All things fascinating to my fresh pair of eyes.
Our Belgium trip in down-to-earth nutshells (or melon shells maybe)! It's taken a while to write, coz things have been really happening at work and none of the photos are edited. It's a pretty long post! Best read as chapters in free time coz I dun wanna split the post (if you're interested hahaha :)).
The Experience
The miscellaneous section in which I summarise everything.
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| Nice view of Brussels |
Not forgetting that travelling with friends is awesome, and we met up with good friends we hadn't seen (physically) in a long while. Belgium was the chosen meeting point because it's geographically the midpoint of the UK, France and Germany. Sounded epic when we first came up with the idea, and actually carrying it out was even more epic!
It rained much of the time we were there, which meant we were walking a lot in the rain. Inevitably, it was cold most of the time.
Lastly, I turned 21 in Bruges. Nth special really, I don't feel any wiser xD But it was lovely to read the whatsapp messages pouring in over breakfast, despite much confusion over the time difference. I never had a chalet/party (not my style actually), but how many ppl get the chance to spend their 21st overseas? I'm really fortunate.
The Place
We split our 3.5-ish days in Belgium between two of it's well-known cities: Brussels (21 and 24/8) and Bruges (22-23/8).
Brussels and Bruges are both full of beautiful architecture. Tall, old buildings with religious history naturally have a majestic air about them and there are plenty in Belgium. We, like the usual tourists, visited the central squares of these places - the Grand Place in Brussels and the Markt in Bruges.
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| The Grand-Place under cloud cover |
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| The Markt |
My first time visiting this sort of European central square. Imagine an enormous area surrounded by olden day skyscrapers - wow-factor damn high. More than simply appreciating the beauty of these buildings, I've got a huge amount of respect for the people who built them. The intricacy of the facade plus the sheer scale couldn't have been easy to accomplish back then.
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| The Town Hall - extremely difficult to get a pic of coz of its height |
Makes one wonder how they did it, it'd have been a feat even for modern times: look at the top of the Town Hall - what crane could reach that height? Let alone placing a gold-leafed statue there (oops you can't really see it). Even on the saner heights of the building, each statue is different from the next. I suppose there is meaning behind all this (which we didn't find out), but to the layperson it's a representation of the amount of heart put into construction.
These places were even more majestic at night.
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| The Belfry of Bruges |
I esp enjoyed the chocolate museum, and it didn't hurt that there were 3 free samples (including one praline from a live demo!) :P [we bought 1kg worth of dark choc buttons to bring back to the office. everything was cleared within one workday and many ppl came up to rave about them ^^] Was supposed to visit the beer museum as well, but we felt €11 and 3 samples (I can't rmb how much exactly but my guess is smth like 3 pints) was too much.
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| The demonstration counter behind a barrier |
Another thing that amazes me about Belgium is the multilingualism. The driver displayed this by doing the narration in 3 (or 4) languages - French, German/Dutch (or both, I can't tell), and English. Same with the demonstrator at the chocolate museum and any service staff we met, and they are all fluent.
[food for thought: see ah, we can boast that we have 4 national languages but how many of us can speak all (or even 3 or 2) of them fluently? no, singlish doesn't count.]
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| Gave the other tourist attraction a miss and used our own feet |
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| Sorry Carina - you just happen to be in the clearest photo I have of the ground xD |
The Food
Our first proper meal in Belgium: sushi buffet. Yes, we missed Japanese food so much we pounced at the relatively-affordable sushi after touching down in Europe. Well, it was all-you-can-eat for €16 (not exactly cheap), but to put things into perspective, a plate of sushi (2 pieces) in Derby can cost up to £8. I ate as much as I could - good for the cold weather.
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| The dishes came on toy trains as opposed to the usual belts. |
Now on to the Belgian fare.
So everyone's told me of Belgian waffles, chocolate, fries and mussels. Here's the thought: the more you hear, the higher the expectation. You'd expect the best from the place named in the famous food. So did I "fly to heaven" (or smth similar) when I had my first taste of chocolate-banana covered waffles, or mussels in white wine? Ehhh, no. Like i said, down-to-earth, and I suspect the pre-trip food hype should shoulder much of the blame for this anti-climax. Not to say the food wasn't good! We had really nice food throughout our stay, just that there wasn't any urge to squeal about it anymore.
