Art Museum in Brussels

I am not so fond of visiting museums, but since last year, I started liking them somehow. Probably, because museums give you a feeling of apprecicating what is beautiful and the price you would pay for that beauty. They maybe also remind you of the artist's life, of how important their artwork become. It can also be because I always dream of being an artist, I like the freedom they have in working, the creativity, the romanticism, and the reality of life. All museums i have visited until now have a bright, large hall with big, beautiful paintings, sculptures, the floor is shining with marble stones, and quite a lot of Japanese visitors!. Japanese are probably keen on seeing museums than the Europeans themselves, it is maybe because, the art is different from what we had in Asia, and I think the Japaneses are fond of learning new things in other corner of the world, and appreciate beauty.

Yesterday, we went to visit the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, I hadn't been so fond of the idea at the begining, but found it was very good idea at the end. First of all, the weather was so bad that the idea of having a walk in the park is just not a turn on(it likes a curse, when we were at "le Pain Quotidien" for breakfast, weather was windy but sunny, we went out, it started raining, snowing, and it freezed our *ss), so finding a warm place to stay in, and at the same time, enjoying the beauty of things seemed like the best idea one could come up with (Thanks, Jeremie!!). Second of all, when you are visting museums in a group, it is more fun (at least it was for me). We can make fun of artworks that we can't understand why they are worth to be hold in a frame, pretend that we understand something or know the artist ;-)

We really laughed hard when Irina told us that she told the lady at the ticket counter that she was student and got her ticket, but Christian also said that to the lady, and of course she would asked for the student card ;-). The old student was probably embarrased ;-)), was a misunderstanding, was it? ;-).

The museum holds a large number of artworks of Belgian artists (of course), most of them are Flemish, btw. We saw work of Delvaux, Magritte...etc..There was one painting whose artwork was really not worth the frame, it lookes like you were on the phone, using the pencil drawing lines (so said all of us) or a kid when you give him/her a pencil, they will probably produce something similar. We are just naked eyes, and just can't understand it, but it does look very simple!!!

The museum closes at 1pm until 2pm for lunch, hmm. So, We decided to take a coffee to warm up without success. The museums cafetaria is packed, we went to the Old England house, the musical instruments museum, it is also packed. So, we waited for haft an hour for the tram to get home, and had coffee in the Illy coffe shop at the corner of Avenue Louise.

I went to Waterstone to buy some books for the trip, ended with a few of them among which there is the Orange Clock of Anthony Burgess, it is quite similar to the Catcher in the Rye, and about the revolt of youth...and a book of a Japanese writer, whose books has been translated into English in recent years. Forget his names...