526. Being a Tourist (with Paul Taylor) [From the archives - Originally published in May 2018]

hello this is the video version of what I expect will be episode number 526 of my podcast for learners of English Luke's English podcast there you go there's the logo just in case you've never seen it before now this episode features a conversation with my friend Paul Taylor who's a professional stand-up comedian and a regular guest on this show this conversation covers a few things including what Paul's been up to recently his new vlog which you can find on YouTube just search for Paul Taylor and you can find his vlog episodes there his recent holidays in Japan and Barcelona and then we go on to focus on travel and tourism as a topic including the good and bad points about being a tourist and a few of our recommendations if you're thinking of traveling to Paris or London as a tourist enjoy the video this might end up on YouTube eventually but it's available first for visitors to my website and users of my app you can get the audio version of this on the podcast normally episode 526 I expect as I said this will probably go up on YouTube but later on if you're new if you are watching this on YouTube and you're new to my podcast then you can get all of my episodes on my website and that's teacher Luke Cote UK and you can get all my episodes in my app which is available free on the in the App Store for Android and iOS devices just search for Luke's English podcast app and you'll find it the podcast is for learners of English and on the podcast I present a mix of entertaining listening practice and also English teaching check it out if you are not already a regular listener if you are already a regular listener then hello lovely to have you with me again but now I will let you listen to and watch my recent conversation with Paul Taylor about tourism which we recorded just a couple of days ago just up here outside on the rooftop when the weather was much nicer than it is today so when I click my fingers in a second we'll go back in time to last Friday afternoon and I will be able to make the weather much nicer which would be a great superhero skill to be able to click my fingers and make the weather good unfortunately it's not a superhero skill that I have except in the in my videos when I can just click my fingers and make the weather good like I will do right now hello ladies and gents welcome to this episode of Luke's English podcast I'm sitting here not in direct sunlight but up on the roof the sun is shining the sky is blue I'm sitting next to Paul Taylor hello 21 degrees is it 21 degrees yeah I did an Instagram story and it allows you to put the current temperature and so it's 21 it feels like 67 because I'm we're English yes well I'm English and I'm melting right now I feel I think I'm dying actually genuinely when the ice during the winter I spend all the time just go wish the Sun would come out and then the Sun comes does come out and I'm like I think I'm dying I just I'm not designed to live in any cowboy yeah there's only like three days of the year where the temperature is bearable in either direction yeah same same totally the same welcome back onto the podcast yeah things it's been a long time I do you probably know better than I do when the last episode was that I was on I think the last time you were on the podcast was when we were talking about philosophy know actually that we recorded before Christmas and I published it a couple of months later okay was that just me and you was that with amber as well with amber as well I can't think that was the time and philosophy yeah no we did a philosophy quiz and it was annoying because oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I remember yeah yeah I remember getting annoyed yeah it was like yeah yeah okay I remember that well that was the last time okay well hello everyone it's good - it's good to see you all again and I feel like I see them I've got people from from your from your podcast on my vlog who wanted us to do a vlog together which is why I did a vlog today with you yeah and yeah some lap stars who were who were becoming I don't have a name Paul Taylor Paul Taylor's vlog but I can't I got a team Taylor's initially I was gonna let our team Taylor blah then I realized that Taylor Swift has teams has coined that so I was like now I'll be alright thanks okay but she I mean she have first name is Taylor it's not a first name it's a last names not is it drives me nuts whiffed I mean Swift okay fair enough that is Swift yeah it's not bad but Taylor Swift it's just Americans use Taylor as a first name quite such a typical yeah so anyway yeah I need to find out a thing for first so you've got leppe stars what because everyone like everyone YouTube's got a thing it's like all the Jake Paula's called Jake Paul you know stuff like the low gang the everyone's got a name for their community and I think I need to to find one I don't know what it's suggesting me write comments in go to my vlog if you go to youtube and you go to Paul Taylor I have a vlog that I do every day at 7 a.m. French time where I basically talk about my life as a comedian and just my life in general and write some comments say hey I'm from I'm a lapsed ER here's a suggestion for you Paul for what you should call your community I'd love some comments yeah send your comments into the comment section of Paul Taylor's vlog on YouTube what's a vlog so someone is now going what is vlog what is vlog vlog ok so it's a mixture of a couple of things it's a mixture of the word blog which I can't remember the origin of the word blog where blog I pointed there but that was just to get your Italian wasn't pointing in an object I thought you were pointing a dictionary of something well I was just pointing my finger well in order to okay guys what I was saying okay web weblog meaning a log like a diary okay on the web yeah okay on the web so blog yeah blog is a written a written thing a written diary that you would do so everyone got the term blogger as a bit is a big thing vlog is the same thing but video so you do a video diary it's basically a video diary of what I'm doing and the idea of doing the vlog I started in February was people were saying to me Paul you're a comedian how do you earn a living you're only working three days a week and each day you're working one hour because your show is one hour so I wanted to show the behind the scenes of of what I do full-time now because those of you who are longtime lip stirs will remember me at the very beginning I was starting to do comedy I was still working in Apple I ended up quitting that and now I wanted to show the behind the scenes of what a comedians life in Paris is so that's my vlog that I do every day 7:00 a.m. so subscribe go go to my YouTube channel subscribe and also so by the time you've listened to this because I imagine this isn't going out today or tomorrow so by the time you've listened to this there will be probably a few different vlogs if you go to the vlog where you see the episode with Luca Thompson leave your comments on there because then you'll be like ninja lip stirs on luke's vlog day that if you're looking for the date it will be out on Friday the 12th of May so if you go through my youtube channel find the 12th of May I don't know what the title of the vlog is going to be yet which number it is it's vlog number 12 because it's the 12th of May so I started the vlog again on the 1st of May so it will be so for the month of May it makes sense it's vlog number 12 so if you go to Paul Taylor vlog 12 you'll see Luke on there where we talk about learning languages and leave the comments on there so then you can be like little ninjas and then also I'll get a bunch of YouTube notifications for a video that's like five days old or however long it'll take that's a long explanation but yeah I'd like you know create as many annoying distracting notifications on Paul's phone as possible by leaving all your LEP lipsti related comments in the comment section of Paul's vlog number 12 which you'll find on e on YouTube YouTube okay where's amber amber is not here unfortunately she it's it's a bank holiday or a public holiday in France well yesterday was sorry yes kind of makes today a public holiday - yeah the whole week's a public holiday we have two public holidays in one week one was a Tuesday one was a Thursday which means people ended up taking the Monday off but then since Thursday they take the Friday off so basically Wednesday was the only working day and then everyone took that off anyway so basically no one's working this week they've taken people here's a thing in France this week they've been able to take three days of holiday and have basically eight days of holiday because they would have gone on holiday from Friday night last week until Sunday night of somebody's ten days of holiday by just taking three days off which is amazing so Amber's husband is is is is he's doing the bridge LaPoint he's taking what if he's on holiday where is he wait a minute she's looking after you no no no that the point is that she's chosen to spend her day with her husband and her son okay rather than with us okay you know I just totally I can understand if if a bad idea if the family if her family hadn't taken today off then the Hugo would be in daycare Amber's husband would be at work and