We mostly followed this map: http://www.use-it.travel/cities/detail/bruges/ to find the cheap and good (i.e. student-friendly) waffles (21) and fries (28). Verdict on waffles: pretty overrated to me, I think I can find greater happiness eating waffles from can 11. Most of the "goodness" comes from the generous amounts of chocolate sauce (no complains there), but then again that's nth special. I dun like whipped cream.
Verdict on fries: ok, but better not to order with sauce. There was just the once when we bought fries (on its own, not as part of a dish). We shared a large order, and got the "Samurai" sauce as a topping, which came in copious amounts and was pretty spicy and creamy. 4 of us were sharing but even then I was quite full. [cannot imagine one person eat one large serving, lagi jelat sia] Most of our meals there actually came with fries as a side - which means I was spamming water a lot.
We had a total of 3 dinners in Belgium. The first was nth to shout about, but the other two are experiences to share.
On the second night in Bruges, we ate at one of the restaurants in the fish market area. It was a big meal and cost €30 in total. But here's why it was a good meal: there was a great variety of food and we came away feeling really full with no wastage. Cui paranoma skills aside, here's a glimpse at the spread, (but doesn't look as good as it actually was on that day).
As I can rmb it, we had mussels in white wine, rabbit stew, melon wrapped with smoked smth (I can't rmb what meat), and two stone grills: mixed fish and mixed meat. Oh not forgetting: garlic bread and 1.5L of beer to share among 6 of us.
The stone grill was amazing, sorry amusing - you have to salt it to prevent the food from sticking (and also to flavour a bit). And as usual with ambiguous instructions, there were funny results (see the salt-covered stone in the photo). Food was awesome, really largely thanks to the huge variety - all the different tastes. The rabbit was in a dark stew (which I think contained some alcohol) and was sweet and tender, and I kept eating the applesauce that was sitting in front of me. At last only the huge pot of mussels was left (we ordered 1kg). As Jerald said, every time we looked inside there was still some more, even after the 7th/8th helping. People do eat the dish as a meal though, all 1kg of mussels.
And oh, it was my bday that day! The others went to order a chocolate dessert for me (which we all shared) without my knowing, and they asked for a candle. It came with a firecracker xD
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| Choc mousse in place of cake |
We'd alr drank 1.5L of beer between us at dinner, and then we went to buy some more. These are fruit beers: peach-, cherry-, and fruit punch-flavoured. The others had their preferences and verdicts, but to me, one was good, one was cough syrup and the last one I'd totally avoid. Someone thought one of these tasted like puke xD
The final night's dinner (in Brussels) was memorable, but not just for the food. We'd gone to a tourist district where practically every restaurant was serving the same things i.e. mussels and fries and other common European dishes. The first time we were there on Fri before lunch, things were quiet and sane, but dinner time on Sun was crazy.
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| The street lined by restaurants on both sides - a tourist trap |
Bad example 1: Blocking our way down the narrow street even when we politely decline.
Bad example 2: Trying to speak mandarin to us - I'm not sure you know what 我爱你妈妈 means if you're trying to use that to attract customers.
Good example: Offering a €10 meal, inclusive of a drink (whatever you want, beer, wine...), dessert and free wifi.
To me, food always tastes better when shared. Which leads me to the next bit...
The Friends
How long it's been since the days in the RPR [in common time, not v long but humour me]. Suddenly we were all separated and sent to different corners of the world. Ok la, for me there's always D and J but it's obviously different from having the rest of the class around. Hahaha things are basically a lot more fun with ppl you know you can click with around you. I like my own time and space but I dun see myself as a solo traveler. With friends, you get to share and try more types of food, and you get to make all the funny comments about random things to ppl who'll listen and laugh along.
Things dun change. We might have been in Europe, but that didn't stop us from gathering in C's room and chatting till it started raining, then chatting some more to wait it out, before finally heading back to our hostel in a cold drizzle at midnight.
Great to see you all! Waiting for the day we meet again in London :)
