I finally have a follower!! Thanks Felish! :P

Anyway, so Brussels has very decent food, I have to admit. I think all the restaurants have a certain standard that they have to adhere to, so most of the restaurants my dad's taken us to have been yum! It's just too bad I won't be able to continue to afford eating at these snazzy and yum restaurants after my parents leave. *Sigh* The following are restaurants that we've been to and I'd actually brought my camera along (in order from earliest to most recent). I'm not even going to talk about price because they're all pretty pricey (most, if not all, were 20+ Euro per person). Lost of food pics, you have been warned!

Belga Queen
My mom's not a big fan of this restaurant. The few times she went before she always ordered the Plat du Jour (plate of the day) and was disappointed each time. However, their bathroom is awesome because the glass walls and doors of each stall are clear until you lock the door. Then, the glasses all fog up, and you can't see the person inside! Just for that, we had to take a trip to the restaurant. This time around we didn't order the Plat du Jour, just ordered main courses. I thought it was pretty good.

Beer! (Rodenbach)
Obligatory pre-meal bread and butter
Mom's dish - roasted cod with mashed potatoes
Dad's dish - Charcoaled steak with Artichoke
Sister's dish - Half raw tuna (aka seared tuna, thanks JC) with fries (As much as I dislike tuna, this was pretty tasty)
Mine's - Smoked Piglet with Veggies. T'was really yum!

Pictures of bathroom coolness? ~> Unlocked and Locked.

Italian Restaurant

Forgot the name of this restaurant. Hah! Their food was alright. Actually, I should say, their pizza was fantastic. We ordered pizaa with artichoke (<3!), olives, mushrooms, Italian sausage, and ham. Thin crusted, baked to perfection. So good. Other than that, their pastas and ravioli left much to be desired. And their post-meal alcohol? So strong it was ridiculous. Ever tasted paint thinner? I haven't, but I think that liquor was on par with paint thinner.

Bread, which was made out of the pizza crust. Fresh outta the oven, delicious!
PIZZA! which I forgot to take a picture of until we were 3/4 done with it.
Salmon pasta, which my mom likes, but I wasn't really a fan of the sauce. It just tasted weird. Then again, not a fan of salmon.
Dad's oxtail with pasta. It was aite. Only aite.
Horrible ravioli with bolognaise sauce. It was too salty and the ravioli itself was tasteless. Tried to tell the waiter that it was too salty, but the waiter didn't speak English. And salty in French escaped our minds.
After-meal liqueur, aka paint thinner. It was free. But it was DEADLY.

Brasserie du Parc (Ostend)

When we went on our tour of Northern Belgium, ended up at Ostend around lunch time. My dad's guide book suggested two restaurants, and one of them wasn't open yet and the prices were a tad high, so we ended up at Brasserie du Parc (which in the guidebook was named Cafe du Parc, weird until we realized the guidebook was published back in 2003 or something). After initial misgivings, we ordered, and the food turned out to be not so bad, except for my dad's dry, plain looking tuna sandwich.

Beer! Can't be without beer - 2 Hoegaardens and a Mort Subite.
Mom's dish - Bouillabaisse (sp?) aka Fish soup, which tasted super fishy, but my mom enjoyed.
Dad's dish - tuna fish sandwich. Mmm, looks tasty, huh? My mom's looks and probably tastes better than that.
Sister's dish - Omlette with everything (ham, cheese and tomatoes).
Mines - Chicken with white sauce (Creamy!). There was an official French name for it, but I can't recall what it is now.


To be continued ....

NEW IPOD TOUCH!!! and Nanos, which look totally spiffy too. They didn't update the new Touches much, but it's THINNER! and it has built in speakers which is always a good thing (for me anyway). AND it has volume control, always a plus.

I WANT I WANT!!! AHHHHHHHH! Altho the 32gb is still a bit pricey. 399? :( Why can't they drop the prices more? Sigh.

I still want though. :) Especially now that I've pretty much given up on the iPhone.

Too lazy to find pictures. Visit Apple's site for pics and more info I guess. Hah! I'm totally advertising for them. :P

Just got back from the Netherlands (aka Amsterdam aka Red Light District). I can finally say I've been to BeNeLux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), although I feel like we didn't really do much in Luxembourg (not that there's much to do there, I guess).

