Another strange food experience

For those of you who read my blog about my year's stay in Korea, you will know that I'm no stranger to trying new foods.  If you haven't come across that blog yet, well, some of those weird things were Sannakji (live octopus), Beondegi (silk worm pupa), cow blood soup, ox leg's soup (which still had fur on it!), squid and raw fish (which was literally a fish on the table, still wet, which we dug into with chopsticks...)

You can click each of those last 2 links to watch a video of me trying those things!

Last night I tried "Steak Américaine" which sounds like, well, American steak.  You know, something bbq'd with spices on a nice summer night.  Well... it was a nice summer night but the steak wasn't grilled!  It was pure raw ground beef.  It's quite popular in Belgium.  We would know it as steak tartar, but without the egg and other stuff on top of it.  I actually had something different for dinner, but my friend had the raw beef and I tried a bit.

Like most of these weird foods I've tried (with the horrific exception of Beondegi) the flavour was good but the texture was strange.

The reason we had dinner was for Annick's birthday.  She was one of the first people I met when I arrived in Belgium, and you may remember her name from my blog post about Versailles.  She's the one who invited me there!

All in all, it was a very nice night.  Tomorrow Melissa is arriving!!!  In fact, she leaves Canada today!!!

My commercial!

A while back I did a commercial for a French insurance company called GAN.  It has been published on the internet on youtube!  The first commercial I did (Kinder chocolate) I can't seem to find yet.  Here are the 2 screen captures from the commercial in which you can see me:

 (Click the picture to make it nice and big) I'm the third person from the right here

(Click this picture to make it nice and big too!) I'm the one on the far right here.

Click here to watch the video!

Parents visit pt. 5 - Luxembourg

Alright, so continuing on in our series of "Parents visit" posts, our last day not in Belgium, we went to Luxembourg city, Luxembourg.  It was a very very attractive city - lots of Green, historic walls and buildings, and a nice valley in the middle of it all.  We ended up there on May 1st I think, which happened to be a festival across Europe.  It's their labour day.  Anyway, here are some pictures from Luxembourg!

My Mom and I posing with the statues!

Luxembourg is on the right side of the river, Germany on the left.  It's the Mosel River.

This is very close to the hotel we stayed at in Luxembourg for the night.  It was in a town called Wormeldange.

This is that valley I mentioned - so nice to look at from above!

A little bit of old and new

My Dad and I enjoying the festivities!

Then we headed back to Brussels.  Here are some pictures from our last days together ㅠㅠ (that's what Korean people type as a :(  which is a sad face.)

This flea market was massive!!

So.  There it is.  The last of the pictures from my parents visit.  And just in time too - my sister Melissa is coming with Karsten for a visit in only one week!!!  They leave Canada in 6 days!! 

There's the obvious excitement that comes with having visitors, but there's something else too.  On another level, with new eyes seeing familiar things, I'm reminded of how I felt when I first got here.  It's fun to let other people discover where I've been living.  Anyway, the point is I like having visitors!

That's all for now!  Stay tuned - remember when I did those commercials?  Well one of them has been published and the link is going to be posted here shortly!

Parents visit pt. 4 - Colmar, France & Titisee, Germany

Well here it is, the second last post of my parents visit!  I have been working a lot lately so it is a few days late!  Anyway here's the story.

After a great night that will go down in the books (the dinner with the distant relatives), we started off on our way to Colmar, France.  There, we walked around the city and took pictures (surprise!!).  I also found my favourite blue cheese in the grocery store there.  The cheese I'm referring to is Roquefort blue cheese.  Only 7 companies produce the real thing.  It's something like champagne apparently - only cheese that is produced in the region of Roquefort is allowed to call itself that.  At the same store, my Mom picked up 2 more wine glasses to go along with the 2 that she had bought in Soufflenheim to have a set of 4.

Here are some pictures from Colmar!

It seems that blogger is messing up and it won't let me post pictures that I took holding the camera sideways!  Even if I go into the image editor that blogger has built into it, it won't work. So from here on, the pictures will be only the one way!  At least it worked for the one picture above, that has my parents in it.  I think it's a great picture of them!