amber would then be free to waste her time with us not that it's not that it's a waste of time of course no she is a family day family name family day fur ninja August strikes again ninja August Powell yeah no one expected it in fact amber agreed yeah fine Friday yeah brilliant lips today and then she realized no it's May public holidays strike again my husband is taking the day off yeah so it's a family day so there you go that's where amber is I was gonna I was going to give you a certain time limit yeah in which to tell us what you've been doing he told us about the the the vlog okay so I'm gonna give you let's see how long do you think is a reasonable amount of time to just fill it two minutes two minutes you reckon I think so you're gonna talk for two minutes about what you've been doing without stopping okay I don't want any you're not even allowed to breathe you know that might like just talk a talk a talk a talk for two minutes with no spaces yes a long time okay without pause or repeating yourself okay are without repeating my I always repeat myself I know you do my vlogs when I edit my vlogs it's a nightmare because I end up cutting everything else but well you repeat yourself not in the same way that I repeat myself because I will talk for a minute and then I'll say the same thing again for another minute I'll say in a slightly to say you will say words or maybe half sentences twice right there was one say for example you'll say so we're on the terrace so we're on the terrace and you know like that you don't understand we talking mother so for example if let's say yesterday you went to the post office and you're telling us a story about how you so you'd be like yesterday I went to the post office and in a couple of words late / likes I was at the post office no it's like so I went to the post office I went to the post office but yeah maybe that's part of maybe that's just become like a a natural thing because I speak to a lot of non-english speakers hold on a second cuz I'll just pause you right there I think there's a technical issue with that microphone so how do you know because it's because I can monitoring them or you can hear something against there's something going on there okay emergency of microphone people oh you can hear me it doesn't matter he was gonna say cently you've got the microphone within two seconds alright was he talking like plug detach reattach anytime today would be good this is all part of your two minutes it's not really it does have a it does there you go fair enough I'm back can you hear me properly Hall is back with a slightly louder microphone hello okay so you ready to try and do this no pausing without repeating yourself if possible two minutes to just tell us what you've been doing alright ready three two one activate so here's what I've been up to recently I was doing my stand-up show hashtag Franglais at the beginning of the year January to March three nights a week and then also it became four shows a week because I was doing two shows on a Saturday so that was amazing that was kind of the end of the show the run in Paris which we ended up filming on the 31st of March was my last day at the theatre called Led Nova Lev 280 people very cool sparse space and so we filmed it and now we're in the process of editing that video a short version of the video to give to TV companies who might want to buy the show we're gonna speak to Netflix and see if they're interested I'm actually more interested in maybe just putting it on YouTube even though we've spent thirty thousand euros making the video I'd like to maybe just put it on YouTube so that's in terms of the stand-up show what I was doing in them in this at the same time I was doing my stand-up show I started doing the vlog so vlogging as I said every day showing the behind the scenes of what my life is like as a comedian so that's been a lot of fun because I like editing I like making the vlog it's also a new challenge for me I'm a bit too obsessed with all the numbers on YouTube so subscribe if you haven't already I also spent some time off with my wife we went to Japan for two weeks on a holiday which she organized everything and we ran around like crazy people for two weeks to all the different places saw a lot of Japan it was incredible the people were lovely people it made me realize how annoying French people are in Paris and how disrespectful they are compared to the respectfulness that Japanese people have but respectfulness isn't the word but I've just made it up four seconds so that's what I did there and I also spent some time in Barcelona I spent five days in Barcelona with a friend of mine a couple who are American couple who we went to their wedding in Austin Texas they were coming through Spain and now I'm in this weird spot professionally where I finished my stand-up show I'm still touring it but I'm testing new material for a second show but I don't know where I am so I'm in a very confused spot right now but it's fun to be back on your podcast after such a long time boom two minutes all right that was brilliant you passed the two minute test good work congratulations right it was gonna be five minutes that would have been way too long yes it was good that was good well done so that's you've you're caught up on my life should I should I listeners should I ask him some more questions okay I will all right so Japan then yeah so you loved it yep yeah okay good where did you go exactly so initially we were gonna start in Tokyo because we flew in and out of Tokyo so Paris to Tokyo Tokyo to Paris however we thought I will the cherry blossom season at the start was gonna be good in Kyoto is apparently where you go see all the cherry blossoms so what we did was the idea was we were gonna fly directly to Tokyo then take this train straight to Kyoto so that we caught the end of the cherry blossom season problem is the cherry blossom season started early this year so we missed it all no really yeah there was we got really like a couple of trees basically and everyone was gathered around the same tree because it was your only three left that had cherry blossoms and so the but then the issue was our flight got an initial flight got cancelled to Tokyo so we had to fly out the next day and we actually flew to Osaka and then ended up in Tokyo Kyoto sorry so we started off from Kyoto and then we did a couple of day trips from Kyoto to a place called Nara where they have a Big Buddha as I'm looking at the Buddha that's in your guard I've got I've got like a little pottery Buddha statue thing in the in the corner of the in the cornea yeah so we did that then what else did we do we went to we went what was the other day trip I can't remember we went oh we went to a we went to Hiroshima yeah then went to an island near Hiroshima called miyajima then we stopped off at a castle in-between himeji I think it was called him ng Castle then we went back to Kyoto then we went to a place called koyasan which is up in the mountains where you sleep with the the monks oh you went to koyasan yeah oh it's good isn't it incredible it's might as my favorite thing of the whole trip yeah it's why because I felt like I was in Japan yeah well you were in Japan yeah but the rest of the time I felt like I was it didn't refill it there was so many French people everywhere all the time it didn't it I don't know just I felt like I didn't really enjoy the experience of being a tourist uh-huh I enjoyed Tappan I thought it was great but koyasan was was amazing just because it was like we were just in the middle of nowhere in what for me what felt like Japan we worked with like we stayed in a in a temple which way you know where you sleep on the futon on the floor and they prepare you breakfast at 6:00 in the morning and you do the it was like a ceremony in the morning that was like a monk Buddhist ceremony did you go down and wake up with the the monks Ternan yeah their ceremony yeah it was really cool it was a lot of fun that was an amazing place and in koyasan there's this incredible graveyard yes we walked through a graveyard at night which is where I smashed my camera lens yeah there's loads of pole everyone's got hay fever there's lots of pollen and sort of pollution in the air in fact it's a clear day in Paris but everyone's coughing and sniffing yeah yeah the graveyard was incredible so we went we went to it at night we didn't go during the tohat thought hit pause okay or I'll just carry alright you carry on yeah I'm gonna get some more to people I'm sorry I'm dying I'd rather get some water and then you don't hear me coughing all time okay so while Paul is going off to get some water I can continue the commentary here the podcast is it's going pretty well so far I think I'm actually videoing this one weather I've no idea where how the video will turn out so me saying that I'm videoing it may not be a good idea in the end because you might be going where's the video and then I decided on on closer inspection the video didn't work but anyway I am videoing it so hopefully if the video turns out all right you'll be able to watch a video and I'm thinking where am I going to put the video well we'll see it'll probably go on the website and in the app first and then later on I might put it up on YouTube for all for everyone else but I'd like to sort of reward the website and app leppe stirs by