Thursday, July 12, 2012

Brussels

It was pouring down cats and dogs as we left our Amsterdam hotel for the bakery to quickly grab our breakfasts. We then hopped on the tram and headed our way to Amsterdam Centraal. We were super early so we grabbed a large cup of fruit tea. The rain made the air so cold that the tea felt so good as it warmed up my body.








We then caught a high speed train to Belgium. We were in 1st class with Free Wifi. That was pretty nice. The service was much better than an aeroplane! I enjoyed a chocolate croissant and free drinks. Mum was so funny, she was so cautious about her teas after our Amsterdam incident. She was like, "Deena, what if this is that special Earl Grey Green tea again?"








I assured her that a Parisian first class train would not serve that kinda thing so discretely! Anyway, we finally made it to Belgium. It wasn't long at all, just a mere 2 hours on the high speed train! We got off and… ran into our friends that we made on that long 7 hour journey to Amsterdam!

The mechanics of one piano key







What luck that we crashed into them 3 days later in another country! We finally exchanged e-mails and said our farewells after catching up! Then we made our way to our hotel. The metro here is more like an underground tram. Its pretty cute. Mum nearly got pickpocketed, geez Louise are they quick! It wasn't even 5 minutes before mum swung her backpack to her front for precaution and the bag was already open. Another minute and they might've gotten away with her wallet. So crazy and ridiculous!






Splat.

Looks like a shisha but its an instrument

We checked into the hotel and made our way to explore our only full day in Brussels. First we went to the Musical Instruments Museum. It was in this gorgeous, eerie, almost gothic old building. They've collected about 8000 instruments here but of course I won't be posting photos of every single one.. but I found it hard to narrow it down too! So I'm sorry if you ain't into it. I absolutely enjoyed the museum though! I can't believe some of these buggers came from those stained glass window days. I couldn't read and learn anything as the whole museum was in French and Dutch. Not a huge tourist thing.








Afterwards, we walked to Grand Palace where we picked up our knick knacks. It was pretty but we were really excited to go see Manneken Pis. That statue fountain of the little boy pissing. Yeah, that let us down.. when we got there we thought it was the replica before we got to the actual one but nope, that was it.








It was about the size of my forearm. Pissing happily. We got bored pretty quickly so we stuffed our faces with Belgian chocolates until our bellies protruded outwards! Then we just so happened to stumble upon the shopping street as we walked the long distance back to our hotel.







Some weird photoshoot! Oh that reminds me, some weird Milano fashion designer guy was like OH MY GOD SUCH A UNIQUE FACE YOU MUST COME TO MILANO WORK FOR ME AND MY CLOTHES! And I was just like…. looool. He said my mixed face was unique. Nice to hear *strut strut pout pout*

Mum goes crazy over department stores. Especially in Europe because they have her style of clothes. So she left me to hurriedly explore as they were closing soon. I LOST HER. I couldn't find her anywhere. I was so frantic because she's such a lost, she always just follows me and my directions. I knew she wouldn't even know how to get back to the hotel. I found her after about an hour - she scared me though!








She expected me to go find her in the miscellaneous changing rooms that were scattered everywhere. Haha I was like, are you nuts!? You want me to open the curtains to check if its you? And she said no, I wanted you to call my name out!

Imagine me like a 6 year old, lost without her mum screaming "MUUUUUMMMYYY!!!!" Hahahaha.








We then made our way home, the area our hotel is in (Saint Catherine) is loaded with seafood restaurants, which do us no good because we're both allergic so we settled for Thai. And this Thai restaurant was slightly exy but THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD! We were so happy that we left a hefty tip!
Happy tummies, happy day!




Yella boy




Our plan for tomorrow is to let mum finish exploring her dear, dear department store in the morning. Then head to the airport to zoom off to Ireland! They're definitely going to be wondering why I'm carrying an Irish last name but an Asian face!

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