Brussels, Belgium Trip (Day 1)

 10th November 2023, Friday

I had planned a weekend gateway to Belgium as it will be a public holiday next Monday for Singapore and it was quite near to Netherlands (about 2hrs plus train ride). Since I had a half day off today, so I worked from 1 am to 4:30 am (NL time) and we also had to leave the house by 5 am to catch our train. However, we only managed to leave the house by 5:05 am and then we had to walk 20 mins to the train station. The wind was blowing sooo strong and it felt so cold and dry. We were 15 mins earlier than our scheduled time but there was a 10 mins delay on our train. So we hid in the seated room to wait for our train. We managed get to leave almost to 6 am and off we go to Brussels.

Leaving early

Sunrise

There was a couple of hicups during the train journey. When we were about to reach Breda Station, the train suddenly stopped for a few minutes due to a stop in electricity providing to the train and they had to reboot the system to get the electricity back. In the end, there was a delay on the train schedule and the train conductor announced they will have to do quick stop at the upcoming stations in order to catch up the delayed time. When we reached Brussels Midi station, the conductor was walking around the train checking if anyone was going to Brussels Central station. If yes, will need to get off and transfer to another train in platform 8 to go Brussels Central station instead. Since we need to go to Brussels Central, we had to change to the other train in platform 8 instead. We managed to reach Brussels Central almost 10 am (1 hour later than our expected arrival time). When we reached there, it was also raining and my friend needed soooo badly a place for her stupid meeting. There was no place for her and she wanted to get to the hotel as fast as she could. So we kind of had a fight because of it, but we still went ahead straight to the hotel under the rain. It was a 15-20 mins walk to the hotel and i was so glad we reached there finally.  Though we can't check in yet, there was free wifi and seating place to use. 

Drawing on building

TinTin cartoon drawing

King's House at grand square

House of the Dukes of Brabant (Front)

Building names: Le Roy d'Espagne, La Brouette, Le Sac, La Louve, Le Cornet and Le Renard

Building names: L'Étoile, Le Cygne, L'Arbre d'Or, La Rose and Le Mont Thabor

So my friend stayed on for her work and i headed out to explore the town first on my own. I saw a very tall building that looked like a cathedral, so i headed walking towards it. It was situated at the centre square where there were 7 majestic looking buildings around the grand square. However, there was stuffs blocking the view as the people was preparing to setup for stalls and decorations for their Christmas markets. And there were different groups of walking tours with different languages telling stories about the buildings. There were also a lot of chocolate and waffles shops around each corner. There were also paintings of Tintin characters around the building since this was the birth place of Tintin comics. It also started to rain slightly and i just continued walking around the streets till 11: 45 am. My friend called me when i was buying some almond chocolate in a shop named La Belgique Gourmande. So i quickly paid and headed back to the hotel to meet her for lunch. We decided to go try this eating place named Baogo which was near the central. It was just opened for business so it was easy to get a table for dine -in during lunch time. It was a asian fusion restaurant but it doesn't look like it though they did sell sim dum. But reviews show they were famous for their "bao". It was actually hamburger but the buns looked like chinese bao instead. We ordered a Panko Chieken Bao (Popular choice) and a Panko Salmon Bao to try with sweet potato fries. The baos came in a large dim sum basket and the portion was big.  The fried chicken breast in the bao was cooked nicely and was yummy with the sauce. The salmon burger was also nice with avocado but it was not as good as the chicken burger. Overall, the food was nice here.

Popular waffles

Chocolates

Baos!

After lunch, we walked around for a while and we went to a cookie shop named Maison Dandoy. My friend was recommending the cookies and sweets in the shop. And we also bought a small box of 30 cookies and we got to pick the cookies. After that, we headed back to the hotel as it was almost 2 pm and my friend needed to go back to her work. Once we reached the hotel, she went back to her work and i took a rest on the sofa while waiting for check-in. At 2 plus, we tried to ask for check-in as we saw other visitors seems to get check-in before 3 pm. When it was our turn, the staff tried to check us in and got us to pay the hotel taxes. After paying, the staff told us that our room was not ready and we had to check-in after 3 pm...It was so 'funny' that he even took my friend's passport for verification and got us to pay the hotel tax first, then told us our room was not ready. So never mind, we went back to the seating area and wait for some more time. i ended up napping on the sofa while waiting. When i woke up, it already passed 3pm. So i decided to go back to the same staff to check if our room is ready. The staff said it was ready and wanted my friend's passport for registration. I was thinking 'what the hell, didn't you take the details when we first checked in?' But never mind again, i went to my friend to get her passport for the guy to key the details. And finally he passed us our room key after multiple to and fro. I was just glad to go into our room so i can sleep.

