Archive for the ‘Trains & Rails’ Category

Brussels! Business and pleasure in the heart of europe

brussels streets

Brussels is a fine city, bursting with culture, amenities, food and beer. It is the perfect city to do business in because it presents you with the best of both worlds – everything you need to ensure you can work efficiently plus all you could want for entertainment during those non-working hours. Considered the Heart of Europe, Brussels is the capital of Belgium and provides a warm welcome for every business traveller – especially those seeking some quality free-time activities too.



Business
A city ideal for business, Brussels bird eye viewBrussels has an impressive infrastructure and support network that ensures companies can work without a hitch and business travelers can conduct their tasks with ease. In fact, each year Brussels is home to more than 70,000 registered meetings and exhibitions – and that’s because of the range of venues available.

Holiday Inn Meetings, for example, are designed for the professional so if you’re in Brussels for business, you should consider using the facilities. Whether it’s a fairly intimate meeting you want to arrange or a massive theatre-style conference for hundreds of colleagues, Holiday Inn can meet your needs. As food matters in Brussels, you can be sure of a hearty working lunch or breakfast during your meeting too.

Brussels also benefits from a central location, making it easy to reach from other European cities including London, Paris and Berlin. The links are excellent to major cities so you can hold meetings in Brussels in the morning and return home again in the afternoon, or simply enjoy a leisurely few hours meandering your way around the city.

As a compact city, walking is an option for getting around Brussels in a stress-free manner. Rather than waiting for a cab or fighting your way onto public transport, like you have to in London for instance, you can stroll from meeting to meeting. Plus, there isn’t the language barrier of many major business cities in Europe as most people in Brussels speak English and certainly business is conducted in English.

Brussels city center
Pleasure
When your meetings are over, why not discard your laptop and tie, pop on a pair of comfy shoes and head on out into the city of food, beer and culture?

If you enjoy food, Brussels will delight. And you don’t need to go to a fancy restaurant to be sure of a really good meal, either, as most cafes will serve delicious bowls of the classic Belgian dish mussels and chips. Other favourites include waterzooi soup, a stew-like soup traditionally made with fish and vegetables, and waffles. To top off your meal, you can choose between the 400 different types of beer that Brussels has to offer!

Brussels is also a paradise for chocolate lovers, where you’ll find streets lined with the finest chocolate shops in the world as well as a Chocolate Museum which lets you watch as the delectable sweet brown stuff is made right in front of you. After all, this city is home to famous chocolatiers like Godiva.

Of course, there’s more to this city than food and beer, and you’ll find ample activities to keep you busy for an hour or two in between meetings and also for whole days. There are museums, art galleries and fairs that are worth exploring, and cities like Amsterdam and Luxembourg are only a stone’s throw away and perfect for a day trip. In addition, the beautiful squares, historic buildings and sights are enough to make simply walking around Brussels a delight.

The Tokyo emulation …

Today I decided to write about one of the great city in the world for its technological advancement. As you are all aware about the recent earthquake & tsunami that hit Japan, struck about 400km north-east of Tokyo on 11 March 2011. So this post is dedicated to people of Japan. So here is a little about my visit to Japan back in 2007, I really loved those 3 little weeks in Japan. I had not walked the streets with eyes wide open like that from India. Everything is incredible, colorful signs that cover close to 100% of the surfaces of walls in certain streets, -cool teenagers in parts of Tokyo or Osaka, too many “salary man” in suit and tie on the busy roads.

Beside, there is a lot calmer Japan in superb temples everywhere, because they do not mess with the order. Everyone must toe the line, follow the girls waiting to pay close attention to his physical appearance, not to speak too loudly, do not give an opinion whether it might be frowned upon. It is striking and somewhat damage I think.


Tokyo is the city that I’m most looking forward to since the beginning of this journey, and I’m really not disappointed. Everything is oversized, exaggerated, absolutely fascinating atmosphere. Neon on all fronts of buildings, the fluorescent clothes, urban madness in all its glory, Yeah, it’s just that. Second Tokyo culture shock, it seems that all life is directed toward consumption and leisure. There are supermarkets, shopping malls, restaurants, game rooms at each corner. And people do not hesitate to kick it once out of work or classes. Suffice to say that the wallet is … expensive.

