Tag Archive for: Eileen Kim

BY EILEEN KIM

I just finished my last final paper, and with that this is indeed the end of my first semester in Paris. I will soon be traveling to south of France for Christmas and New Year’s. 

Fall 2017 in Paris was an absolutely wonderful experience. I loved every moment I spent here. The Eiffel Tower, city lights in night, amazing museums and breathing culture, wonderful classes and instructors, and more than anything, people I got to meet and to call friends for life. 

Usually, this is where the story ends for semester students. But I am, fortunately, a year-long study abroad student so my story will go on. I will continue to dance under the city lights and sing in the rain. But, I will be doing that with new friends next semester, or with same friends but in different cities. I don’t know where and to whom life will take me next, but I am super excited to find out. 

So, with this bitter-sweet note, here are things I wish I had known or had done differently in Paris. Things I wish you can do when you get here someday. 

1. Sim Card 

Even before I arrived in France, I knew I wanted to get a sim card from Free Mobile. However I waited until I got to Paris and bought one physically at its store for 19.99 euros a month. There was an online offer for 15 euros a month, and I could have had taken up the offer before I arrived since I already knew my address for Paris. 

2. Travel More with Sun

I did not travel much in the beginning of the semester since I prioritized getting adjusted to Sciences Po and Paris more than anything. However, as time goes by Sun only gets shorter and shorter and more and more assignments pile over. First four weeks are the best time to travel indeed, before the actual Fall break, and I wish I had taken more of the opportunity to travel not only France but also other European countries. 

3. Museums and Cafes during Gap Hours

One of best thing about Sciences Po is its prime location at the heart of Paris. Louvre and Orsay museums are just steps away, and the school is surrounded by amazing cafes and brasseries. I wish I had taken more advantage of my 2 hours (2.5 hours if counting 15 min passing periods) gap and visited them more often when there are less tourists around. 

  4. Pharmacy and Medicines 

Most adventures in Paris are fun, but not all of them, including getting sick in Paris. Paris has an interesting system of local pharmacies covering every major block in the city, and each of them is ran by its own system, it seems. One proof of it is its price. Over the counter medicines differ in their prices range per pharmacy, not even per location. For example, I found a cold medicine at a pharmacy for 6 euros and for 4 euros at the one right next to the first pharmacy. City Pharma is the cheapest and one of the biggest pharmacies I had come across, and I wish I had learned about the place sooner! 

 5. Metro Terminals and mini-travels 

Traveling can become daunting when schedules begin to be crammed with many and many assignments. Yet day trips in Paris are not so difficult, thanks to the awesome metro system they have that extends out to nearby Ile-de-France areas. Many metro terminals end somewhere outside Paris, and just taking a random line to a random terminal can in and out of itself be a great adventure. It is part of France that I had completely overlooked, and I wish I had enjoyed more of it, especially on Thursdays when I had no class. 

Yet, fortunately, I am here for another semester, and I will get to explore Paris of Spring 2018 as well. I am very excited what the new semester will bring, and hopefully one day you can be as excited to come study in Paris as well. 

Thank you for keeping up with my blog, and for one and for all, bonne journee! 

–          Eileen 

Eileen Kim studied abroad in Paris, France in 2017: http://eap.ucop.edu/OurPrograms/france/Pages/political_science_sciences_po.aspx

BY EILEEN KIM

Hello! I have returned with list of grocery shops in Paris as I have promised. 

Shopping wise, prices can be ridiculously expensive. However, I have to say, the general living cost is significantly lower in Paris than in LA, especially if you know where to go. And here is a bit of list to help. 

(First Three, I am not attaching any pictures since you can find them anywhere in Paris) 

1. Monoprix

It’s apostrophe brand mark is seen throughout the city, almost at every block and every corner. It’s like a smaller version of Target. They sell clothing and beauty supplies, but they also have huge grocery shops going on inside them. While some are comparably more expensive than others, they carry some groceries of their own brand and they are of great quality and price.  

2. Franprix

Franprix is another super market, but this one is more exclusively about food and kitchen related articles. The price is usually a little bit cheaper than Monoprix, but not so significantly. Franprix too can be found all around the city. 

3. Carrefour

Another supermarket, but a bit cheaper than Monoprix and Franprix, Carrrefour is the supermarket to go out of the first three listed. However, they are generally smaller and thus have limited products, and they are not as accessible as Monoprix and Franprix due to their smaller number of locations, at least as far as how I feel. They are mostly around residential areas. 

4. Lidl

The cheapest place to ever shop food is Lidl, and it is basically a food outlet. Its products are cheap, sometimes about half the price as Franprix, and have great selection of fresh fruits and vegetables. It also sells various items like bathrobes and sewing kits at cheapest prices on market, but those sales are only weekly and randomly, so it is not possible to make a shopping list in advance for those without weekly catalogs. There are only three Lidl locations throughout the city, I believe, and they are strictly restricted to residential areas. 