putting the video up there first so anyway the episodes going alright so far isn't it you're listening to Paul talking about his recent experiences including his trip to Japan and when he gets back I think what I'm going he's back okay Oh brilliant Hey dropping water everywhere that's all right hmm lovely nice nice sir it's the camera level or is it wobbly I think it's alright it's yeah hello my camera it's alright okay yes Okoye son koyasan where you hung out with the with the buddhist monks and went early in the morning and went through this graveyard at night at night so what about the graveyard then what what's it like at nighttime it's very cool it's very creepy there wasn't that it was raining that it was really like like we got some really cool photos before I smashed my camera lens and yeah it's just a really cool like just you know it's just like there's moss everywhere yeah it's pretty it's pretty creepy at night we didn't go we went quickly during the day we didn't go through the whole thing but at night we went up to the place where some important monk is buried or in eternal I think it's I think it may be the guy who brought Buddhism to Japan I think that's what it who it is yeah I forgot his name I forgot his name die die die to die he probably did die yeah I don't know it was yeah it was good and enough to collect the koi yes and we we went back to Kyoto and and went to Tokyo we spent we just stayed one night in Tokyo and we went to the five lakes area around Mount Fuji yes Fuji's pretty impressive isn't it it is however the guidebooks are all full of about like Lonely Planet and not the French ones that we read because basically they don't mention where the best view is yes of where the best view of Mount Fuji which is where you want to take the photo basically go to Mount Fuji if you're not going up it because you're not there in the summer you just want to take the photo the photo of Mount Fuji and the photo the best one is in a place it's near lake kawaguchiko will you take a tram and you get a pagoda in there in the foreground and Mount Fuji in the background which doesn't no one mentions it in any of the tour guides but then the rest it here's what I felt like we spent like two days there I think two and a half days around that area and honestly I think we could we could have spent an afternoon there got the photo that we wanted to get it was impressive it was great and the rest of the lakes were cool but it was just that pain to get the buses that there was just like to our buses we missed the bus it was just a nightmare basically we had a like a really bad experience around that area just because tourist land isn't it a slew of tourists and you're just stuck in like this tourist sort of it's it's it's it's it's like a massive queue in sense of just this convoy of tourists on stantly moving through the area yeah you mentioned on your vlog that you were kind of a bit fed up with the tourist experience yeah I just I I and so I started a thing on the vlog which I'll probably do in Paris at some stage as well where I was in Barcelona and I had the idea of doing this in in Japan but I didn't really want to film anything I wanted to take actual time off and so the my concept is flipcam where you go to a tourist destination hashtag flip car hashtag flip cam where you go to a tourist destination where you google the image and the image is perfect there's no people in the image it's a perfect shot and then you go to the place that here's where I here's where I had the idea it was I had the idea a couple of times but I went to go see the Big Buddha this is massive Buddha in Japan in a place called Nara where there's lots of deer in the park and stuff and you just type in Nara whatever into YouTube into Google and in the images you see this like picture of this boutique oh wow that's impressive you go there it's literally a queue of tourists trying to take the same photo the perfect photo without any tourists in it and what I wanted to do was was flip the camera and show with a picture of all the tourists with their iPads trying to take the perfect photo because I just find it a very strange like concept that we have in our minds where we want to take this photo but we're seeing something that we never actually saw because our eyes a much wider angle than a camera lens so when you're looking at through a camera lens you can get the perfect shot if you crop it correctly but in reality when you'll stood there without any cameras it's impossible to not see the millions of people that are taking a photo so it's kind of a a weird concept and somebody responded on my on my vlog that like yeah I do that because for me my wife went to India I think and there was a lot of poverty and stuff there it's Thailand and we took a lot of photos but I didn't want to remember the poverty I wanted to remember the I'm like well that's easy just edit out yeah but that's even more perverse in my mind of like so you didn't you don't want to remember what it was actually like you just want to remember you're perfect it's so just edit edit out the poor people yeah you know yeah so I might do that in Paris I might go to like the Eiffel Tower everyone takes that perfect photo of the Eiffel Tower but the in reality when you're under the Eiffel Tower it's a nightmare there's people everywhere there's people trying to sell you crap souvenirs there's no is trying to like rip you off or well it's just so I think it's interesting for people who haven't been today like I've been to and I've been to so many places now and done all that tourist stuff that I I'm just tired of it I don't want to do it anymore it can be very hard in a sense to go and visit a country for just a couple of weeks and have the full-on authentic experience and really have a meaningful personal experience it's actually very hard to do that very day and what happens is that you know in order to plan it you end up looking in the guidebooks and stuff and you you know how do you decide which things to see you end up you know looking at the list of top 10 places and you think well I better go here because where else are you gonna go you know the only other times that you experience a genuinely meaningful sort of tourist you know experience is when you're living in the country and it just sort of happens by accident there'll just be one evening where you end up being invited to some restaurant and you find yourself in some little courtyard or you find yourself in a in in like the back room of a restaurant doing karaoke and you come out of the restaurant quite late like 3 o'clock in the morning and it's raining in the street and you're walking down a back street in a part of town that you wouldn't have gone to and you have one of those authentic little moments yeah you know and you can't really you can't plan that quantifier and plan it it helps if you know people who live in the air I think that's the key really I you know we were going there for two weeks and it's so far that you want to go see the things that you supposed to go and see you know and the monuments and the temples and that kind of stuff were great but it's just the I don't know unless you get up it's 5:00 in the morning and see them on your I don't know I just it's just the tourist experience ruins it for me yeah because also it's the it's the worst part it's the worst people of all humanity yeah from every country combined into one area so you see Americans that you hate you see English people that you hate you see French people that you hate Spanish you're just like oh God everyone's acting like a robot they're like zombies aren't they yes 100% and it does it bugged me so I that part of the experience it kind of did open like it opened I don't know I it's also the first time I've been like a tourist for for that amount of time in a place for like six years like I've traveled a lot for work and things but you don't do the touristy stuff when you're going no way so it's so yeah well tell me like tell me one or two things that that really stood out I mean koyasan was probably a nice little break from the tourist yell a little bit but did you have any individual specific experiences that you think of memorable like a food experience or something you know some little thing you saw having a Japanese breakfast at 7:00 in the morning uh-huh it can be tough when you're a westerner what's the Japanese breakfast it's basically if you go to a Japanese restaurant for dinner it's the same thing but for breakfast just me the same thing for breakfast lunch and dinner I'm sure that's not true I'm sure that it's not for Westerners it's it feels like that because it's it's not sweet at all that you have like a miso soup in the morning like pickled onions and pickled vegetables rice with soy sauce obably some some grilled fish some grilled fish it just like I you know a little Westerners I used to you know croissants in the morning yeah we're like children was that I need Jam I need chocolate in the bread with butter yeah so that was challenging a couple of times but it was fun and yeah I think the you know that in France in any case every Japanese restaurant is basically sushi and over there it's very difficult to find a sushi restaurant well in in the places that we were Tokyo yes but you have to really go out like it's for every sushi restaurant that's probably