Brussels of Belgium
When the airplane crossing English Channel and soaking in the sky of Europe Continent, greeting to my eyes is different with London and China as well. We can see the land made up of green and brown blocks. They seem to be arranged very orderly just as toy bricks built by children.
It needs to spend 45 minutes to fly from London to Brussels and 3 hours by coach. The airport of Brussels doesn抰 give me any a little bit special impression. It is just like any airport we can find in any city and any country. After driving near 20 minutes, we arrived the downtown of Brussels. The hotel抯 name is IBIS. It is said that it is chain hotels of France. The condition of hotel is about 3 starts level. It is not luxury but clean and comfortable. We can walk to China Shops and Chinese restaurants in two minutes. Then we had our supper in a fast food restaurant nearby. The boss of the restaurant is actual Vietnamese. We spend around 300 Francs (Belgium Franc ) to have a fast food. It is very expensive. One yuan RMB is about 5 BF.
Today, we were led to have one-day- tour of Brussels. The tour guide is Chinese who lived here around 7 years. His Shenyang dialect is so familiar and amicable. Now let me introduce where we have visited in one day.
First scenery we visited is a square. Actually it is called?Big Square? which is symbol of Belgium and Brussels as well. The square was built about 700 years ago. The main building is the office of Brussels of city hall. It is three floors building with at least 60 character sculptures. In the middle of the building, the tower is so high that it is can kiss cloud. It is very hard to take the building into one picture completely. Its style is Gothic. But there is a little bit difference with Gothic. Symmetrical is the main feature of Gothic. There is a little unsymmetrical in this building. It is said that the architect of this building was blamed with its unsymmetrical and jumped from this building to commit suicide. The opposite of this building is parliament building. It was designed by a lady. In order to memory this great lady抯 outstanding achievement of that age. The later people set up a monument for her in the corner of the square. There is a building beside the parliament building, which is the place of the well-known French writer, Hugo, finished his Miserable World. Another building near to city hall is also very famous for that it had been a place which Carl Max had been living there for one year after he was driven out of Britain. The square is not big at all compared to general modern square. But it might be big seven hundred years ago. It may reflect Brussels抯 feature. It has big reputation but it seems not to qualify with it.
The second scenic spot is a sculpture of a boy who is going piss. His name is Manneken. It is said that the boy eradicated the lighting fuse of bomb by his piss, which was set to explode Brussels by Dutch or Spanish soldiers before they evacuted from Brussels several hundred years ago. So the boy saved Brussels by his piss. The boy was awarded the first citizen of Brussels. The sculpture was a memory for his super devotion to Brussels. The boy抯 sculpture is very small. It is actual size of 4 or 5-year-old boy抯 figure. It was made up of copper. The sculpture shows us a very vivid and lovely image of little boy.
The third scenic spot is Royal Palace of Belgium. You know, Belgium is monarchy as UK. It is said that the King often meets some important guests in his palace. The palace is three-floor-building. Its style is very common after viewing so many splendid buildings in London. If we were told that it is a hotel of London, we would trust it without any hesitation. So you can imagine how ordinary it is just like Brussels itself.
The forth place we visited is European Parliament. It is a institution relating to European Union. That building is an ordinary modern building. The appearance of building is glasses. The distinguished feature of it is flying sixteen flags which symbolizes fifteen member states of European Union and itself. Do you know why Brussels is so famous? It is famous for it special place for European Union. Most Europe Union抯 institutions, including EU抯 headquarter, were set up in Brussels. That is the may reason why we visit Brussels. Following days, we will visit most institutions of EU. Please pay attention for it if you are interested in EU.
