Hopped on to a Thalys Train to Brussels on an early Saturday morning, and then another inter city train to Bruges! Honestly, Jerald and I practically RAN to the train platform from the Metro 'cause we were nearly late, and the trains across the EU, they wait for NOBODY. Nevertheless,Bruges (or Brugge) greeted us with sunny weather and empty platforms, that called for a poser shot with the signboard. Very committed to producing evidence of myself in Belgium!After exiting the train station, we had a whole morning to kill before we could check in to the hotel, so we took a nice leisure stroll around. The 1st great thing about Bruges is, right outside the train station, there is VERY CLEAR map of all the tourist attractions in the area, and the 2nd great thing is that the attractions are all along the way from the train city to the town square. They were all so conveniently located to each other, that made navigating (for Jerald) so much easier.
First up, we headed to the MinnewaterPark, it was uninhabited, still and silent. Maybe because everyone was huddled around the bridge feeding/looking at the swans. By the way, why is there always A black swan in the whole flock of white swans? Time to google the theory behind that.
Bruges has this old town vibe maybe because of its architecture. Most of the building are in different shades of brown bricks, white, some red, accompanies by a dusty grey roof. There's a really nice synergy to the whole atmosphere.
The reason why Beer is so bloody cheap in Belgium (even other parts of the EU).
We finally reached the town square, and here's the Bruges Markt. I thought Markt meant that there would be flea market of some sort in the area, turns out it was more of a square. That being said, buildings surrounding the square were colourful and vibrant, adding live to the area!
Above is a picture of the Sacré Couer (sacred heart) churh, and below, we have the famous Belfort. We climbed 300+ steps to the top, and the view was cool, though it would have been better if there were more space in the tower.
With only one way up AND down, and with super steep and narrow winding steps, climbing up was a challege. After every 10 steps, you squeeze to the corner to make way for people coming down. Gosh! But we got to see how the bell operated, and there were stuff to read about on each level, that made the climb overall pretty enjoyable.
After we checked-in to our hotel, we met Ji Inn, Clarice, Daryl and Joan and headed to take the Canal Boat tour. The tour guide gave a tour in French, German and English. Always thoroughly impressed by the multilingual tour guides I meet here! And as much as I like walking around cities, a boat tour does give you another perspective of it :)
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Ended off the night with awesome dinner, mini birthday celebration for Clarice, as well as drinking and talking in the hotel room about school, life, gossip and random people. Thankyou Jerald for not being bored while I rattle on with my friends ;) and IT WAS NICE TO MEET YOU DEAR FRIENDS! Had a good weekend of fun english conversations :) and sharing of internship stories!
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