Amsterdam, May’08 – The Good Side

This is an entry following my earlier posting on ‘The Wild Side’.

If you put the sex and cannabis aside, you may be able to see other beautiful aspect of Amsterdam.

Like all European cities, Amsterdam boasts old European-style architecture. It has a network of canal, all connected by beautiful bridges. There are various ways to explore the city. We could just walk along the clobber stones roads or along the canals to appreciate the architecture designs.

Alternatively, we could go on a bicycle, where it is not unusual to see locals and tourist going along cycling around the city. There is also a ‘bicycle tour’ available where tour guides will take you around the city on a bicycle and describe the history behind the city.

If you just don’t want to walk and can’t move on two wheels, you could always go on a city cruise. The cruise takes about 45 minutes tour and it would take you around the city comfortably while the tour guide provides you the history lesson.

For a small city, Amsterdam has lots of museums. If you are a museum enthusiast, this would be paradise for you. However, if time is what you don’t have, you could just keep your visit to Van Gogh Museum. There you could find large collection of Van Gogh’s paintings and drawing, his career and other artist’s works.

Here are some of the attractions in Amsterdam –

Take a stroll along the city and relax

Explore the city's architecture

More architecture..

Walk along the canal

Another piece of architecture...

Rain won't stop this guy from going on a bicycle tour..

Bloemenmarkt, the city's floating flower market

Tulip seeds

Moving outside of the city

Roads outside the city...

Zaanse Schans - the Dutch village

Take a trip out of the city to Zaanse Schans – a village-like museum. The area is filled with shops, cottages, windmills and houses, which people live and work. You can take a stroll and visit each building where the local community recreates the traditional Dutch way of life to give us a flavour of their culture.

The windmill is a key feature in The Netherlands. Traditionally, it was used to drain land of lakes and extend the shoreline to create fertile farmland. Of course, there are other uses as well such as grinding corns, crushing seeds to make oil and driving sawmills.

Amongst some of the Dutch ‘things’ you would find in Zaanse Schans –

Cheese storage

Cheese tasting

Guess where all the cheese comes from?

More cheese

Another well-known product of the Netherlands - clogs

Wooden tulips

Another place which is worth visiting is Volendam, a small fishing village with beautiful yachts and boats ‘parked’ around the harbor. When there take your time and stroll along the village and mixed with the locals (who still wear traditional Dutch cloths). Make sure you try some of their local delicacies – seafood.

Take a stroll along the harbor

Fried seafood stalls are found along the harbor

Amsterdam, May 08 – The ‘Wild’ Side

The following entry is the continuation of last week’s post.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands - the land of windmills.

What the f**k? Is there windmill in The Netherlands? - Unfortunately, some people don’t see Amsterdam the way the above picture reflect.

There is a, if you like, the good side of the city and then there is also the ‘wild’ side. And most of the people see the ‘wild’ side of it. I mean, who doesn’t know Amsterdam is well-known for its legalised ‘coffee shops’, red-light district and kinky stuff sold all over the place. So, for this entry, I will just touch briefly the ‘wild’ side of the city.

For the naïve travelers, please do not be confuse when you stumble upon a coffee shop in Amsterdam - you might want to go somewhere else for a cup coffee because the local coffee shop don’t do coffee. In Amsterdam, cannabis is tolerated by the local authorities. An establishment that advertised itself as coffee shop is definitely no local Starbucks. It’s probably selling cannabis and if you mistaken it for coffee, it might be in for an adventure.

Everyone knows there is a Sex Museum in Amsterdam. And like they never learn anything about sex in their life – they go to the Museum for additional sex education.

Once, you’ve acquired the sex knowledge – you may want to visit the scores of sex shop hidden along the alleys within the city center. In fact, for this entry, I won’t even bother to leave the address for you – you can go on an adventure to discover these shops yourselves.

There are also lots of sex theaters and pep shows – which I can’t comment much because we didn’t go there. However, some of my female friends did visit a sex theatre and they did suggest its worth going since you don’t travel to Amsterdam everyday (hey – its personal opinion). Nevertheless, its really weird to go into a sex theatre with my dad, so I thought I would skip it.

