Bruges City Planning: A Swell Idea

(Scene: Flanders County Pub -- Belgium)

Bruges City Planner: How do you feel about bricks?
Some Guy: I feel good about them. Mostly.
Bruges City Planner: What about canals, lakes, that sort of thing?
Some Guy: Like Venice?
Bruges City Planner: Do you see me eating pizza? No. I'm drinking beer and this is Belgium.
Some Guy: I see...I think a canal or two would be nice.
Bruges City Planner: Good...good (thoughtfully). Ok, I have this idea.
Some Guy: Let's hear it.
Bruges City Planner: What if we built a city almost entirely of brick, with cobblestone streets, sort of windy-like, leading to a market square with some sort of cool statue in the middle being overlooked by this enormous clock tower and the city hall building, along with the windy roads there will be canals, lot's of them and we need to be sure they run under and around as many beautiful buildings as we can...but...wait...
Some Guy: What is it?
Bruges City Planner: Something is missing. I got it. We need to make a huge cathedral entirely of brick that houses something...you know...cool. Got it. Remember that weirdo with the marble block?
Some Guy: He was named after a ninja turtle right?
Bruges City Planner: Michelangelo! That's him. Anyways, he made this statue and we are gonna stick it in the cathedral. Did I mention that it will be huge? Like the biggest or second-biggest brick building ever? Yeah...that's the stuff... (Drinks beer thoughtfully)
Some Guy: Sounds like Italy.
Briuges City Planner: (Angrily) Enough about those noodle eaters! I mean...wait...yeah ok, what about this? What does Italy have in the realm of churchy stuff?
Some Guy: Um...the Pope? The shroud of Jesus and maybe a piece of the cross?
Bruges City Planner: Yeah...we can do better. I know this guy. He can get anything. Remember when my carriage broke and I needed a donkey by 5:30 the SAME day? Yeah he is that same guy. Anyways, I am pretty sure he can get a vial of the blood of Jesus. In fact he can get it by 3:00. When we get the blood, it would make sense to build a church around it.
Some Guy: Even IF you could get the blood...another church?
Bruges City Planner: This is beauty man...But We need to build this soon...some yahoo thinks he can sail to India (as if the world were round). We need to get cracking, so he doesn't fall off the edge of the earth and steal our thunder.

After a brief three hour train ride from London, we found ourselves in Bruges. The town truly is amazing and that city planner knew what he was doing. Here are some pictures:

Pip, Pip. Cheerio, London!

After our 13 hour flight from Hong Kong to London, most of our first day was spent in a jet-lag induced fog. We arrived at five in the morning London time and after a speedy immigration and customs process we were off to our first adventure on the “tube,” London’s underground subway system. This proved to be quite simple (albeit more expensive than we’ve been used to) and we took our early-morning ride with all of our things.

It first dawned on us that we were in England when looking out of the window we saw our first house in a year. I know this might sound strange, but in Taiwan everyone lives in buildings. Even “houses” will take up 2-3 floors of a much larger apartment building. So, not only did we see our first western-style house in over a year, but it was the type you see in movies…tall, thin, brick and in a row of ones all similar to it with multiple chimneys on a charmingly curving street.

We were able to find our hotel with no problems, check in early (thankfully) and decided that we wanted to get to it so we wouldn’t fall asleep. If you know us, you know we tend to be stubborn and cheap and on trips like this that translates to us traversing long distances on foot. Thankfully, we also enjoy walking so this way of seeing a place has always agreed with us.


The first thing we noticed was how grand and how classic all of the buildings and architecture were. In terms of history, Taiwan and England are probably about as opposite as you can be. Taiwan is a young country (technically, it’s not even a country) and just went through their industrial revolution 10-15 years ago whereas England has been industrialized for more than 100 years now. All of the classical architecture in London seems to have a sense of permanence. It’s been here for at least 100 years and it’s going to be here for centuries more. Seeing buildings and the architectural details that go along with them was very pleasing to our eyes as there is not much to compare to it in America or in Taiwan.



We saw Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the parliament buildings, the River Thames, the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Here are some pictures:








After this, our feet thoroughly exhausted, we hopped on the train and went back to our hotel for a little break. As we had started so early it was only about two in the afternoon. Later we bought a picnic dinner from the supermarket down the street and walked to Regent’s Park which was nearby our hotel.

The other thing that has been really lovely about London is its’ parks. In Regent’s Park, we were amazed by how much space there was, how closely manicured the grass was and just how peaceful and quiet everything was. For a city of ten million people we spent much of the day wondering where all of them were. Or maybe it’s just perspective…after Taiwan it doesn’t feel crowded or busy. We had our dinner, looking out at a lake, enjoying the beautiful sunshine, clean air and scenery then called it an early day and went to bed for some much-welcomed sleep.