glimpsesofthejourney's Xanga

A birthday in Paris...

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:18:09 GMT

Turning 23 on the 23rd of March, 23.03 –it has two threes, get it? 23 = two threes – on the earliest Easter Sunday for another 277 years was fantastic! To top of this blessing, I celebrated it in Paris!

I went there by Eurolines bus on Saturday morning and got to see the countryside for a good 4 hours. Upon arrival, I dashed straight to the metro and check in at my hostel on the northeastern side of Paris before dashing out –I was actually jogging- heading to church services the other southern side of the city.

I was a tad late, and the sermon lasted … for a VERY long time. In French.

Once in a while Daniel Philippe helped me do the translation so that was helpful. I suppose I was overly ambitious in using the French Bible that Clement gave me so I swapped it with an English one from another church member.

Sat at the back so we wouldnt distract other ppl with him doing translation so I took this picture while they were singing in French.

They had a group picture after the service, so even though I was not even an ounce French they graciously invited me to stick my head in the picture.

DeePee (Daniel Philippe) introduced me to a lot of people after that and we went to a youth meeting together. They discussed the meaning of the communion service and what it meant to them.

It was past sunset when we left and raining a bit, but DeePee brought me to the Sacre Coeur at Montmarte by night.

We went by metro and saw these two guys dressed up to support their rugby team in a rugby match somewhere that evening. They would blow the airhorn and shout at certain metro stops. Pretty interesting.

Anyway, we reached Montmarte and we could have walked up, but we decided to take a short cable car instead (it was free!).

The view of the Sacre Coeur was beautiful at the top! We did a quick tour of the cathedral and absorbed the view of Paris by night after that. It was absolutely gorgeous!

Popped inside for a quick tour of the place. They were having mass but I managed to snap this picture of the beautiful interior

The view of the city of Paris was even MORE breathtaking!

Check out the vertical ray of light in the distance

I liked this shot of the Eiffel Tower and its beam of light! I was told that between 8.00pm - 8.10pm every night there will be flashes of light around the tower, but sigh... I guess I missed that.

Then, we walked downhill and I bought some postcards –12 for 2Euros! – before we jumped on the metro and went to the Arc de Triomphe.

I only took a few pictures there because I thought I had to get back to the hostel by 10pm –it was actually ‘silence from 10pm onwards, reception open 24 hours’ but oh well. Called it an early night anyway.

I tried to stay up until 12am by planning my next day but the latest time I recall reading was 11.45pm.

MARCH 23RD 2008

I woke up to the gorgeoustest day EVER! The sun was shining, there were only a few clouds, the weather was great and it was going to be the perfect day out!

This was a double blessing because I have been asking lots of people to pray for good weather as the forecast was rain/snow/wind for the entire weekend and how fun would that be, right?

Anyway, I gobbled down the free breakfast and hit the road –I had a big day ahead!

First on the list: Notre Dame Cathedral

The place where Quasimodo rang the bell and lots of other famous people did lots of other famous things...Thought I’d pop by for a Sunday morning mass but I ended up just doing a tour of the cathedral during their mass. The towers were closed –so sad.

Anyway, here are some sights from the inside

A priest conducting Easter morning mass

The beautiful stained glass windows

The beautiful details of the building

Oh well, more time for other things then.

Off I went to walk along the Siene River on the island in the middle of Paris.

This is the Notre Dame by the River Siene.

Absolutely lovely view of the river with the beautiful blue skies in the background. Look at the skies -this couldn't be anything other than a miracle given that the weather forecast was rain/hail/snow/winds.

A break in the island

Lots of boats by the bank

Second on the list: Musee d’Orsay

One of the must do things in Paris, and why not? It’s a wonderful museum and I really enjoyed myself there.

This was what greeted me when the museum opened at 9.30am.

The crowd just before I entered the museum

Surprisingly, the que of a few hundred people in front of me my the time I got there at around 10am disappeared fairly quickly! So efficient, the French…

Here are some snapshots of the insides of the museum.

The entrance hall of the museum

This one is called Hell and it's scupted in white.

One of the gallery rooms

Check out the details in the clouds...

Gotta love love love impressionist art!

Another one by Monet

Anyone who has watched Mr. Bean would know this! I smiled at once when I saw this!

Check out the miniature version of Paris underneath the glass floor!

The view outside the museum. That's the Sacre Cour across the Siene River in the distance

Third on the list: Musee Rodin (pronounced hro-dahn)

Since I bought the museum pass for two days, decided to make full use of it. This was apparently another famous museum full with sculptures.

I must admit I’m more of a painting fan (especially impressionist art!) than looking at sculptures, but since this was a must do, I decided to check it out.

The beautiful garden, which is pretty much the museum with the sculptures in it, made it worth it, if anything...

Here are some of the attractive sculptures there.

The famous 'The Thinker'

I know this is another famouse sculpture, but I can't remember the name right now...

The black version of Hell... I know it doesnt look black in this picture, but believe me it is...

Fourth on the list: cross over the Siene River to the Musee d’Orangerie

This is a picture of the museum with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

This museum was one I really wanted to go to and recommended by a French intern because it has Claude Monet’s collection of his water lily paintings. It did not disappoint.

I could just sit there and stare at his work for hours –I really do like Monet’s work! –but so much to see, so little time, so off I went…

By the way, I’ve covered quite a significant amount of area by foot by now, so I was getting hungry. Decided to get one of those famous crepes to munch on besides some snacks I brought. There were sweet crepes: chocolate, strawberries, apricots, etc and savory ones: cheese (and believe me, LOTS of it on a thin piece of pancake!), ham, chicken, etc. I had a nice strawberry one

Fifth on the list: Musee d’Art Decoratif

Yup, this was a decorative art museum.

Digression: managed to get a glimpse of a statue of Joan of Arc while walking to the museum.

Back to the museum: I walked around, but generally was not very impressed with the museum:

1. The layout of the museum was confusing

2. The doors don’t open correctly and there's not sign to ask you to push or pull

3. The signage of how to get from one exhibit to another was bad so I had to keep back tracking and it was just generally frustrating to walk around.

Or maybe I was just getting tired.

Anyway, it was the only museum where I decided to use an audio guide. This one was free...

Check out the different kinds of chairs!