Then there is the main attraction which everyone been shouting about – the Red-light District. We took a walking tour to De Wallen, the largest and best-known red-light district amongst tourist (under the supervision of Kay). The area comprises of alleys with hundreds (can’t confirm since I wasn’t counting) tiny one-room rented by female prostitutes offering their services behind a glass door with red light on top of the door. Sorry guys, we can’t snap any photo. So, I can’t share our walking tour experience with you.

Here are some of the other sights caught on camera during our visit.

Salt and pepper shaker - 'wank' it during your meal

Something tells me it's going to hurt a lot

Anyone for a chocolate?

Next: Amsterdam, May ’08 - The Good Side

A Close Encounter with Kiasu Travellers

Ever encountered weird travellers with crazy behaviour at the airport? I had - in fact, loads of shitty encounters to share with you.

Not too long ago, I was at KLIA - LCCT waiting to board an Air Asia flight (Malaysia version no-frill airline) to Bangkok with Kay. We got to the boarding gate rather early (about 45 minutes before departure time) and I was sitting there reading my book.

Then, all of a sudden, a family of 5 or 6 people walked into the boarding gate area. There were like 3 or 4 children, accompanied by 2 ladies (must have been their mum). The ladies must be housewives – as evident and/or suggest by their choice of fashion – worn-out t-shirt and short-pants, slippers as footwear choice and a plastic bags as their hand luggage.

What caught my attention wasn’t their fashion as I couldn’t give a two-hoot about what they wear – so long as they are wearing something – that would be a great favour to society. Anyway, when the family walked into the boarding gate area, they walk straight up to the gate. And I thought, what are these people doing? The airline hasn’t called for boarding yet but the family of travellers seems to put up an energetic show of enthusiasms by standing in front of the boarding gate.

After about 30 minutes of ‘excitement’ – standing in front of the boarding gate, the airline finally called for boarding and passengers began to get into the line. The family (despite being ahead of the game) decided to make sure that they are absolutely the first group to board the plane. They sort of hoard the frontline and began to make ‘small’ advancing movement. If it weren’t for the officer standing in front of the gate, I am sure the family would have pushed their face against the glass door and might have force the door open.

The minute when they were ‘release’ from the boarding gate, they began to run. I was dumbfounded! What the fuck? - sorry for the profanity but I think they deserve no less than what I am going to say.

Hellooo…WWII is over. You don’t have to run to the plane as if you are a refugee! You are already in front of the line. No one is going to take your precious seat of yours. No wonder Kay’s dad told us that travelling on Air Asia is like travelling like a refugee.

I am just not sure why can’t these people be more mature when it comes to simple things like getting on a plane. OK, maybe they want to sit together and since Air Asia is operating on a free-sitting basis, it would make sense to be ahead of the line. But to run even when you are ahead, that is just plain ‘Kiasu’.

I am not sure where they eventually sit on the plane, but after all the standing and running, I hope they get what they want! In fact, I think they should fart at their ‘prize’ seat to mark their fucking territory for all the effort they have put in.

Coming soon!

It's been a while since I have updated anything.

I was really busy and the old man was in London recently, hence the lack development. Nevertheless, I've done what any good son would have done to provide his father the pleasure of visiting London and the rest of Europe...

Cuming coming soon...

I just want a place to stay

Just to compensate my lack of update, I’ve decided to put in two entries today.

My dad will be flying over to UK to pay Kay and me a visit later this year. Ever since he had confirmed his flight to UK, Kay’s been spending time researching for a European destination to bring my dad.

I was thinking of bringing him to Amsterdam. That’s right dad, since mum is not coming with you, I will be bringing you to all the naughty places (so long as I can get by Kay). But whilst we visit the naughty places, we can only see, but not touch. Okay dad, before you change your mind, I was only joking. Actually, when one speaks of Amsterdam, most Asian would equate it to 'sex'. What they’ve failed to understand (including myself) was Amsterdam is famous for its tulip. Anyway, it’s not fair for me to comment about the country at this point since we have not visited the country yet.

