Deb’s France-Japan Travel Diary Day 0 – Day 1: How to Survive a Trip to Paris

[Crossposted from our sister site, K-ComicsBeat – Deb’s diary will be updated every morning ET!]

Hi, I’m Deb Aoki, and given any excuse, I will travel for comics-related stuff. Follow along on my 2-week journey to France, from November 2 – 18, to see the epic Bande Dessinee (Comics) 1964-2024 exhibit at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Worldwide Webtoons B2B conference in Monteux, followed by a stop in Japan to check out the IMART (International Manga Anime Festival Reiwa Toshima) conference in Tokyo.

Besides sharing my day-to-day adventures, I’ll also share some of my embarrassing travel mishaps, stuff I bought and ate, and other things I’ve learned along the way about the ups and downs of traveling in France and Japan. Ready? Let’s go!

Day 0 – Day 1: SFO – CDG – Paris

Left SFO on Saturday afternoon (Day 0), then landed in Paris CDG on Sunday morning at around 9:30 am. Managed to get some sleep on the flight over (amazing), which was good since I needed energy to deal with the first travel curveball thrown at me: needing to drag 2 suitcases up the non-working escalator since both the escalator AND the elevators from the airport shuttle train station were out of service.

Rule 1 for France Travel: You may have to carry your bags up a flight of stairs. This will suck.

There’ll be times when you may have to carry your luggage up a flight or two of stairs. It’ll happen when you least expect/want it to happen, like at a train/subway station or even at a hotel that doesn’t have a lift/elevator. Also, those double decker trains in France? You gotta drag your suitcases up the stairs yourself — there’s no baggage check-in. More on this later.