Saturday
My dad drove there, and it took about 2.5 hours, I think. Not that far. First we went to see the windmill in Sloten (b/c you can't really go to the Netherlands without seeing a windmill, right?). It was ... a, um, windmill. We didn't go in because that'd be 5 Euro, and we weren't that interested. So, snapped a couple of pictures and left.

Next we headed to the zoo. Yes, you read right, THE ZOO, Artis Zoo to be precise. I like animals. I like seeing animals. And when I heard there was a zoo in the center of Amsterdam, of course we went. :) Besides, it's the oldest zoo in the Netherlands, and one of the oldest zoos in Europe. Definitely saw more animals this time than when we went to Muzha Zoo in Taipei the summer I graduated from high school (they were all hiding from the heat *sigh*). This time around, there were so many cute animals! Big cats, small fish, birds, etc. :) 'Twas fun!

It's looking at you!

罰站!
All of them had their heads facing the sky, sunbathing, and one of the females and the male were singing, a duet? Whatever it was, it sounded horrible.
Tiny little monkey, SO CUTE
These four monkeys were just chilling on the fence. They weren't exactly fenced in or caged, but they didn't run around the zoo wreaking havoc. They'd just sit on the fence or run around inside their fenced area. So 乖! and cute. and furry. :D
It's HEDWIG!!!
Mmm, water

After the zoo we went to the hotel, which was a 30 minute drive away (we were staying near the airport because it was cheaper than staying near the center). Then, we took the train back out to the center in search of the Red Light District, more precisely, Chinatown! Yup. the RDL wasn't that hard to find, I guess. Just had to follow the masses. We went a bit earlier, so there weren't any ladies in their windows/doors, just yet. So we went in search of dinner. A lot of the restaurants in Chinatown were packed, and the first restaurant we went to had terrible service. They didn't even talk to us! And we were left just standing there! So rude. So we left and went in search of another place. Finally found one that didn't require any waiting, so we decided on the place. It was nubbad, but we ordered too much, as usual, and it was way filling.

Chinatown! Which is basically a street.
A temple in Chinatown in the RDL! heh. Too bad it was closed. I wanted to bai bai. Sigh.

Post-dinner we decided to go walk around the RDL and see the sites. Heh. Heh. It was awkward. There were ladies in underwear standing behind glass doors and knocking on the doors to get your attention! I didn't dare look left or right and definitely didn't dare take that many pictures for fear of taking a picture of the wrong ... thing (taking pictures of the ladies is forbidden). Even so, we did get some pictures in. I'll let the pictures do the talking. There was also a lot of pot in the air, and no, I did not smoke any. Can you imagine my parents letting us smoke pot even if it's legal? But I did inhale a lot of secondhand smoke. Hmm. Nasty. I have been warned by my parents to never come back to the RDL again. Even with friends. Haha. It does seem to get rowdier as the night goes on, which isn't surprising considering how there are drunk and high people all over the place, but there were also a lot of cops patrolling the area, so I guess it's still relatively safe(?).

Canal in the RDL

Since we couldn't, wouldn't really do anything at the RDL, we called it a night and went back to the hotel.

Sunday

Rainy day. Fantastic. Made us not want to do anything. The plan was to head into downtown on the train again, take a canal tour, and then head to the museum area to check out the Van Gogh Museum. As it was rainy and wet, we drove into town, headed straight for the museum, and then left Amsterdam. The museum was nice. Lots of Van Gogh's hanging. Too bad there were so many people. I don't like crowded museums. >.< Since we couldn't take pictures inside, I bought some postcards and a little poster of my favorite pieces to hang on me wall. :)

After the museum, the idea was to go home back to Belgium, but I guess my dad felt it was too early. So we went to Delft, known for its Delftware (really, really pretty stuff man). It was raining when we arrived, so we walked around in the rain, looking at churches and visiting a Delftware store. Traditionally it's blue and white, but this store also had black painted ceramics with colorful designs. The stuff is really pretty!!

After the short and wet trip, it was time to go home (after a quick stop at Burger King where the cashier forgot about my chicken wings, and I had to go and get it from him :( But it was yum :P).

The End!

OH! Forgot to mention. While we were in downtown Amsterdam, we saw these circular fenced areas, which and we'd see guys go into. We couldn't figure out what it was for at first. Then we realized it was for guys to urinate in! Right there on the sidewalk! So. Random.