How we spent time in 4 different cities in 3 different countries in one day

The day starts around 2 am in London when I went "Holy shit! the train ticket price had risen from 70 pounds to 182 pounds." I wasn't aware that EuroStar ticket price is variable. So I waited until the last second to check up. But boy am I aware of it now.

Tim can be seen here. dragged out of bed at 5am in the morning, waiting for a tube train to take us to the international station. Actually we dragged each other out of bed. We had to, if we were to keep out itinerary today....

2 quick hours of napping later. We were in Brussels Midi - the most confusing train station in the world!

We found our way out to a cafe near by: The trip took less than a little less than 2 hrs. So we were there right at breakfast time. And what 's more perfect to have for breakfast in Belgium than Belgium waffles!

In the US when you order a cup of tea, you get that: a cup a tea. in a fancy shop you'll get to choose what type it is, but most of the time you'll get a bag of lipton black tea. In Europe (in London, Brussels, Bruges and Amsterdam alike) you'll get this: tea, sugar, milk and a cracker. Fancy eh?

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We thought about browsing Brussels, but the hustle and bustle of the city and our tight schedule deterred us. So we went back into the station after our breakfast and start looking for train to go to Bruges.

Did I mentioned I was confused in Brussels Midi station before? I was. There were essentially NO English sign. Hell there was NO sign (for things we were looking for, like luggage locker, ticket sale, bathrooms, etc. ). No ATM machine. No public map. It took us a good 2 hours running back and forth to find the tickets office, note that ticket for Bruges is sold in one place, ticket for Amsterdam is sold some where else. Of course signs for that information didn't exist.

Anywho, I was just glad we got on this here train.

 and on our merry way to Bruges.

We all heard of Belgium chocolate right? I got excited about the colors and the shapes and the varieties in the store.

So I suggested we should buy some of these and snack on them, they were just so pretty. But Tim pointed out that we haven't even gotten out of the train station yet. 

So I reluctantly moved on.

 Once out of the train station, we look for the highest visible point of the city and follow it. We chose to avoid the crowds and follow more quite residential street. (HAHAHA... just bluffing, everyone else know where they were going, and we didn't, so here we are_

 Tim on one of the main streets in Bruges

The city is small and charming. Our unconventional routes took us through the quiet neighborhoods where streets were small and paved with bricks.
This is the square in the center of the city

Flowers in the square were in full bloom and looked gorgeous.

Some of the tulips look a lot like my favourite flowers peonies.

Then it was time for lunch, we dropped into a restaurant beside the square.

The beeper from the camera's selftimer scared the crap out of the guy behind us, Tim said. He heard some slow beeps then it started to become rapid as it gets ready to take the picture.

First came the Belgium beer in funny glass.

 Then came our food which included local specialty mussels. These are must have when you're hear. They are very sweet and tasty.

Me taking a drink on that boong looking beer glass.

After our lunch Tim and I set out on Tim's quest for a waffle cone ice cream.

We stopped by a museum that was closed for the day.

So Tim attempted to get them to open.

Last looks at the square before we leave.

After walking for a while. Tim was giving up. But LOOK! we found him waffle ice cream cone. Tim was satisfied.

"No one gets their fingers on my ice cream cone." said Tim the cone-terminator.

We sat and snapped a picture on the side of the canal that runs through/by the city. We had the best possible spring weather that day.

Then we said goodbye to Belgium and hopped on a train for Amsterdam. We took the cheapest train which is usually used by locals to commute to Brussels to work. It was crowded, crappy and a slower than the nicer highspeed Thalys trains. But at half the price, Tim jumped in it. And I agreed with him since we've already got burned on the EuroStar tickets just this morning.

We got to Amsterdam around 11.30pm that day. Bought the last 2 slices of pizza from a closing pizzeria food stop at the Centraal station. Waved down the nicest taxi I've ever been in and got to the hotel. 

 ... we went.

London in one and a half day

 London was a blur:

 I straggled a long for 3-4 hours at Heathrow airport while waiting for Tim to arrive. The guy came out of custom a little late and looked exhausted. We straggled some more around the coffee shop that I had been coming and leaving for about 4-5 times all day. Tim's vision wasn't great as he had turned near sighted. Still sore, with bloodshot eyes and hardly any sleep, he and I were determine to make this trip work.

(No worries, the doctor was informed and had given us all kinds of green lights)

We got to the hotel right outside the center of London via the "tube". Took a quick one-hour nap then headed straight for St Paul cathedral at 3pm, saving the big-boy attractions for tomorrow. We got there 30 mins before it closed, rushed inside. The inside was spectacular. No camera were allow though, so this is one of those place you guys have to go see for yourself, or do a quick google image search :D. That said I didn't see many images of the inside of the cathedral in the internet, only a few.

