Kitty came over to Dublin to visit us (Fri, Nov 18 to Sun, Nov 20) for a few days after our trip in Belgium and Amsterdam. Again, I was the tour guide because Bo was busy working. We went to the Christ Church, Dublin Castle, GPO, and City centre on the first day. Then I made a pasta dinner for everyone. In the evening we enjoyed a movie together (Die Hard 3).
The next day, Bo took a day off to hang out with Kitty. We also had two of our room mates join us to take Kitty around town. Our first stop was to Trinity Collage. We bumped into Reily and his friend right in front of the Book of Kells building. They managed to get us in, so we took some time to view the Book of Kells. Afterwards, we took the bus to the Dundrum shopping mall. Kitty and I both agreed that shopping in Canada is much more affordable. In the evening, we went to a nice Chinese restaurant and Reily joined us for dinner. Afterwards, Reily took us to an Irish Pub, where both Kitty and I had our first half pint of Guiness. It took forever for me to finish it and it tasted awful. But I think Kitty didn't find the taste to be as bad.
On day 3, we didn't do much. We slept in and didn't leave till noon. We went to Kilmainham Gaol and by the time we left the jail, it was too last to go do anything else so we took a trip to city centre to get some 'hotpot' groceries for dinner. We prepared a nice farewell hotpot meal for Kitty. Kitty went to bed quite early cause she had to get up at 4am the next morning to catch her flight. Since I’m such a good friend, I also got up at 4am to help Kitty with her luggage and waved down a taxi for her.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Amsterdam (Part Two)
Tuesday November 15, 2005
The train ride to Amsterdam was enjoyable. Kitty likes to ride on trains in Europe because: ‘the scenery is so nice’, but I was still feeling the effects of my cold medication and I fell asleep quite quickly. I think the pills made me really drowsy. 3 hours later, we arrived in Amsterdam. We went straight to the Tourist Office in the train station. We booked a Bike Tour scheduled for the next day. Then we headed off to find our houseboat, the Passenger Ship Maria Alberta, where we will be staying at for the next 2 nights. However, we arrived a bit early (an hour before we said we were going to arrive) and no one was on board. It was raining, no one was home, we were standing outside the boat thinking, what were we going to do? We went to a near by building, a ship like green building, called ‘Nemo’, a Science Centre for kids. We were so lucky, the guy at the Nemo center was extremely nice. He helped us contact the ship owner. It turns out he was on the other end of the boat. Kitty did almost all of the talking cause I was still feeling a little strange.
We thanked the Nemo guy and headed back to the boat. When we got onboard, the size of our room shocked us a bit. It was so incredibly small. I think the room (including the washroom) was a little bigger than my office cubical space! A slightly bigger room with 3 beds was available for only 9 euros more, so we took that one instead. Good thing we did cause later that night, we experienced difficulty of getting to the top bunk. Kitty wanted to take the top bunk, it was extremely challenging but after numerous tries, she was finally able to get on. Needless to say, she decided to the take bottom one. It was a lot of fun trying different ways to get up. I was laughing so hard watching Kitty struggling away that my eyes started to water!
After settling down, we ventured out to find a nice place to eat. Before we left, I asked for some restaurant recommendations from the boat owner. He was nice enough to point us to the right direction. Little did we know, we were about to walk straight into the Red Light District! At first sight, we were in a bit of a shock. Quoted right out of Kitty’s blog: “the first ‘Display’ we saw was this very fat woman with little clothes on”. Then we eventually made our way to Chinatown and decided to eat at the place with the most Chinese patrons. The food was good, though I couldn’t be certain because I was still ill and couldn’t taste many things. We headed back out and passed the Red Light District again. I didn’t want to be rude so I tried not to stare. We took quick short strides down the ‘window’ alley and to please our curiosity, took small quick glances at the different windows. We found a supermarket, and loaded up on fruit and water before returning to our ship.
