Wednesday, October 15, 2008

mich! hahaha brussels was nice right! lol. anws u're missed too. cheer up dear! *hugs!*

ben! lol i've been to amsterdam alr, just haven updated my blog abt it yet. heh. anws i doubt i'll be gg to coventry to look for u alr. haha probably will meet up w u again in singapore or sth instead yea =) heh have fun in amsterdam! =)

posted by linez @ 4:04 PM

Monday, October 13, 2008

after spending one weekend in copenhagen, our next destination was the land of chocolates, mussles, waffles and beer! no prizes for guessing correctly. ahhaa =D

Brussels was really the best place we went to. the chocolates were great but the best part of our trip to Belgium was our guesthouse, called A Taste of Belgium. it is really the BEST place we have ever stayed in so far. the owners, Jean-Marc and Francoise and their family really made us feel super at home with their warm hospitality. though it was in their house which was quite a distance away from the attractions, everything that they had provided for us was really worth going the distance. haha. i know i sound like im exaggerating but im sure my other 4 travelling buddies will definitely agree whole heartedly with me :)

sadly, no photos from my cam but the photos dont really do justice to the experience of staying there anyway, so i shall try my best to describe it instead. ahha. anyway, when we first checked in, Francoise greeted us with a really warm welcome and showed us our room. it was a huge suite with beds for 4 pple and one mattress for darren. haha. the beds were so so comfy with thick, soft quilts. on the counter, there were chocolates, biscuits, waffles and bottles of water prepared for us. imagine our delight when Francoise told us that it was for us. the other hostels definitely wldnt have bothered! haha. we also had our own private bathroom beside our room, as well as a sort of public bathroom which was shared with the rest of the family and the other guests. Jean-Marc was really friendly and nice too. we were chatting at night and some of us started talking so loudly that i think everyone in the house could hear us. ahha oops. really super paiseh coz Jean-Marc had to come down and knock on our door to ask us to lower our volumes coz they cldnt sleep and some of them had to work the next day. haha =S

the next morning, we woke up to the aroma of freshly baked bread and when we went down to the kitchen for breakfast, we were greeted by Francoise and a HUGE spread of things for breakfast!!! think, freshly baked bread, a lot of different kinds of spreads, ham, cheese, fruits, FRESHLY SQUEEZED orange juice, coffee or tea. seriously it was the best breakfast we have had ever! Francoise and Jean-Marc were really nice and sincere, offering us all the best things that they cld provide for us. breakfast the next day was as good as well. according to Jean-Marc, he had been experimenting a lot and he has been making bread everyday since they had started the bed and breakfast around one yr ago. and so far he has made at least 2000 of these. haha cool huh!

and on our last night in A Taste of Belgium, Jean-Marc gave us a real taste of Belgium by offering us all kinds of Belgian beers, as well as a whole lot of lessons in life. it was really nice to just sit there and chat with him and listening to all that he had to say. he chatted with us like we have been friends for a really long time and it was a very nice feeling. their hospitality made us feel so at home that we were so sad n reluctant when we had to leave the next day. haha.

alrights, picture time! =)

our first destination after checking into our guesthouse: Grand Place. it's really really grand! haha.



an alley with a lot of restaurants selling almost the same kind of food. ahahha. friendly, or maybe not so friendly competition, as they always have to fight for customers while offering almost the same food at ard the same prices. ahaha.

we decided on one of the kebab restaurants and here's my lunch! my goodness the meat and fries seemed never-ending, no matter how much i ate! luckily there was darren, who gladly helped me reduce the amount of potential food wastage. ahah =p

and what's being in belgium like without trying the waffles and chocolate? hehe =D it was honey-coated waffles topped with chocolate. they really spread the chocolate on top as if it was free. hahaa. i'll never expect that to happen in singapore man. lol.