Sixth on the list: People watching at a park!

Got myself a seat on the lazy chairs at a nearby park and watched children push their boats around the fountain, tourists take pictures, lovers stroll along, etc etc. It was a nice thing to do.

Walked back to the Place de la Concorde after that –Oh, by the way, the Concorde is pretty much the beginning of Champs-Elysées (pronounced shauwm-peh-lee-say). This avenue is like the Fifth Avenue of Paris with all the posh, expensive shops and the Arc de Triomphe is at the other end of the street, and after that the street continues on to the Arc de la Défense.

Anyway, this is how the Place de la Concorde looks like from the Musee d'Orangerie

It has a nice fountain there and something funny happened when I was there. There were loads of tourists sitting around the fountain posing nicely for pictures when suddenly an excessive amount of water squirted out from the foundtain and got them all wet. Hahahaha... good thing I was still a ways away... (more like had no one to take my picture then...)

The huge monument that looks like a miniature version of the Washington DC monument

From here, you get to see:

the Eiffel Tower on the other side of the river

the Champs Elysées and the Arc de Triomphe,

the park where I was and the Musee d’Orangerie. It was quite a central place.

Seventh on the list: Arc de Trimphe

I admit I could have just walked down Champs Elysées from the Concorde but it would have taken forever so I took the metro there instead.

At the bottom of the arch was a memorial to an unknown soldier who died defending the country.

Walking up the 164foot monument was a ginormous task and I was panting by the time I reached the top.

The view from the top was all worthwhile though.

There was an area for exhibitions/souvenir shopping just before the peak and there was a sculpture there of one of the carvings of the arch.

Check out the Eiffel Tower...

...and the Sacre Cour

...and the Arc de la Défense, right at the other end of the Arc the Triomphe

Decided to hang out there as there was no way I could watch sunset from the Eiffel Tower that day –my camera battery was dying and I wasn’t going to risk queuing for 5 hours and climbing up the Eiffel Tower just to have my battery die on me there.

Eight on the list: PARIS FLEA MARKET!

The St-Ouen markets was a top 10 must see in some website, so I took the metro there to check out some more sights.

Didn’t take a lot of pictures because I didn’t want to flash my digital camera around but it was BIG! I only managed to see a tiny bit of it, and that itself was rows and rows of streets just selling clothes/jewelry/touristy things.

Apparently there’s even a map JUST for this market, and there are different sections for clothes, antiques, military trinkets, etc…

Got myself some sort of Arabic kebab and another crepe –this time, a cheese and ham one –while walking around.

Ninth on the list: Back to the Notre Dame Cathedral

I wanted to start buying some souvenirs as I may not have enough time tomorrow and I remember a guy here selling some nice Eiffel Tower keychains pretty cheap.

Unfortunately he wasn’t there but I clocked in for a look at the Evening Mass and got a picture of the lovely candles in it.

Then I decided to walk from here to the other island in the heart of Paris. Found the famous ice cream parlor that was another 'must do' in Paris, but it was closed –and I don’t think I was quite in the mood for anything cold anyway.

Walked back across and along the River Siene and saw the Eiffel Tower's beam again.

Also saw a nice river cruise come down the river

Walked around, passed the Hotel De Ville, which is a supposedly nice place and walked along Rue Rivoli (Rivoli street) which is apparently a nice famous avenue to stroll down.

Tenth on the list: Back to the Montmarte

I went back to the row of shops selling super cheap postcards and decided to get my souvenirs there instead. Was totally pooped out by this time, but I so wanted to check out the La Grande Arc de la Défense so I decided to head there to at least get a look a feel of it by night.

Last on the list: La Grande Arc de la Défense

The trip there was totally worth it! I mean, yeah it was pretty late and quiet so was a bit scary, but it was so so pretty by night!

With my back facing the Arc de la Défense, I could see the entire avenue of Champs-Elysees before me. Totally gorgeous!

Now, it was time to head back and rest.

The two other girls in the dorm were already asleep and I was dead tired myself but, it has been a terrific birthday. The only thing that would have made it better was that if my family and friends were here, but oh well, -great weather, lovely sights, fantastic experiences –what more can you ask for?

A good night's sleep.

Day 2 as a 23 year old

Seems like all the decisions I made today were the wrong ones, but it was nevertheless an interesting day. I wanted to get up and leave the hostel early so I could arrive early at the Eiffel Tower and beat the morning rush.

So did not happen.

Decided to take my time at breakfast as it was going to be a jam packed day.

That extra few minutes probably costed me a longer que at the Eiffel Tower

Decided to choose a locker to put my backpack in while I spend my day galavanting

Lockers were uncooperative and the hostel staff had to help me out. More time wasted.

Decided to go back to the Notre Dame –I know, I’m such a stubborn person, yes? –again!

No keychain guy and that detour cost time. Anyway, rode on the RER (Rapid something something) which was pretty fast (...duh...) and had two floors!

Decided to take my own sweet time to snap pictures of the Eiffel Tower as I was walking towards it

Bad, bad call. Result: More time wasted.

These are some of them anyway... as you can see, weather wasn't that great but it didn't rain (yet) so that's great.

Decided to get in line to take the stairs to the second level (not the peak –you have to buy a separate ticket to go there) instead of the elevator to the top because

1. it was cheaper, had a MUCH MUCH shorter line

2. would give me a bigger sense of achievement

3. seemed more fun than being cramped into a lift with 10 million other tourists.

This was actually a correct decision –for now.

Speaking of lines, this is only on one of the Tower's feet. There are lines at each 'foot' and it drags on and curls till no end...

Then again, I guess there's always been lines...

Anyhow, I was still stuck in line for some time so I decided to snap away...

Can you spot the people on the stairs on the way up?

Decided to stop at the first and second tiers of the tower and snap away at every possible angle like some compulsive histrionic tourist.

Bad, bad decision.

Ran out of memory and wasted time while other smarter tourists first headed to the peak and then made their way down leisurely - I would have done that anyway if I could turn back time.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the first and second tiers...

Packed Paris..

After that, I decided to stand at a corner and delete bad pictures

BAD DECISION! I don’t know how long I spend doing this, but that I could have done that while standing in line to go to the peak from the second level. But noo… I was happily wasting time deleting pictures.

