Mom, Dad, Celest, and a thousand different words

Well-thumbed, my sidekick, well-thumbed.

Mommy takes a bite of Belgium!

Back in Leuven, Rossi's nondescript interiors pack a mighty fine punch,

and if you don't believe me, you have to believe my pasta. The thinnest tagliatale ever known to man and black truffles, y'all!

and if you still don't believe me, you have to believe Roberto Benigni; he of La Bella Vita fame. He whose famous face is tacked up on the wall behind that of my famous father.

Hell, if Rossi's is good enough for Benigni, it's good enough for me.

But okay, there's always a rotten apple in every basket. Here, my mother's dinner demonstrates that fact quite well. All that glistens is not gold; and in this case, it's oil.

Besides that little glitch and the mad scramble all day, I sit here feeling on top of the world :)

Look how the Swedish winds blew

Hello (single) ladies,

I have a prime candidate here to end your spinsterhood, and he is none other than Mr Ng Rongwei. You should trust me because for four days, I was living in the room next to him and we spent an average of 16 hours together daily.

Let me give you the Top 10 reasons why he should be the one and only candidate on your mind.

#1: He navigates when you are too lazy to. You never have to lift a finger to even find the general direction; good for lazy girls like Lirong and me and for hopeless navigators like our dear Jo Yeo.

#2: He subscribes to old school methods of love! Like throwing coins into the Lake of Love in Bruges to make a wish for love. He was unfazed even when I told him that the locals fish out coins people throw in at the end of the day.
#3: He subscribes to all your culinary recommendations, and always returns a resounding thumbs-up even when the afore-mentioned doesn't taste even remotely close to perfection. (Applies to waffles, limp cream gauferes, pasta, and cookies that you baked)
And he is easy to please too; a simple mua chee satisfies his chinese food craving. (This means a hole will not be emblazoned into your pockets should you decide to give him a rare treat)

#4: He zeroes in on your cravings and pays for your eventual enjoyment of said desired food. (Sometimes, you even have to fight him to pay for half the bill)

I was whining about how good all the chocolate looked in the little choc'lit shops in Bruges and he immediately bought a pick-and-mix box and insisted I choose most of the chocolates to put in them.



And of course I was the one who wanted ice-cream. Once more, he obliged.

#5: He believes in snail mail! 'Nuff said.

#6: He remembers how to make hearts out of bus tickets and the lo-mantic way of folding letters. On request, he can make cranes and boats too.

As demonstrated here with the placemat and napkins of a budget Italian restaurant.


#7: He trawls old towns to look for musical boxes for ahem-ahem. And he searches between rows of wooden puppets, porcelain dolls and fondue sets for that elusive toy zee entire day. And he buys bags for his 3 sisters and agonizes over what to get his mom. Dayum, you say!

#8: SPG alert! His looks allow you to boast that you snagged yourself a boyfriend of Peranakan/French/Portugese/Indian/Javanese/Whateverchapalang descent. You'd be lying, but he wouldn't be so mean to expose your little white lie.

#9: And best of all, HE LEAVES THE TOILET SEAT DOWN!

#10: Because I say so.


So look no further, really. This is YOUR man! You can apply by emailing either Lirong or me at sellingourindian@h10f.com.

Kind regards,

The friendly Management at H10F

Flanders in a flash Part 2: Antwerp

To Antwerp we set foot,

for filled stomachs and loot.

The city with the mostest

gave us memories of the very richest.

The moment we stepped out of the railway station, this nice old man came up to offer us directions and give us suggestions on places worth visiting in the whole mish-mash of a city that is Antwerp. I could have sworn he was planted there by the tourism office, but he really was an angel.

Olv Kathedrale. Here, I wished I had a camera lens wide enough to photograph the entire entrance in its carved spendour.

The nice old man pointed us towards a market which according to him was "an exotic market", but all in all it was just a huge food-cum-chapalang market. Which of course is totally fine by us, since all we seem to do is look for flea markets everywhere we go. And food is probably at the top of our mutual priority list.

Quite possibly the best churros I've ever tasted. Or maybe I've been too deprived of you char kway (dough fritters) so everything that tastes like crisp fried dough is heaven in my eyes.

Told you we eat everywhere we go.

Does this look like we're in the middle of March? Al'Fresco dining is coming 2 whole months prematurely in Belgium, and it's not a bad thing too. More sunshine, less prozac, innit?

And it was St. Patrick's Day when we were there too. Which explains the men in skirts kilts and the droves of revellers decked out in green all ready for an overdose of Irish brew.

I think the only official touristy thing we did was visit Rubens' House. Ruben being Peter Paul Ruben, the most famous painter Belgium has ever known, and also the late owner of the house which is probably the most inadequate museum you could dish out 4Euros to visit. It must have taken us all of 20 minutes to complete a full walk-through.

And unsurprisingly, we ended our little day-trip with yet another food-related adventure. And this particular episode saw us tirelessly hunting down what the Use-It guide hailed as the best hot chocolate in the whole of Antwerp. The Witzli Poetzli cafe could really use a discernable sign instead of a nude-coloured plaque with beige wording spelling out its famed name.

The hot chocolate was nice, but not nearly the best I've tasted. Sprungli's in Zurich still owns my universe; but if Witzli Poetzli's version can make theboy smile like this, then it will have to do!

And of course we did not end our day there. Us being us, we just had to make a detour to Brussels in the faint hope of catching the Anderlecht game even though the website said they were totally sold out. Sometimes, good faith does see you a long way.