It had been a sleepless night on a long flight. My energy was drained. The night before, I had barely slept, and the night ahead in this foreign place was still young. It was barely 6pm.

Already, though, Terminal 1 of Charles de Gaulle appeared deserted, the metal gates of duty-free shops pulled down and locked. Zipping through the maze of moving tunnels and escalator tubes, I felt more lost in Blade Runner than in the capital of France.

It hadn’t hit yet, that I was in Paris.

It didn’t hit, even after I had flagged a cab and was on my way to the Bastille.

It only hit, when the cab pulled onto the freeway, and, entangled in traffic, drove slow enough for me to perceive the wondrous sight before me: two rows of uninterrupted graffiti extending as far as the eye could see.

Living in Beijing for the past two years, I’ve grown accustomed to barren walls. Not that graffiti is completely nonexistent – bits and pieces appear in 798, and spurts can be seen along certain subway lines. (There’s also plenty of quasi-graffiti, i.e. mobile phone numbers offering a variety of services.) But true graffiti – that imposition of self-expression into public visual space – is an element of urbanity missing from life in Beijing. To see it suddenly so proud and apparent shocked me into a reawakening.

For not a moment, from pulling onto the freeway to arriving at my hotel, did the trail of graffiti stop. It flowed through the city like a nerve, propelling inanimate objects to life. Some of it was beautiful, multicolored murals; some was hideous, almost violent, scrawls of defilement. Nevertheless, its presence gave the city a voice – a voice that spoke to me along my way, telling of things Paris was to show.

The Hotel Bastille de Launay is one of three hotels along Rue Amelot and sits perfectly behind the main street – far enough to avoid the noise but close enough to the sounds of the city. A young girl with a dark complexion at the concierge’s desk issues a polite “bonsoir.”

“Bonjour,” I reply. “I mean, bonsoir. Uh, speak English?”

“Yes,” she smiles, then sorts me out a room. She hands me a key: 1301 ...

( ... click here to continue reading or watch the slideshow.)