Tag: Belgium

Volume 2, Day 55-56

It felt amazing to wake up after a full nights sleep and I enjoyed the quiet morning over a leisurely breakfast and productive work session. As I was packing up to check out before noon (!), the owner mentioned to me that he was also going to Brussels in the afternoon and would be happy to give me a lift. I readily accepted and after moving my luggage out of the dorm, settled down to kill three more hours before out departure.

Since I was partially sure that my next hostel wouldn’t have a kitchen, I made sure to cook a lunch and work on dwindling down the leftover groceries (pasta, olives, pesto). I have started working on a project, and it is occupying more and more of my mental bandwidth. It’s a good thing I am heading to Germany soon, where I can shift gears to less active tourism.

It was finally time to go, and I was surprised to discover that my ride was an orange Ford pickup truck. You certainly don’t see many of those around Europe! The hostel owner is a pretty interesting guy. He’s been in the business for ten years and despite being caught up in the daily stresses still manages to convey the laid back vibe of The Dude. It didn’t take long to reach Brussels, but the traffic in the capital city was nightmarish. Rather than just dropping me anywhere, I was very kindly delivered to the location of my hostel, near the Midi Gare.

The neighborhoods around train stations tend to be rather colorful and this was no exception. I’m just going to call it little Morocco without any substantial basis. One street radiating out from the train station housed a carnival that stretched at least a mile in the narrow median. Some rides swooped out over the roadway and I wouldn’t be surprised if an extra tall bus or truck lost some paint from the roof.

My hostel was cheap and clean, but fairly characterless. After checking in at the lobby/cafe, I went around the corner to the entrance of the hostel and up two flights of stairs. The dorm room was spacious and had a fairly immaculate en suite bathroom. The open windows caught the breeze and kept the air fresh and cool. There was a guy from Brazil chilling on one bed with his smartphone and I chatted briefly with a Welsh guy who came in a little later. I regret choosing a lower bunk because there wasn’t much headspace.

Since the weather was fine and I had hours of sunlight remaining, I decided to explore a bit of Brussels and start crossing off tourist attractions. The first stop was Mannekin Pis, small fountain of a little boy peeing. There is a famous story of a town celebrating a recent victory in battle, but the enemies secretly put a bomb under the city hall. A little boy discovers it and uses his urine to put out the fuse. I read it in a Chinese textbook and having not actually paid attention to the where and when, had been keeping my eyes open for the statue commemorating the event. Et voila.

The fountain is just south of the Grand Plac (Groot Markt), a central square surrounded by grand gothic looking buildings. I would call it the heart of tourist Brussels as all the streets and alleys in the vicinity are full of shops peddling souvenirs, chips, waffles, and chocolates. It was a bit touristy and crowded, but refreshing to see somewhat reasonably priced cafes competing through their daily menus (under 20 euros!) on signboards. Though significantly cheaper than Bruges, I still wasn’t about to spring for a fancy dinner, but it was nice to see nonetheless and planted some seeds in my mind.

Coming across a supermarket, I popped in to buy a big bottle of mineral water, a baguette, and some cheese. I carried those back to the hostel and finished off the last of my olives and pesto in a hearty calorie packed dinner. Though it was still light out, I just hung out in the room for a bit until I was ready to sleep.

Running Total: 20593.4 RMB (USD 2967.92)
Daily Average: 374.4 RMB (USD 53.96)

Volume 2, Day 53-54

The mysterious roommate woke up at the crack of dawn, packed silently and left, as if it was a normal thing to only spend the hours of 12-7am in a hostel. Of course, the worse part, which I failed to mention previously is that the windows had been shut all night. The room has a tendency to get really stuffy and the air quality is downright bad. But, if the windows remain open, the loud conversations of the all hours bar immediately below waft in as if on a PA system. That’s why I carry earplugs, but the sleeping figure got to determine the standard without discussion.

Since it wasn’t raining any more and even looked like the streets had dried out a bit, I decided to get in a morning run — a 9 km route circling the city via the main waterways. It was good and the other couple had also checked out by the time I returned from the exercise. I showered, packed up, and was eager to get out of the room and somewhere else.

