Brussels, Belgium - Day 1
Hey Ich ist back! Been on a 4 days Belgium/Holland backpack tour and jus back last nite. Too many nice pics to upload, and probably 1000 pics these 4 days. This time our tour group has shrank by half, as the Thai Gals got a midterm test and Eugene went on his London expedition, so its down to me, JH & WQ. We stayed overnight at Geneva airport as our flight was 625am, my 1st time and hopefully the last time sleeping in an airport. Really an experience. Flight via EasyJet was great, only 30% capacity and it's certainly tons better than RyanAir. And for the 4 days, we never saw the sun as the sky was gloomy throughout =(
We took a train from Brussels airport to the city, which is supposed to take no more than 30min. After 1 hrs plus, I was puzzled by the sights I was seeing along the journey. It feels like we are moving towards the countryside, as I could only see wide patches of grass with cows(the black and white cows which we see in Fresh Milk Ads on TV). And then we realized we all overslept on the train, yes all 3 of us, and got to this ulu city Mons and alighted to change a train back. 2 hrs wasted just by falling asleep on the train, all thanks to the bad night we had in the airport.
Brussels - The gourmet haven for chocoholics and frites lovers, feels so much less touristy(which is great) than most cities I been so far. Our 1st thought was to try the Famous Frites(fries). In case anyone of u still tink Fries are from France(just becos its French Fries), it's time to give the credit to Belgium, as they are the ones who invented Fries, not the French. We were excited to c the 1st Frites shop along the way, and hurriedly went to buy a packet of large frites as the stall vendors were waving to us.
From more than 10 sauces to choose from, we chose Samurai(sweet spicy sauce) which tasted heavenly. It's a unique taste we cant find in Spore and the frites are simply perfect on a cold day.
Then we walked through Galeries St Hubert, an old arcade shopping mall which has famous chocolate names like Godiva and Neuhouse, which both cost a bomb. Godiva wasnt exactly much cheaper, sadly =(
The display of aplenty gourmet chocolates, really nice to just see and gawk =)
And then we went to the Grand Place, the most famous square in Brussels, where the famous town hall stood. 
Walking on, we tried and shared our 1st(unknowingly & unfortunately) and last chocolate waffle in the whole trip, as we were overly obsessed with frites. The generous spread of chocolate over the thick and crisp waffle, yummylicious~
A stone's throw was the famous landmark of Belgium(which I dun see why it is so), the Peeing Boy. The story behind this miniature statue in an unnoticed corner of Brussels is rather lame, so I shall not elaborate. It was truly a 'spectacle'.
We had our one and only gourmet lunch, cost us around 25 sing each. Authetic Belgium cuisine. It was a 3 course meal, and I adventurously tried the famous Belgium Mussels, though I, never a big fan of shell-seafood like Oysters and Clams(though I realy love the clams in Vietnam). The mussels was kinda horrible though JH and WQ said it's quite good. Maybe it's my problem, as I cannot stand the overbearing smell, and to think I finished at least 1/3 of the overly huge portion of Mussels. WQ raw Salmon was damn good, though I must confess I never like raw salmon.
As we were behind schedule, we hurriedly took the metro to see the famous Atomium, one of Brussels great structure. The shape of it is an Iron Crystal magnified 165 billion times, a very unique structure indeed.
Our last stop for Brussels was the royal palace, which appeared to be cold and deserted, nothing spectacular.
Bruges, BelgiumWe took an evening train to another city, Bruges as we are spending a night there. I was so captivated by this medieval town alongthe bus ride, as the buildings are all so exquisite and pretty though it was already dark. We took a night stroll along the peaceful streets on the cold night, and saw the famous buildings illuminated.
We walked for more than 30 minutes and decided to have frites again as it was simply too cold and windy. We tried the Joppie sauce(sweet sauce with onions) this time round and OMG, its the nicest sauce I ever tasted in my life! Why isit only found in Belguium, and not Spore?!! It's really heavenly and I cannot describe how delirous we were at that moment while we were eating, while the taste is still fresh on my mind right now as im typing. Then we had our very late dinner again at another Frites shop and each greedily ordered a large frites.
Shall blog about Bruges soon, watchout~