about thirty ramen restaurants yeah yeah there's so many different types of food that's right in Paris it's true you know it's unbelievable really that every street in Paris has got a pharmacy a boulangerie and a sushi restaurant yeah it's really odd though so many sushi restaurants here but in Japan yeah it's not all sushi we only went we only had sushi twice really it was the two nights that we're in Tokyo uh-huh I only spent two nights in Tokyo how was the sushi there by the way yeah it was great yeah it was really good yeah well we wanted to go to like a fan see sushi place but they're all booked out because we were in we were in Tokyo on the weekend so what we ended up doing was going to like a sushi train thing where you order it on an iPad and it comes to you and it was it was it was amazing wonderful did you go to the market by the Charles did you go to this market yeah yeah we did but we did we we went there it was later on so it's like it was all closing up we didn't because a parent got a gap at 3:00 in the morning to go watch the auctions have you done that yes really yes you gone to the auctions that I didn't I went there years ago before it's sort of it's different these days a lot of the the fish merchants have moved out and they've gone somewhere else I don't know why like for some reasons Tsukiji market it's not the same as it used to be like that's what I've been told but back in 2003 I went there once with my cousin when he was visiting and we went out with a couple of friends and we went out for food and beers and we did karaoke and we stayed out all night and then at 4 o'clock in the morning we headed off to the Tsukiji market we turned up there before the Sun had come up and there's just like just rose and rose forever I don't know how many football pitches worth the size they're at space there is but it just felt like it went on forever and just everything from the sea that you could imagine anything that's in the sea you know if you had been swimming in the sea that they would have eaten you as well it's like that we're anything that's alive and swimming in the sea then they will eat it and so all sorts of things there and yes then there's one area which is like a big sort of walking walk-in freezer area and there are rows and rows and rows of huge frozen tuna fish yeah and they're doing an auction they're selling the tuna and the tune has been cut in a certain way then I guess the innards have been removed the gills have been removed and you just get these huge you know huge tuna bodies all frozen in big rows and they're massive and then there's like a guy doing the auction and he's speaking so quickly apparently in a version of Japanese that even like ordinary Japanese people can't understand Wow and they're just selling off all the bits of tuna fish and and yeah massive massive bits of fish like all sorts of stuff yeah we saw the heads of the fish right because they were closing up but yeah we were - we didn't have enough time to lose a night or lose a day basically because once you do that then you can't really whatever so we would have liked it out but yeah was again I think it's a the the I was reading that it's become so touristy that they're going to move it and then and it's the same thing to Barcelona now we about it in my vlog a little bit there was a park like a park which Gaudi designed and it's called butter guell and you go there I went there ten years ago and then nine years ago and you just walk up and it's like this the bench thing and it was like mosaic benches you can sit on it's great it's all changed now you gotta buy tickets you have to come in a certain time because there's too many tourists and they need to keep the the they need to keep it reasonable in terms of degradation so that there's so it's yes I don't know it's I've read the same thing about Machu Picchu in Peru as well where there's at what some stage that it's gonna quote like no one can go anymore because there's just been too many tourists and they're degrading all the part and you know you again you see pictures of Matt repeats you I can't imagine what it's like in real life I think it's probably a nightmare yeah I think they actually have a limited number of people who can actually access the park or the the area every year I think in Machu Picchu I'm not sure we we were thinking of going there once and we started to look into it stuff and we ended up going somewhere else but yes Machu Picchu there's there's there's like a trail that you have to take to get there and I think they you have to book your tickets to enter the the area in advance and so they try and limit the number of people in getting in there there's too many people on the planet now I think that's it's too many people and this to it air travel is so accessible nowadays there's too many people traveling and so they and that's why these tourist areas just end up being terrible now mmm yeah there is an argument for just staying in isn't like just stay in and close the curtains yeah don't get Sun like yet keep the Sun off your skin yeah because that's bad for you if not apparently and just use your imagination yeah I I'm tired of traveling now really yeah and I think it's I've just I've just been of I'm numb to it since when I was a kid I was lucky to travel around my parents living in different places and then with my job at Apple I was traveling all the time you know six months of the year I wasn't you know I was in you know at some stage I did like I I've got a screen shot somewhere of the of my I had a TripIt account which is where when you get an email with all your itinerary you send it to trip it and they automatically put it all in a nice format and I think that it tells you how many how many miles you've traveled yeah how many countries like I think I'd been to like 12 countries I take in 70 flights in one year and it was just it like what I realize is that everyone's the same really well yeah we've all got cultural differences but everyone's everyone's everyone's everyone really behaves the same deep down and you know you go you just see it was just like in Japan we went to in Kyoto it was a first stop we saw it first time I saw a temple I was like wow this is cool after the third one I was like all right cool I get it now it's it's at and I'm sure it's the same thing when Japanese people come here and they see a church they go oh that's a church oh that's a cathedral that's great great they're all the same it's just a place where you go in they've got tinted windows and you walk around and you do the tour and you come back out and you can't speak to each other you know a temple the same thing it's like great architecture you're walking you take your shoes off you go around you see all the panel's and then you walk back out I dunno I like I've become in you've become a little bit what's the word for it jaded jaded in terms of your your tourism study in terms of your attitude towards being it's a little bit like I just I just want to not go anywhere anymore you like staying put and then going on a holiday like going to a beach well I have to do anything where there's nothing to see or nothing to do so I can actually relax well yeah but it's more tiring being a tourist than it is working traveling around how long did you have in Japan to 14 days 14 days right track doing all that stuff in 14 days it's very intense and yeah exhausting actually I mean wonderful and brilliant like you know you see so many cool things and stuff but yeah it's incredible I'm glad we did it that way because one it meant that we saw a lot yes Japan yes and to it it made me realize how much I hate being a tourist and it's not because I want to be different and be like oh you know I'm being gonna be the Antti tourists I'm gonna be a traveler instead of being a tourist I'm gonna show up and speak to the paint yeah I love that concept but I think it's just yeah I have a difficult time being a tourist and and having my camera around my neck and going to see the things and I can everyone does I mean surely you see in Paris walking around you see those busloads of tourists yeah from wherever they're from like all sorts of places and they are in a bus being driven around the town anything and you look through the windows gonna be having a go can't be having an it's like they might as well be watching TV you know just looking through this the screen exactly the same thing isn't it that's the other thing is that I think I've seen so much or I had seen so much of Japan on video mmm that nothing really surprised me yes do you not any well I think I feel like I have to say with your experience you just scratch the surface and yeah the surprising stuff comes later yeah but then how'd you do that when you're you know when you're traveling for two weeks to a place like if you if you're if you live in China and you're flying to Paris or to France for two weeks right so you're gonna do all the basic stuff like the level one stuff you're gonna go to the Eiffel Tower you're gonna go to the psychic oh you're gonna go to Bordeaux maybe and try some wine whatever if you're doing a trip around France you do that and in so it's so then you you you do just scratch the surface but so then you have to go back and then like if I think if I just go back tomorrow I would I would try and find somebody it knows or I would do more more