5. Geant

Meaning Giant, Geant is French Costco. With its products ranging from TVs and other electronics to kitchen utensils to office tools to fresh grocery, there is nothing that one cannot find here. This is perhaps the best place to shop when settling in at your apartment for the first time. However, there is only one Geant in the entire Paris, and its public transportation access is limited to Tram 3a. 

6. Tang Freres

Tang Freres is an Asian food market chain, and it has food from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam…. and the list goes on and on. Everything Asian can be found in this place, and the products are very cheap, especially compared to K Mart, a Korean market in center of Paris. The chain can be found in every arrondisement. But it may be bit difficult to shop here if you don’t speak neither French nor Chinese. 

So there we go! I generally shop at Lidl, but I also visit Tang Freres and Geant often for things that I cannot find at Lidl. I usually end up spending about $30-35 on grocery every week, buying things like tofu, fruits, vegetables, meat, bread, and packed snacks, and I cook all my meals, 3 times a day. Though cooking may be time consuming, but it is surely the cheapest way to eat in Paris, and, I dare say, once cooking becomes a habit, it is the best way to live Parisien. 

See you soon! 

Eileen Kim studied abroad in Paris, France in 2017: http://eap.ucop.edu/OurPrograms/france/Pages/political_science_sciences_po.aspx

BY EILEEN KIM

Hello again! 

Though I did make an excuse of Nervous November for my negligence of the blog, I have to admit, I was having a bit of fun here as well. 

One of best things I love about Paris is how close it is to everything, and how transportation systems are so well executed. During the semester, I travelled to three cities/region near Paris. 

First one I went was to Reims, a city in Champagne region. I have travelled together with other exchange students I have met during the orientation group. 

Second one was to Normandie Region, to Honfleur and to Mont Saint-Michel. I went with a student travel agency called To Be Erasmus in Paris. 

Last trip I went to Chartres with people from my dorm. 

Though I can spend hours and hours talking about each of these trips and about how amazing each place I visited were, I will just mention few things and leave the rest for you to figure out yourself one day. 

The trip to Reims was during early October. Though it boasts of its Champagne, that is not all that this small but beautiful city is about. One is its Notre-Dame Cathedral of Reims.  

A Gothic masterpiece, Notre-Dame takes your breath away. A museum adjacent to the cathedral, Palais du Tau, is also worth a visit as well. More than anything, I fell in love with the city’s beautiful noise of life.

It’s a small city and there are many streets without much car traffics and every where people are walking. From any corner of the city, you can hear the church bell ringing, people talking lively at each retail stores, and river quietly flowing.  

It is a perfect place to escape the noise of Paris. I used FlixBus for 20 euros total for a roundtrip. 

The trip to Normandie was great. I travelled with To Be Erasmus in Paris, and it was a trip organized for students under 26 years of age. It was a full bus of 60 people, and everywhere we went was a party in good spirit. We visited many many places on the road, but I will just mention two places: Honfleur and Mont Saint-Michel. 

Honfleur is a very small port-town, but absolutely full of beauty and full of life that is unique to a port town. Just a step into the town, and there are boats lined up with fishermen selling their fresh produce right by them.  

Mont Saint-Michel is an island commune with its name coming from a monastery at its top. First built as a fort in 400’s, over the centuries abbey and towns and all its features seen today were added one by one. Walking up the narrow streets from middle ages, it almost feels like a time travel. 

The third trip was to Chartres, a relatively unknown small city, almost a town, near Paris. It is about an hour away with a train. It’s a city of cathedrals. Its main attraction is the Cathedral of Chartres, built in Romanesque style in 1100’s but rebuilt in 1200’s. Its stain glass, called bleu de Saint-Denis (left two below) is a mystery in its creation, and is still not replicable to this day. And there are many other cathedrals of unique beauty that you may have never heard of before. I personally loved Church of Saint Aignan, and below are some of its pictures (most right and horizontal picture at bottom). 

Paris is great, but I think true beauty of France can only be grasped outside busy city life getting from point A to point B. 

I will be off to another adventure during Christmas time. I will be visiting a small town near Bordeaux that no tourists know of. I look forward to sharing that experience with you! Good bye until then. 

Eileen Kim studied abroad in Paris, France in 2017: http://eap.ucop.edu/OurPrograms/france/Pages/political_science_sciences_po.aspx

BY EILEEN KIM

There are many things the city is known for, and one of them is art. And the city for sure loves it. 

Every year in early October, there is a night called “Nuit Blanche”, meaning white night. I would rather call it a sleepless night. It is an annual event in which many museums are open all night and open to public, often for free. Metro line 1 runs all night to carry people and around every museum are crowds and crowds of people at restaurants and near street food vendors. 

I started my Nuit Blanche a bit late around midnight. Yet when I got off at Metro 1 station Hotel de Ville, the city was bursting with energy and light I have yet seen in Paris. 

There were food vendors everywhere, occupying every possible space in the square. There were sausages, sandwiches, and some other food I could not even name. The smokes coming out from each cart warmed up the night and satisfied customers hurriedly yet excitedly hastened their ways to museums nearby. 