I dragged my suitcase over to a bus stop and rode to the same train station I had passed on my morning jog. It took longer to wait for and ride a bus than it would have been to just walk (with a backpack), but such are the tradeoffs for this giant suitcase. I had to queue at the ticket window in order to buy a train ticket in cash, but I was pleasantly surprised by the reasonableness of the price (6.6 euros, no extra charges). There was a train about once an hour and I decided to wait for the next train and get a coffee.

It was a pleasant ride to Gent-Sint-Pieter on the local train. The train was clean and I had an entire car to myself. The station looked unfinished as I got off the train and the area in front of the station was somewhat deserted. It was also surprisingly chilly. I had been researching the costs/benefits of springing for a Ghent City Pass in order to see a couple of the sights and get free rides on buses/trams, but I couldn’t find a tourist information point anywhere in or near the station. So, I simply followed the directions of Google Maps and waited for the bus which would drop me off about a block away from my target hostel on the opposite side of the city (again!). It was also 3 euros for a fair short bus ride.

I was dropped much closer than I expected and found the hostel to be very nice. The owner was full of tips and after lugging my suitcase up two flights of narrow stairs, I found a spacious, clean, modern looking 6-bed dorm with a fire escape/balcony. After chatting a few minutes with my Indonesian roommate, who was also helping out at the hostel, I popped over to a supermarket to grab some lunch, including some snacks and a cold beer.

I ate, took a nap, had a coffee and a snack, then finally got ready to go out exploring the city.

It was the last day of a 10-day long festival that is held every summer. It is apparently a big deal, with the entire city center being included in the festival. I set off to explore and saw more things than I can describe, but overall it reminded me of the Carnival of Cultures in Berlin. There were stages of various sizes scattered about town with live music, squares converted into dance floors, food trucks selling overpriced junk food outnumbered by beer sellers 4-1 using “regional” refillable glasses (i.e. have to return to the right part of town to get deposit on glass back). All the bars and street side cafes were packed to the rafters while street performers squatted on every corner and one plaza was turned into a full-on carnival with bumper cars and other amusement park rides. I poked my head into a Carrefour Express next to the carnival and saw that their fridge was understocked and overpriced.

I popped into a church to find it converted into a beer hall with a “Last Supper” platter of bar snacks. The alcoves of the church were filled with grotesque sculptures juxtaposed with objects of worship through a separate ongoing art exhibit.

In another corner of town, I took a turn and found myself in front of a medieval castle and another plaza with a stage of music. I ducked into a corner store to get some liquid courage to get me through this nightmarish acid trip of a festival. Along a major canal, I found what I would call the main stage 30 ft tall scaffolding with big screens, a narrow band of a mosh pit between the stage and the canal with a bar area opposite the canal.

As interesting as the festival was, I definitely needed to get in touch with some other people to make the experience more memorable. So, I pulled out Couchsurfing to check on who was available for the “Hangout” feature. It actually worked and I met up with one guy from Pakistan who lived in the outskirts of Ghent. After walking around a bit we camped out in front of the McDonald’s as one after another couchsurfer coalesced into a group. It took a while and there were a few aimless loops around to kill time as people made their way to the rendezvous point. The whole process was quite torturous as I had finished my beer and was tapping my foot to get another one.

Eventually, the group was complete and I wasn’t the only person down to get a drink. We worked our way from Nachtwinkel (Night Shop, a.k.a. Belgium’s version of convenience stores) grabbing their overpriced (but still more affordable than from the stalls) drinks. It was a motley group covering a few continents and much of the time was spent making introductions and coordinating with more people joining in. One of the girls, a recent PhD graduate, was hungry and we spent a while looking for food, even once going into a church that was converted into a food court. The food prices were still unreasonably and I was grateful for my late and filling lunch.

Altogether, there were three people locally based, but all transplants from different countries and four proper travelers (myself included). That local knowledge was useful in knowing where the next nachtwinkel would be, but we did spring for a drink at a proper cafe once so that we could sit down a while.