rmb the little boy we all learnt about in our primary school chinese textbook? hahas. this little boy apparently saved the country from being devastated by peeing on a lighted bomb and hence this statue was erected in his honour.
it wasnt hard to find this statue but it was quite surprising that it was hidden in one cross junction and the statue was so small! haha. but it still is a very popular tourist destination as we saw a super HUGE crowd there on our second trip there(coz there was a chocolate shop nearby n we wanted to get more chocolates there! LOL =p)

shelves of boxes and boxes of chocolates. this shop was apparently opened by Chinese coz they have the prices written in chinese and i think almost ALL chinese visitors go there to buy chocolates. hahaha. imagine seeing chinese tourists flooding the shop. feels like im back in china or sth. lol

grand place at sunset

hehe GODIVA chocolates! =D almost the same price as in sg though. no pt buying there haha

n then we discovered this sweet shop! feels so fairytale-like. and the packaging is so so nice! a pity that the cookies wont be able to last till the time we go back home though, or else i wld have bought a few boxes of them back heh.


and we saw this shop which sells ard 250 different kinds of beer. and they have ½ metre beer, which is a number of bottles of beer packed in a row such that they reach ½ a metre



and 1 metre beer!

went to the Cantillon brewery the next day. Cantillon beer is only exported to countries in Europe and some parts of USA but not in Asia, hence we hadnt heard of it until when we had reached there. the beer taste a bit sour coz according to them, they do not add any flavourings or stuff to make the beer taste better. quite an interesting taste i must say. i felt like i was kind of drinking some fruit juice haha but the others din like its taste =p





and YES! we finally went to visit the Chocolate factory! hahaha. in Belgium, the shops were ok with us trying their chocolates while we consider if we want to buy chocolates there =p really cool :) and makes us happy. hahaha =D anw back to the chocolate factory:

the guy making chocolate shells. how cool is that! he's like practically playing with chocolate all day long! hahaha. but apparently there is a lot of things u have to take note of when making the different kinds of chocolate.
the best thing of the trip there was of course the fact that we could try out the shells that he had made. wahaha =p


chocolate easter bunny!

and then we went to the chocolate museum!


look at this! thick, creamy chocolate! we were each given a biscuit dipped in this chocolate fountain when we first entered. tasted sooo good!

we then went to the comic museum. yh n darren went in to look at the exhibits but ter, sam n i were not really interested in paying to look at the stuff in there haha so we waited downstairs and took more photos!

smurf!

asterix!

nice red car ahhaa but i have no idea what comic this is from. it is not calvin n hobbes, as i had thought

tin tin!

red rocket!

this really high-class street with a lot of high-class brand names or sth. we bought a couple of boxes of chocolates there =D

some funny statue that we saw on the way. ahha. none of us look like that on our bikes, fortunately =p

and then came dinner time. hahaa. we wanted to try out the mussels and seafood and hence decided on this restaurant, with the nice fireplace in the middle =)



our last day in Belgium was spent visiting Mini Europe and going to Brugges thereafter before heading back to A Taste of Belgium to get our bags and bid farewell to our lovely hosts.

if u look closely, u can still see the moon!



Denmark

Sverige, ie, Sweden =)
what they have here is a mini replica of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden (:

a random but nice ferris wheel that can move when some button is pressed. ahha

Grand Place in Belgium!

i LOVE windmills! hahaha. Holland =)

Bath. yes, there IS a place with such a name =)

Eiffel Tower

Paris - The Arc De Triomphe: stands in the middle of the Place Charles de Gaulle. Napoleon had the 50m high triumphal arch built in 1806 to glorify the Empire. It was finished in 1835. It boasts superb relief sculptures, including Rude's "The departure of the volunteers" known as "La Marseillaise", Etex "The resistance of 1814" and "The peace" and Cortot's "The triumph of 1810".
i've never known much about this place until i just read the brochure that they gave us at the entrance ahha =p the only thing i know abt this arc is that we took photos of it when we went to a mini europe-like place in China's Shenzhen, called 世界之窗 haha =)

leaning tower of Pisa!

Berlin!


Brugge was our final travel destination before we left Belgium. Brugges is basically a city in Belgium that is known for its medieval settings. really touristy place filled with people esp when we were there, since it was a weekend.




love this picture! doesnt it look so nice and medieval somehow? haha =)

we took a canal tour around the area and took even more photos. haha =)


















posted by linez @ 5:20 AM