I started my museum night with Centre Georges Pompidou, a contemporary arts museum at the center of the Paris. It is known for its exhibitions and its modern architectural structures, but it is also known for its view of Paris from its patio, which was my aim for the night. 

The pictures unfortunately came out a bit blurry, but the view was beautiful, beautiful enough to forget how cold the night was. The Eiffel Tower was sparkling at a distance, and the distance was filled with lights and sounds of crowded squares. And yet, standing at the edge of the patio, everything seemed so far away, as if I were standing at a border of another world. The fact that I was standing at the center of Paris felt like a very surreal fairy tale.  

After the museum, I briefly dropped by a nearby church that was hosting a contemporary dance exhibition titled “Children of Light.” Series of alternating lights in blue, pink, green, and purple dominated the church and all sounds became subordinate to the light and all that different light revealed.  

It was an interesting interplay of colored lights throughout the church with a couple of dancers at the center with very abstract style of dance.  

My last stop for the night was Musee de l’Orangerie, a museum in Tuileries Garden known for Monet’s waterlilies. There, at the oval room where Monet’s waterlilies surround the guests, the museum held music concerts for free. The tickets were supposed to be picked up in advance at the site, but I unfortunately did not have the opportunity to do so, and ended up standing outside for about an hour for an extra, no-show seat. I eventually made it in for 4am show, and it was a string quartet piece by Claude Debussy. 

The night was absolutely magical. The weather was cold, the lines were long, streets were crowded, and yet the city’s love for arts kept me going throughout the night, making even the long night bus right back home enjoyable. 

Nuit Blanche is when the city of Paris truly comes to its life.  

Eileen Kim studied abroad in Paris, France in 2017: http://eap.ucop.edu/OurPrograms/france/Pages/political_science_sciences_po.aspx

BY EILEEN KIM

At Sciences Po, there is an orientation program available for exchange students (both undergraduate and Master’s) that is almost an equivalent of UCLA New Student Orientation. 

Welcome Programme at Main Auditaurium: 

Class on French Political System 

It was a great way to get to know people, get into all necessary contacts, find friends, get adjusted to culture, be warned of French academic style, and in general have fun. 

Here are some highlights: 

I.                     Methodology Class 

Sciences Po by tradition puts great emphasis on oral presentation. Here, it is not about what you know and learn, but what you can present. Can you captivate people? Can you get people to participate in your dialogue? Can you stir up passionate debates? 

Due to such emphasis, most of classes at Sciences Po are not exam based. They focus more on group projects and presentations. Often, a grade for a class is determined solely based on one or two presentations. Yes, there may be midterms, depending on classes, but even those are to be written in the style of oral presentation. 

These were all from mouths of its current and past students as well as faculty members. When I heard all these, I was scared. Oral presentations and group projects were exactly what I tried to avoid at all cost during college. 

Thus, for me personally, a week-long methodology class came down as a blessing. In a group of 20 students, we were taught of the French “problématique” style by a Sciences Po professor who once used to be an undergraduate student at the institution herself.  

First two days were spent learning about the format and the structure of the French style. The second half of classes were practice rounds, getting into a group of two and presenting in front of the class an assigned topic. 

 Other than getting accustomed to the new academic style, the best part of the class was that it sometimes took its place outside. Not just outside as in the school’s courtyard, but outside as in the French National Library and the Louvre. 

Imagine, hundreds of people passing by, maybe glancing at and listening to you as you give a 5-minute presentation at a corner of Louvre courtyard. 

It was such a surreal experience, forcing me out of my comfort zone but in the most awesome way. After this, I doubt I will ever grow as shy as I did at UCLA. 

Just a week of the methodology class has already changed me for better. I cannot wait to see what the actual classes at Sciences Po will do for me! 

II.                   Campus Tour 

Sciences Po, Paris, does not have a campus like that of UCLA. Its classrooms are scattered in 3 different buildings, each about 5-minute walking distance from another. And each building has its own specific name and references that only students know of. 

 I am the absolute worst when it comes to directions, and my first year at UCLA I could not walk from one class to another without GPS. Had had I not been introduced to the Sciences Po campus through a tour during the Welcome Programme….. I would leave that dark imagination for Eileen in alternate universe. 

Our group leader, a current student at Sciences Po, gave us a campus tour of all three buildings. She taught us how each building was referred to, and which classrooms were to be found where. Also walking in between the buildings, she pointed out many other useful things around the campus. One was a police station where all lost and found ends up at.  The relocated office of Student Health Center (like Ashe Center, but everything is free) was pointed out, and also were mentioned medical services we can receive at a medical school nearby. Other information included great restaurants and food stands nearby. 

Though it was not on the same day as the campus tour, we were also given a library tour. Sciences Po’s library is one of the best in its nation, with great accessibility to hard copy resources as well as e-resources even for students. Through a very entertaining game, we learned how to utilize all different services of the library, including how to print with student ID and requesting a book for research. 

Please continue onto Part II! 

Eileen Kim studied abroad in Paris, France in 2017: http://eap.ucop.edu/OurPrograms/france/Pages/political_science_sciences_po.aspx