't Stad

HUMAN CONTACT

2009-07-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

L-R: Jo, Lissandro, Yang, Yours Truly

photo cred Tom @ cogcluster

Me, I'm stuck in a half-traveller, half-resident limbo, which to my dismay makes it hard to communicate with either of the groups. Not knowing a soul has been both blissful and painstaking. Thankfully, I've had the chance to meet with some very talented and determined kids from Australia & Central St. Martins. A real fun gang. They're cute. I like them.

CAPITAL!

2009-07-04T10:45:00.001-07:00

I took a trip to Brussel the other day. I had good intentions, but:
I had to cut it short because Shoes won in Food vs. Shoes.
And Mrs. Camera died.
Then Global Warming sent me a death threat.
But it was nice. I'd like to go back soon.

Justitiepaleis

Being Brussel and all, there were some awesome graffiti.

Daily flea market, huge mess and creepfest.
But tons of fun if you're willing to dig...

Panoramic elevator at Justitiepaleis

One of them looked a lot like Ash Stymest...

By the Grote Markt

Squiggle

Brussel at sunset

Brussel is a really random city. Nothing really makes sense. After seeing the city the only thing that makes sense to me is why Manneken Pis is the symbol of Brussel... because it makes no sense. In all its randomness, Brussel was perfectly lovely.

Grizzly Bear plays Brussel on August 5th, so maybe then.

OPPORTUNITIES

2009-06-29T09:36:00.001-07:00

My time in Antwerp's taken a few surprising turns, in the best way possible. Not too much can be said about it yet but I'll keep you posted when things start to become a little more official.

STAD OOSTENDE

2009-06-24T15:32:00.001-07:00

Morning after my trip to Bruges, I decided to bike out to the city of Oostende. The bike trail was an hour-long bliss of peace and quiet, aside from the crazed Belgian cyclists in spandex gear. But you know.

Oostende lies about 25 kilometres west of Bruges, a big-in-Belgian-standards-but-otherwise-small, but anyhow important port city, of about 70,000 people. Despite its size, it serves an important economic function, and it also serves as the summer home for the Belgian monarchs. Me though, I just went for James Ensor and the real beach. Little did I know that it'd be my last day with my iPod though.... I lost my little one on the way home. :'(

STAD BRUGGE

2009-06-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

...alias Bruges, the famed city of the (amazing) movie In Bruges.

I'm not very fond of Bruges. It is a city suffering severely from its own vanity. They're so obsessed with their own reputation of being a beautiful medieval city that they destroy perfectly good roads just to put in cobblestones, and they remove what they deem as "disturbing" establishments out of the city centre just so that they can build new "old" buildings. I found it tedious, like every inch of the city is so perfect, it becomes boring after a while. Instead of homelessness there is a copious amount of horse poop, and instead of a local there is a tourist.

Anyway, here be some photos.

By the way, I had my first hostel experience in a very long time, there in Bruges. Those travellin' lads, they are so cute...

STAD GENT

2009-06-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

Beautiful, beautiful place. It's the third biggest city in Belgium, after Brussels and Antwerpen. In it lives 50,000 students and a large Turkish community. The whole city is interlined with streams and medieval-gothic architecture. I really liked Gent because Gent is still very well-preserved and has retained a lot of the olden-days beauty, but still you can find modernity here. It was a good balance between Van Eyck's Mystic Lamb altarpiece and the Gravensteen castle, and total bargain one-Euro sandwiches and cute skinny jeanz boys on old bikes.

It has this surreal beauty... as seen in:

On a sidenote, if you're into modern arts, check out the Faux Jumeaux exhibit by the French artist Michel Francois.

FLANDERS FIELDS

2009-06-20T02:03:00.001-07:00

I'm back from my little trip. It was a simple one.

First things first though: SHOW 2009.

It was the Royal Academy of Fine Arts fashion department's year-end show. Simply put, it was mind blowing. I haven't got much else to say about it. I had no idea what to expect, but it was brilliant. The integrity and the energy of these Antwerpan students are truly admirable. Anyway, I hope that I can translate this experience to something rewarding in the end.