The group split up as some people wanted to stay for a circus-like musical performance at one stage, while the “place to be” at that hour was a different stage. After going to the canal-side stage, I realized I had hit my limits on beer as a glass of beer was placed into my hands. After downing it quickly, I slipped away to get a big bottle of water and something more energetic to keep the party going. I was barely paying attention to the performance, but noting the time, I reminded our diminutive tour guide of the mardi gras party. It was a mardi gras experience with an effectively naked master of ceremonies standing on a stage tossing beads out into the crowd while shouting “show us your titties” into the mike. We seemed to have missed the most of it, and my age was catching up with me. When one later member of the group bowed out with the excuse of having to catch an early train the next day, I also peaced out and took a roundabout way back to the hostel.

The good thing about Ghent is that it is pretty small and difficult to get lost. I gave a wide birth to the park in the corner, closest to the hostel because that is supposedly where the late night DJs do their thing and I was ready to get out of the crowds.

Running Total: 20148.7 RMB (USD 2928.08)
Daily Average: 380.2 RMB (USD 55.25)

*The Starbucks was less than 3 euros, but I neglected to make a proper note of the cost

Volume 2, Day 52

My three roommates were up and packing at the crack of dawn leaving me with a room to myself to sleep in, if I so desired. There was no compelling reason to get up because the hostel didn’t have any common spaces to hang out or a tea kettle that I could use to make coffee. So, I just lounged in bed with my laptop.

The sky was gray and the weather report predicted a bit of rain in the morning and again in the evening. I eventually got myself out of bed to go wander around Bruges a bit and see the city in the daytime. By my research, I was on the fence about whether it would be worth getting a city pass and trying to cram all the museums and historic buildings into a day. My outdated travel book said the pass was cheaper than the main art museum and the bell tower, so I went to have a look at the museum.

It turns out Bruges has a case of tourism inflation with prices double those quoted in my guidebook. While I wouldn’t have minded paying 15 euros or so to see a dozen sites, the city pass was a whopping 28 euros with the Belfort and museum costing 12 euros a piece (12 euros to climb some stairs or see a handful of paintings). Insanity. Or, I guess I got a bit spoiled by London.

Abandoning the idea of doing any real sightseeing, I continued to stroll through the town keeping my eyes open for a cheap restaurant to eat in at some point and pricing supermarkets. I had the notion of making a picnic and watching the concert again in the evening.

I stumbled across a market on the west side of town and discovered a competitive industry of roasted chickens. Columns of chickens on rotisserie spits rotate high up in the air. After a quick stop at a coffee cart and a bakery cart to have my breakfast, I went to buy a chicken because I simply couldn’t pass up the offer. I carried my 1.2 kg chicken (!) and bag of roasted baby potatoes over to a yard in front of a church and sat down for a impromptu picnic lunch. I could barely finish half the chicken.

I headed back to the hostel afterwards to wash up and take a nap. It was drizzling when I decided to head out again in the afternoon. It seemed to be pretty light, but as soon as I was in the streets the rain steadily grew in size. It was still a bit warm so I was without a rain jacket and I had abandoned my broken umbrella after Japan. I took refuge in a church which was no longer a church. The entrance way was full of a series of rainbow colored curtains with single words written on them. There was a giant swing hanging from the ceiling and a large pit where people threw paper airplanes. In one corner, there was a self-service cafe with a proper coffee machine. I helped myself and plopped a coin in the jar.

I sat for a while in this unique cafe and began to properly brainstorm some of the ideas that have been percolating in my head the past couple of weeks. I’m a bit frustrated with the language learning experiment because I can clearly see the inefficiencies in my methodology, but I lack the tools to learn better. This means I need to build my own system from scratch, and given my expertise and data in Chinese, I should design the system for that language.