personal guided tours of things I think we just did it all ourselves Herstal guided tours is good just getting getting off the beaten path as much as possible meaning just trying to avoid the top ten things yeah and try and find like the the other little places but it's you know it's a question of how do you know about those personally so many websites personal recommendations are good yeah doing lots of research online to find the hidden cool things yeah but then if they're online now they're not hidden anymore no such thing yes it's it's really difficult another another idea potentially is to sort of intend get lost somewhere yes oh you just take off on foot somewhere or maybe your rent bikes or something and you just go off and you don't sort of you know the thing is when you when you go to the tourist attractions you take the bus all the demote the quickest route to get directly to the doorstep of that place yeah whereas another idea could be that you just just walk through a part of town I just wander and get lost there yeah see where you end up but that's yet I think that's a risk wasting your time he might walk around the most boring part yeah the boring business district which has got nothing just like great and now I'm tired because I've been walking and and I've wasted my time where I could have just got to the temple a lot quicker and like in Paris for example if you do that if you just turn up at the garden or and go for a walk there's a good chance you can make it you're gonna walk through this as part of town yes exactly I do noir is next to some of the worst parts of town which so yeah it can be very difficult what people need really is sort of personal recommendations and on the subject of personal recommendations Paul yeah do you have any personal recommendations for people visiting both Paris and London uh y-yeah I could go on I could go a whole episode in itself I think too quick one quick thing if you're coming to Paris yeah I think the biggest thing is as a non French person is just to have patience understand that the you know Paris is a very busy city with more people per square kilometre or square meter than most cities in the world I think it's I don't know number five in the most densely populated cities in the world because it's a small city and there's a lot of people in it it's not high-rise but every single Street has got rows and rows of terraced apartment buildings with six floors yeah every streets got six floors worth of Apartments on it and so yeah it's very sick it's much more dense than London and so I think a part of that the part of the problem there is just that people end up jaded you can't you can't not get angry and just hate humanity when you live in such small confines with people so if you're coming to Paris be patient with the waiters just people just if people are rude to you for just accept it it'll be annoying but don't let it ruin your experience yeah don't be too shocked by rude waiters you know no don't worry about it what else would I say I would say on the subject of the garden also there are stations all around Paris yeah there's obviously the metro stations and stuff but also there are bigger stations that connect Paris with other parts of France and also with the garden or which is the station of the north that that connects Paris to London and many people will if they're tourists coming to Paris and they're visiting London as well many people will pass through the garden or and the garden or might be the first place that you arrive when you come to Paris and the garden or is not a good first impression it just happens to be not a very nice part of town I mean some people obviously live there and all that kind of thing and they might have a different viewpoint but generally speaking it's not the most attractive area and so it's a good idea to immediately move away from the garden or as quickly as possible yeah and if you if you're gonna get a hotel what many people do is they think well I want a hotel that's close to the station that's fairly cheap well if you get a cheap hotel near garden or it's going to be a really horrible place yeah so try and you know ignore the garden or move away from that area go to the west of that area head towards the sort of well you know the region that we're in now like the ninth aroldi small yeah like yeah tourists will end up going to all the different spots which is cool like I remember the first time I came to Paris was my wife she took me on a double-decker bus tour I really recommend that actually in Paris yes there is the double-decker bus it's super touristy however you get to see all the tourist spots within two hours yeah if you take the multiple different lines don't worry about the photos no one cares about the photos you know when you take the photos you're not gonna will ever see them again and you're never gonna show your friends the photos so you don't you don't get on the bus to take the photos you just get on the bus it's a one here the history and the links to those which is very cool and two you get to see the city I mean it needs to be a nice day of course because otherwise it's a little bit but I remember in London in Paris and in Barcelona there's three tourist bus and they were because you get to see the city and this displaces you want to go back to for certain reasons like oh you want to go into a certain Church because there's a certain thing that happened there that interests you then you can go back there but I really recommend the the bus and it can be a bit expensive but it's it's totally worth it there hop on hop off uh but ya don't hop off though why not just stay on it for the whole thing I that's what that's like my thing with a hop on hop off just hop on and stay on do the whole tour and then go back individually like to the metro or two because the queues are miles long do you have to hop on and hop off can you know literally cannot just step on no no it's illegal to step on really get fined yeah so you have to literally jump on it's not jumping it's not stepping it's a hop it's a it's a it's a myth it's an in-between a hop and a jump so you have to like Stephanie not allowed to use one of the let you have to use only one leg and just boink boink hop on you don't really you don't really obviously some listeners are going what it's illegal you have to hop but no that's my English sake bit stupid sarcastic so yeah I think in in London and in Paris tips take the tourist bus do that's the first thing you should do yeah you land and you get to your hotel drop your stuff off go buy go to a that weren't one of the double-decker buses and do the tour yeah because you see the city quicker than any other way yeah um and then and then after that you can kind of maybe with a map you can be like I like this area I like that area I'm gonna let's explore that area and then you need to get on foot and walk around a bit take the map with you and circle it take a pen with you and I love this place that looks like a cool area circle it so that when you get off the bus because then if you get off the bus you'll hang around the place and then we need to try and get on the bus there'll be a queue and then you have to wait for the second bus and it all becomes a big bit of a mess so yeah what I recommend is that you get on the bus when you can and stay on it and almost sometimes we've done it where we've we get on the bus and the seat isn't great it's not you know you're sort of just wait for the for the perfect seat and then do the full tour takes you'd like two or three hours and it's great you get to see the whole city I would recommend that for cities where they there are landmarks if you go to a city like Madrid it's not as good because there's no landmarks really in Madrid Madrid is a great city to visit but not for its Big Ben's not for its Eiffel Towers not for the things that you know it's not a visual it's you walk it and you see things and you go to a park you go to a museum that kind of a street life isn't it yeah and sitting in the outside restaurants in the street and yeah stuff like that okay another tip I would give to anyone visiting Paris is you may have heard that Parisians are unwilling to speak English it's not true but there are certain rules and the what you must do is there's a code word it's like a password or two maybe two passwords that you have to use in order to unlock any french person in public and there they're all locked they're locked and they're like doors that are locked and if you enter picture you enter the right password and they will open up to you and that password is Bors you'll yeah yeah module or bourgeois and if you say either of those words before anything else that's like the password that you need to enter into your French person's face too before they will be willing to talk to you and so you should try you should say bonjour so anything even if it's a person in the street Bonjour can you tell me where the bank is please or or borscht or and then you can speak honestly you could probably speak excusing why I see works like I said yeah i iie that's right but Paul I even think excuse me why you have to throw in a Bonjour as well excuse me my borscht all and then you do it I'm telling you yeah I have to say bonjour yeah well bon soir if it's after 6:00 p.m. yeah yeah yeah yeah difficult eat now is that because