Europe Mania p2

Belgium was amazing... great friends, more good alcohol, chocolate heaven but not so great food. I finally made my way to visit sirika, stayed with her and hung out with her friends - farouk and honore. both very sweet guys with minimal English, being forced to speak French for 3 days was absolutely enchanting

delirium village was a vital part of my stay... finding myself there all 3 days, with bars overflowing with beer, vodka, absinthe and cocktails. I've not ever seen the sheer number of absinthe options which was great coz it really doesn't taste all that bad

 and of course while in Brussels, I didn't miss out on the waffles and mussels

 it was great being able to spend time with sirika and she was a wonderful host, even coming with me to Antwerp for a day to meet a cousin I've not seen in 11 years!

Antwerp's version of grand place

 

I got to also meet up with Nicolas, another of my HK alumni and just finding out how life is after 8 years. we also got to see the female version of Manneken Pis - Jeanneke Pis popping a nice squat

 it was too short a 3 day trip to Belgium... but Milano was calling

Europe Mania p1

it's been a really really long time since I last stepped into Europe and for the big 29th, I decided to spend 3 very short weeks traveling round this amazing continent eating, drinking and most importantly meeting and spending time with friends I have seen in forever.

the route was London, Edinburgh, London, Brussels, Antwerp, Milan, Rome, London, Glasgow & other bits of England

surprisingly ivan and I having spend so much time together did not actually kill each other. a very new revelation. but then again, I guess we were both excited with just exploring new places. I've never ever walked so much thanks to my brother but I guess that really helped with keeping the weight in check

my first meal was salted beef jewish beigels on bricklane... and of course it was yummy. nothing like the usual bagels but the bread was soft and the salted beef, was just awesome.

even before reaching our planned lunch place, ivan and I started stuffing ourselves with caneles, hotdogs... then it was finally the breakfast club... yum!

this place offered very simple but well made all-day breakfast food that didn't cost all that much. I wish there was a place in sg that had this. Ivan and I took advantage of the quirky atmosphere and free wifi to sort out our Edinburgh trip

my birthday was amazing this year as i got to watch the amazing book of Mormons, and celebrate it with stuey! I've not seen stuey in about 8 years and we spent the whole time just reminiscing about HK and how things have changed since then. other than him growing up and being very responsible, it's as if this friendship just continued from where we left it off. just thinking of him now, i do miss him. ivan, stuey, jo and i met up at the amazing NOPI

then ivan and i rushed off to the bus station for our first ever overnight sleeper bus experience up to Edinburgh. that was definitely an experience we both were not prepared for but it was thankfully not too awful

i fell in love in Scotland. Edinburgh was amazing. land of haggis, whisky, star filled skies, great air. one of the great highlights was definitely the ghost walk of the city. it started in the evening and we had a fantastic guide. he was extremely entertaining and despite the freezing cold, we got to see pretty cool parts of the city

 

since it was my birthday, ivan was nice to yield of my foodie whim and we ate at both kitchin and the honours. both Michelin stars. *little known fact... i showed up very happy to kitchin nearly an hour late thanks to a whisky breakfast oops :)

day 2 in Edinburgh, we rented a car to drive out to Glenkinchie's distillery and since we had a car, decided to drive up north to ansthruther, a sea side place and we found a fish n chips place which was really quaint with the world's worst wine ever. to quote my friend... the Scottish just needs to stick to their whiskies.

then it was back to London... in time for a hipster party with peewee

after a night of partying, ivan left first thing in the morning back to Milan while i made my way to Brussels... to be continued in p2