Freezeface

It's not cold, but the wind can kill. And will kill.

Madness in High Street

I'm back in Leuven weeping my eyes out at leaving English-speaking soil.



Not.

It's good to be back, it really is. I'm turning out to be pretty good at setting up life here: being domesticated by picking out a duvet that matches my bedspread, at coordinating my wardrobe to maximize space, at shopping for groceries at the cheapest supermarkets and being delighted at buying tofu for 10cents cheaper than the last time. I'm being careful not to make my room too homely or settle in too well though, because I don't want to make it too hard to leave all this behind 6 months later.

But I digress, because I really should talk about my time in London and York.

Hey Lulu, look who this is.

We were talking quite innocently like people who meet each other for the first time. Then insert Dunman High, Lulu and Teo Nanzun... and then we spoke like we knew each other for years! Peppering our conversation with "Yah I know, she's so crazy" and "He's always like that one la!" and lots of laughter and jabbing, of course.

Oh how I miss my Lulu.

No trip to London is completely without a visit to Camden. I was quite surprised that there weren't any shops openly selling magic mushrooms and medicine cabinets full of hallucinogens of varied strengths like I saw the last time I was there. The colourful jagged streets and even more colourful inhabitants are still there though. The Harajuku of London, I would call it.

And of course I visited Oxford Street with much glee. High Street fashion is not just an English thing; it's a everybody-everyday thing, and it's my thing. Case in point: Topshop is a whopping FOUR floors packed to the brim with everything you can think of.

And the good people at Topshop know they have a numbing effect on women's legs because us ladies seem to be able to walk on forever, but they also know that for men every single step is an eternity within the shopping mecca; and hence this.

(Better than a shoe shop, don't you think?)

Two years ago I was spellbound while watching Saturday Night Fever at The Apollo Victoria in South Kent. Two years later, I was completely held hostage by the cast of Wicked at the same theatre. Wicked is decidely, deliciously wicked! If you happen to be in London, this musical is worth your last 20 quid, I am not kidding you.

Dorothy is a stupid farm girl, you will find. She is completely inconsequential to the well-loved story. Now I'm a believer.

And yes, I did go nutso over the food. I see you shaking your head already Daddy! Don't read this part! It speaks much about my poor sense of control in the culinary department.

Borough Market's spoils.

This is Eleena with her monstrous chicken burger. She wasn't smiling very much after this picture was taken, and neither was her tummy.

Dimsum at Chinatown. There were too many baskets and plates of dimsum to cram into a single picture, so we shall make do with a picture of shiny happy (full) people after the thorough satisfaction of their chinese food craving. I think the waitress had quite a different idea of aiming centrally than what we expected. Sorry Kudus.

It was good fun to be in London for Chinese New Year. That saved me from getting all mopey about missing my grandparents and all the hustle and bustle back home. We had people all decked out in red too (I was inauspiciously clad in white, sadly neglecting to bring an article of red clothing along)

This is London's Chinatown, people. Packed to the brim in a way I have never seen even Singapore's Chinatown packed with people. Of course, if you compare the percentage of wide-eyed Angmohs to I'm-here-because-I-desperately-want-some-CNY-spirit Chinese like yours truly, you get a ratio of about 10:1.

And this picture, I like to call it IRONY.

I was quite tickled when I saw a blonde head emerge from underneath a particularly enthusiastic liondance costume.

And after much fanfare in London, York was a quiet stop before I headed back to Belgium. In particular we ate quite a lot, shopped quite a lot for accesories (right, Eleena?) and did painfully little sight-seeing and touristy things.

Eleena: That's the city wall. Don't bother, it's not much.

Eleena: There are gardens in the outskirts of York. But at this time they are all grey and flowerless. Don't bother, it's not much.

So okay, I don't bother. I just eat :)

I ate everything from train food

to traditional Sunday roast and Yorkshire pudding.

From handmade fudge that burnt an absolute hole in my pocket

to bangers and mash. Who doesn't like pub grub, every now and then?

England disappoints only in the World Cup, but they sure didn't disappoint me. I dragged 22 cartons of Muller yogurt back to Leuven and threw in a couple of tabloid mags to finish the leftover stray Pounds. All this English decadence, it is all very fine by me.

Nowt so queer as folk/Celest

Note to everyone. I haven't gone west, I just have had no internet access the past 5 days and hence no contact with everyone who matters to me.

I'm on my little sojourn to the land of bangers and mash. So a lovely jubbly of a post I promise, once my feet touch non-English soil Belgian soil once more.

Till then, I shan't continue over-egging the pudding, lest you guys think I'm one sandwich short of a picnic.