The rain didn’t look like it would ever let up, but I needed to use the restroom so I made my way back to the hostel. It was pretty nice that I had a room to myself, so after getting out of my wet clothes, I settled back into bed and put a movie on. Since it didn’t seem like I would get to see much of Bruges in real life, I decided to rewatch “In Bruges.” It was brilliant and I would seriously suggest anyone just watch the movie and skip the city. All the sites are there in the film and presented much more artistically and with fewer tourists than the “real” experience.

It was nearly 6pm and the rain was still steadily filling the air with threads of damp. I had maybe an hour before the shops would close, which presents an interesting question. What is better: Belgium where the shops are open every day but close at 7pm or Germany where the shops are closed on Sundays but normally stay open until 9 or 10 pm? Ever the optimist, I made a beeline for a more distant (but better stocked) Carrefour Express with the leftover chicken and picnic blanket in tow. I was pretty wet by the time I made it to the market where I picked up a salad and a couple bottles of refrigerated local beer.

Since it was out of the question to enjoy my meal al fresco, I went back to the hostel, squeezing my way through the packed downstairs bar to the back stairs to go upstairs. I didn’t relish the idea of eating in the room (call it a principle of mine), but luckily I still had the place to myself so I guess I could get away with it under the special circumstances. I sat on the unsafe window ledge watching a couple of Youtube videos during my meal, and after finishing my third and final beer, went and laid back down on bed with another movie.

Not long after the movie finished and when I was both congratulating myself on my good luck while thinking about going to sleep, two roommates showed up in the room. An Italian guy and a Turkish girl had had a rough couple of days, traveling without plans or arrangements and getting completely soaked in Brussels. They were very talkative and convinced me to go out with them for one beer–“the best beer in Belgium.”

It was a bit of an adventure, trying to find an open cafe at 11pm. The bars were still going strong, but that wasn’t what we were looking for. We also had to stop to take lots of photos and go track down Belgian fries first, but we had one beer at a cafe and got back a bit after midnight. There was someone sleeping in the room and I was absolutely perplexed as to how he managed to secretly check in when I had been in the room 80% of the day.

Running Total: 19304.8 RMB (USD 2803.44)
Daily Average: 371.2 RMB (USD 53.91)

Volume 2, Day 35

I haven’t ridden a Flixbus in a week. All of my intra-Netherlands transport was accomplished by their train system. But now to leave the country I am back on the budget bus. I want to see Belgium, but I don’t have any time to explore the country as I have to rush to visit people in Luxembourg and France. However, due to the distance between Rotterdam and Luxembourg and the way bus routes work, it made more sense to stop over one night in Antwerp. The idea is that I can loop back around in a couple weeks to take a proper tour of Belgium and subject my liver to its 100s of varieties of beer.

My Flixbus was headed to Paris and fully packed, so packed in fact, that the driver had my sit in the copilot seat. He offered my a free soft drink or snack from the bus’ on board shop, but I felt like it was a bonus to sit up front. The border between the Netherlands and Belgium was basically invisible and I couldn’t see signs that there had ever been passport control along the highway. I really want to punch any Brexiters I meet because it is incomprehensible to me that any one can be against the seamless integration of the European states. Of course, the existence or lack of a border between the Netherlands and Belgium is a fairly artificial construct as the two countries have been unified at various points in history and Antwerp looks just like another Dutch town.

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Overall, I like Antwerp, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone visit there for at least a year. It seems the entire city is under construction. Several of the top (free) tourist sites (e.g. cathedrals, castles, etc) are wrapped up in scaffolding, while subway construction on the major thoroughfare turns the central intersection into an unnavigable strip mine. My hostel was right up on the street with the construction, that oh so helpfully begins at 6 am. More inconvenient is the extra five minutes of walking time to get around the construction in order to go anywhere.

Though I arrived at the hostel just before noon, they were able to check me in early and let me drop my stuff in the room. The room is a bit cramped, but the hostel has an enormous kitchen and common space for people to cook, eat, meet, and mingle. This is also the first hostel I’ve seen with a properly installed key card security system. I always find it ridiculous to have to swipe a card to use the elevator when open stairs are right next to it, but ASH has an electronic lock on the stairwell.

