[Europe Trip] On visiting Brussels

On the 5th day of our trip, we left London and travelled further down to Brussels by Eurostar train. We checked out from the hotel early, made the payment, and headed to St.Pancras International station. We arrived even before the gate was opened. Boarding time was at 7.35am GMT. During the wait and inside the train, we were surrounded by a group of Korean tourists with their constant chattering. Wah, it almost didn't feel like being in europe, I had to remind myself.. haha..

We had only a total of 3 hours in Brussels. Initially we wanted to spend a night in this city, but abandoned the thought as people told us there's almost nothing to see in Brussels. So instead we spared 3 hours, in between train arrival from London and departure to Amsterdam.

Arrived at Bruxelles Midi station at 11am (GMT+1). Spent the first half an hour for finding a locker to rent, and looking for exact coins to rent the lockers. It just didn't occur to us that we would need exact coins for lockers, and there was no machine nearby to exchange our notes to coins. How troublesome. In the end we bought some postcards and chocolates to get some change and asked another tourists to exchange our €2 coin to €1s.


Made our way out from the station and successfully navigated the streets to the city's trademark Manneken Pis, by asking some passers-by and consulting the city maps displayed on the road sides (how thoughtful of the government!) I'd known that the pissing boy statue was small so it was no surprise to me when seeing him for real. The surprise was the number of tourists that were actually there to stare at him! Someone once said that it's much more amusing to gawk at the tourists' reactions upon seeing the boy than seeing the boy itself. That day he was standing proudly naked without any costumes.

Bought a Belgian waffle, we didn't really like it, it's too dry and not chewy. Some friends advised me beforehand to buy leonidas chocolates from Brussels, but I couldn't find any stores selling them. apparently the brand was only sold in certain stores and we couldn't be bothered to locate the stores.

Went further to Grand'Place. It was basically a square field surrounded by hotels, museums and cafes. It looked grand, due to the surrounding buildings' architecture and style, just like in storybooks and movies, especially the cobblestoned streets.

Satisfied that we'd seen Manneken Pis and Grand'Place, we went further to locate Jeanneke Pis. It's a modern statue of a girl pissing, newly built to complement the pissing boy. It complements the boy geographically, by being about the same distance away on the other side of Grand'Place. It was a challenge to find her, as she was much less known. When we were just about to give up, we finally found her, squatting on a small fountain in a secluded dead-end alley, far from the bustling crowd. And she was enclosed in a small grotto, covered almost fully by a metal fence. That was what we called gender inequality.

30 minutes prior to train departure, we rushed back to Bruxelles-Midi on foot. Reached the station just in time to collect our backpacks and ran to the platform to board the train. According to the rules, by right we should validate our railpass prior to using it for the first time. Due to the rush, if we validated it we'd miss the train, so we were prepared to just pay the fine of €20. But when the conductor inspected our pass, he didn't impose any fine.. *sigh of relief*

During our brief visit in Brussels, the presence of Tintin could be felt from the poster displayed in Brussels-Midi station, Tintin's head put up on top of a building, as well as some graffiti on the walls. If I had more time I'd love to visit the Belgian Comic Strip Centre.

Three words for Brussels: medieval, chocolatey, rustic