Decided to get in line to buy the tickets to the peak.

Well, no choice, yeah? I’d kick myself if I made it halfway across the world to Paris and didn’t go to the peak.

Decided to just follow the group of people in front of me assuming they were buying tickets to the peak too.

In my defense, we were originally in the correct que. My fault was following them when they realized they didn’t need to be in the ticket que anymore and when they went straight to que for the elevator. Thank God I didn’t spend too much time in the wrong que there so I had to go all the way back to the end of the ticket que AGAIN.

Spent about the next hour or so shivering in line to go up to the peak. Brrr… it was super super windy up there… I was just glad it wasn’t raining like the original forecast said it would be.

Anyway, guess what was the first thing I saw when I got up there?

ICE.

So, yes, it was VERY cold up there, but I was going to freeze my fingers to the bone if I had to to get some shots at the peak.

Check out the Siene River.

I think that's the Arc de la Défense with all the tall office buildings around it. I think there's a GE office in that area there.

More of Paris

The view of the peak of the Tower.

Made my way down again and headed away from the Eiffel Towerand this is how it looks like from the bottom

And, it seems like I was finally rewarded! One of those guys came along jiggling bunches of Eiffel Tower key chains! I was so pleased! He even let me negotiate from the already cheaper than market price! I was so happy!

From here, I took the metro and went to the Louvre museum –THE thing to do in Paris, probably on par with the Eiffel Tower.

It was a good thing I got a museum pass the day before because the Louvre that day was so crowded. Think of the Center Court of Mid Valley Megamall on Christmas or Chinese New Years Eve. That was EXACTLY how the Louvre was. TOTAL CHAOS!

Good thing I managed to weave my way through and visit the exhibits without queuing forever.

They say you can spend a lifetime in the Louvre and never see everything. That’s true. I probably managed to only see 10% of the museum, but that was such a wonderful time for me.

I mean, it’s not everyday you get to take a picture of/with the Mona Lisa or the Feast at Cana. No pictures yet, but they're coming, I promise (xanga capacity filled for the month).

Anyway, walking about this ex-palace was simply awesome. And, unlike the previous museums I visited, they don’t care if you use flash or not. I thought that was interesting –such a world class museum allowing the use of flash photography and all these other museums in Paris being all nervous every time you pull out your camera.

Anyway, I had to leave the Louvre –it was already 3.30pm and my bus leaves at 5.30pm.

However, I wasn’t quite done yet. Needed to walk down Champs Elysées.

For the most part, not a vast majority of the stores attracted me (their prices had a lot to do with it), but I did go in one shop, where I was so so tempted to buy this one top which was on sale and would have fit me really well.

Looking back, it was a good thing I didn’t. Here’s why.

I would have so needed that cash to buy my Thalys train ticket back because I eventually missed my bus back to Brussels.

Yep, me deciding to take a risk and wander off for just a tad longer costs me a good 41Euros because I had to run (I was literally sprinting along the streets, in between trains at metro stations, to and from my hostel) because the trains on Sundays aren’t as frequent.

And me, trying to be all smartypants, thought that taking 2 different metro lines which would save me ONE stop would be faster than sitting on the same line with just a little extra loop. ARGHHH.

Long story short, I missed the bus, the next one was fully booked (or so they said), and the next available one would be in the afternoon on the following day. Not much of an option there, so I had to go to another station to buy a train ticket back to Brussels.

At least I can now say I've taken the Thalys.

At this point, I was just praying that I’d have enough cash to pay for the ticket, but thank God I did. I was thoroughly exhausted from all that walking and running around and standing in queues so I completely knocked out on the one hour ride back home.

Overall, it’s been a fantastic trip and I can say that I have been so blessed to have had the opportunity to travel and to have a birthday in Paris. The perfect weather added to making it all the more wonderful (snow greeted me in Brussels and EVERYTHING was white the morning after that) so what can I say?

I am so BLESSED!

Holland weekend... again!

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:54:48 GMT

I was in Holland again last weekend to celebrate with the Dutch church their 40^th anniversary.

Arrived at Breda on Friday night and took the bus to the Mantels’ house. Such a lovely bus driver! If only Malaysian bus drivers would be so kind to tell you when to get off and that another driver would actually be taking his place so he’ll let the new driver know before hand…

Anyway, watched Hitch with the girls (Maaike and Jirsca) and their mom. After that, Mr. Mantel came back from the airport with his son Jaap and two UK brothers, Ricky and Rob. Nice round of introductions before heading of to bed…

Saturday morning…

Mrs Mantel kindly brought me to a street nearby to take a picture of a windmill –yay! My first so far!

Mieke and their 30 year old dog!

We then went to service in Putten where I met some of the previous youths from the last time I’ve been there and loads of new people.

There was LOADS of singing (in between the 5 or so special music) but it was really cool singing in English while most of the congregation sang in Dutch.

The first part of the service was in Dutch and the headset for non Dutch speaking people who needed translations was not working.

My pictures didn't turn out very well -probably because of the low ceiling, as you can see here.

Mr Tkatch's sermon on was really good - I really miss English sermons!!

(He and Tammy were a tad underdressed because their baggage got lost. I think they've been Londoned).

Anyway, I enjoyed the special music, especially the A cappella choir.

Managed to talk to Tammy Tkatch for a bit and look at the scrapbooks of pictures dating back some time…

Some scrapbooks of the recent history of the Dutch church.

Dinner was absolutely sumptuous. I sat at the youths’ table and had a really good time meeting some of the people there.

Met a girl from China there! Cool, yes?

I have never seen a huge tray of just cooked red cabbage before, but it was interesting. Had loads of raw fish as well.

That said, it was the dessert which really made an impression.

I probably was on a sugar high with at that chocolate and cake and ice cream... It was totally worth it.

Check out some of the desert!

Check out mine!

Oh, and check out this fruit I found! I thought it was kind of cute..

Anyway, headed back to Breda for a bit before heading out again with the Mantels and Rob and Ricky. We took a bendy bus to Tilburg and met up with Ank, her husband Joel, her brother Bjorn and David.

We went to a pub somewhere and then to another club. Ank took quite a few pictures so here they are!

Random one...

Ricky with the two sisters: Maaike and Jirsca

Husband and wife team!

