No offense to anyone from Belgium or The Netherlands, but I just lost the energy to finish my travelogue about my trip to these places because there just weren't enough interesting things that happened to fuel my drive for writing.
I blame myself though -- I had packed our itinerary with fucking museums galore. It was so boring. But in my defense, I only did it cos there wasn't much else that was recommended by the guidebooks I consulted. I don't know if this is a guidebook problem or a location problem. E.g. do the guidebooks on Singapore recommend you to visit museums? If they do, then yeah, guidebooks suck. But then, I bet if you picked up a guidebook on Bhutan or Nepal you wouldn't be told to visit ANY museum at all right? So maybe it's a bit of both.
Ok so anyway, we went to a shitload of museums, of which the only one that was unmissable and truly worth visiting was the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. There was one painting that I stood in front of for about 10 minutes and I would honestly move to Amsterdam just to be near that painting. It's the one of the pink peach tree in his garden.
Other highlights of the trip:
Albert Cuypmarkt, Amsterdam: Nice open-air street market with cheap everything. We bought some cheese and nuts.
Asian food in The Netherlands: On Day 5 of the trip (Bruges), I almost cried at having to eat spaghetti for dinner and we both listed the foods we missed most from home. When we reached Maastricht, we found a street market with food stalls and lined up for some Vietnamese spring rolls. HEAVEN!!!!! It felt like a spiritual returning. after that we had some Asian takeaway for dinner, and in Amsterdam we hunted down some Surinamese chicken curry at Albert Cuypstraat. Asian food fucking rocks.
Good local food, Belgium: The Europeans are not completely lacking in good cuisine. The Belgian waterzooi and stoemp were good (though I wouldn't be able to live on it daily) and of course their waffles and chocolates were brilliant. I mean the ones they sell at supermarkets, not even the expensive boutique ones. Jacques Callebaut is awesome. I can't eat low-quality Asian chocolate anymore, this trip has spoilt me. Oh yeah and Speculoos -- love the biscuit and the spread, which Kristiaan from Su'ro served us at our last breakfast with him.
Hot chocolate: I must've had at least one a day. You can't get hot chocolate this good in Singapore :( Oh well you can, but at European prices!
Hmm yeah otherwise, we had more fun in Tokyo than we did on this trip. I think I overplanned it cos I was trying so hard to have a perfect trip. Oh well, you live and learn.
