Bruxelles 2012 - the arty city

I just really like Brussels. I wouldn't live there and I wouldn't go there every weekend, but as a city, it's definitely a place I would recommend to people.

There are so many things to discover if you're into the arts and creative scene. I didn't make it into any cultural venue or museum this trip, but I saw a lot of shops, and boy were they nice shops.

Almost all bookshops had old, secondhand arty books, almost all comic stores had anything you would want to find. Almost all music shops were vintage and collector's, and the variety of everything a hipster would want is staggering.

I even bought two piano books, even though I don't have a piano. Yet.

After buying my piano books.

Art landscaping in front of the Royal Library.

 

Saved from financial ruin by all the books being in French.

Cappuccino with Belgian chocolate powder on top. Luxurious! But not that tasty, actually.

Grand Place.

Nativity scene under the thatched roof left over from Christmas.

This is a community service message: Don't buy waffles from this shop. They're mushy and don't represent the opinions of Belgian waffles nationwide.

I wanted to buy these cushion stools but there was no price attached. After browsing the shop and seeing the prices of salt and pepper shakers (averaging € 60/pair), I decided that my purse wouldn't like me very much if I bought them. Super cute though.

This shop is located in the gay quarter of Brussels and I'm absolutely convinced to be targeted only at gays. Because straight singles and couples in general just can't afford these things for their homes. Somehow, gays always have the best stuff in their homes, doncha think??

Nice girl with nice eyes makes nice earrings which Yelleh Belleh bought.

Yet another bookstore. I just can't get enough.

Super beautiful Christmas nature decorations. I wanted to decorate my place nature-style for Christmas 2011, but I just couldn't find enough. It doesn't seem very popular to have nature-style decor :s :s

Nice, bright mustard door in the middle of the ghetto.

Famous Marché aux Puces flea market, open daily from 6am to 2pm.

Yelleh Belleh bargaining with an Arabic Dude:

YB: How much is this?

AD: Ten euro.

YB: That's too expensive, can you make it cheaper?

AD: Uh. How much you want?

YB: Uh, seven euro?

AD: Uh... (calls over Arabic Dude 2 and discusses)... (turns back to YB)... eight euro.

YB: Uh, that's too expensive. Never mind, I don't want it.

(After standing still for 5 seconds)

AD: Five euro.

YB: Oh. Okay.

Yelleh Belleh's shoulder hurt from the heavy backpack.

View while I was waiting for her to finish putting muscle gel on.

Buying last minute beer at De Bier Tempel just off Grand Place. Tourist prices, so don't go there if you want to get Belgian beer at normal prices. We were just in a rush as we had a train to catch. After paying for the beer, we actually had 7 minutes to run to the train station, with our heavy backpacks and 6 bottles of beer in plastic bags. We arrived on the platform panting and cramping just as the train pulled in. Talk about cutting it close!

Good trip overall and nice to see Brussels again :)

Bruxelles 2012 - an extensive review of Max Hotel vs. Chic and Basic

Happy new year boys and girls!

I have been so slack with posting and one of my new year's resolutions is, no, not to blog more regularly, but to only post what JUST happened, meaning I will stop back-blogging from now on. This is to help future me, when looking for old posts on certain dates.

So, my first trip of the year was on the first weekend of the year (pure coincidence), and it was to Brussels with Yelleh Belleh.

Did I mention that she's here for an internship at my office in Amsterdam? Yep.

So we took the train down to Brussels for a very affordable price of € 34,20 each return. And I found a hotel online called Max Hotel, which looked like the Chic and Basic I stayed at in Madrid. I really loved that hotel and was excited to have found a similar offering in Brussels.

Looks like the hotel review will come first. Here goes...

The Max Hotel people call it a new kind of concept of urban hotel for a reasonable price at a great location. This is very true, as it was on a main street parallel to the main shopping street of Brussels, and only a 10-minute walk (if you know your way) to Grand Place, the main square.

Because this hotel concept was so similar to Chic and Basic, I couldn't help constantly comparing the two.

First impressions
When you first enter the premises of Max Hotel, outside the main doors, you're faced with two machines to check in and out. I found this super cool, as all your booking details are in the database and all you have to do is enter your booking number and insert your card for confirmation.

At Chic and Basic, it's just like a normal hotel with a small check-in desk and a friendly Spanish dude to help you out. I think both ways suit me just fine. The human touch is pleasant and welcoming, but the machine method is just super cool. Unless something goes wrong and you're stuck outside the doors till the hotel guy sees you from the CCTV.