Wednesday November 16, 2005
The bed on board the Maria Alberta boat was surprisingly comfortable, and this morning we slept in till around 9:00 when breakfast was called. At the breakfast table, we met a couple, Wendy & Andre from LA. Wendy is involved in a Shakespeare theatre production, A Midsummer Night Dream, in Berlin and Andre is a Special Ed. Teacher visiting his girlfriend. Andre was nice enough to offer us a map and let us read through his Lonely Planet book. We also shared some useful travel tips. It took us a while to get ready and we finally made it out by 11:00. Kitty saw the Stella McCartney line in H&M and immediately bought a few of her pieces. We ate our lunch at a very stylish-looking McDonalds before rushing to the Yellow Bike Company for our Bike Tour. As we waited at the Bike Shop, we were told that the tour was cancelled because these other people didn’t show up and there weren’t enough people for a tour. They were trying to scare us away by saying that the weather was going to be crappy and a bike tour wouldn’t be pleasant. They’ve succeeded but now we have to get back to the tourist office at the train station to get our refund. Luckily, it wasn’t very far away. Then we decided to drop off Kitty’s newly acquired treasures back to the ship before heading off to the Van Gogh Museum.
We could have walked 45 minutes to the Van Gogh Museum, but opted for the tram instead. The museum had almost the complete collection of paintings he did throughout different stages of his life. The museum also did a good job on placing information cards for each painting on the background with detail description for the paintings. The museum also displayed some of Van Gogh’s personal items, like his closet and some of his letters. Kitty thought the museum was very interesting and a must-see for art fans. I was not an art fan but I was not bored there. We spent a long enough while in there that my tummy started to growl. Luckily I had some crackers with me. Before we left, Kitty sent her parents a video message informing them that she was safe and enjoying her vacation. Then I sent Bo a video message while Kitty was in the background, popping her head up all around behind me.
We headed to a Chinese restaurant again for dinner because the food we had the other night was very good! Afterwards, we walked around and ended up on the other side of the Red Light District. We walked by an exotic sex museum, I was curious and wanted to go in but Kitty declined to go with me, so we skipped it. We made our way to Dam Square and took some pictures. Then suddenly it started pouring! We went for cover and waited for the rain to die down a bit before proceeding. Interesting thing about Amsterdam was that it could start to pour from absolutely no warning at all, then after a few minutes, the rain could stop completely.
I read on the net that soft drugs were legal in Amsterdam and can easily be bought in any ‘coffee shops’. These shops don’t even sell coffee and if you want to have coffee, visit a café instead. We walked by this shop that was selling food with drugs as one of the ingredients. Kitty talked me into trying a hemp lollipop with her. I could definitely taste the hemp but there wasn’t enough of it to get us high.
Thursday November 17, 2005
We were woken up at 9am by a knock on our door, followed by “Breakfast is ready!” That was our breakfast call. Today, like the day before, we didn’t make it out to the breakfast table until 9:30. We joined Andre and Wendy for another morning meal. We were checking out today but we didn’t want to carry our stuff around with us so we stored it at the train lockers. It was close to noon before we left the train station. Our flight was at around 20:30 so we still had sometime left in Amsterdam. We went for a cannel cruise and took lots of pictures. We saw many houseboats and got a short history of how Amsterdam came to be.
After our cannel tour, we took the tram to Anne Franks House even though it was walking distance. From the outside, it was hard to tell which building was Anne Franks because all the buildings look very similar and there wasn’t an obvious sign indicating where it was. They did a good job preserving it. We spent quite a long time in there and my tummy was growling again near the end. Kitty and I read every single piece of information card and watched every video in there. The Anne Frank story was quite sad and tragic. She seemed like such a mature girl from her writings, but she was only around 15 years old. She was a very brave girl.