Cookies shop

Cookies

So we took our bags and went up to the room. When we walked into the room, the room felt cold and we tried to set the air-con cum heater. But the lowest temperature we can set was only 15 degrees and there seem to have cold air blowing out. In the end we gave up and continued with our stuffs. There was not even a kettle in the room and the room looked old too. I just napped again until my friend knocked off from her work. But it was already raining heavily and we still had to grab something for dinner. Before we left the hotel, we asked the reception to get their technician to check on our heater. Then we went out to get some water first from the mini store beside the hotel. We tried to head to a ramen shop we searched online by walking but we ended up stopping a chinese noodles eating place - Au bon bol along the way. The smell of the soup was attractive to me and we just went in instead as there were other customers going in and it was already pouring. My friend checked the reviews online briefly and there was some good reviews. We went upstairs to find a seat and we decided to order a bowl of soup noodles with mixed meat (included pork, chicken, duck and beef) and a mixed dim sum for sharing. After we ordered, the people started coming in and filling up the place. Soon it was full house but we slowly noticed the time taken for the food to serve was taking sooo long. We waited like 30 mins or so for our noodles to be served. The noodles and soup was nice but the fried chicken pieces were already soaked long in the soup and it was hard. Taste still not too bad though. The dim sum was not tasty at all, tasted like frozen dim sum instead, 

Hotel room

Hot noodles

Dim sum

By the time we finished dinner, it was already past 7, going to be 8 pm. So we paid for the meal and headed back to our hotel. A lot of people were still outside shopping around the stores and walking the streets. When we reached the hotel, we checked with the reception and was informed their technician had went up and looked at our heater. So we went up to our room and sure enough, the room was slightly warmer than earlier. We saw the ac control was on but the temperature was set to nothing. But it was still slightly cold, luckily the blanket was thick enough to keep us warm while we slept. And the wifi kept dropping since our room was the very very far back on the level.

Hotel stayed: Bedford Hotel & Congress Centre

Full photo album: Click Here

Solo Adventure in Amsterdam, Netherlands

 9th November 2023, Thursday

Today i was on leave and the weather was good, so decided to head out alone to Amsterdam (since my friend is working today). So she recommended me to head down to Dappermarkt located at Amsterdam Muidenpoort first before going to Amsterdam Central for the rest of the day. I prepared myself and made sure i am wrapped warmly (with my thermal wear and jackets), off i went. The wind was blowing strongly when i was walking to the train station. I waited for the 10:13 am train to head down to Amsterdam Muidenpoort station. It was a 15 mins ride....and luckily the sun was out today. When i reached the station, i made my way to Dappermarkt. Though the opening hours was from 10 am, there were multiple stalls not opened yet. But those opened were selling flowers, cheese, fresh veggies and fishes. Others were selling clothes, socks or toys. At the fresh fish stall (De Graaf - Roos & Zn), they were selling fried shrimps, cuttlefish, etc too. So i decided to buy some fried shrimps to try after long thought and i was getting hungry at that time.  I bought 6 shrimps for $5.50 and additional $0.50 for the sauce. It was nice and filling even for 6 shrimps though it was expensive.....😅..Afterwards, i just continued exploring the market. I decided to head down to Amsterdam Central as there was nothing much that i was interested in the market.

A day with sun

Dappermarkt Entrance

Available stalls

Fried giant shrimps

I took the 11:43 train to Amsterdam Central and it was just one station away. Luckily there was no train disruption or anything else going on. When i reached Amsterdam central, there were so many people around and i tried to walk towards the canal. But i think i just ended up on the tourists area where there were a lot of shops along the streets (like our Orchard road like that). So i just went shopping while looking at the buildings around. I walked for some time before i decided to go find one of the popular french fries shops - Fabel Friet in Amsterdam. Along the way to the fries shop, i walked into an alley where i saw a long queue to a cookies shop - Vans Stapele Koekmakerji and the chocolate smell nice. So i decided to queue for it while googling online on the items the shop is selling. I just saw people buying 1 or 2 boxes of cookies. So i decided to buy a box of 6 cookies (12.50 euro) and tried to eat one outside. The cookie was warm and soft, it was also sweet in the centre because of the white chocolate (It still tasted nice after 4 days and my friend seems to like it more after the 4 days period cos it become harder. I prefer it to be soft).

Amsterdam Train Station

Opposite view of Amsterdam Station

Houses in canal

Cheese shop

War memorial

Cooke shop

Freshly baked chocolate cookies

After that, i made my way to the fries shop - Fabel Friet and i saw a small crowd of people standing outside of the shop waiting for their orders. The shop was quite small with 2 cashiers taking orders and i went in to make mine. Then i went outside to wait for the staffs to call for my order.  I got a small fries with truffle mayo for 4.90 euro (The uniqueness of this shop was that you can add cheese for 1 euro to your fries). I found the fries nice and enjoyed it...just that it was too much... I saw people just threw their leftovers to the sea gulls and other birds. I just ate while i continued on my shopping. 