The room
At Max Hotel, the room was much larger than Chic and Basic's. It was pretty much like a standard sized hotel room in a standard 3 or 4 star hotel. The bathroom was also very nice and reasonably sized. Chic and Basic's bathroom was nice and modern, but the weird thing was the sink being in the room itself. It looked weird, but it was nice for watching TV while brushing my teeth and washing my face :P

So first impression of the room at Max Hotel was good. Until I discovered there was no safe to keep our passports in. Something which Chic and Basic had. Okay, never mind, not such a huge inconvenience (although I really like having a safe in the room).

We gave our feet a rest (we had only checked in at 3pm, after walking for 4 hours in the city) for about 10 minutes, then freshened up and headed out again.

The amenities
All the amenities in these kinds of hotels are never located in your room. In Chic and Basic, it was in the lobby and in Max Hotel it was on the first floor in a sort of lounge area. The big difference and winning point for Chic and Basic is that they were all free - coffee, tea, chocolate powder, cinnamon powder, all kinds of powder for your drinks, biscuits, cookies, milk, boiling water... in Madrid, I would get ready in the morning (or evening) and head out, picking up a coffee and biscuit for the walk to Baker Jo's hotel up the road. At Max Hotel, you have to pay for everything. I was quite disappointed at this discovery.

Even more disappointing was that they don't provide little shampoo and shower gel bottles to guests. You actually have to buy those two at the vending machine on the first floor for € 1 each. I guess we should just be thankful that bath towels were provided *rolls eyes*. Oh, and there is no free WiFi either. You have to pay for that per 24 or 72 hours to use in your room. For us who were only staying less than a day, and out of the room most of the time, it wasn't worth it.

The night
While we were out, we smelt so many waffles around that we just had to find a good place to have one. Unfortunately, we chose the wrong shop. The waffles were mushy and way too sweet and dripping with too much chocolate sauce. Yelleh Belleh even stained my scarf that she was borrowing, with chocolate sauce :( I hope it comes off.

We'd also decided that we needed to have Belgian chips. So at 7pm, we bought a bag of chips to share. And that was our dinner for the day, as we weren't hungry anymore. Being Malaysian, we were worried that we'd get hungry later on in the hotel, so we thought of getting cup noodles for the room. "But," I wondered aloud, "Does the hotel have boiling water?". We figured that they had to provide hot water to make tea, but in the end, we couldn't find any good cup noodles, so we decided to be strong and go without food (because we didn't want anything else).

The next morning
We had bought a little shampoo bottle from the Max Hotel vending machine because the convenience stores were selling the full-sized bottles for way too much than was appropriate. So all prepared, I stepped into the shower, and got a pleasant surprise in the form of a rain shower. How luxurious!

So, we get a rain shower, but we don't get free shampoo and shower gel. I just find that too strange. Sure, most people don't like hotel shampoos and would rather use their own, but we're talking about a cheap and easy hotel here, where either half-on-a-budget travellers or one-night travellers stay. We people are not super fussy about shampoo, really. I'd rather have free amenities than a rain shower any day.

Okay then, on the other hand, say you are really fussy about your hair and body and don't care about them not providing shampoo and shower gel. I realised, while rubbing the € 1 shampoo into my hair, that the shower area is WAY too small for a rain shower fitting. The rain was just everywhere and was getting into my eyes, and there was nowhere to step away from it, except by going back out of the shower area. I had to switch from rain to normal shower head mode, which was attached to the wall at a lower level. That solved the problem, but it didn't take away the basic inappropriateness of having the rain shower.

In conclusion
It sounds like I have a lot of complaints about the Max Hotel, but in reality, I did like it. My conclusion is that it's convenient and affordable and very comfortable to stay in. I just find that some of the things they did were useless and would have been better replaced by other basic things. I don't need such a big room, or a rain shower. What I need in place of those things is a safe, free amenities and free WiFi. In that department, Chic and Basic really wins top place. I still love it loads and would look for a Chic and Basic wherever I go.

A day in Antwerp

Today was the first time I've been in Antwerp.

Belgium keeps surprising me again and again. The first time I went was to Brussels (<- link to Part 1 of 3) last year, and if you read my post, I said that I didn't expect anything at all, as I never heard anything about the city or the country when it came to beauty or interesting sights. And boy, was I amazed in the end!

Then later on, I went to Brugge/Bruges, fully expecting a small, beautiful town, since everyone tells me it's so pretty and old and all that, but unfortunately it was a slight disappointment precisely because I had heard so much about it, plus it rained half the time we were there and we could hardly see or visit anything. The highlight of the trip was the big church with organ music and the choir though. That was truly awesome.

So today, Schrobbenmaster and I decided to take Super Harry up on his idea to go to Antwerp for shopping with Doc Vicky. I didn't expect Antwerp to be much since Schrobbenmaster was never really keen about the city and I thought if people just go there for shopping, it must be just a normal city, like any other.