Anywho, we climbed the cruel 500+ steps up different levels of the cathedral in a rush. It took us a good 15 mins to get the very top where we could see the top of London. But as soon as we got there, literally, we were ran off by the staff, like "Make your round and move on people!" kind of running off. So we snatched a few photos to try to justify the admission fee, then grumpily (just me) climbed our way back down.

Tim's going down.

Me climbing down. I know I'm smiling here, but it was purely a photo-op. I was complaining that I hadn't get to see everything I wanted.

We got outside of the cathedral. It was a beautiful day outside. People were gather on the stair steps to sit in the sun, just like birds gather on the sunny side of the roof.

Tim was happy to sit and join the crowd. He likes to take it easy.

 But "taking it easy" is not in my vocab, so I was busy scurrying around like squirrel for nuts, except I was gathering pictures. Here's how St Paul cathedral looks like from the front.

Can you spot Tim on the stair steps?

Then Tim finally waved me down and sternly pointed to the spot of step right next to him. I knew my signal and (somewhat) quietly sat down.

 One last look at the cathedral before we head off to the London eye

The line wasn't long for the London line when we got there. But for some reasons, this one couple decided to be cute and cut the line. I was soooo ticked off. I mean how much faster do you think you'd get. I found out on this trip that lining cutting is one of my worst pet peeves. !@E!@*#)!@#*

Here I am excited to see London at night. Yipeee!

It took me a few mins to get my camera adjusted to the lights of the city. Of course, when the city looks beautiful outside the glass capsule, the people in it look rather bloodless ghostly....

This picture is taken with my Canon S95, I bought 2 days before the trip, using my minimal photography skill (reads non-existent). I love that baby, worth everyone of its pricey penny.

This is a beautilful partial view of the eye from a walk way near by. We tried to have a photo taken for us with the two of us in it. But I guess some people has negative picture taking skill :(

(Do you see the head of a little kid in the very bottom ? hahahaha)

We then headed back to the hotel, share a seemingly meatless baguette before going to sleep.

Next morning I got up and started to look for things to do while Tim was snoozing. He had never been an easy person to wake up during a vacation/holiday and that day wasn't an exception.

I found out that the Westminster Abby, my main thing-to-see, was closed on Sunday. So NOTE TO ALL: Westminster Abby is closed on Sunday!!!! So that's that, we were leaving the next morning, I supposed that will have to be done next year.

We took the tube to the appropriately named Westminster Station, where we got out right underneath the Big Ben. I looked straight at the dude and he was very stately, impressive. We couldn't believe the kind of weather we have in London. So warm and sunny.

We walked across the bridge to where the food was and grab some brunch.

Not forgetting to pose for pictures like every other tourist in town.

Tim made sure I have a picture in which I'm holding a map - certified tourist <stamped>

We spent the rest of the day hopping on and off of an open-top double decker city tour bus, which provided the BEST view point for straight-down-the-river when you sit outside on the top deck. It seemed to just  crisscrossing from one side to the other of the Thames making a few loops around the important sight. (TIPS: There are two tour bus companies in the city, that we saw, take the the one that have live commentators, if you are to ride one. It makes a world of a difference.) 

After getting bored on a recorded commented bus tour, we hopped off into this beautiful park called Hyde Park. The park was some 300+ acre large and used to be hunting parking for the royals. It had since been open to the public and the people of London appear to love it. The day, the grass, the park werre irresistible. We walked straight in to the Speaker Corner, where people, I guess, just pull up a stumb (or a ladder), and deliver speech to the crowd. The topic that day was anti-abortion or something like that. Tim I quickly headed toward somewhere else.

People of London and their beautiful park. There's a man made lake in the middle of the park that I would have loved to paddle a boat around in, but... I can't always to EVERYTHING I want.

Here's my beautiful being himself and beautiful.

We walked to the Trafalgar square, the gathering place of London, where I CLIMBED up to the lion to have a picture with him. He's huge and handsome, and it's worth while to note that he is casted from "captured French cannons", although I haven't been able to find out when these cannons were supposed to have been captured. There were 4 of these lion guys. guarding the monument in the square, though they seems like friendly house lion, because I saw tourist climbed beside them, on top of them, on the right, left .... all day, and they just sit there with no objection :) - so it's more like welcoming lions rather than guarding :)

We stopped in a restaurant nearby for my last chance at fish and chip (not thing spectacular here), but I can now say, I've had it in England.

So just like the women here in the US built the country while the men were away at war during WWII. so did the women of the UK. And this monument was for them.

End of the day drew close. we hurried back to the hotel unaware of what was to come at us at the beginning of the next day, but that's for another entry.

I'm going to sleep now without proof reading this entry. so excuse the mess as you read. I'll be back to straighten them out later. Thanks for stopping by again. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.