Queue outside fries shop

Freshly cooked fries

Then i walked until a flower market - Bloemenmarkt where the shops sell mostly flowers seeds for planting purposes. There were also some souvenirs and cheese shops around. From there, i walked to see the stalls and bought 2 tee-shirts from a souvenirs shop. After which, i made my way back to the train station but the sky got dark and was drizzling. As i walked back, i went to another souvenirs shop to get some souvenirs as the prices were 2 euros cheaper here. After that, i stumbled upon a mall-looking area where there were bigger shops inside. So i decided to went in 1. for toilet break and 2, to find a new pants for myself (the rubber part of one of my pants had become loose...😂.). I managed to get a Nike track pants instead for 40 euros. After that, i walked planning to go the train station but i went into the lego shop to fix a figurine instead. I spent quite a while inside the shop and by the time i was done, it was already pouring with rain. So i walked with my umbrella till McD and hide inside until the rain gets lighter (if i am lucky). 

Stall at Bloemenmarkt

Mall entrance

Ninja Lego figurine

After some time, i headed out and before i can walk to the station, i came across a waffles shop - van wonderen stroopwafels selling waffles and stroopwafels. People were queuing to buy the waffles but i chose to buy their stroopwafels (15 euro). After i bought it, i walked very quickly to the station as it was getting late and my friend waiting at home for dinner.  It was about a hour plus back to the home and before that, i headed to the supermarket nearby the house to buy a chicken wrap back for dinner. And, this was my one day adventure in Amsterdam....😀

Photo Album: Click Here

Giethoorn & Steenwijk

 4th November 2023, Saturday

I spent one week working remotely from Netherlands and I just woke up around 2 or 3 am to start work. For the whole week, there is no one day that was not raining. It was raining like mad on Wednesday night till the end of Thursday and the wind was so strong. Can even hear the howling sound of the wind the whole day. Only managed to go for a walk on Friday afternoon after my work as the sun did come out in the afternoon. But it still rained afterwards while i was outside.

Today we are heading to Giethoorn to stay over the weekend. It was a 2 to 3 hours train + bus ride from Almere Poort. So we woke up early and ate our breakfast. We walked slowly to Almere Poort train station to catch the 8:17 train. When we went up the platform, I saw the next train is going to Zwolle station instead of making a transfer at Almere Central. So we chose to take the next train to go to Zwolle station, but later we realised we will have to transfer to 2 buses (bus 71 & 70) in order to get to Giethoorn. We finally reached Giethoorn around 10 plus (the whole journey took about 2hrs plus).

Arrival

Since it is still early to check-in, we decided to explore the town and looked for our brunch/lunch around. The town are surrounded with the canal where people can cruise on the guided tour (9.50 euro per hour + free coffee/tea) or rent a boat to cruise on their own. The canal space was just big enough for one boat to pass at a time so the direction is always one-way. The boat rental cost around 25 to 50 euros per pax for an hour, so we didn't go ahead with it. It looked kind of nice too since you don't need a license for driving the boat around. But i think it may be better to come around this period if you want to drive the boat on your own as my friend said it was so much crowded during summer time and you will get stuck in the boat traffic most of the time. The restaurants also have boat rentals service available, so you can rent from any of the restaurants after dine-in.

Residential House

Church

We also tried to google the restaurants available there but found that most of the restaurants open at 12:00 pm instead. We also passed by a ice-cream shop named Venice and there were a lot of people standing outside of the shops. We just took a peek inside and decided to come back later for tea break. There was a small church and a museum available there. The walkways was also small for 2 person to walk side by side (smaller builds). As there was very few boats cruising the canal, we were able to see reflections of the trees, bridges and houses which was very beautiful. We walked till we reached a cafe named Grand Cafe Fanfare. Initially we wanted to go for a restaurant (Restaurant Fratelli) opposite the cafe but it wasn't open for business. So we went to Grand Cafe Fanfare instead. Luckily it wasn't so crowded and we managed to get a table. We waited for some time for the waitress to pass us their menu and they had a QR code which we can scan for the English menu. After flipping through the menu for 5-10 mins, we decided to order a twelve o'clock (a platter with bread, a soup, salad and smoked salmons), hot chocolate and an apple pie. 

