Ninja Neko

This restaurant is very popular, it opens at 7 PM but there was already a queue waiting to get in. Their tapas are pretty good, but not fresh, it looks like a lot is prepared during the day and then reheated to serve. But I suppose it wouldn’t be possible any other way, with the whole place packed like that and waiting for their order. People were still queuing outside to get in when we left. Which puzzled me a bit, the tapas were good but not “let’s stand in line for 45 minutes” good imo. Still it’s a nice place to have a casual dinner with friends.

I woke up this morning to a newscaster announcing that this place was on fire. Exactly one week ago I finally made a visit to the Carolus Borromeus church to find a sign saying tourist visits were no longer permitted. So I made a vague mental note to check out their Christmas concerts so I could see the interior too. Now I wonder what’s left of it. The outside still seems to be ok, wihch I’m also thankful for as my pictures didn’t do it justice and I wanted another try. I wonder if the restauration will be in time for this Christmas.

After visiting the gardens on their own last year I wanted to see the whole museum now. It was nice but I still think the gardens are the best part. In the museum I most enjoyed seeing Camille Claudel’s work and “The kiss” (which can also be seen in bronze in the Tuileries across the entrance of the l’Orangerie btw)

Berthillon takes their annual vacation in the height of summer (a bit odd for an icecream vendor but hey) but you won’t have to miss out as their icecream is still sold by others on the island, including Le Flore en L’ile where I got my sorbet fix. And while the taste of the famous Berthillon sorbet was indeed very vibrant, it also happened to be the fastest melting sorbet I ever had, which made the cone quite difficult to handle. (Bloodorange sorbet running everywhere and I was wearing a white dress… typical) At +/- 3€ a scoop I won’t be getting one of those again.

My dad took me and my little brother to the beach in Oostende by train. After some swimming and castle building, we walked up to this casino, which held a Suske & Wiske exhibition. The comic is (or better, was) very popular in Belgium. I’ve must have read over 70 of their albums, and my dad read them too as a little boy. I still remember a bit of the tour, there was a life-size maquette of the “Teletijdsmachine” but I was a bit underwhelmed as it didn’t actually work :)

Toured the breweries on a school trip (according to our chemistry teacher it was a prime example of chemistry…). Some parts smelled bad but there was free sampling at the end (in which said chemistry teacher happily joined).

We drove from Kyushu to Honshu, and thus crossed this bridge to get from one island to the other. Right before crossing there’s a parking lot with some view points (and souvenir shops and loads of vending machines of course) which is where I took this picture.

After check-in (or before check-out) you can visit the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam Schiphol. This is a free mini-museum hosting paintings from the Rijksmuseum. The art was not really my cup of tea, but I think this is a wonderful initiative, I hope more airports will take this up too.

Jeanneke is the even sillier female counterpart of the famous Manneken Pis statue. She’s an initiative of local merchants, as an attempt to attract more customers to their area.
I can’t say I like the statue. Our Manneken has some history behind it, an amusing legend. Jeanneke to me is just a kid peeing.

For a year or two/three, my family had our large tent set up here during fall and spring, and each weekend we’d go up to the Netherlands to camp there. Nothing spectacular, we spent Saturdays in the nearby town of Helmond, and Sundays at the lake building sand forts (no ordinary castles, we only cared for forts) or in the indoor pool, where I learned to swim. The camping itself lies in the middle of the forest (next to said lake) and more than once squirrels broke into our tent at night and devoured our peanut cookies.