Epic Journey of Summer 2010! Part 2 (Belgium)

Blogging abroad is definitely tricky - especially with limited internet access. I'm pretty busy over here, but I'll trying to update when I can~! (Note: There are several pictures missing, as my internet connection became unable to handle them, I guess. I'll be updating this post when I get back home!)

So after a very short time at my grandparent's house, I went with the family to the Belgian coast, where my grandparents own an apartment. I've become very familiar with the area as we tend to go every year. We spent about the week there and had a very pleasant time.

The Belgian coast doesn't necessarily have the prettiest beaches in the world, and most of the time the water is too cold to swim in (though that doesn't stop some people...). There are still some pretty things to see and fun things to do, though! Here are some shots of the beaches near where we were.

It's always nice to take walks by the sea. It's usually fairly windy, but we got pretty lucky when it comes to the weather this time. It was warm and calm, and the ocean was so pretty.

What's really interesting are the occasional markets that come around. We went to a night market and I had a lot of fun checking out all the stands. You can get so many things for cheap (I got a cute dress for five euros!), and there are a lot of local specialties abound. Here are the couple of shots that I managed to get:

Shopping as the sun sets...

Candy stand!

Nuts and dried fruits stand!

Food stand! Now here's something super-typical: french fries in a cone. You see a lot of people walking around with fries in a paper cone with mayonnaise on top. I decided this was too fattening for me... Eating so much Asian food has made me soft! XD

Food is indeed one of the great things about going to the coast. I love Belgian food so much. I discussed some typical dishes that I ate while I was here last year in a blog post. Home cooking is absolutely wonderful, but what's exciting about the coast is that we were able to eat out a few times.

Fondues parmesans! Aka cheese croquettes. I only eat these a couple of times a year, but they taste soooo amazing *o*

Mussels! If you don't know what these are, they sort of look like small clams. I personally can only handle small amounts since I'm not a big fan of shellfish, but this is definitely a local specialty that's worth checking out.

And finally... waffles!! They don't call them Belgian waffles for nothing. I've never managed to find waffles that can live up to these in the US unfortunately... So if you go to Belgium, pleeease try some authentic waffles~

So that's some of the highlights! Coming up is a post on Amsterdam, so look forward to that!