Chocolate drink & cake

Breakfast set

The hot chocolate came with hot milk and real milk and dark chocolate chips where you add the chocolate chips into the milk. And you will have the hot chocolate drink..😂...real chocolate drink, not powder. The whipped cream they gave was also very generous, i didn't even use much of the cream for my chocolate drink. The apple pie also came with whipped cream as per request and it was quite tasty. The hot soup that came with the bread platter tasted nice but there was a mild spicy flavour to it. After eating, we left and continued walking around the town. We walked back to the ice cream shop and bought a scoop of Oreo ice cream with cone for 1.95 euro. We also bought a super thick Christmas socks for ourselves.....😊....

Ice-cream

Our Christmas socks

By 3 plus, it started to rain and we decided to walk to our B&B place - Hotel B&B d'Olde Smidse. It was located some distance outside the main town as it was slightly cheaper when we booked. Those located inside the main town were more expensive. Along the way, we also went to explore the supermarket there. When we reached the hotel, we don't see its reception. Instead the reception was inside with the restaurant. The owner came out from the kitchen and greeted us. Apparently he is the chef too...😅.....So he registered us in and wanted us to pay for our stay. My friend asked him didn't he receive our payment through Agoda as it should have been charged to my friend's credit card. So he did a check and while waiting, he gave us a brief introduction on the areas we can go nearby the hotel. He also let us know the breakfast time. He then confirmed our payment was made and brought us to our. room on the upper floor. The room was quite big and cosy. So we dropped our bags and rest in the room, watching tv. 

Hotel Entrance

Room key

Hotel restaurant

Room layout

We decided to go for dinner at the hotel restaurant later around 4:30 pm. We were the only ones there as i guessed it was still too early for dinner. There was still drizzled rain and it was cold. There, we ordered a half chicken with salad and fries, Pepsi and 6 of bitterballen. The chicken was quite dry and seem overcooked. The bitterballen was quite nice (just oily) but we just enjoyed our time during dinner (in fact, i was getting super super sleepy). After dinner, we went back to our room and rested for the day.

Dinner

Side Dishes

5th November 2023, Sunday

I tried to sleep in a little later for today but i still woke up at 6 plus. Then we got ready by 8 am and headed down to the restaurant for breakfast. We were the first ones there and the owner was also preparing the breakfast. He was cooking sausages, eggs and bacons. There were breads and different type of spreads for the breads, There were also cereals and juices. It was a decent variety of choices, not too much. I tried the crossiant, scrambled eggs, sausages and bacons. But the eggs, bacons and sausages were oily and salty. After some time, there was a pair of ladies and a family of 4 joined for breakfast. We just ate our breakfast till 9 plus, then we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags for check-out. It was drizzling when we left the hotel. When we walked out of the hotel, the pair of ladies were at their car, preparing to leave too. So we just waved bye to them when one of the ladies saw us and waved bye at us first. We decided to explore the other side of the main towel so we walked back to the main town. There were lesser people compared to the previous day. Most of the shops were not even opened for business. So we just walked and walked and there was a lot of flies flying around today, And the rain kept coming on and off the whole time. We walked till 11 plus and made our way back to Almere Poort

.

Breakfast

Hotel rooms

Swans

Outskirt waters

Bridge

We reached the bus stop at 12:08 pm and the next bus time was 1:09 pm as we missed the earlier bus. So we just waited at the bus stop the whole time and there was rain too. Finally the bus came and we boarded. It was a 30 mins ride to Steenwijk and we decided we could head down to the town for lunch first before we take the train back to Almere Central. However the restaurants we googled in Steenwijk seems to be opened on late afternoon for dinner. There was one restaurant we found opened currently was Brasserie Zus en Zo. All the shops that we passed along the way are all closed when we were walking to the restaurant. I can also see there were 3 churches in the town. We managed to get a table when we reached the restaurant. 

Street of Steenwijk 

Lunch place

We ordered a hawaiian smoothie, a platter and cheese nachos. The drink was quite good as it consisted of mango, passionfruit, apple and 3 or 4 more fruits. The food was considered salty to my tastebuds, it was not bad though but its very filling. After we finished the meal, we paid and left the restaurant. We walked a while in the town but it was like a ghost town (nothing was opened and no many people outside). We just walked slowly to the train station where we took a train back to Almere Central. By the time we arrived at Almere Central, it was already past 5 pm and the sky got really dark (like 8 plus in Singapore). We went to the asian supermarket nearby and bought some foods (frozen balls & wantons) to cook for the coming week. It started to rain again when we came out from the supermarket. We then walked to the bus stop to catch our bus to go back. I was soooo sleepy and tired and still had to wait for the bus. When the bus came, it was really really dark and it was a long ride back to the house. There was a drunk who got on the bus at some point and was making noise on the bus. He even got into an argument with another guy. I was glad we finally reached home and i can take shower to rest.

Cheese fries

Salad

Lassi

Hotel stayed: Hotel B&B d' Olde Smidse

Photo Album: Click Here