So, settled in and decided to go out since the sky looks friendly enough at this point in time (but one thing I've learnt through my days in Brussels: don't talk about the weather). We took the train to our destination and boom, heavy rain. So we can't do our itinerary as planned and headed for lunch-dinner instead and had western food (half chicken!) which was pretty good. Best thing: the rain stopped (yea, fickle minded; worse than Singapore). Took a photo with Atomium then toured around Mini Europe (which was more of a propaganda for EU but quite pretty). Weather seemed fine so we took the metro again to see the Cinquantenaire (looked like Brandenburg Gate and the one in Paris again) and European Quarters (kinda lame). Walked a few metro stations down before we took the metro (illegally) back to our hostel.
Continental breakfast was good, sleep wasn't. Walked a few metro stations again to the Grote Markt where the City Hall is to meet the Free Tour group; they were busy clearing up the flowers from the flower festival! Brought some Godiva chocolate-coated strawberries before we started the tour. Comic strip was interestingly cool and even more so, the history of Belgium/Brussels (especially the part it played in WWI); Manneken Pis was the most disappointing attraction (voted so) in the world as it was really tiny (and contrary to popular myths, its actual existence was due to the urine trade that took place in the market by the leather makers who brought urine there to treat their raw leathers). One of the most beautiful city to tour about so far!
Tour ended in the early afternoon and we headed to the lunch place Ms Blur had researched but was unfortunately closed, so... Asian food again! Wanted to be half-full for other Belgian food but the serving was so huge we ended up over-eating. But that didn't stop our foodie excursion! Frites (fries, in which they double fry it at two different temperatures) with samurai sauce (nothing Japanese; mayo with chili); hot chocolate (super rich!); Belgium waffles (Brussels one was the fluffy rectangular kind that goes well with just sugar; and Liege one was the harder sweetened rounder version that's good on its own but we had ice cream with it!); and of course, Belgium bier (Belle Vue was good; apparently they made this beer before people knew how to make beer, by allowing natural fermenting using the yeast in the air from the stinky river... Hmmm. But the cherry/classique version was the nicer version, not the original non-flavored one).
Ms Blur calls Belgium the Taiwan of Europe, cos they had so many varieties of snacks that are really good!0
