Amsterdam!

It was a tight 3 days in London and the weather was cold and wet. Not surprising though! My friends had all warned me actually. Oh well, I have to see it personally to know!

The next morning, we had to catch a train to Amsterdam, transitting at Brussels. The total train ride would be around 5 hours! OMG! I hope to survive this! But luckily there was a break at Brussels before continuing the journey to Amsterdam. We reached Brussels around 2 hours time, and we caught a beer and fries while waiting for our next train. The weather was so much nicer than London! Bright sunny day!

After my snacks and beer, we caught the next train to Amsterdam. We reached smoothly at the Central station of Amsterdam and easily found our B&B along the canal.

We will be in Amsterdam for 5 days and 4 nights.

OMG! This is the most prettiest B&B I had ever seen! Click here for info about this house from Airbnb. Located on the Prinsengracht in the heart of the 'Jordaan', the Westermarkt and noordermarkt around the corner. Besides a unique view on the Prinsengracht, there is also a spacious rooftop terrace. This place is also very near to tourists sights like Anne Frank house, flea markets and walking distance to happening streets with lots of bars and coffeeshops and a little further away, we can reach the red-light districts and the town square.

By the time we settled down at the house, it was near evening time. We went for a walk along the happening streets full of coffeeshops - THAT type of coffeeshops, not the normal type! Don't know what is a "Coffeeshop"? Click here. :)

Coming from SG, I have no idea what is hash or marijuana or whatever crap. K was telling me to smell it. I smelt something but I thought it was just some kind of cigarette smokes. DAMN embarrassing! And this is not the most embarrassing moments for me.

We went into a coffeeshop "Barney's Coffeeshop" (Click here). The shop was very small, only a few tables wide. We were lucky enough to get a table and I saw a "thing" on the table. Innocently, I really really thought it might be a "heater"? Wow, each table has its own heater? We were so cold outside and it felt very nice and warm inside. What a considerate and nice coffeeshop owner!

And how wrong can I get!!!! SO EMBARRASSING!!!

This "heater" is actually a vaporizer. It is used to vaporize the weeds and smoke the smoke. LOL... I really have no idea what I am saying but this is the description explained by K. Oh well, I'm from SG! I definitely would not know such stuff! Hope the guys behind me didn't hear my comments about the "heater". :p

Funnily, K took a weed menu from the counter and brought it to our table to look through. Then suddenly the waitress rushed over and snatched the menu out of us, saying that we can only buy weeds over the counter, not at the table! Duh! Why the rule? Think they are allowed to sell legally, but not openly and only over the bar counter, selling very discreetly.

So I sat at the table and had a clear pano view of all the guys queuing up to buy hash. All these guys really knew their stuffs! The 2 guys behind the counters were happy guys, u can see it from their smiles and their moves - grabbing boxes and boxes of weed/hash from the shelves. And I was very proud of myself! Cos I managed to secretly take lots of pictures! Including a pano pic of the whole counter filled with guys! Hee Hee!!! Then when I was caught, luckily I had already finished my photoing and my phone screen was blank. So I told them I was just holding my phone, not taking photos (I am such a lier! Hahah!!)

When the guys were gone, there was a group of young gals, seem like in their graduating year. They looked at the menu and obviously didn't know what to buy. So the more courageous gal from the group decided to ask the counter guy: "Can you educate us?" Hahahah!!! The guy gave a big loud laugh! I was laughing too! This was a very innocent sentence and I loved it. I would want to ask that too! I wished I could walk over to be "educated" as well!

Anyway I couldn't really hear what the guy was telling them, obviously he was showing them some boxes and boxes of good stuff, might be good for first-timer I guess. Awww.... I wish I knew what is good! Anyway I smoked a bit of K's joint (mixture of hash and tobacco, cos he didn't want anything too strong). I really didn't feel anything different! It was just a normal cigarettes! Hmmm... Maybe I can take stronger stuff! Hahahah!!! Some part of me wanted to, some part of me was not keen. Oh well, I would be going back to SG and not able to touch such stuff anymore. So why even bother to try? But it would be silly not to try once in my lifetime, especially it was legal here! :)

Anyway, after some joints, we continued our walk to the Dam square, and of course we ended up in the red-light districts. (Click here)

It was fantastic! I really thought to see an area dark and dodgy and full of DOMs. But I was wrong (again!). This place is so much similar to our Clark Quay or Boat Quay or Robertson Quay! Nice houses and buildings along the canal. And the "windows of gals" are just a small portion of the whole streets. The streets were also filled with adult shops and shows, some are live shows, some peep shows.

We went to the Sex Museum and also watched a very mediocre live sex show at Casa Rosso. This place was obviously very popular and people were queuing up. So we thought we might as well queue up too! Must be good, right? We had to pay 50euros each for the live sex show and honestly, the show was nothing stimulating. It was mechanical and boring and highly cheorographed. Really a waste of my 50euros! It was also my first time hearing about "peep show". It was actually a small box (like a self-photographed booth) and you will peep inside the hole to see some sex actions, I think. We actually wanted to try but the booth is only for 1 person and I did not like to do it myself. So we decided to skip the peep show.