The fifth place we hanged around is another square. It is so called ?50 anniversary square? It is said that this square was built in order to celebrate the 50 anniversary of independence of Belgium. Do you know how many years has Belgium been independence? It is around 200 years. It had been dominated and occupied by France, Germany, Spain, Netherlander and so on in its history. Till now, part of population of Belgian speak German, part speak French beyond the main part who speak Flemish. Brussels is an area mixed multi-linguistic. People of here often can speak more than three languages, French, German, Flemish and English. I seem to run far from my tour introduction. Let us go back 50 anniversary square. This square is bigger than the previous Big Square. Actually, the symbol of the square is a marble arch with some sculptures. On the other side of the big arch, there are some green lawn and yellow flowers and trees. There is a military museum near the square. It shows a variety arm and weapon in various ages, including a various fight airplanes.
After having lunch in a Chinese restaurant, we took the coach around half hours to get the popular sightseeing of Brussels, it is so called Atom Ball exhibition center. There is a structure of atom shape is towering in the middle of wide road. It is at the edge of Brussels. But it is a center of culture and amusement. There is a huge cinema village with 33 halls. It means that the cinema can play 33 various films at the same time. The popular Mini-Europe is also beside of the cinema village. In addition, there are many flavors restaurants scattering into the village. We spent 45 BF( around 90 yuan RMB) to view Mini-Europe, which is a park of the models of well-known scenic spot of 15 European Union member states. All models are built down to the finest detail to a scale of 1:25. The buildings and monuments that epitomize the European spirit are to be found side by side at MINI-EUROPE. They symbolize a number of major elements on which its history is founded. Do you want to know all of them in one time only in a mini model? I don抰 think so. I would like to introduce them when I view the true sight. I only give you a general impression. Strolling through so many splendid landscapes, meeting various national people having beautiful national clothing, listening diversity of melody languages, I have no other feeling except exciting. I even took some pictures with those beautiful girls and handsome boys. I can抰 help loving this piece of land, beautiful, ancient, enthusiastic and romantic land. Though it doesn抰 belong to China, it belongs to us, all mankind. I just wish that each human would have chance to share all merits of it with me beyond European itself.
The last station of this tour is Waterloo, a sad place. The exciting thing is that our eyes were feasted with blossom forests on the way to Waterloo. I haven抰 seen forests for a long time. In Britain, it is very easy to see green grass but forests. The typical landscape of Britain is huge piece grass with one or two trees. The structure and form of tree looks like man-made. It is so easy to see scenic of those canvas. But in Belgium, we seldom see green grass but many ordinary trees. It is more similar to Chinese northeast city. Nevertheless, the forest of the road impressed me pretty much. The height of trees are very high, the circle of the trees are even. The density of leafs and distances of trees are so pretty that forms a piece of beautiful canvas.
Waterloo is an ancient war field between Belgium and France. When I mention Waterloo, who will you think of? I suppose that most people will think of Napoleon. Though this is a sad place which symbolizes completely failure of Napoleon. But he is still a hero in my heart. I don抰 know why I like him so much. Even I never remembered that guy who won the war of Waterloo. If I am not mistake, that British guy is Willington. Actually, Waterloo抯 important symbol is a huge dome and a huge lion sculpture on the dome. The dome is just like a small hill. It is said that there were millions of French soldiers died of this war. And their corpuses were so many to pile up a small hill. As for the lion sculpture, it was built up by British afterwards in Britain and moved it to Waterloo to put on the top of the dome. The lion is a kind of symbol of UK. There is a ball under one of the front feet of the lion. And the direction that the lion faces is France. It obviously showed its victory to French. I suppose that the hatred between French and British had rooted into their hearts since then. To be frank, I don抰 like this kind of arbitrariness of British. There is a concrete step to access the top of the dome. The top of the dome can overlook this famous ancient war field. It is another beautiful sight of Belgium.
When we finished the one-day-tour of Brussels, it is near seven pm. The rest thing for me is to lying on bed to have a good sleep. Because tomorrow morning, we have to get up around five am and go to Hague of Holland to have international court of justice one-day-tour.
Bye for now,
Dove from Brussels,
13th, May, 2001
