On the fifth day, we were walking from our hotel to Verboekhoven to take tram 55, when we noticed tram 23 going past our hotel. We were aware that the trams passed through our hotel, and we heard them passing by every morning and night, but we didn't realize that the trams that went through there also stopped at the Expo. So we decided to hop on to the tram 23 that passed through our hotel, and it only took us 10 minutes to get to the Expo! All this time, and we didn't even realize it! We were kicking ourselves for not realizing earlier. Anyway, we finished walking through the rest of the Expo, and did another once-through of the whole Expo. We didn't bother stopping by Benjamin's booth, as we didn't want to intrude. There were a lot more people this time around, with people who just came in that day. We stopped by a supplier's booth, where they were showing off some new machines, one of which we especially liked. One of the salesmen there started talking to us, and explaining all the features of the machine. He was especially chatty, and it was hard to get a word in edge-wise, but he was friendly, and even offered spaghetti and pop to us. He also told us that we could stop by his booth to rest whenever we wanted. We declined and thanked him, although I was really tempted to have some of the spaghetti they were serving their customers, cuz they looked really good. Anyway, we went back to our hotel pretty early at around 3pm, and decided to walk around the area. The hotel concierge told us there was a shopping mall nearby, and we followed his directions there, but we didn’t find one. We walked a long way, and passed through a long street that was like a tiangge area. There, we picked up a whole roasted chicken, some freshly-baked roti, and shawarma in pita bread that we took home to eat for dinner. The shawarma in pita was from this Egyptian place, and they gave us 2 pita breads with shawarma and tons of fries for only 4 euros, which is really cheap. My dad loved it so much he wanted to eat there again. We saved the roti for the next day. The rest of the night was spent just relaxing and watching tv.
In was raining hard on the sixth day, and we were planning to walk through the attractions of Brussels. We slept in, and had a late breakfast, then planned where to go. First, we went to the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Garden), but it was raining, so we couldn’t go out and take a look. We decided to head to the Centre Belges de la Bandes Desinees (Comic Museum). We didn’t know exactly where it was, and when we asked for directions, people were very vague. So we walked around aimlessly until we hit upon a shopping mall. It was a pretty big one with tons of shops and a huge department store. The top level was fully loaded with gadgets, CD’s, DVD’s, and any other electronic equipment you’d need. They even had an Apple store. Of course, the prices were just as huge. J Beside the mall, there was this long street full of high-class shops. We walked through it, just window-shopping, then decided to continue our search for the Comic Museum. The street signs in Brussels are so vague and misleading. They’ll tell you something is one way, but they don’t tell you that you have to turn on the next street, so you follow the sign, and just keep going until you’ve gone too far. That’s what happened to us. Fortunately for us, we ran into this big square that’s been deserted. It used to be a plaza, and we could see remnants of the Marks & Spencer sign, and other stores on it, but all the stores were empty and closed down. We took shelter there from the rain, and ate our packed lunch (the roti from the night before). After we were fully rested, we spent another hour walking around aimlessly looking for the Comic Museum until we came upon this Media Library (where they had tons of CD’s and DVD’s for rent for free!), and asked for directions. The lady there didn’t speak English, but good thing I understood the French she used, and within 5 minutes, we were at the Comic Museum. It wasn’t what I thought it was. Not the comics that I read, like Superman, Batman, Spiderman. Not Marvel or DC. But the ones that I grew up with, like Smurf, Asterix, and Tin Tin. These were the European comics. They had some statues that I took some pictures of, but we didn’t bother paying the entrance fee to go in and look at their other stuff, which mainly consisted of original artworks of those characters. After the museum, we headed to a place called Grand Place, which had a lot of those old, Victorian-style buildings. We took some pictures, and walked around a bit, then finally turned into this street where they had tons of fancy restaurants that served seafood. We walked through all the restaurants, comparing prices, and looking for one that we liked. We finally settled on one that was relatively cheap, but had very few people. We ordered the seafood platter (which consisted of oysters, shrimp, clams, crayfish, all served cold), and a bucket of cooked mussels. The food was pretty good. Once we finished eating, we walked around some more, and browsed through the many chocolate stores there, and finally buying some to take home. When we got home, we packed up our stuff, then rested, watched tv, then went to bed.
Stay tuned tomorrow for the exciting conclusion!
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