Day 1 24/5/08 - Belgium

London -> Brussels

Highlight

• Another uneventful and on time ride on the Eurostar, a lot more holiday people this time instead of the seasonal traveller because of the long weekend.
• Our hotel was very far away from the Gare du Midi.
• Caught the tram to St Catherines place, bypassing Chinatown and its cheap groceries. We will definitely come here to stock up next time.
• Walked past cool seafood shops and restaurants, including our first chocolatier, Frederic Blondel, which actually turned out to have the best chocolate for the whole trip, but we didn’t know that at the time, so me picked up only 100g of it (5).
• Lunch at La Mer du Nord, a stand up seafood bar with cool waiter,s a barbie and a deep fryer, lots of tourists drinking wine and having fun in the sun.
• After our light lunch, immediately got some fruites from the cart and ate it in the shadow of the blackened church.
• Walked towards the chocolate shop, stopped by carreFour to check out the chocolate prices, which are indeed very cheap.
• Leonidas was the second stop. This is really expensive o/seas, but here, is dirt cheap. We got some fruit jellies and a gift box for work.
• The cool St Nicolas church, with shops built into its walls.
• Walked past the touristy area, filled with lots of chocolate shops.
• 3rd chocolate shop, Neuhas, where we bumped into Joelle and Wendy.
• Lots of people were in the central square because of the jazz festival, the Grande Place was filled with tables and chairs.
• A few doors down was Godiva, our 4th shop. We got some free samples and aunty stocked up on a few boxes.
• Weaved through more tourists, with waffle and lace galore, ducked into a lot of shops for samples and to compare prices.
• Our 5th stop, La Grande Belgique, but only because the chocolate was cheap in comparison. You can get 100g for €2.90.
• Visited the market to get some quirky beer candle.
• 6th, Chocopolis, because we got free samples, felt obliged to buy something. However, their supermarket variety chocolate was quite cheap so we ended up having lots and lots of stuff to carry around.
• Went on the mural walk to see giant murals painted on random walls around town. There was a big difference in qualities in this mural, some were awe-inspiring, others faded and graffitied over.
• Walked past the cool district with cool t-shirt and bag shops, but didn’t think they were cheap enough to buy any.
• Past the ethnic area where we picked up some cheap breakfast.
• Walked past Le Grande Place again for a brief jazz stop, but there were so many people you couldn’t even stand.
• Walked pass Brussel’s famous pissing statues: Manneken Pis and Zinneke Pis
• Back home to drop off chocolates before dinner, where Slokky got lot on the way and we ended up being 15 minutes late.
• The host was funny and kept telling us that we had booked for four when I had clearly booked for three (toptable can attest to that). Nevertheless, she was still very nice to us, just kept mentioning that fact to us though.
• The food was too salty but otherwise quite nice.
• We bumped into Helen and Oliver at the restaurant as well.
• We were going to stay afterwards to listen to some more jazz, but it started raining, and aunty was tired, so we retired back to the hotel to watch Eurovision.

Food

• A lot of chocolates from:
  • Frederic Blondel
  • Neuhas
  • Chocopolis
  • Godiva
  • Le Grande Belgique
• lunch at La Mer du Nord:
  • soup of the North (€3.50) with toasties and grated cheese
  • tuna steak with salad (€12)
• frites with mayo (€3)
• fruit nougat from Moeder Babelutte
• dinner at Le Clef du Champs:
  • olvies and dip
  • bread with French butter
  • asparagus with messel sauce
  • chicken livers
  • lamb shanks
  • boudin blanc
  • orange and ginger soup
  • profiterole with ice cream and chocolate sauce
  • feuillate of Camembert from Normandy
  • apple schnappe with speculoos