrived early in the morning and visited the Pelican Point straight away. Dolphins can usually be seen early in the morning, but we weren’t fortunate enough and managed to catch only a glimpse of a group from afar.

There are a lot of great spots to visit within the Crystal Cove State Park – especially since this part is over 2,400 acres and has 3.5 miles of beach to explore – but we continued our day by swimming in one of the tide pools; a refreshing experience nonetheless and it is very safe for kids as well.

Pelican Point is famous for being a good surfing area, but the main attraction is certainly the gorgeous view. Whether it is just the natural sceneries or the wildlife you want to enjoy, you will be able to catch them at Pelican Point in Crystal Cove State Park.

The Crystal Cove State Park is also famous for hosting plenty of adventurous activities. The Moro Canyon is a famous camping ground, surrounded by undeveloped woodland just waiting to be explored. Many cyclists also love to visit Crystal Cove State Park for its dirt road and single-track routes.

The views towards the inland hills are also very interesting. That is exactly why some of us decided to grab a couple of kayaks and paddle a bit further from the beach. The beach line stretching from Little Treasure Cove all the way to the tip of Pelican Point is just too good to miss.

For starters, the new iPad is certainly more powerful. It is powered by the latest dual-core A5 processor with improved processing power. If you think iPad is capable now, wait till you give the new iPad 2 a try. There is no official announcement as to how much RAM it has, but the iPad 2 might still have 512 MB or RAM like the older version.

Another good highlight is the new iOS 4.3, installed natively on every iPad 2 sold by Apple. It offers better overall user experience and improved browsing capabilities, along with several other improvements any avid Apple fan will enjoy.

Of course, the thinner and lighter form factor makes iPad 2 much easier to handle. You don’t need to worry about picking up a case for your new iPad 2 because the early batches sold will come with an original case included.

IPad 2 supports HDMI mirroring, but instead of adding a HDMI port Apple decides to sell a separate adapter. Although this is certainly a sleek feature to have – allowing users to stream HD videos directly to an LCD screen – the price of the HDMI adapter is yet to be announced.

Another good news: the new iPad 2 will come with two added software! Which software are we talking about? GarageBand and iMovie. The desktop version of these apps are already very popular among users, and being able to use them on the new iPad 2 is certainly a huge plus.

The weather is getting warmer and warmer, so my goal was to find a gorgeous floral dress to wear. I started my shopping journey by visiting Nordstrom and I quickly came across a lovely floral dress by Lauren by Ralph Lauren. It is a pink-and-black floral dress available for a shockingly reasonable price; don’t forget that this is a Lauren. Tempting, but I’m not going to make a decision straight away just yet.

After some more exploring, I discovered that Nordstrom also has a gorgeous floral dress by Donna Ricco. This one is rather colorful – with watercolor accent making the dress look even more interesting – but it is the twist detail bodice that really makes this dress different; the bodice accent conceals and flatters at the same time.

I may not be a fashion expert, but I do know that the black and white floral dress by Badgley Mischka is very much interesting. This dress is simple enough for work, but it also offers casual accents for a more relaxed circumstance.

Quite a difficult choice to make since all three dresses were very beautiful, but I picked up the Donna Ricco dress for its amazing colors and great accent. One of the best fashion purchases in my book.

After a thorough search through WordPress’s catalogue of plug-ins, I decided to install Tweet Old Post. Tweet Old Post is basically a WordPress plug-in designed to scan through your old blog posts and publish it on Twitter. It is a fantastic way of introducing old articles to new viewers and it completely eliminates manual pasting.

The Google XML Sitemap plug-in is another great WordPress plug in to install. I know the navigation of my personal blog is not the best, so to help both visitors and search engine crawlers – in this case, Google crawlers – to navigate through my personal blog easily the Google XML Sitemap plug-in automatically generates a detailed mapping of contents, pages, and other resources.

WordPress Database Backup is also an essential plug-in you should install if you are using WordPress like me. There is no need to worry about the site crashing because of broken database since this plug-in will make backing up your blog a lot easier to do. The good news is, restoring the backup is just as easy.

And of course, NextGEN Gallery. This is one of the best gallery plug-ins – if not THE best one available today – that will help organize pictures and media files using a very intuitive backend or admin interface.