Atomium and Mini-Europe

Today is Wednesday, May 26, 2010. Our destination in the morning was Atomium and Mini-Europe. Atomium, one of the landmark in Belgium, was built for the Brussels World Expo in 1958. It symbolizes an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times. The nine large spheres, connected by 20 tubes, are supported by three enormous pillars and dominate with a height of 102 metres the entire Heysel plateau. Nowadays, Atomium still houses for both a permanent exhibition dedicated to Expo 58 and any temporary exhibitions. For Mini-Europe, it is located next to the Atomium, within 5 minutes walk. Mini-Europe is a park filled with tourist attraction models of EU, building down to the finest detail to a scale of 1:25 and zoning by countries.

The day started at 9.30 and we arrived Atomium around 10 am. I was impressed with its shape when taking a closer look to the building and seeing that glass windows look so blending to the sphere. We began our exploration by taking the elevator to the top floor. In the elevator, if we look at the top, we can see the naked structure of the building, which is very fascinating. The view over the top floor was so nice and we could see the 360 angel of Brussels but sadly, we didn’t get the clear blue sky. Then, we got down to the same the ground floor and took the long and steep escalator to another sphere, which is hosted for the “Be welcome” Exhibition, showing about the immigration to Belgium. The show is pretty interesting. It’s funny that I even saw one story of the Thai immigrant, who came and opened Thai restaurant in Brussels. In shorts, we took a lot of photos and had a good time together there.

After spending enough time at Atomium, we all walked to Mini-Europe among rain, why did it have to be this time?, I kept questioning to myself why not in the afternoon :P...Anyway, once after we got in, we as a group took a photo together with the orange turtle holding EU flag. The first model we walked pass by was the EU building, it’s very modern and huge but what I like most there is the Grand Place, the old central square of the Brussels, because it looks so delicate and very similar to what we saw during city walk last night. Everyone had a great time there, taking a photo, despite the rain!. At the same time, Prof. Brunel did a good job being our tour guide leader, explaining and identifying us the outstanding places in Europe. This walk amazed me in the way that there are some countries or places in Europe that I never heard of the name before. Once I watched the time again, it was almost 12.00 pm!, and we had to head back to the city and have lunch before our first meeting of the day. Bye Bye Relaxing time, see you again soon after 6!!