pour carnaval, pour carnaval, pour carnaval..

Binche, a French-speaking part of Belgium, to catch the carnival.. it's carnival season in Europe

French-speaking Belgium.. is a less developed part
gloomy weather.. and a sign of things to come..
three days of blowing off steam, we were there on Sunday, the first day.. there were gonna be fireworks on Monday, and a Mardi Gras parade on Tuesday..

it's not very visible in this photo, but the throng of people stretches all the way in the distance.. a lot of them carry the yellow flowers, which is i dunno tradition of sorts, according to friend

words of wisdom from drunk carnival goers: "you have to Jupile-rize yourself.."

watching from a safe distance.. friend kindly pointed out how they boarded up all the shop windows, a sign of how rowdy things are gonna get the next few days..

plenty of places selling party gear
unesco heritage

sorry

start of the parade.. march from train station onwards to the centre i think

don't be confused about your gender identity, guys don't usually dress like that..


but there are plenty of guys in drag.. all for the fun of things, and the spirit of the carnival

bye Binche, thanks for the carnival..

here and there, in-betweens..

Birthday celebration :) :D :) :D

Hong Kong restaurant with a really good student price..

chicken soup with generous serve of crunchy beansprouts (and non-fatty chicken, thumbs up) and inadvertently pepper-laden, courtesy of yours truly, and GINORMOUS springroll.. the two appetizers on the student menu

egg foo yong :) tad too salty, but real good.. according to HK-ers this ain't what egg foo yong's supposed to be, but it's good, it's like a giant omelete that comes with beansprouts, carrots, and bamboo shoots (and maybe some other veggies, i don't remember) and more of the non-fatty chicken strips, topped off with loads tomato-ey ketchupy gravy
birthday cake.. chocolate frosting was fudgey good, totally eclipsing the dry and nondescript cake

of someone's house.. am not gonna post too many pics of house, but someone give me this for my birthday someday please :)

Sports centrum by night..

..when the instructor for funk and funky jazz didn't turn up and didn't inform the sports secretariat either.. that means i'll only get to try both next week.. tried jazz on tuesday after ballet though, was fun! :D anyway, this the fitness gym

gymnasium.. gymnastics was in here last week (d'oh), but upstairs and not visible from here


sports bar
frite shack (frituur) is a short ways outside the sports centrum, so no worries of burning too many calories, replenishment is just a stumble away..

aah this ain't at the sports centrum anymore, but is a cup of life-saving, soul-warming cafe au lait.. you can specify for strong and sugar at the vending machine, how cool is that.. but it still ain't strong enough for me, man i miss the cafe au lait at the youth hostel, good and strong, and from a dispenser too, who'd 've guessed

well if i'm gonna skip a lecture i might as well do something useful..

don't worry this won't happen often.. at least i hope not eeks :S hee



anyway bought more groceries from Aldi, a supposed-to-be-cheaper supermarket in a v inconvenient place (well, i got a box outta that place, which is just as well coz it'd be really really useful)

and i believe we have the makings of egg and tomato dish! the carton of eggs is the other thing poking outta the box by the way.. condiments from Asian supermarket though.. spaghetti's only 39cents!

and now for the taste test.. it's really good, you can't see it from the pics but there really are specks of vanilla in it, good stuff

and i have a v well-stocked fridge no.. even have stuff spilling over to the windowsill.. oh but there's rubbish in the fridge as well

i dunno how this turned out to be portrait..

.. but yes this is the first dish i kinda cook-cooked! with generous help of course.. the tomatoes weren't great coz they didn't have enough liquid, but overall it's nice! and was what i skipped class to do, so haha

a running, sorta,-no-actually-not-really,-ode to 365..

in appreciation of how much money housebrand of Delhaize is saving us poor student-folk, i think i should introduce an item from the house brand 365 each week (don't count on it though haha).. check around my room, actually even those that aren't explicitly displaying the 365 label but bears the small but undeniable lion symbol of Delhaize are around, another sign of the genius that is Delhaize, not only at keeping prices low, quality good, but also at aesthetics of its products.. but let me reassure you i'm not a feen haha

anyway! first on the list, also part of my lunch today: beans!!

mm mmm they're good too! prefer them to the Heinz ones i eat back home.. on first look they seem kinda watery though, but they taste goooood, not too sour or salty, and i just checked the label, no wonder it seems watery, coz they don't use fake-o thickeners, unless witte bonen, water, tomatenpuree, suiker, zout and aroma's, any of these sound like cornstarch or Esomething-or-other-chemical-name-of-what-can-be-simply-termed-crap-additive-thing (haricots blancs, eau, concentre de tomates, sucre, sel, aromes - French, if you will..)

and yes managed to get my hands on chili! Been adding it to everything, instant noodles, mackerel salad (mackerel’s delicious by the way, bought the one in sunflower oil without knowing it, and mixed that with veg and chili, it’s awesome yums.. think mackerel will be my new go-to canned fish, instead of sardine or tuna.. have never bought tuna here, but sardines yes, and it’s gross they don’t remove the scales! But good thing the scales aren’t that awful to eat, coz they’re quite soft and not noticeable.. either that or my scale-removing skills using a single fork and occasional index finger or thumb are excellent enough to actually remove ALL the scales).. and this, my lunch here today, that red thing on top is chili :] :] :]