Kay was searching for a suitable accommodation today. We always rely on www.tripadvisor.com just to make sure we are not ripped-off from crap hotel owners. As we move along the list from Tripadvisor, Kay stumbled upon a hotel called Black Tulip, ranked 2 out of 323 Tripadvisor Popularity Index. Boy, did she had a ‘shocked’ when she went to the website. (Check out room no. 22 but please be careful if you are in the office). I think it looks cool but I don’t think my dad is adventurous enough to stay in this hotel. Our search for a proper accommodation goes on…

Ancient Athens

As I walked out of the Athens Metro station, I looked up into the sky. The sky is blue and there were no clouds. The sun shined upon me and I realised that’s why it’s so bloody hot even in September! I was sweating profusely as I walked along the main square of Syntagma with my luggage, looking for our hotel. With this kind of hot weather, a cold shower would be excellent.

Leaving the hot weather aside, Athens is best described as part city, part archaeological site. Amongst the tall and modern buildings stands what was left of ancient Athens. The most majestic among the archaeological site is the Acropolis, where it stands on a hilltop and is visible to almost every part of the city.

There are many entrances to Acropolis and given the sheer size of it, I think it would take at least the entire day to go through the marble white monuments and temples. Part of the structures are still under restoration work. Since it is a tourist attraction site, we have to mingle along with other tourist. In fact there were so many tourists, the whole site was overcrowded and I was wondering if any of them would fall off the hill! And because there is just flow of people swarming to the hill top, there is little opportunity for me to stand and look at the structures.

Acropolis overflowed with tourist.

Once we reached to the top of the hill, there it stood, the magnificent Parthenon, a temple build to house statue of Athena.

Parthenon

Not too far away from Parthenon is the Erechtheion.

Erechtheion

Once we are done fighting with other tourist, trying to get the best photo shot of Acropolis, we went down hill towards the Ancient Agora. The Agora is Athen’s meeting place in ancient times with all the commercial, administrative, orgies and social activities taking place.

Agora... an open 'place of assembly' in ancient Athens

This is the Agora Museum where it housed all the artifacts and a toilet facility for those in need to take a pee.

The other end of the Agora stands the Temple of Hephaestus.

We move south of the Acropolis and cut across scores of tourist shops until we reach the other end of the road. There lie 16 remaining columns (out of total 104) of the Temple of Zeus.

Since we have not had enough of monuments and temples, we made our way out of Athens to the Temple of Poseidon. The view is great but the wind was really strong on the day of our visit. Sands were ride along the strong wind hitting our face.

Temple of Poseidon. Yes, I know. More buildings! What more do you expect of Athens?

What is a vacation if there is no shopping for tourist? The Athens flea market is located around Monastiraki Square with shops selling souvenirs to flock of tourists. Unlike some nasty opportunistic traders we encountered in other countries, traders in Athens are often gentlemen. We could browse through the goods in their shop and query about certain goods. If at the end of the day we have decided not to make the purchase, the shopkeeper would just smile. They will then take out their business card and leave it with us, just in case we change our mind.

Before we flew to Greece, Kay booked a concert which is to be held at Odeon of Herodes Atticus:-

Kay: Dear, I am going to book two tickets for a concert in Athens.

Bob: But I don’t speak or sing Greek.

Kay: It says here Mikis Theodorakis' orchestra

Bob: Hmmm… I don’t mind orchestra. As long as it is just instruments that’s ok. Least I don’t have to struggle to learn Greek language.

So, Kay booked two tickets for the price of €35+ per person.

The stage

When we arrive at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, I realized that there were score of singers (most likely famous people which we don’t know or appreciate) and orchestra seems to mean there will be people singing in Greek and not just instrumental.

We were the only Asian looking visitor to the concert. Everyone looked at us and gave us the disbelief-look. It was as if they were questioning whether we understand Greek.

Since we have already paid for the tickets, might as well just sit in. I think the concert was held in honour of Mikis Theodorakis the composer for all the songs. (Click here to know more of Mikis Theodorakis). Though I don’t understand Greek, some of the songs do sound nice. But then along came this old chap who sounded no different to an old man attempting to sing Shanghai Bund on a karaoke set during a Chinese wedding!

What can I say? Money well spent on something we don’t understand or appreciate. If there is any help to any of you readers, don’t be fooled by the word ‘orchestra’. Look for philharmonic instead if you want just instrumental music.

An advertisement poster we saw at the Metro Station

Sea view from Temple of Poseidon

Acropolis view from below