Me and Maaike

Ank and Bjorn

Ank and Maaike

Jirsca -that's Ricky to the right.

Me and Ank

Ricky dancing away. He was totally feeling the music!

The DJ and the floor below

Group pic!!!!

Sunday morning…

Went back to Putten for the ladies meeting –my first ever, actually. Again, good food, great company, inspiring talks by the speakers. Perfect!

This is Tammy Tkatch addressing us about top 3 cultural changes where she talked mostly about the culture of grace.

This is Mrs Henderson talking about adjusting to different cultures as she moved around the world.

The yummylicious part was the chocolate fondue that we had after that.

Took some pictures of the ladies while waiting...

This puppy comes to church every week!

They had the minister from Netherlands and Spain wheel in the cart with the big chef hats so that was interesting.

I think I was still pretty saturated with sugar and chocolate from the night before, but how could you resist free flowing chocolate, right? Good thing I wasn’t the only one!

Took some pics with the church members.

This was one with a lady (Marie Angelique I think) whom I met in Paris and we both kept getting our hair chopped off by another lady who took our picture.

So in good fun we invited the lady to join us and we all semi squatted

And got more people to join in!

Saw this in Dutch at the hotel lobby! Cool!

Managed to snap a pic of Mr. and Mrs. Mantel before I took the bus back to Breda. They’ve been the darlingest hosts ever and I had an amazing weekend.

Snapped some random Holland sights on the bus.

Take note of the by the road.

One of the many lovely canals

Driving along...

My train from Breda stopped at Rosendal and I had to wait for almost an hour before the next train to Brussels would come so I decided to wander about the town –don’t worry, it was safe, I’m alive and kicking.

Here's a view of the inside of the train... I guess it looks like any normal train.. err.. yeah.

Anyway, found the gorgeoustest park tucked away just a few streets from the station. It was late evening when I was there so the pictures look a little blue, but oh wow, I could just hang out there forever!

Check it out.

They even had ducks around who wandered about a feet away from meet! Coolness!

Anyway, headed back to the station and couldn’t resist taking a picture of something typically Dutch –the bicycles! Everyone cycles here, so I suppose no surprise that this relatively small bicycle parking area was full.

Then I noticed a two storey building behind it filled with bikes as well! Amazing!

Gotta love the Dutch!

Had an amazing weekend and sigh… don’t know when I’ll be back again…

I found a pasar malam!!!!!

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:16:37 GMT

It was totally accidental, really...

I came out from the metro to take the tram back to my apartment yesterday when I saw a crowd waiting. It would have taken another 5 minutes or so for my tram to come, but I figured I might as well enjoy the tiny bit of sun and the lovely sunset so I'll just walk back.

So off I went trotting down Avenue Louise past these posh high boutiques, coiffures for men and separate ones for ladies, trendy chocolatiers when I got distracted by a really lovely church building down the end of another street. I decided to turn down that lane to take a closer look. I managed to just snap two pictures –that wasn’t exactly a touristy part of town – before heading back to the main street –Avenue Louise.

While making my U-turn, I got distracted by another tiny lane on my right with some vans and tents at the end of the lane.

Well, curiosity killed the cat. I went down to that mini square and guess what I found?

A pasar malam!!!

Here in the heart of Europe where things close at 5.30pm and you get halaued out if you stay a minute later, I found a place that was full of people and vendors and food after 6.00pm!

It was really great just walking about and looking at the food people buy.

There were small cuts of waffles going at 2.50EUR for 7 pieces, HUGE slabs of cheese, a variety of quiches, your usual meat and greens vendors, and even –get this- their version of lok-lok except that this was a tad more posh. There was a small pasar malam like tent with tall stools and tiny tables for customers to sit and socialize while their LOBSTERS and other expensive seafood simmers.

And interestingly, just across the stall was a booth selling wine! By the cup, by the bottle, cold, room temperature (which was about 3C) or –and get this- BOILED! I kid you not –vin chaud, they call it. which literally means wine hot.

So there sat two huge pots of red wine simmering over a stove and as you walked past it you could smell the aroma of wine all around you –very very different than a typical Malaysian pasar malam.

What was also different was the variety of flowers! They were all so colorful and you could find several stalls in a row selling pots or bouquets of flowers at pretty decent prices! Was so tempted to buy some myself!

Oh, and another thing I found surprising was that they had mangosteens there! There was this stall selling ‘exotic’ things like lady’s finger and mangosteens. There were also other Arabic stall with their sweets, nuts and spices. For a very tiny market, they had quite a lot of variety! Wish I took some pictures, but the people there didn’t look like tourists so I thought I’d just try to blend in this time.

Anyway, I left with a kilo of strawberries, and such a nice feeling knowing that I accidentally discovered local night/evening market! Must go back next time to try some of the local food…

Pouring in Lille

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:13:05 GMT

I went to France for the first time last weekend and it was a fantastic experience.

I followed John Lamb back after services on Saturday and came back on Sunday evening. Just my luck, the heavens opened wide and showered down H20 the entire day on Sunday.

But before that, wanted to share some pictures of people at church –this is Mamie Koka and her great granddaughter who’s 2 months old!

And this is the entire 4 generations starting with Mamie Koka who’s sitting down, her daughter Marie (with glasses), her grand niece Marie (with long hair) and her great grandchildren in the front row.

It was about an hour and a half’s drive from Brussels to Lille and the scenery during the drive was just AMAZING!! Totally breathtaking –such luxurious green open spaces!

Anyway, we met Nhora at the apartment and they brought me out to visit Lille’s city center before dinner.

These are some of the sites around the Grand Place of Lille's city center -yeah, apparently every other European town has their own Grand Place -or Place du Général de Gaulle.

The tall lady that keeps popping up is the Goddess, who supposedly watches over Lille. She was there as a memory that Lille has earned its place in France after resisting the Austrian seige in 1792.

Note the masses of people swarming around Lille before shops close at 7pm.

I think this is the stock exchange building -La Bourse

We walked along the little streets with rows and rows of shops wherever you looked. Found a really nice looking chocolate shop with giant chocolate Easter eggs.

More of the Lille landscape by night...

This picture below is actually the Opera House. It's really beautiful!