Goodbye now! 'Ave it, the English way :)

Brugge

February is a bad time to visit Brugge, because when there is such glorious beauty around you there should be equally glorious sunshine. And. not. grey. skies.

In any case, the company was ace and we got over the gloominess pretty quickly.

The Lake of Love, they say. Throw a coin into the lake and any love-related issues will come true. Very fervently I saw some believers throw money in. And it was all nice until the tourguide reminded us that the locals living around the river actually fish for coins people throw in at the end of the day.

Gothic architecture.

We walk in the rain, like the nuns walk in the rain.

I took so many pictures of buildings and churches, and the architecture is worth a big wow. But it all looks pretty grey and drab so I suppose I must make another trip back to Brugge in the summertime. For now, just try to imagine more colour.

Can you spot the tiny window?

But who am I really kidding? I'm not a sucker for photographing scenery and architecture; I'd rather take it in with my own two eyes. I'd very much prefer taking pictures of people and faces. These are some of the beautiful people I've met.

Heidi from Helsinki and Anja from Warsaw. Anja says to tell Weiming that Leuven is much better than Warsaw so he should come visit us here.

And this is Tillman from Germany. Such a gentleman he was; he bought 4 whining girls chocolates and that made us very happy, indeedly.

Anja, happy recipient of Tillman's chocolates.

And the rest of the pictures... I'm too lazy to post up. Heehee.

Brussel Sprouts

I suppose I should attempt to blog about my little trip to Brussels, but Blogger is just whacked and has swallowed my previous 2 attempts with no remnants left for me to salvage. So I shall follow this with my third valient attempt not to lose another entry, for no rhyme or reason.

So was it Wednesday? Yes I think it was. Wednesday saw Gabriel Seet turning up at my door after a botched attempt at getting accomodation at my place; and on a whim I decided to go to Brussels with him and his French-spouting Parisian exchange mates.

For the record, this is Gabriel, best friend of the boyfriend and bad influence to all homopsapiens who have looming exams they should be studying for instead of going on a driving holiday.



And first up is Keith, who hails from the mighty US of A, and below him is Fernando from Brazil. They both respectively had exams 48 hours and 24 hours from the time they ended their Belgian sojourn, so really, Gabriel must have mighty persuasive powers to pry them away from their books and to the land of beer, waffles and pissing boys.

We drove into Brussels and headed for the Atomium. It looks rather phallic, doesn’t it? Don’t get me started on how many times one of us innocently interjected conversations with “Have we gone into that ball yet?”

Besides having been a Worlds Fair venue, the Atomium is famous for offering a full view of the entire city of Brussels. And a foggy day, like the day we were there, really isn’t quite an optimal time for said breath-taking panoramic view (It says so in the brochure).

A trip to the Cantillon Brewery made up for the foggy weather. We had a tasting of Limbic beers, which are brewed the traditional way by allowing yeast in the air to settle naturally during the fermentation period, instead of adding it in manually. Listening to the man explain this in a most lofty manner, I was quite inclined towards becoming a beer snob and turning an uppity nose towards the rather passé modern beers we have these days. Except Hoegaarden, of course.

Hops and barley. Raw beer, if you like.

Barrels and barrels of the good stuff! And of us, being very happy with, the good stuff!

Gueuez. A mixture of first-year, second-year, and third-year Limbics, and my, besides the big H, this has got to be the best-tasting beer in my book. Think Corona with a slice of lemon, then multiply the goodness 10 times, and you have, Gueuez.

We were happy campers when the time came for us to taste the beers. Well, all of us except Gab, who had a twisted face when the beer went into his mouth. I think he might actually share the same disdain with the boyfriend when it comes to sour things.

Here, we were drinking the Frambroise version of the Limbic, which I didn't like as much as Gueuez.

And of course, what’s a trip to Brussels without a snapshot of the Manneken Piss? It’s really small, so anyone could have missed it on the way to a kebab shop of some sorts for dinner, like I did! Thanks to Keith, I got my picture. Otherwise, I would have had to take a picture of the Manneken Piss bottle-openers they sell at touristy shops, which errrr, have the corkscrew extending out of the pissing boy’s nether region. Which I’m sure would not have made a very family-friendly picture.

And in case you can't see the pissing boy in action, here's an enhancement of what it should look like.

Aside from the minor mistake (pui) made in the billboards and by the good people at the information counter at Bruxelles Midi which almost saw me boarding a train bound for Paris, I arrived home safe and sound. And very glad to be out of the cold.

And now Gabriel is back in Singapore for Chinese New Year, and he says he will bring back pineapple tarts, all for him and none for me ;( Share the love, please!