For now, I'll leave you with a picture of Rijnkaai:

SO I GO

2009-06-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

No luck on finding a bike today at the secondhand market. I got so lost on the way there, walked around until my feet started to hurt. But I did score a pair of these two-bills Aigle riding-style boots for 5 Euros from a guy who was eager to erase all traces of his ex-girlfriend. Thank you, ugly breakup.

My home for the summer is located in the "ghetto" of Antwerpen, if you will, but it's only dangerous if you make it be. I can't lie, I'd rather live near Nationalestraat but it's still pretty awesome.

Mr. Bear on his new couch

Mr. Bear playing with the drums

Mr. Bear peeking at the fruit bowl

And finally, Mr. Bear on his new bed.

Tomorrow I'm embarking on a cross-Vlaanders journey, first stop Gent. Then who knows. Updates will be rare. Hope you guys are all having a lovely summer.

See you soon.

MAKE IT RAIN

2009-06-14T03:45:00.000-07:00

I've been here now for 12 days. I think it's rained for about 9 of those days. Today is no exception. It's rather disheartening really, things are so much harder when you don't have a dry pair of shoes. I wanted to write up a somewhat eloquent observation on Belgian weather yesterday, but my brain was so fucked up from partying until 7 AM with cross-dressers and fashion students that I could not handle the Blogger formatting. It was the unofficial afterparty for the Royal Academy's SHOW 2009 -- Incredible show. More about that later. For now, I've been taking my compensation in the spectacular skyscapes...

And now I must brave this rain, in search of a secondhand bike. Will report on my findings later.

Ta for now.

TOURISTE

2009-06-07T13:28:00.000-07:00

The beauty of Antwerpen is not as obvious as, say, the beauty of Paris. It's a more subtle, more look-down-that-seemingly-sketchy-alley-and-what-do-you-know kind of beauty. Here are some pictures, just for show:

See you soon.

NAMESAKE

2009-06-07T07:22:00.000-07:00

Apparently, native Antwerpians don't really know the story of how the city came to be called Antwerpen, or why this dude below stands right in the middle of the city:

The story goes that once upon a time, there lived this awful giant fellow named Antigoon, here in this part of the world. He used to stand by the great port, forcing all seafarers and bargemen to pay heavy taxes for passing his waters. All those who couldn't afford to pay the taxes or those who resisted had their hands cut off and then thrown into the Schelde. Then along came Brabo, a brave Roman general, who put up a great fight to defeat this Antigoon; then, eye-for-eye, he cut off Antigoon's hand, and threw it in the Schelde. Hand-for-hand, in this particular case. And so, the seafarers were freed from Antigoon's ruthlessness.

And that's how the name Antwerpen came to be: from Hand Werpen, literally translated "hand throw." I think it's pretty entertaining.

More to come later. For now, here is a more panoramic view of the Grote Markt:

Mmm, Leffe.

YYZ-CDG-ANR

2009-06-07T06:36:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Antwerpen four days ago. The travels were... Lucky. Extremely.

At the Pearon International, they gave me 'tude for having a nail clipper in my carry-on. Cell phone in my pocket. My laptop... Everything was troubling to them. The flight itself was great, the questionable muffin aside. Paris was beautiful, as far as I could tell in that one hour I spent there, getting from CDG to the Eurolines station. I was late for my bus, but luckily, the bus too was late. We passed by Brussels:

Then sleep got the best of me, and I missed my stop in Antwerpen. Ha! Some 20 minutes later, I woke up, ridin' away on the way to Amsterdam. The bus driver flopped me off in the middle of the highway. But luckily, again, this idiot ran into another Eurolines bus on its way to Antwerpen from Amsterdam, and I somehow found my way to 't Stad.

Day 5 in Antwerpen is currently interrupted by rain, and the Roland Garros final scores...

See you soon