Monday, June 28, 2010

Amsterdam - Windmill, Fishing Village and Red Light District!!

Wohooo. Finally can blog about my Europe trip.

Started with the dreadful night plane to Amsterdam. Calvin sent me and mum to the airport and waited a while. I really hope that he could go with me but he can’t. I waved goodbye to him and watched sadly as he went down the escalator. We checked in all our luggage and board the plane.

 

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My boarding pass. 52A is my seat. Same row with Brandon koko and sis. Mum sat at the row in front of us.

The plane took off at around 11pm and they served us with supper 2 hours later.

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I ordered the beef lasagne which sis and Brandon koko ordered the chicken with rice thingy. Mine was really delicious but I’m more sleepy and hungry. So i did not finish my food but manage to finish the whole cup of orange juice. I think orange juice served on the plane is really good. Not too sweet or sour. Just nice. Me like :) After supper, we went back to sleep. I can’t sleep very well because it’s actually not comfortable sitting on such limited space. I woke up in the middle of the night to watch Up which I cried twice. That cartoon never fails to make me cry. Wuu wuu wuu.

 

At around 4am Amsterdam time, they woke us up for for breakfast. The choices are either vegetarian food, nasi lemak or english breakfast. Of course the three of us ordered English breakfast.

The hashbrown is yummy. Love the button mushrooms. I even love the green peas okay. Hehe. Orange juice again. I love aeroplane food :)

 

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View from my seat when I’m wide awake and enjoying breakfast :)

We arrived at Schiphol Airport. I think there are around 40 of us in the tour. Our tour guide is Uncle Simon who did a great job, by the way :)

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View from the bus station. That’s our bus. They are left handed drivers. Not really used to it. Hehe. First stop will be the windmill place.

Along the way, we can see grass field just next to the road. It’s really beautiful.

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The cows over there are black and white in colour. The ones in Malaysia are brown in colour. Haha. Even cows have different skin colour :)

 

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The weather is quite cold and there’s no sun at sight. The windmill is located at the outskirt of the city. It’s really beautiful and quiet there. According to the tour guide, if the windmill is in X location, meaning that it’s still functioning but it is at resting stage. If it is at the cross position, the windmill is no longer functioning.

      

Before visiting the windmill field, we went to the clogs museum first to see how clogs are made.

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The 2 giant clogs at the entrance of the museum.

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They have varieties of clogs and other items that can be made out of wood like these tulips :) There are some clogs with different carvings and designs.

 

They even have a man demonstrate how clogs are made with the machines. These machine are older than me and still functioning very well!!

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Beside these machines are….

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Rows and rows of clogs for sale on display. They have different colours and design. Some have fur lining as well to keep the feet warm. Really pretty, especially the pink ones :)

 

Other than clogs, they have other souvenirs as well but the tour guide said that the souvenirs at the fishing village are much more cheaper. So we did not get anything from the shop.

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But they are really cute. There is the porcelain mini souvenirs where a boy and a girl is kissing. So romantic :)

After that, we headed to the cheese farm.

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Mum with one of the windmill that is not functioning anymore. But this is a mini one just next to the small bridge that we crossed over.

 

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The beautiful ducks at the side of the pond. I thought they were fake ducks but they are actually real ones. Love the one with greenish blue head. Haha.

 

We headed to the cheese farm.

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Inside, there’s a short demo on how cheese are made from milk and different types of cheese sold in the store.

 

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The cheese tasting section is the most famous but I don’t eat cheese in slices. Don’t really like the taste. But I can accept the melted cheese on pizza. Haha. Anyway, none of us bought any cheese. Sorry :)

 

After that, we headed to the fishing village for souvenir shopping and apple pie!!

 

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RIMG0089 This is the fishing village. The shops are designed very nicely and the roads are covered with bricks which made it very classy. Well, at least for me it is :)

 

We passed by this shop that sells fish and chips.

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My favourite will be the calamari rings and cod fish. Absolutely yummy. Their tartar sauce is really good as well. A little bit sour but I absolutely love it. Yummeh!!!!

 

De Koe is the place that we went for it’s apple pie. Really yummylicious!! Really really really yummy.

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When I first enter the cafe, I wondered what this it. Anybody knows??

RIMG0094Hahaha. Some of you guessed that it’s the tray for steamed fish. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! 

 

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It’s actually a heating stove for the tea. Ohhh, there’s my apple pie. Really nice. I finished everything, including the cream. Fatty fatty bom bom :(

After souvenir shopping, we headed back to the city again for Chinese lunch.

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This is the place where we had our lunch. On the first day it may seemed weird to have Chinese lunch but then on the next few days, I nearly want to beg for Chinese lunch. I’m not really used to the western food there because they tasted really weird. Hehe. After lunch, we headed next door to….

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Any idea what this is??? It’s a super market. I have no idea what the name is though. Haha.

 

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The 2 cute dogs outside of the supermarket. Their owner went in to grab some groceries. The one with brown ears are really shivering cause it’s cold out there. Haha.

 

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Sis with her …. push-able basket. Haha. Aduhh….. she missed rock melon very much. Kesian. Hehe.

After lunch, we went for the canal cruise. Just beside the entrance of the cruise is… RIMG0120 Heineken factory!!! Or Heineken Shop. Haha. We didn’t went in though.

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Mom in the glass covered boat. We cruise along the canal where we passed by beautiful buildings and house boats.

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My battery went dead after the canal cruise. The extra battery is in my luggage bag which is deep inside the bus luggage area. Hence no more photographs after that.

We headed for Chinese dinner once again (the food is more or less the same though) and went to the Red Light District, meaning the prostitution area. It’s legal there. You can see shop’s name like “Sex Shop” and banners like “Live Sex Shows”. There are even photographs of naked woman and man at the side of the shops. We are not allowed to take any photographs along the way. Maybe it’s a little too early because the shops which will display girls at the window are not open yet. We managed to saw 2 girls in one of the store with really little cloth bikini standing there dancing. Haha. The tour guide said that if any guy is interested, just walk into the shop to get the “service” they want but it’s quite expensive as well.

 

After that, we went for Chinese dinner and headed back to the hotel. We stayed at Ibis Hotel for the night.

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Our room. It may be a little small but very comfortable. I’m fine with the any room as long as it’s not creepy like the one in Switzerland, with air conditioner (cause it may be stuffy in the room even though outside is cold) and water heater is a must!!! Notice that on the last photo, the sky is still very bright? It’s actually 9pm in Amsterdam. It’s summer (I have no idea why is it still cold), hence the day time will be longer than the night time. The sun will set at around 9.30 pm (very quickly, like within 10 minutes then it’s totally dark) and rise at around 4.30 am. Arghhhhh…..

 

That’s all for day one. Day 2 will be coming really soon :)

 

~BuHBaI~