it's light at 6:00 p.m. people are confused so yeah you know because of course you get the sebastian bach's yeah which is just after after 6:01 if you say bum if you say more on the other person says more I don't know I've never really I think it's yeah it's maybe more of a foreign thing like as a French speaker when I'm in a supermarket or something I just go excusing my - oh yeah well then you know all you need to do is go sheesh like the way you did and they're like well he's fine he's French yeah but for me I just I noticed tourists a lot in the area where I live and they just go straight in with English and that's a terrible mistake that there's a really bad first impression French people obviously appreciate it a lot if they see that you're making an effort to speak their language and but you know regardless of that there's that like speaking their language making an effort to speak French a little bit which will help but as well as that even between French people you have to say bonjour or bull soir before you get anything else done but yeah you know learn a few bits of French and and use them when you're talking to people in the shop or whatever and they'll be a lot more friendly with you after that so that you know it's not that French Parisian people are unfriendly although they can be actually but it's not as simple as that you also know how to kind of unlock them you need to know the cheat codes yeah to be able to you know get the right response from a from a Parisian person and then well in terms of places to visit well Paris is full of amazing places to visit we don't really need to go into that now just type in things to see in Paris you go to all of those and walk walk around a lot yeah take the bus and walk the Metro is not the most attractive I was thing about doing a video yeah like Paris in 24 hours or something like that yeah good idea or doing a series of videos like here's this city in 24 hours here's what you should do back definitely what about London any tips and where would you where would you recommend people go and hang out in London any good places to visit I mean anything at all where view where if you enjoyed where do I go in Covent Garden I like the Covent Garden area yeah Covent Garden Seven Dials sort of area that's kind of a cool a cool spot to go and what about Covent Garden er because the thing about certain spots in London it can be very very crowded yes so the thing about Covent Garden is that it's an awesome place but it can be incredibly crowded especially on a Saturday afternoon when yeah he might be there what you need to do is get through the crowds that you will experience outside comment garden underground station and in the sort of main part of Covent Garden and move out into some of the side streets in that area yeah and that's where you nice little shops nice cafes and pubs and things and wander around the side streets between Tottenham Court Road or Oxford Street and Covent Garden yeah and that whole area there like between Covent Garden and Oxford Street there are some really good spots there and you get Soho as well which is nice place to put yeah that's that's a good spot avoid avoid Oxford Street I would just knocks fourth Street really for tourists it's it's a place where they got shops but you know what I I never understand in guides right it's like I'll go go shopping in this era why would you go shopping if you're on holiday you can got a suitcase you don't and bring some unless you go to America and things cost half the price but then you just go to an outlet store or something like that so I just if you're gonna go shop that why would you go shopping in London you just go shopping at home because in in some places they don't have the shops there going yeah you've got internet everything's available on the internet everything you can't not get any like if I want some green tea matcha KitKat's which I brought back from Japan you can buy them online is it just buy it you can buy everything online don't waste your time going shopping some people just enjoy shopping yeah well they're idiots and I'm sure if you like buying things you're an idiot no yeah if you like buying stuff and yeah go shopping but yeah but but Okoye done avoid Oxford Street especially Oxford Circus which is one of the most visited spots in London and it's not worth it it's just there's too many damn people like Shibuya the Shibuya has got more appeal than Oxford Circle yeah a little bit cuz Oxford Circus is not really that much to see but Shibuya by definition is worth visiting just because there are so many people yeah like that moment when everyone crosses the road you know is an amazing thing to see it's fun whereas Oxford Circus it's not the same kind of thing it's not like wow there's a million people in this place yeah instead it's just like no I'm this is just really claustrophobic and awful that's because we're English and we're not we don't think anyone would want to go and visit Oxford Oxford Circus the crew you know the fact that it's crowded is not a reason to go there yeah like Shibuya which is you know it being crowded is quite a good reason to go there yeah Regent Street as well Regent Street and Oxford Circus these places are very crowded and you probably need to avoid them but the streets the little side streets around those areas are really interesting but you need to plan your route so you avoid don't go to don't go to Big Ben because it's it's it's all it look it's got scaffolding all around it until 2021 so there's no point in going there if you're listening to this podcast in 2022 then go to it it's fine yeah but otherwise don't very symbolic very symbolic the Big Ben which is actually the name of the bell did you know yes there because it's called st. Stephen's Tower no st. Christopher's tower the tower has got a name I thought it's the Tower of Westminster maybe but I google it yeah hey Siri Siri give me information about Big Ben Big Ben is the nickname for the great Bell of the clock at the North End of the Palace of Westminster in London and is usually extended to refer to both a clock in the clock tower shall I continue yes the official name of the tower in which Big Ben is located was originally the clock tower but it was renamed Elizabeth tower in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of an up Siri shut up thanks Siri so Elizabeth tower it was renamed Elizabeth tower yes it was renamed Elizabeth town there you go okay so anyway it's the Big Ben is actually the name of the Bell that this huge bell that goes dong bong bong what it starts off that's just the bombing but the actual boom and it's it's famous of course but at the moment it's not going bong because they're fixing it yeah it's not going bong and it looks ugly because the scaffolding everywhere in scaffolding yeah but waste your time yeah but I'm saying it's very take a take a boat a riverboat though from Westminster yes so do go there to like somewhere like Greenwich Greenwich is cool a good a good experience yes take a riverboat tour up the river to Greenwich and back and a good walk that you can do is if you start at Big Ben you cross over westminster bridge onto the south bank and you walk along past the london eye all the way around the Tower Bridge to Tower Bridge you go past the the Tate Modern and lots of other sort of iconic buildings you'll see st. Paul's Cathedral on the other side Lisa Paul's Cathedral on the other side you see the bridge from Harry Potter you'll see the bridge from Harry Potter Harry Potter tees in that Harry Potter is spelt P o gap er that's right and the Tower of London and lots of really cool things along the river there so that's a that's a good thing to do walk along the river or myself if it's a nice day you'd want to go down it I'd park in it yeah it's hard Hyde Park which was originally John it's called Hyde Park nope because it was the the area or the spot where the first game of hide-and-seek was created so what shut up it's not true okay made up facts with Paul Taylor that's quite a good game yeah quite a good game so no we don't know what Blackfriars Bridge is called Blackfriars Bridge is it because that's where back in the the racist times that's where that they used to torture the black slaves though no it's close it's not really close but it's essentially back in the back in the day when fish and chips were made they were made in a in a standard like steel fryer in ox whatever it's called steel I think it's steel out like like a sort of cast iron yeah cast iron like a fryer where they used to fry the fish and in this this guy decided that it would the the fish would taste better because obviously the colour black absorbs heat quicker than reflecting it so he tried it with a fryer that had a black coating inside it yes and so that's why it's called black friars is this actual science no made up facts mate Paul Taylor why is why simples cathedral course at Paul's Cathedral it could st. Paul's Cathedral because what happened was is I'm actually from the past and there's named after me but then don't before you no I mean it was built before me now but I time-traveled and I I you went back and you you ensured that Paul was a common name yeah because like because I like shouting so much what I decided to install in there was a Whispering Gallery I see you know I wish out I'm always angry