The Lost ShangriLa - Le ciel bleu profond - Keep Walking, Traveler25

I gave Taiwan's visa-waiver privilege to European countries a little test when I visited Paris and London over the past two weeks.

Sure enough, upon seeing my London hotel's confirmation letter, the official handed back our family's passports with a welcoming smile.

It's even easier with the immigration officials at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport, however, the worker at the Airport's information desk gave me a hard time.

When I asked where I should go to catch the Air France coach bus going downtown, she said briskly, "Outside."

Confused and seeing no doors, I asked again, "Upstairs or downstairs?" She answered, "Did I say upstairs or downstairs? No, I said 'Outside.'"

I left her with anger and frustration, and after a full 40 minutes of taking a shuttle to another terminal, waiting for the wrong bus, and then back with all our luggages, we found that a door opening up to the Air France coach just 10 steps away from the info desk!!

But that's not the worst experience I had in Paris. What's worse is French museum authorities' refusal to provide another language, say, English, the most widely used, for explaining their treasures.

Yes, there are multi-language audio guides in almost every musuem I visited, and yes, there're English guided-tours, albeit usually twice a day only.

But what tourists need most, I believe, is just to be able to understand the labels beside each piece of art.

If you've been to Taiwan's world-class National Palace Musuem, you'll see that all the labels are in both Chinese and English.

Luckily the stunningly beautiful art work and buildings soothed my heart and took away most of the disappointment.

Compared with Parisians, I must say that people of London are much more friendly and more willing to help strangers.

But with restoration and renovation work going on everywhere in preparation for the 2012 London Olympics, tourists have to be patient.

For Perspective, this is Jane Lee.