The little weeing boy

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Geo: 50.7944, 4.50339

We got up early this morning, packed and ate our included breakfast. Outside the hostel is the bus stop, so we caught it to the train station. Bought tickets and boarded the train for Brussels, the capital of Belgium. The train ride was good and short. Once in Brussels we had to catch the metro and change lines to get to our hostel. Then we looked at a map on the street to find the way to the hostel, little did we know that the 'You are here' dot was in the wrong spot!!! We ended up walking down hill in the wrong direction, once we realized we had a 10 minute walk uphill- very annoying with a heavy pack. The hostel seemed okay- could be worse.

Got the metro to the main shopping strip and had lunch, then wandered around the city. We came across Mannekin Pis, a very famous statue of a little boy peeing. It is now a fountain surrounded by a large group of tourists. I was expecting the statue to be the actual size of a little boy and not the size of a baby. It is about 500 years old and there are a few theories behind its existence. One is that a man lost his son and found him in the street a few days later having a piss.

There are lots of chocolate shops around here. Will do some final chocolate shopping on my last day here. In the main square there is the city museum. We went in, there is a lot of information about the history of Belgium. There are also many little costumes for Mannekin Pis that have been sent to the city from countries all over the world. The USA sent a costume of Elvis, Japanese sent a kimono, etc. Didn't see anything from Australia.

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Photos

01 The crowd
The crowd surrounding Mannekin Pis.

02 Mannekin Pis
The famous statue.

03 Chocolate
A chocolate fountain!!

04 Decorative
The side of the Town Hall.

05 The Grand Place
An elaborate building.

06 Town Hall
The top of Town Hall.