And, yes, it is a normal city like any other, but it's also pretty beautiful (though not as beautiful as Brussels) with their old French-style buildings and wide-ish avenues. And, yes, it is good for shopping! It really makes me very disappointed in Rotterdam when I visit all these other places which are miles better when it comes to the variety of shops and things available.

And here are your hosts for the day! Most of the following pictures will be from the shopping street :P We didn't really venture much further!

It looks like they're heading to the Disney store, but I assure you, they are not. Nice looking store though.

I liked the multi-level depth in this entrance to the Rubens Museum. Looks so cosy in that little garden behind.

They're trying to figure out something about the bell that should have been hanging there.

We decided to discover a new place for lunch (Super Harry and Doc Vicky have been to Antwerp several times already and know the place pretty well) and we stumbled upon this cafe after passing over 3 others which had omelettes for around € 10. I guess omelettes is what we use to determine the price level of a restaurant here.

It's a cafe very close to the Rubens Museum, hence the huge paintings by him (I assume). The cafe is called Klein Verdiep, I think, and I really recommend it because the service is super awesome (okay, so I've lowered my standards after being in NL, but still, the service here really is good, smart and attentive). Just look for the ballet academy and the cafe is directly opposite.

Oh, and I loved the little salty snacks they provided with the ice teas. So yummy!

Shops.

Pull and Bear. The reason to go to Antwerp.

I ended up with a skirt, a dress and a scarf. Pretty happy with them :) Not so much with the spending of money though :(

Service here wasn't as awesome and my praise of Belgian service standards seemed to be pre... something. Can't get the word in my mind, but what I mean is that I judged it too early.

See, Doc Vicky had tried on some clothes and decided to buy a few pieces, when she saw a few more she wanted to try. So she went back to the changing rooms, but the girl there said she could only bring a maximum of 6 pieces in. So Super Harry offered to hold the clothes for her while waiting outside the changing cubicle. However, the girl insisted that it couldn't be done, and said that she'd keep the clothes on the table with her. So they left the clothes with the girl.

When Doc Vicky was done, she came out and looked for her clothes, but the girl had already kept them back on the racks! Understandably, Doc Vicky was really annoyed, and apparently Super Harry gave the girl a bit of his mind. Luckily, Doc Vicky found her clothes eventually and went to the cashier, while Schrobbenmaster heard the girl at the changing rooms complain about the incident to a colleague, calling Doc Vicky a "Dutch bitch". Sigh.

If you're going to be upset about customers just because of an incident like this, you shouldn't even be working in the service industry. There are soooooo many people who shouldn't be servicing the public, but they don't seem to realise how unsuited they are.

Anyway, next, we went into Urban Outfitters, a really cool shop with cool things, except they are not at easily affordable prices. Where in places like Pull and Bear, you can pick loads of things and just buy them without thinking too deeply, at Urban Outfitters, you have to really, really like what you're buying so you don't feel too guilty about the money spent.

Urban Outfitters is in a really nice old building with a nice roof.

That's not the old building with the nice roof, it just happens to be a building on the next picture I took.

I think Doc Vicky and I were walking a little too slowly and the boys needed a rest. Schrobbenmaster there very kindly carrying my shopping bag while I was occupied snapping photos with my camera.

There's a really nice building in front of them, but the dang garbage truck wouldn't move and was still there when we walked back an hour later.

Just liked the red door and high glass windows.

Antwerp Central station. Rather nice, eh?

Still the central station. I really like the multiple globe lamps of varying sizes and heights in that shop.

Towards the left of the central station, just thought it was a nice view of a big space. Not very common in NL.

Random shot. It was super windy on that street.

Another random, but completely natural shot. After which...

... they decided to pose in a really angry/grumpy/sad fashion.

And then attempted a happy, jump shot. Except my camera is faster than I thought (I'm more used to really basic, small, slow digital cameras where I have to say "Three!" and press the snap button at the same time. Not with this camera though, apparently).

Third attempt successful!

Pretty cool champagne bar ahead with pink origami cranes hanging down from it. This building used to be a big party hall/ballroom kinda place.

That used to be the highest building in the country/Europe/world, or something like that.

Then of course we had to go for Belgian waffles!

Walked a bit looking for a small authentic Belgian chocolate shop, but ended up only at branded, expensive chocolate shops :(

I found a nice cafe banner thingy though. I like the mosaic style. Maybe I can figure out some kind of art piece or decoration like that for the new house...

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this little tour of shopping in Antwerp :P I made a lot of effort to actually be up-to-date with my blog post for once!