Well, that was all for the night and as expected, no dinner for me! So while we were walking back, I insisted to buy some snacks back. I cannot always skip dinner, right? :( So we stopped by a burger and fries stall. It was yummy! cos I was simply famished!!!

The next day was Saturday, we decided to slow down a little and visited the flea market at Jordaan. We bought a few items, intending to cook a bit tonight (yay! That means I would definitely have dinner tonight finally!) LOL...

After the flea market, we took a walk along 9-streets, the famous shopping street in Amsterdam (Click here). Good shopping area and many people! We walked a bit and sat at a bar for beer. We were kind of tired by today actually. After some walking, we decided to take the bicycle taxi to Paradiso, the area famous for live entertainment and bars and shops. Too bad, we were there a bit too early (it was only 5.30pm) and the place was not very crowded. Oh well, but at least I managed to buy a Hard Rock tee for my fren, Betsy! Yayee!

Since there was nothing happening at Paradiso, we thought of going for a river cruise but the timing was not right. Thus, we decided to just go back to our canal house to enjoy the house. We paid good money for this private house, so we might as well spent a bit of time there. We went back and K did a bit of cooking. Yummy pasta for me and red wine (from the owner). We heard Van Gogh museum would be packed with people if we didn't have any pre-booked tickets. So I went online to book 2 tickets for us at 3pm (cos we need to go searching for cafes during the daytime).

Everything was perfect at this moment, until K was deeply affected by a shocking message from his best fren. He was then rather upset and started to distance himself. Oh well, what can I do? As his travel companion, I can only try not to irritate him and stay in my course. This is also my holiday too! So I am prepared to make it a good one, no matter what. In any case, I didn't think it is fair for K to let his mood affect our holiday. And oh come on, it was just about his fren, not him at all. He shouldn't get so upset about his friend's decision. :(

The next day, as it was a Sunday, we had to get going to find his list of cafes in Amsterdam. We started the day with a BIG serving of pancakes at the famous Pancake Bakery (just opposite our house). We saw people queueing up even late at night, like 9pm! Anyway, the pancakes were nice (typical), nothing super fantastic actually. And it was really expensive! Totally for Tourists! Well, we were curious why people are queueing up, so this is the price to pay to satisfy our curiousity! LOL!

After breakfast, we went to search for a place to print his list of cafes and addresses. We were lucky to find an internet cafe-type of place. And after that, we had to find a bicycle taxi (cos I didn't want to cycle on the street. I had bad phobia about cycling on the streets so I didn't have confidence at all!). Finally we found a guy who was willing to take us for 2-hours at 90euros (usual price 100euros)

Well, I really enjoyed the ride. People were looking at us when we zoomed by! So nice! At first we actually booked a taxi. And then we realised that bicycle taxi might do a better job in weaving through difficult traffic and riding on narrow pathways. How right we were! The places where we were going were all very small areas and quite hard to find. One cafe actually was inside a park, where the bicycle taxi could ride right into the park but definitely not accessible for normal taxi.

We were really lucky! We found all the cafes listed and were feeling very happy! K had lightened up his mood a bit but still rather cold. Anyway, we completed the search way before 3pm. And thus we asked the bicycle taxi driver to drop us at 9-street again cos K wanted to look for unique tees. We walked around but unluckily we didn't find anything interesting. So we took another bicycle taxi to the museum just right on time at 3pm and OMG! There was already a queue. I thought with the tickets, we can just zoom past the queue. But no! All people with tickets will have to queue up to get it as well. Only those without the tickets will have to wait for everyone to get in before getting in.

Anyway, actually the queue speed was quite fast, we got in within 15 mins, not too bad!! It's amazing! The museum was great and each of us had a multi-media guide, which was very enriching. I simply loved this trip to the museum!

We took about 1.5hours before the museum announced the closure. We decided go back to have our dinner at the vegetarian restaurant below our house. The restaurant was nice and cosy. Seemed popular too, many people! I ordered the vegetarian noodles, but it was too salty, full of soy sauce. Anyway, K loved vegetarian and since he was not in a good mood, I decided to just go with this. This beats having no dinner, right? Hahaha!!!

Well, since K had to be with his "hero" for either half or full day tomorrow out of Amsterdam (about a few hours trip on the train), I had to make plans myself. So I looked online and on impulse, I booked a half-day tour to North Holland, out of Amsterdam, mainly to view windmills, cheese factory and clog-making house. It would be fun! K told me that he might join me if his visit to the coffee workshop was short, cos he wasn't sure how long it would take actually. Anyway, I shall go ahead to book this tour and he could book directly at the agency if he could make it back to Amsterdam before 2.30pm.

