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of Tulips and Windmills


That's right - Amsterdam! We were there over the weekend to see the tulips bloom in season :) still remember last year when Alicia and JL jio-ed us to go Amsterdam together but we were still in Singapore preparing for our relocation so sadly we turned them down saying we will go next year.. and then fast forward, it's one year later!

I must say I haven't really tried locating the Netherlands on the map- I didn't know it's that near to the UK! *sheepish This must be the shortest flight we took.. less than 45min! Saturday after touching down we went to Keukenhof in Lisse, 35km out of Amsterdam. This is the largest flower garden in the world. *excited They were soooo many people (esp old ppl makes me think of my dear granny wishing I could bring her here too) and I must say we spent a lot of time just queueing up. Queueing up for the bus, queueing up to go in, queueing up to buy food, queueing up to go toilet (!!), and eventually queueing up again to take the bus back.

On the way there, we past by fields of colorful tulips.. and spotted some windmills in the distance. ooh


i amsterdam

Back in Amsterdam, we checked out Leidseplein, recommended by my friend who's lived there for 2 years. We tried to find some authentic Dutch food but umm.. what is dutch food? haha in the end this restaurant guy managed to persuade us to try his Argentinian Grill restaurant. I feel for him.. he was telling us he was working as an engineer when he was made redundant due to the crisis, and now he has no choice but to work at this restaurant.. so sad.




There are many canals in Amsterdam so commuting by boats are a common sight. With the canals and the quaint picturesque buildings, it is a really pretty city. I think 90% of the people cycle everywhere, they even have a cyclist path on the roads.. instead of car park, they have "bicycle park" where there are countless bicycles, we were so amazed. Carbon footprint is very low in this city.


At night, what else but to check out the well known red light district which actually was quite near where we were staying.. 10min walk. What an eye opener man.. those girls really stand in red lighted window frames strutting their stuff and try to sell themselves to guys. We thought it might be a bit dangerous but then there were so many tourists like us, we didn't feel unsafe at all.



Sunday morning was really bad weather.. rained and rained. We intended to join the free walking tour but with the rain, it was impossible.. so we decided to take the Hop-On Hop-Off Canal Bus. Yes instead of the usual touristy bus, this was a boat instead. Interesting. We went to Anne Frank's House (long queue again... duhh so just took a look from outside).. walked to the Heineken Breweries too.. wanted to go in for the tour "Heineken Experience".. but then thinking it's EUR15, we decided to skip it. Took the tram to see the one and only windmill left in Amsterdam which I was very glad we did that.. and finally back to Dam Square. Walked super a lot on sunday, before taking the train back to the airport for our night flight home.






P.S. The only sad thing was that we missed Singapore Day in London.. sigh.. we heard got Old Chang Kee (I waaaant old chang kee curry puff...), kway chap, and many many other local delicacies.. even got free Her World mags!
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