I am back from an action-packed week in the Netherlands, and I am exhausted! I felt like i was back to one of those 5-day-in-a-country vacation. :) there are so many things to do and to see there, the more we did and more we wanted to do. i felt i'd need another week to come close to finishing everything on the list. who can imagine such a small country has so much to offer?
I stayed at Puk's friend An's lovely, excellently located townhouse in Delft, a town about an hour away from Amsterdam by train. The town itself is a tourist destination, with lovely canals dividing the city streets, an old church dominating the central square that offers GREAT city view on top, and it's also the birthplace of the famous dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, and delftware. At first sight, the delftware bears lots of resemblance to chinese porcelain. and it was indeed designed and perfected as a look-alike to fill in the gap when the civil war between Ming dynasty and the Manchau interrupted the chinese import. that's one of many interesting things i learned during this trip.
We spent most of our time in Amsterdam. the city can be explored in so many different ways - walking, biking, canal cruising, or simply by public transportation. each way offers a different perspective to the city, and guess what? we did it all. we had an intense walk-till-you-drop first day in the city, we didn't realize how much we walked until later we looked at the map. no wonder my legs were still sore days after. It is not a huge city so the walk is pretty managable, with some minor hurdles. :) first of them being the LONG and incomprehensible street names. imagine trying to match it on the map to see where you are, or when we tried to tell each other which street we are on. can't even make meaningful pronounciation out of it! the other hurdles being the ubiquitous bike trails. as much as i tried not to be an annoying tourist, i often mistaken it with sidewalk and leisurely strolled on it until i got a ding from behind and then a biker zoomed by :P. the next day we decided to do it like a local - riding a bike. we took a guided bike tour through the city centre, passed some really lovely park trails to the countryside, where we visited a cheese and a shoe factory and had our first pictures with a windmill taken. it was too bad we couldn't visit the windmill. our guide said it's converted to a home now and people actually live in there. how cool! the day after, we explored the city the big touristy way - on a canal bus. it was a lovely ride, and being IN the canal we got to see those beautiful houseboats closely (i wonder if the owners ever get tired of curious tourists taking pictures and commenting on their homes :)) and the characteristic bridges spanning the banks of the canal. as we wind through the city, i wondered exactly where and how our friend Patrick popped the question to his now-wife Karen. it must be a romantic moment. :)
we spent as much time indoor as outdoor. i was amazed by the number of museums in the country, and the rich collections they have. to name a few, Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmusem totally wowed me. the Anne Frank house is another important piece of history that tells a true, sad story that shouldn't be forgotten. as i stood in the secret annex and browsed the exerpts from her diary, my eyes were brimming with tears. what kind of hardship this little girl must have gone through during the 2 years of hiding and later in the concentration camp. i can't imagine. we are lucky to have grown up in this peaceful era (at least for now).
many other things surprised me here, in a good way. i did not know Van Gogh was greatly influenced by Japanese art and this resulted in his move to south of France to persue brighter natural lighting for his works, and as mentioned before, Delftware's popularity had a lot to do with the civil war in China, and the fluent english spoken by virtually everyone on the street. After the first day, i didn't even bother starting the conversation by asking "do you speak english?". because it just seemed so unnecessary. :) perhaps because it's a small, below-sea-level country, the dutch learned to adapt and embrace things foreign. it has a long history of welcoming immigrants and integrating them into society. As an expat myself living in a foreign country for nearly a decade, those things are well appreciated, and i am even considering moving there!
by day 3 i already concluded that it's impossible to do everything during this short trip and start making to-do-lists for the next trip. ha. one (among many) regrets is that it wasn't the right season to see tulips. each time we passed stores selling picture-perfect postcards with tulips and windmills in the dutch countryside, i reminded myself i must come back to see it in real. that gives another reason to revisit this lovely country!
and now it begins the PG-13 part of this entry. it wouldn't be hard to guess isn't it? :) the redlight district! when i saw the first few sex shops i knew we were coming close. but it wasn't until we saw a row of window girls touting themselves to potential customers i realized the scale of it. i find it a bit ironic that it's located right by the city's old church. (so it's more convenient to make a confession?). i haven't seen this in-you-face prostitution before (not that i am an expert), as we walked through a narrow street full of windows on both sides, i didn't quite know where to look so most of the time i just squinted.... and as we were about to leave we found the hidden gem of redlight district - a hong-kong style restaurant with roast duck and bbq pork hung by the window. we decided immediately that we'd come back next day for dinner, and it was excellent. we ended up going there 3 times within 24 hours. :) that adds a few extra points to this city. :)
now i am back and after some quality sleep i finally feel like a human again. :) we haven't figured out what's on the agenda for next week yet but we have a few potential destinations in mind. why don't you cast your vote to give us suggestions? (you'll need to log in your yahoo account to vote, but your vote be anonymous). oh, i'll post pictures from the trip soon.
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