After leaving the Anne Franks House, we took pictures with her (statue) before going for a bit to eat. We were pressed for time so we ended up at McDonalds. Did you know that McD’s charges everyone (even customers) who uses the toilet? I remember paying to go to the toilet at every place I went to in Amsterdam (except for the museums)
Then we rushed off to H&M to get as much shopping time as possible. Kitty bought a few more bags of clothes and I also joined in on the fun and bought a bag too. The sales and selection in Amsterdam was much better than Ireland. We got in about an hour of shopping before having to leave to catch our flight to Dublin. Kitty will be staying with us in Dublin till Monday November 20. I will be playing host again because Bo will be busy working.
The train ride to Amsterdam was enjoyable. Kitty likes to ride on trains in Europe because: ‘the scenery is so nice’, but I was still feeling the effects of my cold medication and I fell asleep quite quickly. I think the pills made me really drowsy. 3 hours later, we arrived in Amsterdam. We went straight to the Tourist Office in the train station. We booked a Bike Tour scheduled for the next day. Then we headed off to find our houseboat, the Passenger Ship Maria Alberta, where we will be staying at for the next 2 nights. However, we arrived a bit early (an hour before we said we were going to arrive) and no one was on board. It was raining, no one was home, we were standing outside the boat thinking, what were we going to do? We went to a near by building, a ship like green building, called ‘Nemo’, a Science Centre for kids. We were so lucky, the guy at the Nemo center was extremely nice. He helped us contact the ship owner. It turns out he was on the other end of the boat. Kitty did almost all of the talking cause I was still feeling a little strange.
We thanked the Nemo guy and headed back to the boat. When we got onboard, the size of our room shocked us a bit. It was so incredibly small. I think the room (including the washroom) was a little bigger than my office cubical space! A slightly bigger room with 3 beds was available for only 9 euros more, so we took that one instead. Good thing we did cause later that night, we experienced difficulty of getting to the top bunk. Kitty wanted to take the top bunk, it was extremely challenging but after numerous tries, she was finally able to get on. Needless to say, she decided to the take bottom one. It was a lot of fun trying different ways to get up. I was laughing so hard watching Kitty struggling away that my eyes started to water!
After settling down, we ventured out to find a nice place to eat. Before we left, I asked for some restaurant recommendations from the boat owner. He was nice enough to point us to the right direction. Little did we know, we were about to walk straight into the Red Light District! At first sight, we were in a bit of a shock. Quoted right out of Kitty’s blog: “the first ‘Display’ we saw was this very fat woman with little clothes on”. Then we eventually made our way to Chinatown and decided to eat at the place with the most Chinese patrons. The food was good, though I couldn’t be certain because I was still ill and couldn’t taste many things. We headed back out and passed the Red Light District again. I didn’t want to be rude so I tried not to stare. We took quick short strides down the ‘window’ alley and to please our curiosity, took small quick glances at the different windows. We found a supermarket, and loaded up on fruit and water before returning to our ship.
Wednesday November 16, 2005
The bed on board the Maria Alberta boat was surprisingly comfortable, and this morning we slept in till around 9:00 when breakfast was called. At the breakfast table, we met a couple, Wendy & Andre from LA. Wendy is involved in a Shakespeare theatre production, A Midsummer Night Dream, in Berlin and Andre is a Special Ed. Teacher visiting his girlfriend. Andre was nice enough to offer us a map and let us read through his Lonely Planet book. We also shared some useful travel tips. It took us a while to get ready and we finally made it out by 11:00. Kitty saw the Stella McCartney line in H&M and immediately bought a few of her pieces. We ate our lunch at a very stylish-looking McDonalds before rushing to the Yellow Bike Company for our Bike Tour. As we waited at the Bike Shop, we were told that the tour was cancelled because these other people didn’t show up and there weren’t enough people for a tour. They were trying to scare us away by saying that the weather was going to be crappy and a bike tour wouldn’t be pleasant. They’ve succeeded but now we have to get back to the tourist office at the train station to get our refund. Luckily, it wasn’t very far away. Then we decided to drop off Kitty’s newly acquired treasures back to the ship before heading off to the Van Gogh Museum.
