Beginning of group tour - Bruxelles, Belgium
5:14 PM
As salam .. May life is treating you well. Within a blink, we almost reaching the end of Ramdhan and I hope, all of our deeds be realized. I'll be leaving Q8 heading home for 3 weeks Eid holiday this 12th Aug. Although it was just a short trip home, 3 weeks or so, I am more than grateful to be able to celebrate Eid in Malaysia this year. 3 weeks may sounded long for some but considering the area and the miles we had to cover, KL-Terengganu-Singapore and back to KL again.. 3 weeks surely feels like 3 days, nonetheless, Alhamdullilah..
Back to Euro story.. Our day 1 was all about checking in to Holiday Inn Express Heathrow and city tour to London on bus which we skipped. We're supposed to check-in at 2pm that day, but we cheat a little. We checked out from Premier Inn at 8 am, took a shuttle bus to Heathrow Terminal 5, took another shuttle bus to Holiday Inn Express, left our luggages at their store room, left a message to our tour manager informing him that we wouldn't join the tour and left for London by tube. It is permissible since we already have a room booked under our name and since Cox & King was quite a regular customer here, the hotel management sorta give extra priviliges to us. They did informed that they don't offer similar privilege ( early check-in and keeping our bags) to just about any customer. In fact they day we arrived, a group of 45 peoples under Cox & King was checked out. I think Cox & King gave them real good business here.
The reason behind why I put up picture(s) and name of each hotel room we stayed was because I received a bundle of question from friends asking what kind off accommodation offered in our package. Not to show off, or anything like that. It's not like we paid for it. Errmm well technically since we're paying for the package, we paid for the hotels too as it is included. However, if I were to come by myself, I won't picked most of the hotel we stayed during our tour. Simply because majority of them are 4 stars and without travel agent's special rate, the price per night is very expensive. Ohh yeah, we did our homework!
They're some package that offered really low package for the similar tour that we took but we need to sleep in a cabin with sharing bathroom or inside tents, with public bathroom. Something that I have no intention of trying because few of our friends did took that package and certainly FORBID us, with a capital F, from taking the same package.
Day 2, we started our journey around 8 am. Truthfully, our everyday after this were started around 8. Sometimes later and sometimes earlier. Depends on our schedule that day. If not for anything else, I was so glad that our group was rather a small group as it is, compared to previous group I saw leaving the hotel yesterday. There was only 24 peoples in our group and out of 24, 11 was us he he he. So we was like the majority party he he.. Just imagine, 24 peoples in a bus that can fit up to 50 passengers. There's a lot of vacant seats and room for the kids to play and roam around. Basically each of us can take the 2 seats to ourself.
You see, the package that we took is actually cater and tailor made for Indian all over the world, which is why the food provided everyday is Indian Food. We're the first non Indian group to join this package. But, they separate Indian who came from India and Indian who lived abroad, to which we're categorized into. This is because, although the race is the same, the upbringing, the way of life, the language spoken, the mindset, the manners and even the culture somehow, is different, explained the separation and I am sooo soo grateful to ended up in this group. The best group I've been travelling with, for a very long time. Most of them are about our age, with kids about my kids age and because they've been living in abroad for so long, they spoke English better than their mother tongue, and this resulted to more effective communication between us. Plus, the way of thinking among us is similar and we shared same principle in terms of cleanliness and many things which makes our 15 travel days together was beyond comfortable. Try travelling for 15 days with someone with smelly socks and stinky feet and you'll get what I meant.
Beside 11 of us, they're a young Indian couple from America, Renu and her IT programmer husband with 2 young kids, a boy and a girl. Renu owned a playschool at US and she's so good and au naturale with kids. My girls loves her. There's another Indian couple also with 2 young kids from Colorado, very stylish Swetha and her also a programmer husband. There's also Sham, a travel agent and a choreographer with her wife, no kids though, fro Dubai. Lastly, another Muslim family from Abu Dhabi, 18 years old Shoba who came with her parents. Shoba studied in India but her parents, auntie and uncle as we called them, lived and worked in Abu Dhabi. So there you go, 24 peoples that I will be spending 15 days with, day and night and end up sharing beautiful bond with. Owhh before I forgot, let's introduce our tour manager Mr know-all Mohan, and our super-cool-mafia-like driver, Mr Yanos.
Regarding the food, when we decided to take the package, we made a point to our travel manager that we requested for Halal Indian food during our tour so that they can made prior arrangement.
From Heathrow, we drove to Folkstone to take our Eurotunnel to Calais, France. Now, I was told that we will cross the English Channel by a train, with our bus too. I was thinking something like, errmm ferry Langkawi sort but nothing prepared me for the next one of a lifetime experience I was about to enjoy. Sheesss I was so jakun, I was worst compared to the girls ha ha ha.