Wow and this is potent stuff man, I actually had to reach for cooling liquids! Or living in Belgium, a spice-scarce country has mellowed my taste buds much much.. nahh but that ain’t possible either, have been pumping myself with loads chili since I got my hands on some some time ago, but I actually thought that this time it was too spicy, and I NEVER think that haha.. ah well increased sensitivity to spice is not a bad thing either, but think I’m just having a bad (or good? eh maybe it's neither, just heightened-sensivity) taste bud day haha

yeah this the mackeral and chili.. man it's so good just like that, no dressing nothing (the mackeral was in oil, so)

black sesame paste that friend kindly gave me a packet of.. well aided in no small part by me thick-skinnedly asking for a packet haha.. she also supplied me the aforementioned instant noodles.. before you tut it's a fair exchange k! i gave her muchos packs of milo, so there
and as a bonus, since this is the first of the sorta,-no-actually-not-really,-ode-s to 365, this is the 12pack yoghurt i bought! there you can kinda sorta see the 365 label, and yep i wiped out 7 of 'em alr haha.. and it's good too! peach (not in pic), pear, cherry, strawberry (smells good and tastes like strawberry milk when mixed with milk.. but d'oh right haha), forest fruit and exotic fruit.. i think my fave is exotic, though they're all good.. exotic's i think pineapple, passionfruit, mango.. at least that's what the picture shows, and was expecting it to taste funny but it was good! to me at least

making my way to London.. Thurs night, 12 Feb

Some lessons to be learnt from taking the Eurostar..

(me frazzled after a hectic journey to the train station at Leuven, and then Brussels Midi, and another hectic check-in.. i think this deserves a shot for illustrative purposes)

always leave early so you won't end up walking the whole way at lightning speed when your bus doesn't come after i dunno 15min and you're frantically thinking about how fast you have to walk to make it to the Leuven train station in time, and hoping that the train to Brussels Midi won't come too late or take too long

always be cautious and check-in early

ALWAYS MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE ADDRESS OF YOUR DESTINATION!!!

always make sure your clock is set to the correct time so you don't wonder why the trains are taking off ahead of schedule and then after the second train sets off early, suddenly realise your clock is slow and how dangerously close you came to missing your train

always check that when they say there's food onboard, they mean free food and not ridiculously priced fare, so you don't end up raiding the gifts you were gonna bring coz you were so hungry coz you skipped dinner in anticipation of free food (buffet at that) and coz you walked extra fast and panicked quite a bit when you thought you weren't gonna make the train (don't ask why i'm bringing chocolate smiley face biscuits as gifts.. one of them anyway)

but i made it in the end! this is the St. Pancras Eurostar station in London!!!! it awesomess!!!!! cool station
anyway i was there for the weekend to visit sis and friend! details in subsequent posts, all ya gotta do is scroll down..

London trip (part one - men) 1.1 Friday 13 Feb

and now on to London trip proper.. first stop (well techniquely the first stop was the bank, but oh well) is.. Borough Market!! sis' kind recommendation.. this place is really cool, loadsa food, and man the smells mm

whiskey

the aforementioned veggie wrap.. roasted veg, couscous etc. mm

eat your heart out


more of the categorically-same

chocolate truffles.. don't they look 'heaven-ly'


cherry tomatoes! the yellow ones are reeeeally nice and sweeeet.. and they cheap too *cheep cheep*
i'm sorry but even after a few sniffs (across the market, not at one spot) and taste (of black truffle olive oil), i still don't appreciate black truffles..

baklava.. nutty, crispy-soggy, syrupy gooodness
falafel wrap, with chilli (!!) and tahini sauce.. and other good stuff in it

ooh hot mulled apple is really good.. made it okay for me to give up coffee, the smell of which had been tempting me for sooo long there.. mm mm mulled apple, as you can read on the chalkboard if you squint a little, it's apple+orange, lemon, ginger, cloves cinnamon.. so good.. and the stall owner is the old school brit kind who says "careful, luv', it's hot"

and i have to point out other stuff we tried at the market too, like scottish honey (so good), various cheeses, wild mushroom ravioli.. and so much other stuff like fresh produce, and lots meat.. meat/sausage/burger/bratwursts stalls abound, amid organic and vegetarian ones hee

but after that i went to meet up with a friend in london, took the tube, and i dunno maybe it's the novelty thing but i kinda like the confusion of taking the tube, having to check which lines go where (the northern line has two chains by the way), and yeah it kinda caused my friend a little panick on my last day there when i was late in meeting her and uncontactable (note: i'm usually late in general heh, and this time it was kinda coz i overshot.. have no idea how i could've missed king's cross station).. yeah it's more of a challenge i guess, and kinda in a twisted, coz-i-don't-live-with-it way, how they can stop lines sometimes kinda cool.. haha.. i hope this doesn't come back to haunt me in future visits to london, if and when :D

so anyway, yes, took the tube and went to Bond Street station, and onto Regent Street (mix up in the meeting place too)

just walked along, had free tea samples at Whittard (cool cool tea place, no photography allowed.. well to me anyway, who really knows right), and then..


into the National Geographic store!!! really cool place!!! wish i had spent more time in here.. but anyway this is a horse made outta driftwood! retailing for 1000plus pounds..

reeeally cool photographs

.. and lotsa other stuff, couldn't photograph everything, but i chose this French loveseat, in honour of Valentine's Day the next day haha.. anyway, more pics in the other posts.. scroll down :D