And right beside the Opera House is the Chamber of Commerce. Now that's a pretty looking Chamber of Commerce, eh?

Woke up super late the next day so rushed out to see as much of Lille as possible.

I went to the Wazemmes market, which is the largest market in Lille. It can hit up to 50,000 people on Sunday mornings! Unfortunately, it was raining and cold, so I don't think I saw 49,999 people there that day. Oh well....

This is a really unrepresentative shot of the lanes surroinding the market. You can see some vendors towards the right side of the street.

I decided to get lost a bit so I ended up walking in the wrong direction before I ended up at the Grand Place again.

This is how it looks like on a Sunday -almost pindrop silence! Well, ok, no, it wasn't that deserted, but compared to the crowd the night before, this was definitely empty.

Compare this...

With this..

I suppose the weather didn't help either. Anyway, here's some snaptios of the Grand place by day:

That's the lady again watching over the Grand Place with the tip of the Chamber of Commerce coming up.

And watching over me!

This is the Opera House and Chamber of Commerce by day:

The Opera House with it's gorgeous carvings

The details of the architecture is really beautiful!

John, Nhora and I had dinner at a restaurant opposite the Opera House called Hippopotamus!

Surprisingly, the tourism office, which used to be the old Rihour Palace, was open!

This is a shot of the tourism office from the metro station

And one more up close

The largest bookstore in the world was apparently here at Le Furet du Nord, but well, since it was Sunday, and the world stops work on Sundays in France...

It was raining the WHOLE day, and it was cold and wet and windy, so I was slushing about with soggy socks and damp shoes the whole day, trying to figure out where I was with the map on one hand, a huge umbrella in the next, and still trying to take as many pictures as I can.

Occasionally, I'd get some good ones like this where you can actually see the background:

More often than not though, they turn out like this:

Yup, me, my medusa hair and the umbrealla and floor as background details... or...

...me with a tree growing out of my head...

Anyway, I did want to get a little lost, so I wandered off the main square a bit and guess what I found?

This (supposedly) famous P'tit Quinquin statue! It's apparently about a mother trying to get her baby to sleep by telling him stories about how she survived the life of a lace-maker... or something like it.

So, off I went to get even more lost. I walked to another part of the city in the north to visit a certain museum that tells of the Flemish history of Lille, but guess what -they were closed for lunch!

*grumble...

So, while I was there I decided to walk some more and in the meantime visited another market (much, much smaller) and walk through the old cobblestone streets. And guess what I found?

Chocolate tortoises!! (Tian, this picture's for you)

Even more amusing, a long que of people waiting outside a bakery or local boulangerie to buy bread! I was really tempted to join in the fun, but the idea of trudging along with a loaf of bread that would probably be soggy by the end of the day (in addition to a map and umbrella) wasn't that tempting. Anyway, I thought it was an amusing sight nonetheless...

So from here, I decided to walk back to the Tourism Office to find out which other museums are actually open during lunch hour... passed the lady again on my way there...

And guess what? The tourism office was closed for lunch too!

So I decided to consult my trusty half wet map to find a supposedly famous cathedral - I mean, it's Sunday, so this must be the ONE place that should be open, right?

WRONG!

I walked all the way back to where I came from (remember the closed museum?) and found lane leading to the back of the cathedral. Of course, at the time, I didn't know that it was the back of the church, so I wasn't particularly impressed.

I mean, OK, so you have nice scary looking gargoyles all over the top of the building...

And the architecture's great...

...but it was CLOSED!

So I just decided to take a walk around the building.. and voila! A total transformation!

The flowers were starting to bloom, so I thought it made the church look even nicer

Me happy to finally find the first place I had wanted to visit that looked nice!

Anyway, decided to go all the way back to the other end of the city (near the Wazemmes market in the south). So I passed the lady and the Grand Place... again...

This time, I visited the Museum of Fine Art or Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille

There was some sort of carnival/concert going on outside, but because everything was in French, I didn't really know what it was all about.

Anyway, the interior of the museum that first greets you is just... spacious...

Saw some of the exhibits downstairs

Eat (only) an apple a day and end up looking like this...

What fascinates me is that even the building itself is so pretty with its interior design details

Anyway, I decided to go upstairs and take a look at more paintings and sculptures. Some modern art was less than impressive to an ignorant person like me, of course...

But on the whole, it was a good trip. Kept me dry for at least half an hour anyway...

Wasn't long before I was up on my feet and heading to the Tourism Office -again for more museum informations and to buy a new map as Nhora's map was totally damp and peeling.

Since I was there, I decided to take a little tour of the old Palace...

There were windy stairs -not too many -...

that lead to this...

I wanted to visit the Museum la Piscine, but I had to get back to John's place as they wanted to take me somewhere before I went back to Brussels.

This was a picture of an Anglican church just beside the metro stop where John and Nhora live. John sings in a choir and I think he said they performed there once

This is him in the living room of their house. They've got such a cosy and homey place with so many pictures of their family.

John and Nhora

And John and me

I was having such a good time at Lille I decided to postpone my trip back to Brussels by a few hours.

Instead, I went to have a look at La Piscine. I tell you... getting to this museum (I wanted to go there so badly because I saw a lovely picture of it on line) took about every last ounce of energy out of me.

I had to rush to Eurolille to change my ticket time and rush to the train station nearest to the museum. Once I got there, I was given misleading information on how to get to La Piscine museum.

This is the station where I exited.

And this was the street away from the station.

You see that tall building at the end of the street with the pointy top? I was given the impression that all I had to do was walk down this street and the museum will be on my right -that building with the point tower.

So, I briskwalked like MAD -I knew the museum would be closing anytime soon, it was about 5.20 and I'd be luck if they didn't close already at 5.00pm -and I went into the building at the end of the long road. Only to be told that I waaaay overshot and its actually somewhere else.

So I walked and walked some more until I found the museum. To be honest, the outside of it looked nothing like how I expected it to be:

I mean, you'd have to stand at least 100m away in order to see those words!

Anyway, I huffed and puffed and begged my way into the museum -they would be closing in 20 minutes so they let me in for free!!! All that brisk walking and half jogging paid off.

I LOVED THE MUSEUM!

Picture from the other end... isn't it just such a lovely museum?