The next morning, I had a good sleep-in, till 9am. And I hang around the house a bit and decided to go out earlier than planned. The half-day tour only starts around 2.30pm, so I had plenty of time. So I decided to go for river cruise (since we didn't manage to have one 2 days ago). Along the way, I finally saw how people move their furniture into the house. Just FYI, the houses were all very old and vintage, with no lifts and narrow stairs. We saw the "hook" at the top of each house and were wondering how it worked. I was very lucky to witness it!!!

Overall, it was really a very tough job! I think should be very expensive as well! :)

Anyway, I reached the river cruise counter at around 11.15am and booked myself the next river cruise at 11.30am. The cruise was very nice and relaxed (of course!). I learnt alot from the commentary and had a very good time. It was around 12.30pm when the cruise ended and I had to find a cafe to spend my 2-hours before my tour started. I saw a mexican cafe and there was a small table for one person, so I sat down and ordered a latte and played with the wifi. I was thinking when the owner will start to chase me away cos I didn't feel like having mexican food for lunch. Actually I was hoping K could make it in time and we could have some snacks before the tour.

Anyway, I need to clear some emails so in a flash, I have sat there for nearly 1.5 hours! And I only ordered a cup of latte! LOL... The owner was nice! He didn't rush me nor ask me to order other stuffs. So although I have another 30min to go, I decided to pay the bill and leave, so that they could have more business with my table.

I decided to take a walk since it was only 2pm. I asked the waiter if he knew where was the pick-up point for the tour and he told me to turn right. Well, since I had time, I decided to turn left to take a walk along the streets, maybe I could do some shopping as well. And oh god! Lucky I did it, cos the tour pick-up point was exactly there, on my left side! I will definitely miss the tour if I had taken the waiter's direction to turn right. I was soooo lucky. So I went over and was asked to go take a ticket (since mine was e-ticket). So I went in, approached the counter and asked for the ticket. He looked at me and asked "You only? WHY alone?" This was funny! Mmmmm.... I didn't know going on a tour alone was not common! Anyway he was nice and smiling and I told him that my friend couldn't make it last min.

Anyway, I got my tickets and OMG! There were so many people! At least nearly 100pax I think! The tour people told me that cos the weather was good, so many people turn up for the tour. Anyway the big double-decker bus can fit 100pax so we were good to go! I was assigned to sit with a lady, who looked latina but she speak French. She was with 2 guys, so she had an empty seat with her. Well, the bus trip was good, as we have live tour guide as well as the audio guide from the bus. The trip was good! Took less than 30min to get out of Amsterdam (the tour guide told us that Amsterdam is different from other countries where the city will slowly disappear and the countryside will appear. Here, the city and countryside was very closeby and not much differences in terms of transition.)

The tour group reached our first destination, Zaanse Schans, the picturesque windmill village. The village was so nice and quiet and cosy! I fell in love with this village immediately!

After that, we moved on to the fishing village of Volendam, where I visited the cute Cheese factory and museum. The cheese demostration was by this lively cute HUGE lady! She was extremely funny and engaging. I simply loved to see her show! And OMG, I had never seen so many cheese in my life! I am definitely not a cheese lover but I knew K would go crazy here! He simply loved cheese as his life!!! LOL! Too bad!

After lots of "cheesy" tour around the cheese museum, the tour group moved on to the next destination, which we need to take a cruise boat to the island of Marken, where I visited the traditional clog-maker, Bart. He too was extremely funny! I really had such a good time that I totally didn't regret booking this tour on my own. After the clogs demostration, we shopped a bit at the clog shop and went back to the bus.

And I saw the most beautiful sunset in my life. I am not being drama here! The sunset was soooo awesome that my iphone cannot capture even 10% of the beauty. But I will always remember the sunset in my mind. :)

It was 7pm when the bus reached back to the Damrak area, near Victoria Hotel. K called earlier that the train station had some accident (a crane fell onto the track, thus all the trains were cancelled!) and thus he was stuck at the station outside Amsterdam. So I decided to go back to the house to wait for him. He said that if he was early, he would wait at the vegetarian restaurant.

So when I got back home around 7.15pm, I popped by the restaurant and didn't see him, so I guess he must be still stuck somewhere out there. It was about 8pm that I decided to give him a call, just in case he was waiting for me somewhere else, or if I should go look for my own dinner. It was so coincidence that he had actually just reached the Central station and on his way back home!

Great! We decided to meet at the bar across our house for a beer before going for vegetarian dinner again. He looked very tired and he told me about his train-station saga. He was extremely lucky to be back cos there were still many people trapped there. He told the guys that he needed to get back to Amsterdam cos he had a plane to catch the next day, and thus he was given a seat on a bus to the next station to catch the train. How lucky!!!

It is true that this was our last night at Amsterdam. How time gone! We were there for 4 nights already! Just when I was starting to like this place, we had to go. :( Oh well, I guess we would have fun in other cities too, but no more joints to smoke! Awwww..... Bye bye hash!

Next stop: Copenhagen!! Yay!!!