Alright, then we went to Titisee, Germany.  They are known there for the cuckoo clocks.  It is a small village nested in the thick of the Black Forest, or as locals would call it, the "Schwarzenwald".  I was overwhelmingly excited to realize that I can still understand a bit of German.  I studied it for one year in university.  The parking guy told me the prices and I understood.  It was exciting.  I bought some things there - honey (made in the forest!), some fruity wine and this coffee liquer ... I don't think I'm spelling that word right... liquere?  Oh it's not important.  Here are the pics!  (but only the ones I took horizontally.  grrrr blogger!)

That was our trip that day.  That night, we went back and forth between Luxembourg and Germany looking for a place to stay.  In the end, we stayed in Luxembourg.  There will be a post and pictures coming up of that day!  I have to hurry and get these posts done though - my sister is coming in 10 days!  Then I'll have even more stuff to put on here!

P.S. Happy birthday 2 days ago to my sister Donna!

Parents visit pt. 3 - Soufflenheim, France

Well, the Friday of my parents' visit, we took the car again and went to France.  We stayed in a town called Soufflenheim.  It is a town that is very famous for its pottery, but we actually have distant relatives there too!  I believe we figured out that the lady who hosted us is my 6th cousin once removed and that her children are my 7th cousins.  Anyway, here are some pictures from Soufflenheim!

 We drove through Germany to get there.  This sign says "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" which means Federal Republic of Germany in German.  This was taken on the Luxembourg-Germany border with Germany in the background.  It was taken in a town called Wormeledange which we stayed in the following night!

This was our host - Richarde.  This picture was taken just after we got there.  It was so nice to finally meet her and her husband because I've heard so much about them!  I can't stress enough how fun it was to be traveling around Europe again with my parents - we went to Austria in 2006 and I had lots of fun then too.  This time was a bit more special because I got to meet these people I'd heard about before!  Anyway, we had a great visit, then headed out into Soufflenheim to the pottery shops.

 The side of one of the shops.

The back end of the B&B

Pottery shops in Soufflenheim!

 I got to go into the back of one of the stores where they were painting the pottery.  It was really cool!

Our B&B

Well it was a Friday night so we decided to go out for Tarte Flambée - a delicious regional treat that can be made for dinner or dessert.  The restaurant we went to was family owned and operated.  The woman who was hosting us brought us into the back to see the magic happen!  It was so cool!!  This is the guy putting the tarte flambée into the oven. 

This is them putting the toppings onto the tarte flambée.  There is this special secret creamy sauce, cheese, onions, and bacon bits (not really bits, but more like strips that were about 1cm x 1cm x 2 cm. In French they're called Lardons and you can click that link to see a picture). 

This was the group we ate with.  My Mom is taking the picture so she isn't in it, but she was sitting in the empty chair on the right in the foreground.  It was sooooo fun this dinner.  The people were so friendly and welcoming.  It was really such a great dinner and the time just flew by.  I really hope I'll meet them again one day.  

Of course, I was thrilled to see fries!

This is one of the dessert Tarte Flambées that we had.  It's apple cinnamon.  It's hard to see in the picture, but they put alcohol on top and light it on fire!  (hence the flambée part of the tarte!)The alcohol on the apple cinnamon on is called Calvados, an apple liquer from Normandy.

This one, also on fire, is the banana chocolate.  The alcohol they put on this one is rum.

That was our trip to Soufflenheim.  Great food, great people, great pictures, great time.  Stay tuned - next post will be about Colmar, France and Titisee, Germany!  Both of which we did on the Saturday!

Parents visit pt. 2 - Ypres & Passendale (Passchendaele)

So, the Thursday that my parents where here we went together to Ypres.  It's a city that is in the Flemish part of Belgium.  It was the location of some of the deadliest battles of WWI.  Every day since July 2nd, 1928 (with the exception of the city's occupation during WWII, when it was held in England), a ceremony takes place in the city centre at a monument called Menin Gate.  They play the last post and lay flowers and things at the memorial site.  We went to see that, and also we went to Tyne Cot Cemetery.  It's the largest common wealth cemetery in the world, with 11956 graves, and 34857 names of soldiers who don't have graves.  Here are some pictures from the day.

This is Menin Gate

The people who play the last post

A church in downtown Ypres

Canada Lane in Passendale

Ypres

Tyne Cot Cemetery:

And as well as these pictures, I've made a video of that ceremony and the cemetery.  You can watch the video by clicking here.

That's all for this post!  Next, France!  We went to Soufflenheim and Colmar.  Stay tuned!