I took a quick walk on the second floor to snap some pictures... it was just so beautiful! The sun streaming in through the glass windows made the wet and cloudy day seem so far away...

Even the grounds of the museum are so inviting! Peopl can just sit outside and enjoy their evening

Sadly, though I got chased out of the museum -I was actually the LAST -visitor to leave for the day because this lady hurriedly closed those HUGE metal gates behind me once I stepped out. *Note the gorgeous change in weather.

Of course, I couldn't leave without checking out the bookstore for postcards... and this is what the bookstore had in it!

Preetty interesting!

Anyway, some shots of La Piscine from the other side of the grill walls...

The main hall with the curved roof from the outside

This building was across the museum -I have no idea what is is, but i thought it was lovely.

Anyway, the weather had a dramatic change for the better just as I was heading back to the Euralille station to go back to Brussels.

It's been a tiring day and I was pleased to get back to the station, although the walk back seemed so much longer...

Anyway, I reached Eurolille early, so I decided that I'll just walk around while waiting for my train. There was a huge shopping mall attached to the Eurolillle station that is supposedly pretty famous, but when I went there, it was closed... because it was Sunday. Sigh.

I continued walking on some more, and I saw the tip of the Chamber of Commerce from a distance.

I was of course in no shape to walk all the way there and back to the station, but on the way I did walk past Gare de Lille Flanders, which is another huge train station in Lille

After sufficient walking, I decided to head back to the Euralille station. Managed to catch a pretty nice view of the city as sunset was moving in. Thought of Tian when I saw these huge clouds in the distance...

I saw this poster/advertisement at the Euralille station and I couldn't resist taking a picture -I was thinking "Hey, I was there today!!"

Eurolille is really quite gorgeous. It's a nice glass building with really nice paintings on its walls inside...

I got to ride on my first Eurostar train -woo hoo! -so like any jakun tourise I decided to snap some pictures.

The train is LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. This isnt even half of how long it is and it stretches on forever...

Well, after all is said and done, my weekend in Lille was absolutely fantastic and I would definitely like to go there again -under sunnier circumstances, perhaps

Tervuren Africa Museum and park

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:51:16 GMT

My visit to the Tervuren and Africa museum is rather dated as I went about 3 weeks back after dropping by the Grand Place, but the scenes are just so unforgettable I just had to share them!

I’ve actually never been to this part of Brussels on my own before and the directions I was given were, "Yeah, go to Montgomery station, get off and get on tram number 44 and you’ll get off at the museum –it’s gorgeous and there’s a lovely park and pita place there."

Sounded pretty easy to me, until I got to Montgomery and realized I had no clue which tram direction I should take … because I had no idea which stop I was heading to!

Anyway, decided to just get down at the stop that gives me a gut feeling that there would be a park and museum nearby. I ended up sitting on the tram until the end of the terminal, b that WAS the correct stop!

So off I went and explored the area leading to the museum and the gorgeous park with lakes right around the museum.

This is the first thing you see as you walk towards the premise. Nothing outstanding, but the greenery of the area really relaxes you in 2 seconds.

This is actually the front entrance of the area. Isn't it just lovely?

If you keep on walking, this is the site that greets you…

Makes you feel like you can just burst out in song!

So, what do you do? You walk down that path and see if a museum pops up.

I couldn’t help taking a picture of one of the statues on the way down towards the lake…

Finally, when I reached the brink of the lake, I saw that the whole stretch of land to my left and right was just green, and green, and green with bits of lake in between.

Quite a few ducks in the pond

Along the way I met the darlingest couple who kept volunteering to take pictures for me. I would have obliged more, but they kept holding my huge screen digicam right to their eyes -like the old time cameras where you have to peer through those windows. So just taking ONE picture of me with the scenery took much too long so I politely thanked them and went on my way.

If you can imagine walking down the path, the lake would be on your right, and if you were to turn to your left... you'd see the gorgeous museum from afar!

So, what do you do? You take pictures as you walk along the sides of the pond towards the museum!

Spring was in the air -or so it seemed with some of the trees

There were even lovely statues leading up to the museum as well. This is just one of many.

Me getting closer to the museum...

And finally there!!

These are the elephants that you see leading towards the entrance of the museum. In this one, you can see just a tiny bit of the gardens near the museum.

And these shots give you an idea of the short distance you've walked from the lakes.

Me having some fun with the things in the museum

Spotted face -like me!

More sculptures...

Heading back... this is the view of the gardens from the entrance

And this is the view of the museum when you're way off in the gardens

This was another building a bit away from the museum bit I didn't go explore that time.

It was time to go back, so off I went to catch the tram back. The tram station looked rather pretty so here's a picture of the tracks just ahead of the station.

It was a good day out and I was glad to be back on the metro heading home.

Have a good weekend, all!

Sunshine on the window... makes me happy...

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:46:36 GMT

Tian will probably know the lyrics to that song. Those were the first few lines before it went into fully EMO mode.

Anyway, the sun is shining -YAY! - and it's a lovely day in Brussels, but here I am indoors. Sigh. What's worse, I can't see any snippers this time. They made a tiny little shed at the corner of the roof of the EU building across the street so too bad, no pictures of snippers patroling the roof of the EU Commision building across the street for you all.

I probably won't get to blog until next week, so have a deliciously fantastic weekend, you all! I shall be in Brussels this week, so hope the rain and clouds stay away so Xiao Qing can go out to play!

La Bruxelles

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:30:38 GMT

I've spent three weekends in Brussels not counting the Sunday I landed and so far, I've only made a dent in terms of getting to know Belgium.

But before, that, a picture of my apartment from the outside:

I'm at the third floor, the one with the middle balcony and a sack in it.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my weekend visiting Le Grand Place and the Tevuren Museum two weekends ago.

Le Grand Place is supposedly the place to go to in Brussels. It is actually a huge square surrounded on all four sides with grand architectural buildings that just take your breath away by day or by night.

It is near the palace (the royalties actually live there!), La Bourse (the stock market exchange place), and the infamous Manneken Pis. The Manneken Pis (Brabantian for little man pee), is essentially a tiny little statue of a little boy peeing. I am told that the story behind this is that he put out a fire in a town in Brussels by peeing.

Wow.

That’s a lot of pee for a wee little fella. No, seriously!

