Some Like it Haute

belgium. part one.

my trip to belgum would have been preferably less eventful, had i not lose my camera on the last day. yes, all pictures of our edible encounters, remarkable scenary and intersting shops we came across GONE. but more importantly, my sony camera was a birthday present from my parents and was quintessence of my being. and since i have not lost anything of such high material value before, i am feeling rather shitty about it.

i travelled with st nicks girls, aizhen and yvonne... and i must say, we packed qite a schedule for three days!

after arrival and two short rail/ bus rides, we checked into our hostel chab vincent van gogh, which was pretty impressive compared to my hostel in london. though only beds and blankets were provided, the three of us shared a small double-storey loft which i would like to think of as a mini budget villa. no strangers, no unnecessary noises, no awkward moments.. i could get used to this.

upon settling down, we visited La Grand-Place immediately. basically the place to see in brussels, La Grand-Place was a huge square surrounded by rich, ornate-looking buildings.. where cafes, pubs, chocolatiers, seafood restaurants and waffles shops lined her streets in glory of tourism.

we made a mistake of walking into this row of restaurants where proprietors shamelessly called out to you, stretching their asian vocabulary of ni hao and konichiwas.. basically, it was like singapore's boat quay. in fact, it was so glaringly inappropiate, i was actually frightened by one lady who kept gesturing to us despite the fact that we were already seated in her rival's restaurant! scary stuff.

after lunch, we wandered around town with navigation skills that would have put former geography teachers to shame. honestly, after visiting Le Sablon and the back alleys that ran through the more touristy areas, we were pretty much done with sight-seeing.

we had dinner at a casual eatery that didn't warrant much interest apart from the fact that we sat in there for a really long time, ordering main courses coffee and eventually supper.. because it was too darn cold out there. oddly enough, brussels felt colder, even by copenhagen standards.

day 2 saw us waking up at the crack of dawn to join a guided bus tour to gent and brugge. we spent only the morning at gent, visiting the Saint Bravo Cathedral and spent a better part of the day at brugge. with short architectureal infrastructure, bridges and stony roads, both towns were characteristically european, however, it felt a little unreal.. almost like i was walking on a universal studio movie set.

we only arrived back in brussels at around seven-ish and we immediately rushed over to Théâtre royal de la monnaie as aizhen and yvonne were eager to catch a contemporary dance performance Raga for the Rainy Season / A Love Supreme. we hadn't ourchased tickets yet and it was a good minutes before the show started where we eventually found our way to the crowded box office.

the extremely budget-conscience me was initially worried about ticket prices, this being the royal theatre and it seemed like a well-received performance.. to my surprise, our tickets only cost eight euros each.. pretty good deal huh? the amusing aspect was that our seats were foldable chairs lined up in front of the front row, making from front front row seats. well, better than being chucked at the back.

it was a performance, different to what i usually catch and frankly-speaking, a little too avant garde for my liking. perhaps this is very revealing of my character as i prefer the existence of formation and structure, instead of uncoordinated spontaniety.. an enlightening experiencen nonetheless.

day 3. if not for the ten am check out time and the untimely arrival of our housekeeper, i think we would have slept our weary butts through morning.. but we eventually packed up, left our baggages in a locker and made our way to the atomium and caught up with last minute chocolate shopping. day 3 wasn't exactly action packed because of the dip in temperature and i think we were all pretty much tempted to stay in a very very delightful restaurant called Vincent till departure.