We could have walked 45 minutes to the Van Gogh Museum, but opted for the tram instead. The museum had almost the complete collection of paintings he did throughout different stages of his life. The museum also did a good job on placing information cards for each painting on the background with detail description for the paintings. The museum also displayed some of Van Gogh’s personal items, like his closet and some of his letters. Kitty thought the museum was very interesting and a must-see for art fans. I was not an art fan but I was not bored there. We spent a long enough while in there that my tummy started to growl. Luckily I had some crackers with me. Before we left, Kitty sent her parents a video message informing them that she was safe and enjoying her vacation. Then I sent Bo a video message while Kitty was in the background, popping her head up all around behind me.
We headed to a Chinese restaurant again for dinner because the food we had the other night was very good! Afterwards, we walked around and ended up on the other side of the Red Light District. We walked by an exotic sex museum, I was curious and wanted to go in but Kitty declined to go with me, so we skipped it. We made our way to Dam Square and took some pictures. Then suddenly it started pouring! We went for cover and waited for the rain to die down a bit before proceeding. Interesting thing about Amsterdam was that it could start to pour from absolutely no warning at all, then after a few minutes, the rain could stop completely.
I read on the net that soft drugs were legal in Amsterdam and can easily be bought in any ‘coffee shops’. These shops don’t even sell coffee and if you want to have coffee, visit a café instead. We walked by this shop that was selling food with drugs as one of the ingredients. Kitty talked me into trying a hemp lollipop with her. I could definitely taste the hemp but there wasn’t enough of it to get us high.
Thursday November 17, 2005
We were woken up at 9am by a knock on our door, followed by “Breakfast is ready!” That was our breakfast call. Today, like the day before, we didn’t make it out to the breakfast table until 9:30. We joined Andre and Wendy for another morning meal. We were checking out today but we didn’t want to carry our stuff around with us so we stored it at the train lockers. It was close to noon before we left the train station. Our flight was at around 20:30 so we still had sometime left in Amsterdam. We went for a cannel cruise and took lots of pictures. We saw many houseboats and got a short history of how Amsterdam came to be.
After our cannel tour, we took the tram to Anne Franks House even though it was walking distance. From the outside, it was hard to tell which building was Anne Franks because all the buildings look very similar and there wasn’t an obvious sign indicating where it was. They did a good job preserving it. We spent quite a long time in there and my tummy was growling again near the end. Kitty and I read every single piece of information card and watched every video in there. The Anne Frank story was quite sad and tragic. She seemed like such a mature girl from her writings, but she was only around 15 years old. She was a very brave girl.
After leaving the Anne Franks House, we took pictures with her (statue) before going for a bit to eat. We were pressed for time so we ended up at McDonalds. Did you know that McD’s charges everyone (even customers) who uses the toilet? I remember paying to go to the toilet at every place I went to in Amsterdam (except for the museums)
Then we rushed off to H&M to get as much shopping time as possible. Kitty bought a few more bags of clothes and I also joined in on the fun and bought a bag too. The sales and selection in Amsterdam was much better than Ireland. We got in about an hour of shopping before having to leave to catch our flight to Dublin. Kitty will be staying with us in Dublin till Monday November 20. I will be playing host again because Bo will be busy working.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Our trip to Brussels... (Part One)
After countless hours of chatting, emailing, and planning with Kitty, we’ve finally decided on a trip together! We went to Brussels from Saturday November 12, 2005 to Tuesday November 15, 2005 then Bo will return to Dublin but Kitty and I will be going on to Amsterdam, where we will be staying in a houseboat. Then we will be returning to Dublin on Thursday November 17, where Kitty will spend a few more days with us before going back to Calgary on an early Monday morning flight. Wow, 10 days traveling with Kitty, let’s see how long we can put up with each other! =) I caught a cold two days before the start of this trip, so that kind of sucked but the trip turned out alright.