You would think, ok, well, at least I thought that for such a well known statue –it’s actually a national pride…for some weird reason… don’t ask me why –that it would be large, and grand, and placed in the middle of a square or something so tourists like myself can crowd around it and click our cameras away.

But no.

It’s a two feet tall little statue of a boy, propped up on a little pillar, surrounded on both sides by walls of street corners. So at the end of the day, there’s no height, no location, not enough space for tourists to crowd around and 'ooh and ahh' at a tiny little sculpture that sometimes I’m told pees beer.

Anyway, I went to the Grand Place area by night and by day, so here are some pictures.

This is sort of how the streets leading up to the Grand Place look like at night. They have heaters blowing hot air (sort of like our cool water vapor blowers) and a lot of these restaurants sell seafood.

In this picture you can see the top of one of the buildings surrounding the Grand Place peeping out.

This is me at one of the four walls of the Grand Place on a Saturday night.

Some more buildings surrounding the square...

Top of a the really gorgeous building -I think it's Hôtel de Ville / Stadhuis

And this is the exact same buildings during the day the next morning.

Isnt' the architecture and details just lovely?

Going back to the Manneken Pis, this is the sigh of it up close…

And this is me taking up half the photography-worthy area by night.

Me again by day.

Notice that he’s dressed during the day this time –again, I’m told that there is a person who’s job is to dress the little statue in a different outfit all the time. So for instance if it’s St. Patrick’s day, he’ll be wearing a green outfit, if it’s Christmas, something Christmassy, la di da.

What I really liked about just walking about the area on a Sunday morning was that I got to wander about the Palace.

It’s this huge looong stretch of building –didn’t look as heavily guarded as Buckingham, but I guess you don’t get a more famous royalty family than the Great Brits – and it was just lovely strolling along the building.

A bit of it up close

Facing the palace was a lovely park that I unfortunately did not have time to stroll in because I wanted to wander off and get lost in Brussels a bit more.

A little bit further down the Palace is this gorgeous building that overlooks the rest of the city because it’s up on a hill. This is a picture of the building with my back facing the rest of the city.

And this is the view you get from the building overlooking Brussels –well, a part of it, at least.

And this, this gorgeous view (pardon the weather) is what you see as you stroll downhill!

Too bad they were doing some construction work on one end, other wise it would have been gorgeous!

Anyway, decided to walk down this path with through the rows of bushes and hope to bump into something interesting on the other side.

And this is what I found!

Some sights of the streets. This is actually taken in the day from me standing right in front of the Waffle Factory shop. And yes, I resisted the tempation to have another one of those waffles.

Some typical buildings, European style, where every 3 or 4 windows of a building looks different so you’ll hardly see the same design of a building twice.

Check out the musical instrument! I don't quite know what to call it.

If you're going to be famous one day, make sure you mention in your will you don't want statues of you looking like this...

Walked a bit further and reached La Bourse, the stock market building. Even this looked historical!

Some sights of downtown Brussels. Take note that if the sky is gray, it can really change the mood of things. I mean, just imagine this picture with nice blue skies!

Anyway, this is all for now. I shall show you even more pictures of my Tervuren museum trip later.

Bonne weekend!

Its raining snow!! ... or something like that.

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 10:39:32 GMT

It's either

1) raining snow

2) snowing hail or

3) hailing ice

I don’t know, I’m confused.

It's not rain because rain splashes on the ground.

It’s not snow, or snowflakes, rather, because snow melts when it hits the ground.

I suppose I would probably call it ice at the end of the day, because it’s tiny bits of ice that ‘rains’ down and actually sticks on your coat and doesn’t melt until a minute or so. Its about the size of sago, so its really quite tiny, and it bounces around the pavement once its hits the ground, unlike rain and snow which becomes water droplets.

The funny thing was that it wasn’t even cold! Sure, it was probably about 7Celcius that evening, but I thought it would probably be rain instead of sago sized iceballs.

Anyway, I was on the bus back from work a few evenings ago when suddenly these white looking bits of sago started pelting down. I was so excited –but of course, ‘pahn cool’ among ang-mohs who probably see this all the time – so I got off at the next stop and walked back to my apartment instead of taking the bus.

It was just so nice walking around that I walked past my apartment up this little hilly bit and just explored my area a little bit –I found so many more laundromats and supermarkets around my area! And here I was trying to googlemap Laundromats…

Anyway, it was just lovely to have these bits of icy things hit your face and stick on your coat… sigh. Too bad I didn’t have my camera with me, but oh well… tiny bits of iceballs on the ground probably wouldn’t turn out so good. If ever it happens again, though I’ll try to get a good shot of it.

Jakun-ness to the max…

Holland oh Holland!

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 07:54:25 GMT

I made a weekend trip to Holland a few days ago to visit a church member family in Breda. It was a pretty eventful trip as I took the evening train after work and came back on Sunday night.

It took about 2 hours from Brussels to Breda and when I arrived, it was just POURING! In fact, it was pouring so much we had a storm –anticipated 100km/hr –on Friday night. I could hear the wind and rain throughout the night but it didn’t disturb my sleep that much.

I finally met the Mantel family (Arie and Mieke) and their two daughters. They took me to church on Saturday and it was just eating and eating the whole day!

There was cake after service, lunch where I had croquette/kroket (a deep fried pork thing stuck in between two buns like a burger), snacks during their Succeedclub meeting (a youth meeting where young people get to improve their presentation skills –got to meet a bunch of great people there!), snacks after the meeting, and drinks and dinner and drinks at Utrecht afterwards.

This is a picture of most of the young people who came for the service. There were a few more who only came after that for the Succeedclub meeting in the afternoon.

That's Mieke in pink!

Some of them practicing for a choir at the end of March for the church's 40th anniversary.

This was the whole group at the Succeedclub meeting.

Some of them discussing the topics during the meeting: should the government raise fast food taxes to reduce obesity? Is the US really a democratic country?

Back to the Saturday night in Utrecht.

Utrecht is actually the 3^rd largest city in Holland (1st being Amsterdam, 2^nd being Rotterdam), and it is now home to Micah, the older daughter who just moved into her new apartment the day I went to bum there with her. We went to her new place after walking about Utrecht a bit on Saturday evening after the Succeedclub meeting.

