belgian

This Is My Station

Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.’ (Lisa St. Aubin de Teran)

The last of my Belgium photographs…
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One of the most beautiful churches I’ve seen ever. This is Basilica of the Holy Blood in Bruges, Belgium.
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Originally used for flour, Laura says.
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What a coincidence!
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The original Godiva store!
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Jet lagged.image-156
Oh mama!image-157
Haagen-Dazs ice-cream was everywhere in Japan! I bet my Japanese friends and students would love this cafe.

An Inside Look At A Belgian Supermarket

Guys, we have a winner! This Belgian supermarket is unreal. Mainly for two reasons. One, they have testers. But not just any old testers. Testers that are in every supermarket section, changed daily and refilled to keep full during all shopping hours. Yes, you read right. Amazing, isn’t it?! Second, and probably most important, they don’t use plastic bags. Instead, they have a unique trolley system to “bag” items at the cash register. You’ll see both as you scroll down under…
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I found the exterior of the shopping centre quite strange. There are no signs of this place being a supermarket. Nil. Zero. Laura says they save on advertising etc this way.
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Unlimited snickers! So dangerous!
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Raw cashews.. nomnomnom can have these instead.image-183
Cheese and olives! Oui!
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Call me Captain Obvious but mandarin…image-180
Grapes image-181
And cherry tomatoes in the fresh produce section.
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These are to do with Belgian culture. I’m sure you’ve heard of Belgian fries (NOT French, Laura says), well, these are some of their hundreds of sauces! Including bucket-fulls of mayo! Erghk!
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And here is Laura’s dad’s bottom kindly showing us the 0-plastic check-out system. So. The clerk takes the items from your trolley and puts them into another trolley. (I found this interesting as the clerk would be reaching and bending while customers just stood there -not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation.) After that’s done, the customer pushes the other trolley out of the supermarket where they’re then free to unload their groceries straight into their car, bicycle or personal bag.