We woke up quite late on Saturday and started packing. By the time we left for the airport, it was close to 10:30 am and our flight was at noon. Luckily, the public transport system worked out alright and we were able to check in before the cut off time. Next time, we must prep better and leave earlier.
Our flight arrived in Brussels, Belgium at around 2:45 local time. Kitty’s flight from Calgary to Frankfurt to Brussels was suppose to arrive an hour before us, but we soon found out that she missed her connection flight in Frankfurt. We waited and hour for her before she popped out of the arrival gates. I didn’t recognize her at first cause she mentioned that she was going to arrive in ‘Apprentice’ style, so I was looking for someone with a cute pully luggage. It turns out that they ‘misplaced’ her luggage. See Kitty’s blog for details of her journey in the trip and why she missed the connection flight.
We took the Airport Express to get to Brussels' central station. It was only 2.8 Euro and only took about 15 minutes. We decided to spend a bit more and booked a budget hotel (Hotel Opera) for our 3 nights stay. For some reason, all the hotels in Brussels have a higher rate on the weekdays. Their weekends start on Friday and their weekdays start on Sunday. So we end up paying 85 euros for our first night and 100 euros per day on Sunday and Monday night. We spent around half an hour finding our hotel and passed by Grand Place. It's a big courtyard surrounded by historic buildings. Since it was Saturday evening there were a lot of people there. Didn’t stay too long cuz the place was close to our hotel and we knew we were gonna come back. Finally, we found Hotel Opera on one of the busy streets. The hotel was not too bad except that the third bed in our room was obviously smaller than the other 2. It was like Goldie Locks walking into the room of the three bears. So we took turns sleeping on the miniature bed and we play rock, paper, and scissors on who gets the 2 extra pillows.
We decided to walk around the area around the hotel after we settled down. Kitty wanted to look for the new Stella McCartney collection at H&M but they were already sold out when we got there. :( We found a huge electronics store and Bo saw that 7xx Euro camera he wanted! It didn’t take long for Bo to decide to get the camera. After he got his new toy, he sort of ignored us through the entire trip. At around this time, Kitty looked like she was too tired to stay awake and it was only 6pm. Not surprising considering her 10+ hour flight time. She’s probably been up for over 24 hours now.
We were all getting hungry so it was time to find a place to eat. We walked around the area surrounding Grand Place again to find a decent restaurant to dine in. Then this waiter approached and sweet talked us into going in. We went with him cuz we were simply too hungry and too tired to keep looking. Although, Kitty did read somewhere that the restaurants on a particular street around this area is famous as some sort of a tourist trap…
The food at the restaurant was not too bad. Kitty ordered mussels and it was actually quite good. Bo and I ordered salmon, but it was not the best. At this time, I was so thirsty that all I wanted was water, so we each ordered a bottle of water… and this was one of the biggest rip-offs at the restaurant. They charged us 4 Euro for a bottle of water! I did expect to pay a premium for ordering water but… (no, the price was not listed on the menu) then they went on to charge us 9 euros for a small plate of garlic bread… needless to say, we didn’t go there again. We should of pay more attention to Kitty’s article on the tourist trap. (We dined at other restaurants in Brussels and water was all reasonably priced)
At last we were back to our hotel. Kitty’s luggage has not arrived yet so she will have to suffer without her toiletry kit. Kitty took a shower first then she was instantly out seconds after hitting the sac. I guess the jet leg has something to do with that…
Sunday, November 13th 2005
We slept in today and almost missed our breakfast, which ends at 11:00am today at the hotel. The food was like hostel style, but it was ok. We walked to Grand Place again to snap some pictures and went to the tourist centre to grab some information on the Atomium. Then we headed over to Manneken Pis, a bronze statue of a peeing boy, which was just steps away from the Grand Place. We spotted him surrounded by tourists. He was so small! Kitty read on the net that he has around 600 costumes but today, he was naked! Not very interesting indeed but we just have to go see it cuz we are tourists! There was this stall across from the boy selling Escargots (Sea Snails)! We bought a portion to share and it was delicious…
As we walked towards central station, a girl approached us and offered Hop On Hop Off bus tickets for less. As gullible and lazy tourist, we accepted her offer and brought our first Hop On Hop Off ticket ever. The scenery to the Atomium was quite good, but it was pretty cold around this time of the year so I was freezing my little nose off on the top of the open top tour bus. Personally, I prefer the metro since it was the faster and warmer way to get there. Then again, Bo had a blast with his new camera.