My main tourism target for the day was the Plantin-Moretus Museum. Located in a old house/printing shop, the building itself is a UNESCO world heritage site. The house belonged to a family of 16th century book printers and many of the portraits in the drawing room were by none other than Peter Paul Rubens, a native to Antwerp. I highly recommend the museum which lends out a very thick booklet with information on each of the 30-40 rooms in the complex. The museum houses dozens of books printed in the 16th century and some of the oldest existing printing presses.

Because I had skipped breakfast and lunch, my stomach was starting to growl by the time I finished the museum. Having passed some waffle shops, I got onto the free city WiFi to look up recommended waffles, and found that the top choice was the same shop that had caught my eye. With a cup of mediocre coffee and a gooey chocolate coated waffle to power me, I did my best to meander through the old town, strolling along typical cobblestone lanes with old buildings and streetside cafes and random public art works. I’m taking my sweet time rambling about Europe, but its all blurring together anyways. How is it for people who visit 5 countries in 7 days? Do they see sharper contrasts between the cities?

The Sint Pauluskerk was open to visit and its good to be back in more Catholic areas. At least the tortured statues are interesting to look at. I headed to the shipping quarter next, and not quite inadvertently passed through the red light district, which made Amsterdam look like Disneyland. I was not expecting to see so many half naked women or casually sauntering Johns at 3pm and I turned on my tunnel vision to get out of there as quickly as possible without getting harassed.

Just on the other side of those two seedy blocks (appropriately named “Old Man Street”) was an inner harbor for small sailing boats and the Museum aan de Stroom. The building was artfully done with the same curved glass I saw in the Hamburg symphony hall. Similarly, though I didn’t buy a ticket for the exhibitions, the top floor is open to the public for a panorama view of the city.

I headed back to the hostel afterwards, passing by the University of Antwerp but not seeing anything of note. I grabbed a tote bag and almost immediately headed back out to take a quick tour of the diamond district. As advertised, there were Indian banks and Hasidic Jews. The scariest thing about the Holocaust is that it sort of succeeded. Will the Jewish population in Europe ever come close to what it once was? I see (and obviously one can’t really know by outward appearances) 100 Muslims for every Jew. And this is why the far right movement has gotten so much traction in recent years. After enjoying the fruits of Nazi imposed “ethnic cleansing” without any of the guilt for 50 post war years, Europeans who only paid lip service to diversity are now being confronted by a new visible other and the dormant xenophobia is awakening. It can happen again.

I grabbed a couple of classic Belgian beers (Leffe, Duvel, La Chouffe) from a Carrefoure Express (I must be getting closer to France) and sat in the astroturfed backyard of the hostel with a book. I only read the first two chapters of “The Big Sleep” before I got distracted by the chatting of backpackers. There was one solo British traveler in his late 20s who was quite the social butterfly and went about talking to everyone. My plan was to enjoy the beers, go find some French fries and have an early night. That is not what happened.

J, the Brit, gathered together a group of people to go out to a bar and I got shanghaied into that. Having finished four beers, I was let’s say easily persuadable. The plus side is I got to enjoy the evening sky, which after being thoroughly blanketed in somber gray clouds all day, opened up enough to catch the colorful display of the setting sun. We stopped at one bar/cafe, sitting outside. The prices were reasonable and I tried a local Antwerp beer (just so-so). After a shot of Jagermeister (ugh) and another round we moved to a bar which was doing karaoke. That was fun, though I wish the rest of the world could catch up to China on karaoke technology. I’m not a caveman, I don’t want to have to pore over a telephone book sized list of songs (sorted by year for the love of all that is holy!) and write down a code on a piece of paper. After karaoke, they went dancing and I went home.

I’m starting to think its pretty good that so many hostels are a bit anti-social, I don’t think I’d survive if I was having experiences like this every day. But, I am glad to have them every so often. The hangover the next day was worth it to stand on a stage and belt out a tune.

Running Total: 12940.2 RMB (USD 1881.25)
Daily Average: 369.7 RMB (USD 53.75)