Manneken Pis, and his audience
Warning: This post is affected by climate.
January's come and gone. What the hell? I still haven't gotten used to writing '09 instead of '08. While simultaneously from a work perspective I'm already declaring February a lost cause for sales and working in the realm of March.
One thing I don't really like about my job is that I hardly consider the present. Forward planning is lovely, but I wouldn't mind stopping and smelling the roses a little more. Christmas comes in August, otherwise it won't arrive at Walmart on time. My next travel plans are 15 months away. My last ones were already a month ago - a visit to Mr. Sam in Belgium.
Anyone had bets that the first non-Asian countries I'd visit would be America and Belgium? That quinella would have paid handsomely once upon a time - I'm instinctively adverse to so much pop culture and politics from America, and I didn't even know where Belgium was ("in Europe somewhere near France") until about a year ago. Home of good chocolate and beer, it was on the list, but surely Spain or Germany first?
But no, just after Christmas I invited myself to Sam's house in sweet (and historically preserved) Ghent (spelt "Gent" in Flemish, but for some reason we add an "h"). Sam's a mate from the good old days in Gaidai - in fact, my very first post on this blog features a weekend summer camp trip we helped out on). Korean-born, Belgian-raised and fairly charming, I felt it was high-time for something of a reunion with the man.
Sam works at a chocolate company. This stereotype of Belgians should have had excellent dividends in the cocoa-souvenir department, but sadly I was unable to get him to smuggle any "work-materials" back for "sampling". I trust that next time I see him this will be remedied.
So, Belgium. I called my parents while I was there, and my father said "how is it? People tell me it's boring." Well, so's Lower Hutt in the winter, really. And we don't have old buildings to look at. We just have Queensgate.
I didn't find Belgium boring. I may have if I was a tourist, but I wasn't. I don't really like visiting countries for touristy reasons - I'll have much more fun meeting someone, eating dinner or riding public transport than I will taking cliched photos of the Eiffel Tower. There are some exceptions, sure: I'd like to see The Great Wall. I had a Canadian couchsurfer at my old place who said he slipped past the barriers of the tourist part to see sections people can't normally go to. Much as Chinese authority scares me, that sounds excellent - tourist groups just irritate me.
A few of the patron saints of Belgium.
Well, beers made by monks.
The best moments in Belgium had to include the beer. First night out with jetlag, I thought I was a bit of a lightweight in only putting away 4 handles (ジョッキ), but then I realise that the beer is 9-11%. Seeing as Japanese beer is glorified water, this is like going from Malibu to Coruba. Good luck keeping up the pace.
Sam's family are as mildly-neurotic as he is, and a bunch of good souls at heart. I don't think I gave enough thanks for the various gifts thrust my way, from cigars to fries with excellent mayonnaise, and several thousand mp3s courtesy of Sam's younger brother Hein ("Henn"). His friends were also good sorts - nice enough to revert to English even for conversation I wasn't directly involved in. It was easy to forget that none of them were native speakers - if there's one thing Flanders-Belgians can boast, it's language skills. Even under the influence of New Year's Eve champagne on a rooftop at -6C, they were still making jokes that many so-called "native speakers" would struggle to produce.
New Years Eve itself was a 4 course meal, and I'm fairly sure 90% of the dishes contained cheese. Oh cheese. I missed you so. We were never meant to be apart so long, but Japanese cheese doesn't make the grade and imported stuff costs much for mediocrity.
Good wine, food and highly unsuccessful scratch-and-win tickets finished with, we headed into town without specific plans, which is always a bad idea on New Years because anywhere good is full and anywhere else is too expensive for how terrible it is. Anti-climax aside, it was a good night and my 4th different country to bring in the new year.
Other highlights included seeing Andris and his lovely wife and kid in Budapest, and an Amazing Race-esque circuit of the sights around town in the few hours I had before my flight back (I only stayed 20 hours), the coffee (thank God, I was so deprived I was beginning to think Starbucks was kinda good) and strolling around Ghent thinking it was beautiful but needed a touch of green (guess I'll have to go back in summer). But most of all it was the awesome people - my favourite part of going places. Meeting someone amazing/malicious can make/break my whole opinion of a place. And I didn't meet a single person in Belgium who wasn't top notch.