The Hop On Hope Off bus took us around the city, which is truly beautiful, and we hopped off at the Atomium. It's a pity that it's closed for renovation until early 2006 but we still wanted to go there to take a look at the structure and take pictures. Kitty likes to look at different architecture and this one is truly brilliant! The Atomium was designed for the International Exhibition of Brussels that was held in 1958. It was supposed to be demolished afterwards, but we’re so glad they didn’t. The design is based on the magnified molecule of an atom, and there are 9 spheres joined by tubes, made from steel and covered in shiny aluminum. We also took a bunch of silly pictures outside of the Atomium to test out the speed of Bo's new toy. Kitty and I took turns jumping, so Bo can take pictures of us in mid-air position. Then we went for lunch at the cafes near by Atomium.
In the evening, we went back to the city centre and hung around in the hotel room cause Kitty’s luggage was suppose to arrive soon. She was so happy when it did and she went for her toiletry kit with no time to lose. She took over 10 minutes to pamper her face! Afterwards, we went to dined in a Japanese restaurant. Kitty and I ordered a Miso Ramen but we suspected that it was just a normal instant noodle with tonkatsu! After dinner, Kitty finally gave in to all the waffle stands and had to try one. I wasn’t too interested cause I can still remember the waffle that Bo and I couldn’t finish at the Eiffel tower in Paris. Kitty really liked it, especially when it was cold at night and the waffle was quite hot. Both of them thought that the waffle was nothing compared to "Chicken Eggs" from HK!
Monday, November 14th 2005
We had another late breakfast (almost missed it again) and we decided to walk around the City Centre in the morning. Bo and Kitty had Belgium Fries, a not so healthy lunch. We found this booth in the middle of a square in front of a church. They thought that the taste of the fries was just: “AWESOME, so crisp and fresh!” I had a kabab, and they put fries in it too. I think it was the first time I had fries put into my kabab. In the afternoon we decided to make use of our Hop On Hop Off bus ticket and went for another ride around the city. Too bad we couldn't hop off the bus cause there are only a few buses running in weekdays and we were on the last one, at around 2:30pm.
We made it back to Central Station by 18:00. We made plans, by text message, to meet up with Bo's cousin for dinner. But somehow, the word ‘tomorrow’ was skipped when Bo was reading the message, so we were actually on our own for tonight. By this time, we were hungry and tired again. We decide to picnic in our hotel room and got food from the supermarket. We ended up having wine, bread, cheese, smoked salmon, fresh fruit and caviar. The food was quite tasty!
Tuesday, November 15th 2005.
Again, we were almost late for our hotel breakfast. But the girl looking after the food was quite nice. She made sure that there was enough bread and ham for us. This afternoon, we hung around the Grand Place area because Kitty and I was going to catch the train from the Central Station to Amsterdam. We left Bo in Brussels with strict instructions on the number of boxes of Belgium chocolates he was to purchase for us. Our train ride took around 3 hrs and it was around 6pm by the time we arrived in Amsterdam. Bo was most likely on his way to meet his cousin, Jie. Bo and I stayed at her place when we were visiting Berlin, Germany. She lives in Berlin on the weekends and flies to Brussels to work on the weekdays.
Kitty has her version of the trip on her blog (there's a link to her blog on my 'Links & Fella Bloggers' drop down, near the top left corner) and I did incorporate some parts of her blog in mine. Part Two of our trip, in Amsterdam... coming soon!
