since all museums are closed today and we didn't want to do a guided tour, we decided to have a relaxing day and drove to the atomium by tram. the atomium is located in the north of the town and it takes about 20 minutes to get there by tram. the area for the world-expo 1958 is pretty big, yet we were unsure what was all included 50 years ago. but for sure the atomium was, and a little history guide handed out at the entrance tells us, that actually it was planned to be destroyed after the expo (as all the other things built for each country), but due to it's popularity it is still standing today. there was a renovation in 2006, i guess they polished all the metal plates of the big scale (165.000.000:1) metal atom. the construction itself consists of nine bigger spheres, each of them is accessible by stairs or escalators. the two main spheres are additionally accessible by elevator. the atomium's height is 102 metres. inside the spheres is a cafe, a restaurant, an exhibition of a designer that designed chairs (wtf?), a children's sphere (school classes can stay in this sphere over night), and the entrance hall. all in all it was nice and a little impressive. additionally we saw a cat there too. afterwards we had a good meal at a chinese restaurant that tasted pretty different from the usual chinese food one can get at those restaurants. having a nice after lunch stroll through the nicely illuminated city. they have a skyscraper too where one can send an SMS and then the message gets displayed along with a pattern one can choose too. though the idea is not new, the dimension of this one was new and impressive to me. see yourself: and of course a happy new year to all the readers of this bLog! i for myself had a very great start of 2008 with zombiequeen :)