because because the way that st. Paul's Cathedral is designed is that you could be on one side of the cathedral and you can whisper and the acoustics carry your voice across to the other side I reckon I was a complete accident I think so too and they're just making it seem like the arc that it was beautifully designed I think it's just a complete accident just it just happens when it's a circular rare yeah you know sound carries around to the other side of a circular is the other thing about being a tourist yes is that half the stuff sometimes I was listening to some of the things or reading someone's stuff I'm like yeah maybe it's just an accident how do you know no one knows what you mean like like the history stuff is often just made up or or it's very G BIA Slyke some of the the bits of history that you read in the tour guides yeah it's kind of like a really unsatisfying one-dimensional story that they're telling yeah and it's kind of like come on yeah you know what they did they omit the the the grisly details yeah it just becomes it's it's similar to it for me it was like learning English when I was doing when we did English at school we were read like Shakespeare stuff and my English teacher would be would like break down a specific sentence I think as part of the curriculum so I think everyone did it but it was like oh you know he wrote it in this way what do you think he meant by these words maybe didn't mean anything mate did you ask him No so shut up stop trying to be so he's just a nice word but then sometimes yeah it could be true but another time she's just like maybe it was just an accident maybe you put those words together it sounded really well yeah yeah like maybe he was just trying to come up with an entertaining story and now we're reading too much into it's possible I I made up his story about Hyde Park oh yeah for my podcast it's it's in the it's in my app it's only in the app it's an app only episode an app only episodes right that's like a stupid sort of adventure fantasy story okay set during the industrial period in Hyde Park right I made the story I just one day I was like right I'm gonna do a nap only episode I need to teach and what I decided I would teach lots of ways of walking all the vocab like walk stroll creep tiptoe yeah pace run you know all the different verbs for walking I thought right I'm going to need just a quick story to just demonstrate them all and my quick story ended up being like a half an hour short story yes it was and it and if I had lots of fun coming up with this with this narrative and basically it's like this guy who used to be an industrialist has moved to Bayswater which is next to Hyde Park right and he's sort of enjoying this kind of life of a bachelor and you know going into Hyde Park and going walking down and picking up girls in the park and all this sort of thing and then one day he meets a friend of his who's like a scientist and his friend is like you know saying oh there's something wrong going on in the park because there's all this fog everywhere and it turns out the fog is like weird infected fog from from the factories because they're using some weird chemical right and their factories and it's infecting the it's infecting all the animals in the park and it's turning them all into animals Ombuds right and then and this guy's like but I've got the antidote to turn them all normal again we have to go into the park tonight and hunt down the largest animals and fire these blow darts with the antidote into them so that they will go back to normal and then like you know they'll be saved and so it was so much fun coming up with like they were like there was a pack of wolves mutant wolves right after to track down and hunt you just made all this up made all this as you were going along not as I was going okay but like that morning I wrote it all down and then just sort of edited a little bit and then just recorded it all that really pleased at myself at the ends like wow credible good an adventure story and new JK Rowling over here yeah baby rolling rolling rolling rolling rolling I don't know but yeah so I haven't had any feedback on it at all that's cause it's like one person with yep I don't know lots lots of people using the app now it's just that there's no comment sir oh so I don't know what specifically I was written a comment on it so I have no idea now either that means that everyone who heard it was unimpressed by it or it just means that they haven't found a way to me not just that brings up a whole other conversation about the whole commenting thing yeah cuz you know back in the day you and you watched a TV show I was gonna just say so I guess we will wrap up our yeah our tourists in London yeah yeah we'll wrap that up in a moment anyway you want to talk about commenting on things yeah he's just a random thought of like you know back in the TV shows movies and that kind of stuff yeah there was you would watch it and if you didn't like it you didn't like if you liked it you liked it but that's it there was no there's nowhere to comment you couldn't comment on Stan well what people used to do back in the day but you know when it was just television is that people would be watching the TV and they would write letters yeah and people would actually sit down and write a letter of complaint to the BBC dear BBC bla bla bla bla bla bla bla and the public would never see these things yeah and but the guys in the in the TV studio would receive all the mail and I'm sure a lot of it was like really outrageous racist stuff or or deeply personal attacks on the property yeah and also all manner of outrageous complaints about I think I think that people probably unless they were really you know it's so easy to do that now whereas before you get to write letter you have to go to the post office sure to buy a stamp and you probably bought the wrong stamp sure to buy another stamp yet away the letter and and he had to send it right to find the address and you're and then by that time you're just like ah it's not worth it now any idiot can just be like I hate you oh yeah social network go back to your country send so yeah it's just a random thoughts you get that you get some to get abuse you know in YouTube no like on my channel people are really lovely yeah which is really weird somebody said that to me the other day I come who it was but somebody said to me that yeah the comments and like I know it was somebody on you is somebody commented one of the comments on my on my channel was that yeah it's really weird to see a channel where there's no one just being like just being random like it's an actual unity of people yes who give me great feedback they they give me comments and they talk it's just it's a there's no one there's no there are no haters you know on the preview on there with when we were doing what the France there were I mean it's overwhelmingly positive but you know there was always go after you're not happy go back to your country did and I remember once you got one it was made me laugh which is like just go back to your pedophile Island yes yeah that was my very first one of my very first comments on the video when we did lobbies the kissing in France one of the very first comments I got through Twitter was yeah if you're not happy go back to your pedophile Island he defile Island yeah I thought it could be a TV show like a reality show the name of a new reality show you know tonight it tonight at 10:00 on BBC 2 no it wouldn't be BBC to be channel 4 wouldn't it of course it would be tonight at 10:00 all channel for Peter fine Island but I don't know what the content of the show would be and it's probably best that we don't know I think it's blow the possible no stories it's just a few files get put on an island and they get shot one by one so that's it okay I think okay then I'm not going to speculate for yeah tourist stuff yeah that's it basically I think it's just um if you're going to if you're going to place a new and you can you can do the touristy thing then great do it but try and do other stuff as well but I know it's it's a lot easier said than done because we failed it doing it in Japan so you know just on the subject of giving advice to people going to London or Paris I'm sure that I've got listeners who genuinely want like my proper well thought well considered advice if visiting London is one of the things that people ask me quite a lot so what we just did there is just sort of random randomly in a in a content in the context of a conversation just made some some gave some advice about visiting London but what I should probably do is a proper episode a proper episode where I really think about it can you won't they I have you not worry am surprised you haven't already done that one well whatever side of it what a what you wants you now what how many officer 520 something outrageous so many quite a lot yeah I'm going for the 10,000 hours yes each one is about an hour long so if I get to 10 but no if I get to a thousand that's a thousand hours it's only a thousand I'm only at 500 hours yeah is the concept I don't know it was Malcolm Gladwell the writer who came up with it who said that if you want to be brilliant at something if you want to be successful at it you need to do 10,000 hours you need to put in 10,000 hours worth of experience in order to be really good at it I