We woke up quite late on Saturday and started packing. By the time we left for the airport, it was close to 10:30 am and our flight was at noon. Luckily, the public transport system worked out alright and we were able to check in before the cut off time. Next time, we must prep better and leave earlier.
Our flight arrived in Brussels, Belgium at around 2:45 local time. Kitty’s flight from Calgary to Frankfurt to Brussels was suppose to arrive an hour before us, but we soon found out that she missed her connection flight in Frankfurt. We waited and hour for her before she popped out of the arrival gates. I didn’t recognize her at first cause she mentioned that she was going to arrive in ‘Apprentice’ style, so I was looking for someone with a cute pully luggage. It turns out that they ‘misplaced’ her luggage. See Kitty’s blog for details of her journey in the trip and why she missed the connection flight.
We took the Airport Express to get to Brussels' central station. It was only 2.8 Euro and only took about 15 minutes. We decided to spend a bit more and booked a budget hotel (Hotel Opera) for our 3 nights stay. For some reason, all the hotels in Brussels have a higher rate on the weekdays. Their weekends start on Friday and their weekdays start on Sunday. So we end up paying 85 euros for our first night and 100 euros per day on Sunday and Monday night. We spent around half an hour finding our hotel and passed by Grand Place. It's a big courtyard surrounded by historic buildings. Since it was Saturday evening there were a lot of people there. Didn’t stay too long cuz the place was close to our hotel and we knew we were gonna come back. Finally, we found Hotel Opera on one of the busy streets. The hotel was not too bad except that the third bed in our room was obviously smaller than the other 2. It was like Goldie Locks walking into the room of the three bears. So we took turns sleeping on the miniature bed and we play rock, paper, and scissors on who gets the 2 extra pillows.
We decided to walk around the area around the hotel after we settled down. Kitty wanted to look for the new Stella McCartney collection at H&M but they were already sold out when we got there. :( We found a huge electronics store and Bo saw that 7xx Euro camera he wanted! It didn’t take long for Bo to decide to get the camera. After he got his new toy, he sort of ignored us through the entire trip. At around this time, Kitty looked like she was too tired to stay awake and it was only 6pm. Not surprising considering her 10+ hour flight time. She’s probably been up for over 24 hours now.
We were all getting hungry so it was time to find a place to eat. We walked around the area surrounding Grand Place again to find a decent restaurant to dine in. Then this waiter approached and sweet talked us into going in. We went with him cuz we were simply too hungry and too tired to keep looking. Although, Kitty did read somewhere that the restaurants on a particular street around this area is famous as some sort of a tourist trap…
The food at the restaurant was not too bad. Kitty ordered mussels and it was actually quite good. Bo and I ordered salmon, but it was not the best. At this time, I was so thirsty that all I wanted was water, so we each ordered a bottle of water… and this was one of the biggest rip-offs at the restaurant. They charged us 4 Euro for a bottle of water! I did expect to pay a premium for ordering water but… (no, the price was not listed on the menu) then they went on to charge us 9 euros for a small plate of garlic bread… needless to say, we didn’t go there again. We should of pay more attention to Kitty’s article on the tourist trap. (We dined at other restaurants in Brussels and water was all reasonably priced)
At last we were back to our hotel. Kitty’s luggage has not arrived yet so she will have to suffer without her toiletry kit. Kitty took a shower first then she was instantly out seconds after hitting the sac. I guess the jet leg has something to do with that…
Sunday, November 13th 2005
We slept in today and almost missed our breakfast, which ends at 11:00am today at the hotel. The food was like hostel style, but it was ok. We walked to Grand Place again to snap some pictures and went to the tourist centre to grab some information on the Atomium. Then we headed over to Manneken Pis, a bronze statue of a peeing boy, which was just steps away from the Grand Place. We spotted him surrounded by tourists. He was so small! Kitty read on the net that he has around 600 costumes but today, he was naked! Not very interesting indeed but we just have to go see it cuz we are tourists! There was this stall across from the boy selling Escargots (Sea Snails)! We bought a portion to share and it was delicious…
As we walked towards central station, a girl approached us and offered Hop On Hop Off bus tickets for less. As gullible and lazy tourist, we accepted her offer and brought our first Hop On Hop Off ticket ever. The scenery to the Atomium was quite good, but it was pretty cold around this time of the year so I was freezing my little nose off on the top of the open top tour bus. Personally, I prefer the metro since it was the faster and warmer way to get there. Then again, Bo had a blast with his new camera.