Managed to take some gorgeous pictures of the architecture and canals there at Utrecht too.

Some parts of the streets were packed!

A pub (nice looking one, too!) that was packed and smoky so we didn't go there.

Gorgeous cathedral that you can see from everywhere in Utrecht because it's just so tall.

This is what you see as you walk under the arch of the cathedral:

Here’s a Coffee Shop. Unlike in the rest of the world where Coffee Shops actually mean… well, coffee shops were you have your caffeine fix, these shops here in Holland, these are places where you get your weed and marijuana fix. You can smell some as you walk past these areas actually –I actually didn’t know I was sniffing them until Micah commented that it was stinking.

The lovely canals which are EVERYWHERE in Holland since most of Holland is below sea level. In fact, the Amsterdam airport can be up to 5m BELOW sea level when it rains in the North Sea.

There are bicycles everywhere -can almost get knocked down by one if you're an engrossed tourist like me just focusing on taking pictures!

Anyway, for dinner on Saturday night, we went to a pizzeria tucked into this part of the city –actually, UNDER the city just by the canal. You go in through a door and you enter rooms and rooms of low ceiling dining places filled with people eating Italian food. The ambience is just great! The pizzas though, were even greater –quite literally in terms of size.

Here's a picture of the place from the outside. As you can see, its below walking level as there are bikes parked on top of the roof on the road above the restaurant.

This is what you'll see as you come out of the pizzeria -the lovely canals!

This is a picture of my pizza –I couldn’t even finish it even though I was starving by that time.

And this is a picture of Johanes with his rolled up pizza –pretty cool looking!

Anyway, we walked around and hung out at a lounge after that. I was a really relaxing atmosphere. Nice music, comfortable couches and great lighting. Not too crowded at all, until we left. Don’t worry, no alcohol for me.

This was actually at a pub before we went for dinner. It was a nice place to just hang out and chat.

The people here:

Micah's first from the left and her younger sis Jirsca is 3rd from right,

Joel (4th from right) and his wife (1st from right) and her brother (3rd from left),

Johanes (2nd from right) and his sister (4th from right) and brother (3rd from right).

David, who is the only one without any family relations here (he did bring his girlfriend Rose -which means dandruf in Dutch! -later for dinner) is 2nd from left.

At about almost midnight we arrived at Micah’s new place –the first time she’s seen it too with all her bags of stuff there. We roughed it out at had a really good sleep before heading out to Amsterdam on Sunday afternoon.

This is a view of the outside of the house from Micah's room. People are so patriotic even the roofs are orange. Hahaha...

Amsterdam.

OK, good news: weather was perfect –sunny and windy, slightly cold, but overall it couldn’t be better (thanks for the prayers!). Lots of great attractions and things to see. Absolutely lovely.

Bad news: I forgot my camera!

Bummer of bummers, really.

But, oh well. I made do by trying to memorize everything I saw –the sights, the sounds, well, not so much the smell (of weed –not that I can identify it let alone remember it, really) but its too bad not to be able to document the experience, all the same.

Micah and I looked for places that sell disposable cameras but I only managed to buy one as we were leaving, so didn’t take many pictures in that one either. So sad. I guess that means no pictures of Amsterdam for you all to see this time.

Anyway, I did manage to get a trip on the canal which gave me a fairly good tour of the place. Managed to do a bit of walking around as well and visited the Van Gogh museum.

Had to rush back to Utrecht early in the evening as we wanted to get a bite before I headed off to Breda to take the train back to Brussels. All in all, there wasn’t a whole lot of time spent there and I’d love to go back, but it was an eventful day trip nonetheless.

Was dead tired taking a bus and 2 trains back to Brussels so I totally konked out on the train back. All in all, it was a good weekend!

You gotta love the people… and the food…

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:31:04 GMT

Aright, so maybe Belgian food isn’t anything to scream and shout about. Portions here are allegedly smaller than in Holland, and their national food (like our nasi lemak, I'm guessing) is boiled mussels slurped down with a healthy gulp of Belgian beer... and doubly fried French fries.

By the way, McDonalds apparently cooks it fries once. Here in Belgian, they do it twice –safety measure… you can never be too sure, eh? It’s so severely fattening but it’s pretty good stuff. I had Belgian frittes once at a small eating place in the middle of a square.

*slight diversion: did you know that French fries actually originated from Belgium? This was what a French intern told me ‘Those stupid Americans hear a bunch of people speaking French and eating frittes and what do they do? They think, Ah, we shall call it French fries!’.

Anyway, this place Maison Antoine (mey-zohn-twahn instead of mey-zohn-AHN-twahn) has been around for 53 years, and is NEVER without a que or people salivating at its super deep fried everything on the menu (except the wide variety of sauces for the frittes). This place is only a short walk from my office and offers the highest cholesterol food in the entire country, probably, but their fries/frittes are really good. The portions were so generous that I had to share it. It was, needless to say, drenched in oil and I was too paiseh to press the oil out.

Too bad no pics of that.

What I did get to try was some African (Congo) food. Fried (again) plantaines were served twice at the past prayer meeting and pot luck service because we were celebrating the birthday of Mami Koka (I'm probably mispelling her name) -the eldest member of the church.

This is us at her house where I had my frist green wine from Portugal along with the meal.

This is Jeanine, Mami Koka and Lela (... or at least that's how their names sound) at Mami Koka's house.

This was at the service hall the next week singing her birthday song. That's Nora Lamb (I know that spelling for sure!) next to Mami Koka and other church members. Gerard Claude, the one who pastors France and Belgium is on the extreme left.

I also managed to visit the Grand Place, the place to go if you're in Brussels. Went there by night and by day to get a feel of the square and its gorgeous buildings. Also went there the following day to see the difference.

But, since we're on the topic of food, let's stick with it.

Clement and I stumbled upon a shop near a corner that sells waffles. Aapparently, another big thing here is waffles. The name of the place is The Waffle Factory and their waffles are SO GOOD!

Here's the guy selling the waffles.

A close up...

I walked away from that shop with chocolate sauce and ice cream/icing all over my right HAND -it was dripping down from it. So, so good.

This is Clement with our waffles!

Me tucking in

Bon apetit tout le monde!