Other experience aside, the discovery of “Love Hotels” Imagine a hill dedicated to the pleasures of the flesh, where sex shops and original rooms (romantic, trash or futuristic) form a sort of Pigalle in the Japanese. Fun, colorful, anything but murky. For cons, the room is about 35 € … 3 hours!

Akihabara, known as “Akiba”, or “The Electric Town”. A place for fans of electronic gadgets of all kinds, welcome to paradise. Video games, computers, manga villains, all kind of shops are concentrated on a few streets, with a few arcades – nay, building arcade.

Shinjuku Station area’s is busiest place in the world with more than 3 million users per day. At peak times, it’s really quite a show … Again, the neighborhood is a mix of luxury department stores, malls, glittering neon and video screens. Advertising is at its peak at this area.


What else? The district of Tokyo Bay! reminder that the city is well on the beach (not many beaches but a few artificial islands, which allow more time to gain ground on the sea failing to build in the mountains. Island of Obaida, where a small statue of liberty throne overlooking the bay, the view of Tokyo is quite impressive from this place.


The Museum Ryogoku Edo, the former name of Tokyo, which has many of the rebuilding cities over the centuries.


In this same neighborhood is the Ryogoku Kokugikan stadium which hosts sumo tournaments. It could not attend a game but we came across several of these strange characters in the streets surrounding the stadium.


Yes I must Hiroshima! The city itself is not very interesting as compare to Tokyo, but still it is amazing to see that much has been rebuilt in 60 years. After a short tram ride (one of the few cities in Japan to own one yet), here we are at the Genbaku Dome, nicknamed “the A-bomb dome, ground zero of the first atomic bomb. This is one of the only buildings to remain standing after the explosion; he was retained as such as a monument in memory of the tragedy. Ambiance.

Accommodation in Tokyo sometimes became a hassle, first, be aware that accommodation is very expensive in Japan. For those who lost the last train, with no place to sleep, and do not want to ruin their trip, there are several solutions rather original but not necessarily comfort:

Spending the night in “manga cafe. These are the local cafes. Small individual cabins with a good seat quite comfortable that we rent by the hour to surf the Internet, read books etc … And at night you can rent the cabin for 5 or 8 hours to snooze.


Much crazier! Spend the night at Mcdonald, Here most of McDonald are open 24/24. It is common to come, buying a small hamburger, and once swallowed, put his head on the table and fall asleep. The staff is accustomed to sleep and leaves. It is much cheaper but I am not sure we will make sweet dreams…


Third option, a little more reasonable but a bit more expensive, “capsule hotels”. These are hotels where we sleep in small “boxes” lined up and stacked. Each capsule is 2m long and 1m wide and 1m high. Gain a place at the Japanese. Within each capsule, a comfortable mattress, a radio, a lamp, and even a TV. Claustrophobic abstain. I really wanted to try that … and it was very funny! Hard to believe if we did not try, but there was more space than I imagined, it feels less confined than expected. In the end it’s a bit like a dormitory, except that is quiet in his corner.

The freedom of outdoor tour via train..

I am in UK this winter, & my traveling temptation are not hurdling me to go for outdoor travel this weekend despite the heavy snow fall & cold outside the house. In the United Kingdom, the trains are notoriously unpunctual, overcrowded and often smelly. Yet, despite these factors, more and more passengers take to the rails.

Train travel is for leisure. To look at the window in the campaign. Travel To play Monopoly. To put the world to rights with a glass of tea. If you get time to spend a long time on a train and you see what I mean. In the United Kingdom, you can travel between London and Inverses without changing trains. Not bad going for a trip of 448 miles. In crossing the continent, you can buy a Euro-star ticket that connects 68 cities and towns in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and beyond.

If you are in search of a winter trip in UK via train, here i am to give you some suggestions. some of the longest direct train journey are from London to Burg St Maurice, that is a wonderful plave to visit if want to enjoy snow & skiing. this is the end station of ski resorts in French Alps. In summer, you must try traveling via train for Perpignan that is situated near Spanish border in the south of France. But if it still does not what you look for, why not climb aboard the Trans-Siberian Express. Entitled the longest train journey in the world, the Trans-Siberian Express joins the Sea of Japan to the Kremlin in Russia, covering a staggering 6,135,000.

I must say, The state of trains in the United Kingdom are probably much better than in Russia & most of the other developed countries in Europe.