The Hop On Hope Off bus took us around the city, which is truly beautiful, and we hopped off at the Atomium. It's a pity that it's closed for renovation until early 2006 but we still wanted to go there to take a look at the structure and take pictures. Kitty likes to look at different architecture and this one is truly brilliant! The Atomium was designed for the International Exhibition of Brussels that was held in 1958. It was supposed to be demolished afterwards, but we’re so glad they didn’t. The design is based on the magnified molecule of an atom, and there are 9 spheres joined by tubes, made from steel and covered in shiny aluminum. We also took a bunch of silly pictures outside of the Atomium to test out the speed of Bo's new toy. Kitty and I took turns jumping, so Bo can take pictures of us in mid-air position. Then we went for lunch at the cafes near by Atomium.
In the evening, we went back to the city centre and hung around in the hotel room cause Kitty’s luggage was suppose to arrive soon. She was so happy when it did and she went for her toiletry kit with no time to lose. She took over 10 minutes to pamper her face! Afterwards, we went to dined in a Japanese restaurant. Kitty and I ordered a Miso Ramen but we suspected that it was just a normal instant noodle with tonkatsu! After dinner, Kitty finally gave in to all the waffle stands and had to try one. I wasn’t too interested cause I can still remember the waffle that Bo and I couldn’t finish at the Eiffel tower in Paris. Kitty really liked it, especially when it was cold at night and the waffle was quite hot. Both of them thought that the waffle was nothing compared to "Chicken Eggs" from HK!
Monday, November 14th 2005
We had another late breakfast (almost missed it again) and we decided to walk around the City Centre in the morning. Bo and Kitty had Belgium Fries, a not so healthy lunch. We found this booth in the middle of a square in front of a church. They thought that the taste of the fries was just: “AWESOME, so crisp and fresh!” I had a kabab, and they put fries in it too. I think it was the first time I had fries put into my kabab. In the afternoon we decided to make use of our Hop On Hop Off bus ticket and went for another ride around the city. Too bad we couldn't hop off the bus cause there are only a few buses running in weekdays and we were on the last one, at around 2:30pm.
We made it back to Central Station by 18:00. We made plans, by text message, to meet up with Bo's cousin for dinner. But somehow, the word ‘tomorrow’ was skipped when Bo was reading the message, so we were actually on our own for tonight. By this time, we were hungry and tired again. We decide to picnic in our hotel room and got food from the supermarket. We ended up having wine, bread, cheese, smoked salmon, fresh fruit and caviar. The food was quite tasty!
Tuesday, November 15th 2005.
Again, we were almost late for our hotel breakfast. But the girl looking after the food was quite nice. She made sure that there was enough bread and ham for us. This afternoon, we hung around the Grand Place area because Kitty and I was going to catch the train from the Central Station to Amsterdam. We left Bo in Brussels with strict instructions on the number of boxes of Belgium chocolates he was to purchase for us. Our train ride took around 3 hrs and it was around 6pm by the time we arrived in Amsterdam. Bo was most likely on his way to meet his cousin, Jie. Bo and I stayed at her place when we were visiting Berlin, Germany. She lives in Berlin on the weekends and flies to Brussels to work on the weekdays.
Kitty has her version of the trip on her blog (there's a link to her blog on my 'Links & Fella Bloggers' drop down, near the top left corner) and I did incorporate some parts of her blog in mine. Part Two of our trip, in Amsterdam... coming soon!
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