SAND SCULPTURE EXPOSITION - Blankenberge

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End August I went to the Sand sculpture exposition in Blankenberge at the Belgian coast. In two hours I visited 40 countries on six continents ! Africa, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Greece, Holland, India, Japan, Morocco, Norway, Peru, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the Far East, and the United States

An international team of artists from the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium had realized these amazing sculptures

In total 100, man-made, wonders of the world were sculpted of which 18 North American, 45 European, 20 Asian, 9 Australian and 8 African. The order of these wonders is random: from architectural to historical, from old to contemporary.

You can read more about the exposition here

As you do in Blogworld when you visit your Blogfriends, you jump from one continent to the other, from one country to the other and from one city to the other in the whole world. That's what I did here in no particular order.

The first part was outside Europe

The entrance. As it was 3 days before the end of the exposition it was very crowed for a wednesday !

The plan with the different continents to see

The entrance

I found myself in Australia

and then in the USA

I admired the details of the Cowboy's gun and saddle

In Cuba I saw how cigars are rolled

and in Argentina the famous tango

the "skinny" Sumos fought in Japan

and the Indian gods were just amazing ! What an artwork

The sculpture with impressed me the most was the one representing Israel and Palestine in one sculpture. It was the Wailing Wall with on one side the Jews and on the other side the Palestinians. The expression of the faces were so real !

I was a little disappointed about Petra in Jordan, because I had been there as you can see here

Aborigens

I met a canadian policeman (?)

and came out of the huge tent to find myself in Egypt

The Taj Mahal

The Chrysler Building

The cathedral St. Basil in Moscow

Chichen Itza, the old Mja town

The Great Wall of China

besides the Opera in Sidney

Acropolis in Athen

Then I entered the tent which contained the European countries and cities

Here is Holland with Amsterdam and its canals

Germany, with the Dom of Cologne and the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. I have to protest about the German couple, that's not German that's Bavarian, I have never seen my father in a short leather trouser and my mother in a Dirndl ! I don't know who invented such a costum to represent Germans.

Italy represented by the Romans and the pope (what a nice mixture)

The Big Ben was also there

and the Russian dolls (Matriochkas)

Moscow

A dancing Kosak

A belly dancer

Crocodiles, how could the artist do that with sand ?

and then was the End of this very interesting Exposition

Outside was a café where we fell on the chairs and had a coffe and a hot Brussels wafel !

LONDON UNDER CONSTRUCTION

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When I came back from the English coast I stopped in London for the day before taking the Eurostar train back to Brussels.

First thing I noticed when I got out of the station was that London had become a big construction site ! Everywhere they were hammering, digging and working on buildings, and I saw cranes a little bit everywhere.

For cars, buses and pedestrians it became an acrobatic work to get through the streets and sidewalks. London prepares itself for the Olympic games in 2012 ! It will become a beauty !

Meanwhile the beauty gets its face lifiting

a little everywhere

except on Trafalgar square, where I missed the pigeons which had been chased away ! No pictures anymore with pigeons sitting on your head and 10 others on your arms and shoulders.

Downing street, where the prime minister lives, looked like a zoo, with all the tourists staring inside the grids (not cage), and when a red car came out everybody made necks like a girafe, to see who it was but it was only the plumber. Apparently they had some troubles with the water pipes.

The Thames and the London eye looked the same, although I saw a few cranes there too.

I had never seen this touching memorial with the inscription : "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" (Winston Churchill)

Big Ben still looked uncovered but not the buildings around it.

Niketown was still there

and the good old English pub too

The parcs looked green

and I regretted that I didn't have enough time to see Sister Act

I enjoyed Carnaby street and made a walk through the Liberty store, before I had to go back to St. Pancras station to take my train home.