Christmas Day in Brussels

The two-hour early morning journey by Eurostar from London St Pancras International near Kings Cross to Brussels was not really comfortable. Whoever own the rail company really try to pack up as many passengers as possible for the sake of profit. Most of the seats face each other and the leg room was restrictive. I noticed that Europeans with long legs have to place them on the aisle! What was more disconcerting was when you had to travel against direction of train and face to face with strangers especially a "hot couple". The premier class was the same except they had newspapers so I decided to travel standard class. My left knee was aching. That was on 24 December 2008. The actual undersea channel tunnel crossing was only about 30 minutes.

Upon arrival, we took a cab to our hotel, the Royal Windsor located near the Grand Place. It cost us Eur 7.80. The driver was a Moroccan who only spoke French and he was listening to a nasyid-like song called "Thank you Allah" which sounded like a local group Raihan.

On 25 December I woke up to the ringing of church bells, so loud that they set off cars' alarm system. They went on for about five minutes or so. After having a full breakfast, we decided to walk in the city. The narrow streets were gaily decorated and street musicians, one was playing an accordion and another,a group was playing classical music at a junction. And there were beggars as well crouching against the walls. Some buildings appeared to be spray-painted by vandals.

Quaint stalls lined up the cobblestone streets, selling crafts bric a brac. Souvenir shops, Belgian craft shops dotted the lanes and chocolate shops, Godiva, Nehaus, Leonidas, Corne.. all famous Belgian chocolate makers were there scattered all over the beautiful city square. There were rows of cute small restaurants displaying seafood, lobsters, cockles, prawns you name it they were all there arranged decoratively in ice on the pavements. Christmas decorations of red, green and gold were a plenty lending color to the festivities. They have arcades which they call galleries, selling all sort of things from keychains, T-shirts, shawls, intricate Belgian embroideries, jeweleries to leather jackets.

As the day progressed, more and more people came out to the square and jammed the narrow streets shoulder to shoulder. The day was cloudy, overcast and chilly. It grew dark very fast, by about 3 pm it was already nighttime. The square, bordered on four sides by old and architecturally stunning buildings, came alive with modern rods emanating colorful dancing lights which appear to respond and gyrate to the modern invigorating music. The atmosphere was electric, people, families with children even the disabled on motorized wheelchairs were mesmerized. At the end of every musical session, the big projector would highlight the moving shadow of Santa on his sleigh of reindeer across the baroque building electronically sprinkled with falling snowflakes... it was a magical moment, a virtual technology concert.

We stayed for three musical sessions before deciding to walk back to our hotel, it was then nearly 8pm. What a Christmas day it was! Tiring and yet rejuvenating.

Premier Travel

I remember the first time I came to London some years ago when I was upgraded to business class and the seat, two to a row was similar but larger than economy class with slightly bigger leg room, the flight stopped at Frankfurt, distracting the journey and the immigration queue at Heathrow was incredibly long and most of the officers were elderly white and stiff. Terminal 3 was then under construction and the entry and walk to the immigration check was interminable. My second business class travel was more or less the same except the stop was at Dubai where I wasted some money as the duty-free shopping of high quality items were cheap.

My recent business class travel was something else. The seat was now fully electronic and could be reclined to any position from flat to any angle most comfortable to you and the TV monitor followed you. Such luxury in the air no wonder despite the cost, it was difficult to get a business class seat! The cabin was full. Moreover the flight is nonstop, no more distraction, financial and physical and less jet lag problems and before disembarkation you are given a "premier lane" immigration check form, you virtually breeze through, no more vexing long queue. The plane landed at 5.20am local time and I was out at the meeting point just before 6am.... incredible. In the past it wouldn't be before 9am and I remember how our bags were waiting for us, scattered on the floor! This time we were waiting for our bags.

Custom check was conveniently through the green lane. The arrival was pleasant to say the least and hardly a muscle ached despite the nearly 13-hour journey. Indeed for the businessman or woman and anyone else , that was really premier travel!

Saved by Shakir

Sunray shafts over London

I have booked for my MAS ticket to go to London way back in August but somehow there was a slip up as I did not follow up till mid-November and that was the start of my problem where being a gold Enrich member and a shareholder did not help! My booking was cancelled by the system as it detected double booking... yes the travel agent had not cancelled the earlier booking and when she finally did.. my second self booking had already been automatically cancelled and when I rebooked... guess what? Waiting list all the way, entirely my fault, no one else.

Countless phonecalls, going through important people at one stage even a Deputy Minister of Transport was mentioned to help me be on that plane as onward booking to Belgium and several theatre tickets have been purchased and what am I to do if I cannot have confirmed seats.. I persevered, humbling myself, begging to be helped.. the local MAS manager must have been rather fed-up of me with my desperate SMSes! Then enter Shakir.... Shakir the dedicated officer at Enrich MAS building KL.

Shakir listened to my sad tale and decided to go out of his way to help me... he sent memos to his supervisor almost daily to remind him of my predicament and to get me that seat. Can you imagine at RM24000 per seat all the business class seats have been taken up! After almost four weeks( 28 days of frustration), Shakir rang me today to confirm I have got that return seat to London... hey ZANA here I come! I must see who are those people who are going to be stuck with me for 12 hours.. very curious.

Shakir, you are great!