think is that right is that yeah that's concept that's basically it yeah if you do 10,000 hours worth of something then that's when you become amazing at doing it right I think I've done 10,000 hours worth of teaching yeah have I so if I do an average of let's say 25 hours a week of actual teaching time get the calculator and it's often it's more sometimes it's less but let's say 25 hours a week 25 hours let's say I've been I let's say I do on average I don't know 40 weeks oh yeah let's say 40 weeks it's probably more but let's say 40 weeks per year yeah so what's that 25 hours times 41,000 multiplied by 16 years 16 16,000 hours yes I must have done about 10,000 hours worth of am teaching that's so that does that mean I'm a master at English teaching and theory what about if I've just done the same thing for every every hour looking with no improvement at all well then you just be really good at doing that that that one hour yeah exactly okay well and that's the this like go it's like a comedy show isn't it you don't do it for 10,000 hours but you do it for enough where you go okay cool I'm sure yeah well basically if you do something a lot you get better at it that's the idea we're gonna we're gonna stop the episode here Paul all right let's do that okay but if you've got time to stick around you do something else yeah okay fantastic listeners thank you very much for listening to this rambling conversation how and what did we cover your holiday yeah what I've been actually the holiday beat up to tourist tip tourist tips and things like that leave your comments in the comments section of this episode find Paul's vlog YouTube Paul hailer vlog number 12 should be the one that we recorded today a mirror on the on the rooftop here and you can leave your comments there to subscribe to Paul's YouTube channel subscribe subscribe and share it and do all that kind of stuff what else that's it just be great just be great generally in your life great to be great and I'll speak to you again soon ready to say goodbye yeah all right everyone goodbye bye bye they can say hello again goodbye goodbye hello can you hear can you hear what we're saying is he go alright nice well thanks for listening and watching the video yeah thanks for watching this is the secret bit after the podcast look at them look at all of those people that no one can actually hear good that one person who's still watching yeah alright Jose whatever unit Jose from from hot from wherever you feel hello my name is Cossack I am from Spain budgets thank you bye goodbye so there you go I hope you enjoyed listening to that and watching us talking there as well in the nice weather unlike today now I want to make certain corrections to what was said a couple of times in this episode so a couple of little Corrections I know that some of you will be thinking like but you said this and then you said this meaning you said one thing and then you contradicted yourselves by saying something else well I just want to clarify a couple of things just just to prevent some of you going you contradicted yourselves most of you are probably thinking what it's fine everything's fine but for that one person who's going where you said that but you actually said that let me let me clarify so let's see the 9th arrondissement of Paris is not in the west of Paris but it is to the west of garden or station so it's not in the west of Paris but it's to the west of garden or station so in the West and to the West they're different things if you say that something is in the West that means let's say in the west of Paris that means it's in Paris and on the on the sort of western side and if you say it's to the west of something it means that it's sort of next to something on the western side of it all right so the 9th arrondissement of Paris is in the center of Paris but it's to the west of garden or station some people will choose when they come to Paris especially if they're coming from London taking the train they might choose to get a hotel in the area around garden or station but if that's the case then do choose carefully because the that's not the nicest area of Paris some people will choose to arrive at Garden or station and then walk straight to Montmartre which is a very nice tourist destination and it's quite crowded but it's a nice spot it's a hill in the north of Paris where you get a nice view and you can see the sacre sacre-coeur basilica which is like a you know a really nice tourist destination quite crowded one but still worth visiting but some people will come to the garden or and walk straight to Montmartre but the area between the station and Montmartre isn't that nice so you should go west to a place like Rue de Martir in the 9th arrondissement and then walk up to Montmartre from there so don't go directly to Montmartre from the station go west first and then go up that's what I was trying to say I wasn't trying to say that the 9th arrondissement is in the west of Paris another thing you might be thinking is you said that being in a tourist bus was horrible and like watching TV and then you recommend that people go on a on a bus to get a look at the city well we're talking about different kinds of buses so the miserable looking ones are the tourist coaches like there's the difference between a bus and a coach here coaches are I guess usually bigger they're a lot more comfortable you know they they they carry tourists over long distances where buses usually operate within a city and they just tend to take passengers over shorter distances you see what I mean so I'm still I was talking about the tourist coaches which tourists use to travel all around Europe they might go from city to city to city and then the tourists end up spending most of their lives sleeping in comfy chairs or just looking out of the window and I don't find that to be a great experience myself but the tourist buses that we're talking about in this episode they are the kind of open-top hop-on hop-off variety you know buses where the top of the the top deck has no roof on it so they're open top and you can hop on or hop off that means you can just get on and then when the bus stops in a certain place you can hop off and visit for a while and then hop on the next one hop on hop off so these kinds of buses operate in lots of cities including in London and in Paris and they've got no roof as I said and as a result it's a much better experience as long as it's not raining because it's a better experience because you actually get really good views of the city and you feel like you're part of it because there's no roof on the bus and they tend to visit all the best districts and sites and that can be a good way to get an overview of the city in a day or an afternoon or something and that's just a good way to help you identify areas that you'd like to explore later on foot yes and it's on foot not by walk or by foot it on foot you can explore areas on foot after you've had a look at them from the top of the tourist bus by the way if you like the sound of my Hyde Park adventure mystery story that we mentioned you know the one with the zombie animals in the 19th century you can find that in the Luke's English podcast app in the app only episo-- category it's called the Hyde Park mystery story and with that episode you can listen to my story and also learn about 50 different verbs for walking and I believe that episode includes verbs like hop and also wander hop definitely came up in the episode did wander come up in the episode to wander around it may have done to hop means that you know when you walk on one leg so like you're you know what I mean like if you're bouncing up and down on one leg I'm just trying to think if there are any animals that hop no I don't think so but you know what I mean normally you walk on two legs but when you hop you point point point point on just one leg hop on hop off buses you don't technically hop on the bus using only one leg there's no as as we established in this episode there's no law for that but some reason to hop on it means to just get on quickly but anyway that's the verb hop is to sort of you know jump up and down on one leg and the and the verb wander which is spelt W a nd er not wo n de up at W a nd er to wander means to walk around with no particular destination like for example when you're exploring a new part of town to wander around like you can you hop on the bus visit certain areas and then you can hop off and sort of wander around for a bit and explore and that's wonder with an a not with an O wonder with an O that means to think about something I was wondering I was just wondering what would be a good place to visit if you went to London just wondering so that's wander with an O okay alright that's the end of this video then thank you very much for watching and thank you for being a wonderful human being in general and for supporting Luke's English podcast and I'll speak to you again soon but for now goodbye bye bye boy boy bird

Channel: Luke's English Podcast

Views: 20,431

Rating: 4.9661427 out of 5

Keywords: learn, learning, english, lesson, lessons, luke, podcast, luke's, vocabulary, native, speaker, interviews, pronunciation, british, accent, london, paul, taylor, paul taylor, teacherluke, paris

Id: OHOBLx1KRz8

Length: 75min 26sec (4526 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 24 2021