Europe Trip: Belgium

 Before we embark on our journey to other European countries, we have to stash all of our non-essential items, souvenirs and gadgets such as laptops at somewhere safe. We decided to keep everything in the self storage Big Yellow in Bramall Lane. Valuables safeguarded with 2 password-equipped doors, we had a peace of mind during the Europe trip. 

It was raining cats and dogs, and luckily it turned calmer soon after. That's when everyone of us dragged along our luggage, through the rain and puddles of water, all the way from Shoreham Street (Trigon) to Bramall Lane which is located about 2km away. As you can see, each of us were drenched in rainwater, but still our spirits were not dampened by the rain! 

Being ripped off by buying the expensive plastic containers to isolate our foods from 'unwanted pest'. Thumbs up for a job well done, it was an exhausting day!

Headed back to Trigon to wait for 5pm to come, the time where our Europe trip bus is scheduled to arrive! Boarded the bus at 5 something in the evening and took a quick last look at Trigon before the bus departed. Friends who travel separate ways (some chose to backpack on their own) bid their goodbyes and hugged each other before going on to the bus. Leaving Trigon felt a little misbelieve, staying there for three months were like a long sweet dream. 

UK is a HUGE island, so in order to get to other countries, we have to travel by bus to London, and then cross the English Channel by ferry (why not via train through the Channel tunnel?) to reach Calais, France! The bus entered London to fetch our tour guide, who is a middle-aged man from Malaysia. Since the whole tour group are Chinese, we have no problem in communicating with the tour guide. 

Here we were, at the dock of the UK side. Our bus fetched us onto the ferry but is designated to turn back after the ferry reaches the shore of France. 

It is a huge ferry. It has cafes, a big lounge for passengers to rest in, an airy upper deck to see... well, the dark sea in the dark. The duty-free store in the ferry has affordable branded chocolates!

Once we got down of the ferry, our tour guide kept on reminded us to look left first and then right before we cross the road, and not vice versa. We understood his concern when had our first shock in France - Cars travel on the right instead of on the left, and the driver seat is on the left! The door of our France bus is on the right too! We were so not used to the different bus boarding direction.

We have to get used to sleeping on the bus because travelling from one place to another in the Europe takes few hours normally. We also didn't have a good sleep in the first day of travel because we have to travel by bus and ferry from UK to France during midnight, and then start our trip to Belgium in the next morning and Netherlands in the afternoon! First day was so exhausting!

From France, we travelled to the first official country in our Europe Trip - Belgium. We visited the city of Brussels, where Gothic-styled building dominated the scenery. Our first destination was The Grand Place, where Brussels Town Hall is located in it. 

Next up is the famous Manneken Pis, a small bronze sculpture. A naked boy urinating, which forms a mini fountain. Around the Manneken Pis has plenty of renowned chocolate brand's shops. I bet many of you have heard about Belgium chocolate! 

Godiva is very expensive, one of the more premium chocolate brands in the world. We were pretty early when we arrived at Brussels, thus many shops weren't open yet, including Godiva. 

In the end, we ended up buying chocolates from another shop, our tour guide promoted the brand to us, most probably he can earn some commission from the sales xD

Damage of the day!

Belgium is also quite famous with its waffles; big, crispy and delicious. Each normal waffle costs only 1 Euro! Special waffles with different toppings costs slightly more. Best eaten when fresh from the oven!

We hopped on our bus again after a satisfying brunch of waffles and chocolates in Brussels. Out of the blue, our tour guide popped out a historical question, and the person who answer it right get a box of Manneken Pis chocolate box worth few Euros as a gift! The question was: In which year the Dutch invaded Malaya. Guess what? I answered it correctly, year 1641! Historical geek here~~ The box of chocolate was shared among my friends, and it was indeed pretty tasty :)

Our last destination in Belgium was The Atomium. The Atomium mimics the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal, but is magnified by 165 billion times (thanks, Wiki)! It was first cladded with aluminium but then is replaced by stainless stell, hence the shiny exterior. The public can access The Atomium by going up to the spheres for the viewing platform, but we didn't go near it. A tour like this is mainly hop-off and hop-on, hop-off for quick photo session and hop-on to the bus again to depart to the next destination. 

NEXT - Netherlands!