Upon reaching the checkpoint, we need to queue a bit, to wait for our lane be determined. They're so many lanes so the computer will decide which lane we're supposed to go based on weight and type of vehicles. The process doesn't took that long, maybe around 20 minutes.
{ Entering France border }
Since we were travelling in a group, we don't have to do the typical tourist crossing the border blah, like stamping out passport sorts. The company has done it earlier so the tour manager will just need to submit the group paperwork to the custom officer. We just need to stay still and be good.
{ Self service vending machine. Europe has the most exciting vending machine ever. They had almost everything from Iphone, beat head set, travel charger and so many things you can only imagine being sell in a vending machine }
Once you pass 1st checkpoint, you will need to que for another checkpoint. This is where you vehicles were scanned and the scanner was embedded underneath the road. Should they find something something wasn't right be it from the luggage area or even passengers, you'll be asked to exit the lane and go for thorough checking. Pass this, and you'll be heading to a duty free zone. You vehicles will be given an alphabet code, A,B, C and so on. It will took a while to arrange the vehicles into the train so you can just wait at the duty free area. There's coffee shops, snacks shop and fast food place and also duty free shops where you can do your things while waiting. There's a LED notice board in this area that showcasing the train movements. For example, A = boarding, B will board in 20 minutes.. so you'll get a heads up when your turn is coming. Usually, the waiting is not more than 20 minutes, but while we was there, there was some technical problem with the undersea tunnel, causing a slight delay. Anyway, it was not more than an hour wait.
{ At the duty free area. Excuse the love bird behind the girls. They just happened to be in my lens :) }
After around 45 minutes, our alphabet appears on the board and our tour manager informed that it was time to board the bus. We drove slowly until the train track appeared. I was looking for the train but couldn't see any. Until some few moments later then I realized, it was there before my eyes but I just can't see it.
{ Can you see it? It was the same color with the bricks around it. Very clever camouflage indeed. Dunno if it was intentional or what. This one is train for buses. For cars, it was double decker type. Can you see the white car on top of the picture? They have to go to different track for their train }
And here is the most interesting part in this process...
{ There's only small opening into train so the driver had to maneuver the bus really really carefully. If you failed your side parking test, pleasee don't apply for this job. Seriously!! }
{ As you can see, they're not very generous when it comes to spacing between the train wall and your bus. I cringed when it was our bus's turn }
{ Success! }
Now, let's take a look at how it looks like from inside, shall we?
{ Once the bus settling in it's proper position, the glass and steel door closing in and sealed. However, since the toilet was located on the very last cabin, the door can be open manually should you need to go to the loo }
Once the door properly sealed, we were allowed to hop off the bus since the driver need to shut the engine down and it got pretty stuffy pretty fast inside the bus.
{ Kepala Eurotunnel }
{ Aktiviti senggang }
{ Somewhere under the English Channel }
The journey took not more than 45 minutes, much much faster than I expected.
{ We've arrived at Calais. Buses off the train on by one, slowly and gracefully }
{ Our very first view of Amsterdam. You can find this many of small small vegetable patches like this in the Amsterdam outskirt. It was owned by the people who lived in the city. Since the land was limited inside city, the government made this small patches for their citizens with green thumb, so they can farm and grow what they likes such as vegetables or flowers. They will come once here once a week to care for their little farm. You may think the house in the picture is big but actually it was not bigger than any dog house you always see. It was built by the owner to keep their farming tools }
We then drove onto Brussels or Bruxells in French. We will be staying at Brussels for 2 days. It was a very picturesque drive. If you must know, Europian Union seats in Brussels and also NATO headquarters. It so happened when we were there, the urgent meeting was called up to discuss of matters regarding Turkish warplane being shotdown by Syria. And since our hotel was nearby the HQ, we could really feels the tension as many representatives from all over the world flooded Brussels. You know, more tight securities all around the city, and police is everywhere.
We didn't go straight to our hotel but were taken into orientation tour around Brussels and onto Grand Place, the most beautiful town squares in Europe, as it claimed. You can find Galeries St Hubert, the world's first shopping mall and Gothic St Michel's Cathedral. As this is not so much of my "area", I was more attracted to their laces and chocolates more. Yeah, I can be ignorant sometimes, I admit.
You can also find the infamous Mannekin Pis, the statue of a boy urinating, err in public. History has it, long time ago, there's a boy from a very wealthy family got lost, left his father devastated and missing him. This boy, while wandering and looking for his father, was found by another wealth man. Story travels and reached his father so his father went to meet the man who found his boy. Because he's so wealth, he asked the man to sculpt a statue of how his boy looks like when he was found and the Mannekin Pis was born. Errrr did I get the story correct eh? I think it goes along the line lah hehe.. Honestly, I don't find a statue of a boy urinating in public fancy much. Well, we did took few pictures and then NEXTTTTTTT... he he he...
{ You'll see that everything in this place was inspired by this statue. Urinating boy spoon, urinating boy glasses, urinating boy fridge magnet and many more. It is safe to say, I had more than enough view of urinating kid in an hour, enough to last me my life time hihiih }
There's so many nice thing you can do here. One of it of course, taking photo with all the magnificent historic building at the squares and play with thousand tame pigeons. Errr okay, exaggeration involved here. Hundreds might sounded more logical he he he..
Did you see the building on the right side with canvas covering it up? That building was under renovation. By law enforced by the government, should any historic protected building need to be repair or renovate, the building must be covered with a special canvas with the actual look of the building printed on it. So, should the renovation took a long time, visitor and tourist will not missed a thing because the building will looks exactly as how the printing on the canvas appeared to be. Not a single thing were left un-printed and not a single thing were added though. In London, they even have flower pots printed. At first, when I saw this kind of canvas in London, I had this thought in mind. "Wahh there's definitely quite a canvas. The developer must have really extra budget in his pocket for he came up with this kind of fancy canvas. They're going to throw it away anyway after the job completed, then why waste?" Erin on another hand had her own way of interpretation. She kept saying : Mummy, look... rumah tipuuuu... he he he.. Only when we came to Amsterdam I came to know the reason behind this canvas.
{ Infront Karl Max's door step}
Then there is Belgium chocolate. They're everywhere since Belgium chocolate is considered among the best chocolate in the world. You can buy as souvenirs for family, friends or even for your home. It just that as a Muslim, be extra cautious since some chocolate contained rums. Look for V signs on the wrapper which means vegetarian. Honestly, I didn't buy any chocolate here because I will be on the road for the next 2 weeks and we will be in hot countries like Italy and Florence. I just couldn't imagine how the chocolate will looks like by the end of our trip.
Not forgetting Belgium Lace. Although their laces comes with a tad too expensive price tag, just go for it if you have budget because it was preciously hand made by locals. Beside those gorgeous smocking less dress behind me, there are other things like pillow case, tapestry, coaster, table runner and many more. There's always something for someone here..
If lace is not your thing, or out of you budget, fret not my friend for there's still left something that I guarantee you can afford. And not to mentioned, super yummehhhhhhh... err one of it actually.. I rather starve than eat the other one ha ha ha..
First is Belgium Waffle!
Trust me, you have gotttttttt to try these babiessss... You can trust this advice from me because it came from someone who lovesss food very very much kah kah kah.. These waffle don't taste like any other waffle elsewhere in term of texture and taste. It's not spongy like normal waffle. It's more like slightly crunchy and sticky on the outside from the caramelized sugar and chewy on the inside. Chewy yet soft. In short, it is my new obsession. Don't trust me? Look below...
{ There's only two times when I would ignore camera. First, when I'm sleeping since there's nothing I can do about it ha ha ha and secondly, when I am indulging into some delicious food }
{ Look! Even the manekin pis boy is eating the waffle hihihh }
Secondly, Escargot!
Now you understand why I said I'd rather starve ( touch wood ) than eating any of these land snail. Escargot may not be significant to Amsterdam the way they does in France, but still they are all under the same EU umbrella. In fact, French is their official language here besides Dutch so their palate can't betoo much of a different I reckon.
{ It's 4 Euros per bowl. I dunno whether it's cheap or otherwise but even if it's expensive, it certainly wouldn't stop my husband from buying it }
{ I may love them to my core but the moment they start eating this.. Stay away from me! is my most said line ha ha ha. Anyway, the smells was not too bad. Maybe because they put many herbs in the soup so the herbs's smell overcome the fishy urghhh smells }
{ Since there's also Hindu in our group, all restaurant were told to prepare chicken and vegetarian dishes , with no beef. Rice and bread, sometimes naan, sometimes chapati or paratha is compulsory. From this tour also I learned to eat chicken curry with raw onions. I dunno why I never tried this combo before but man, it was a very nice combo because the tangy-ness and sweetness from the onion helps to cut the muak-ness from the curry hence balanced the taste. I became addicted to this combo and never tired of having it for every dinner. Ermm come to think of it, I developed many addictions from this trip it seems. Here I thought that I've seen many things in my life, but apparently, I haven't seen enough :) }
{ U know rite that Europe has the best still water in the world? }
Since we arrived quite early, by Europe time because Maghrib in here was at 9:30 pm, we have some extra free time so we let the kids play around at the opening beside our hotel. They've been trapped in the bus the whole day and they behaved very well so they deserved some happy time.
{ Org tua tua kata buang extra energy so when night comes, they can sleep well }
{ New Kids On Brussels yo! }
Last but not least, before signing off, if we found "KUWAIT" in London, guess what we found in Brussels?
" Mummy, ade nama kakak lah kat Europe!! "
Nite nite all :)
Next is Madurodam at Netherland and us having some "Baywatch" time at Scheveningen.
2 thoughts