Amsterdam VI (last)

Living in a hostel is not easy especially when you lead a pretty cushy life in Singapore. Mine was a 16-bedded room, all female. Oh yeah, that colourful bag is mine. Bought it for 12.5 Euros to help contain my shopping items. When I retrieved it from the luggage holding area, I saw a note stuck to my bag saying, 'Cool bag man!'
This is the street which leads to my hostel. Take a look at the short cylindrical metal structure in the centre of the foreground. There's also the traffic light-looking thing on the right. Those are signs to indicate the entrance of a red light district. Apparently, my hostel is located just right at the edge of it. 3 doors away from my hostel is a prostitute already, though we did not discover this until 4th day. (We had only turned left when leaving the hostel then)
This plain empty space is in front of the street where I stayed. A very beautiful fort (or part of it) that is now a restaurant situates there.
The traditional windmill located in Zaanse Schans.
Walking down the streets of Haarlem, though this is no special scene. Red bricked buildings are packed close to each other. In Amsterdam, there's always this summer feeling around. Living in Singapore, we don't really appreciate the sunny weather we have all year round. But everywhere we go, people are happy that it's summer. But that's pure guesswork on my part, maybe Amsterdammers are just happy people. :) Or maybe the weather in St. Petersburg was way colder and wetter (sometimes) so coming here was a good change.

Ok, no more posts on my recent travels anymore. Other pictures I have won't really tell you much. Sigh, when can I fly off again???

Amsterdam Part III

Cool wedding car!!!
The famous Vondel Park of Amsterdam. We cycled inside. It was so nice seeing families together having picnic there. What was especially heartening was seeing a lot of fathers spending time with their young children. I recall a man jogging in the park and pushing a baby pram at the same time!
We went to Heineken Brewery. The first Heineken brewery was in Amsterdam. It's more like a museum now. It cost 15 euros to get in but it comes with 2 free drinks! I highly recommend this place to anyone who will visit Amsterdam.
On a Sunday, we decided to cycle to Zaanse Schans, which is about 20 km away from Amsterdam, North of Holland. It was quite an adventure, we passed by many scenic areas like the one shown in the above. What a treat to see the sky all the way to its horizon. At Zaase Schans, you can see traditional windmills. Honestly, the place is overrated and only tourists go there. I didn't get good pictures of them. But you can always google them out right? :)
I rode this bike for 3 days. It's apparently a child bike cos the smallest adult bike was too big for me to handle. We biked a lot, so much that I had 7 bruises, a fall and a butt ache at the end of it. Traffic in the Netherlands flows on the right. Same for all cyclists, so it was rather hard to get used to it at first. Because 1 in 2 people's personal transport is biking in Amsterdam, you can imagine it's not a leisurely thing. It did get us from Point A to B fast though.

Amsterdam Part II

These are some of the foods I ate in Amsterdam. Nothing very special. Living in a global city like Singapore kinda makes you see most things already. One for sure though, for main courses, portions are huge. About twice the size I think?

This packet of fries is called Friets. Large-cut fries drowned in lotsa sauces. Very shiok but obviously super unhealthy. It's quite huge, though it's klein. (small size)

Vegetarian pasta with a lot of mushrooms. Not my usual kind of ordering, but it was delicious. However, like I said, the portion was huge. Could only take in two thirds of it.
This is raw herring. Apparently, the Dutch people love it. They slurp it down in no time. It cost S$6 ok! And we only finished half of it. Too fishy to chow down anymore. I was quite scared to eat it, but well, once in a lifetime, so try lor.
Banana waffles with ice cream. Waffles there are a little different, probably nicer than Singapore's. We heard much about the pancakes and waffles in Netherland. Yeah, they're nice but overrated la, not to mention more expensive as well.
This apple tart super nice!!! Never tasted anything like that in Singapore yet.

Amsterdam Part 1

Amsterdam! A beautiful city, wonderfully planned, great mix of old and new, cultural yet seedy, intelligent multi-lingual locals and many handsome Dutch men! Weather there was perfect, sunny always with the right kind of dryness so you don't sweat much. Yes, spending in Euro sure made us a lot poorer. We biked 4 out of 7 days. That, caused lotsa butt aches and about 7 bruises on my legs. We spend a day and night at Haarlem. Beautiful city! Argh, I loved it there. It's a lot quieter than Amsterdam.




The first picture was taken from Google images. The second is to give you an idea we exactly we are. Yup, we obviously did the touristy thing by taking photos with the iconic sign 'I amsterdam'.
The bus stop's name is called Stayokay Haarlem because the only thing near it is the hostel called Stayokay Haarlem which we spent the night in. It's quite far from Centruum.
Behind our hostel is a beautiful park, which we only took 1/2 hour to explore. Too bad we didn't give ourselves more time. During our night at Stayokay Haarlem, a couple of boys started knocking on our windows from the outside. It was about 12 am, when we just finished bathing. We got really really scared. Imagine, in the quiet suburbs come urgent knocks on your windows from the outside!! And it was just us 3 girls. The older American lady staying in the same room had left for the bar. We quickly grabbed our valuables and look for the staff. It turned out that those pranksters were fellow boarders. They were warned and subsequently, nothing else happened.
This is the iconic church in Haarlem at Centruum. (Centruum meaning Central, I think) The people in the foreground are just hanging out in the early evening, probably drinking beer. Cafe-seating is a big part of the culture in Netherlands, as a matter of fact, in many parts of Europe too.

Russia Part III (last)

On our last night, we went to a club called Rossi. We were brought by our gracious new-found friends, ladies from the Maria Ensemble. (They are an amazing vocal ensemble. Super good) We kinda got a private room, so it was just US. We tried some dancing though the music wasn't good at all. Overall, some just threw themselves into the mood, heck, since we're already there right? :)

One of the best night shots I got. Nice right? :D It's about 12am when I took this shot. Yup, the night's still young. You might have noticed that generally, buildings in St. Petersburg are quite European-styled. When Peter the Great first built this city, he invited the best architectures all over Europe to help build the city. So if you ever travel in Russia, you'll find SPB quite different from other Russian cities like Moscow. I can't vouched for that though, that's what the tour guide said. I didn't go Moscow, so I'll just take her word for it.

All photos have been arranged chronologically.

Russia Part II

Remember what I said about the weather being sunny? Yeah, it rained half the time as well. For about 3 days, weather was pretty eratic. And when it rains and it's windy, it gets really cold!!!



Obviously, the reason we could go St. Petersburg was to sing! I believe this was our competition day. This picture shows 5 out of 7 sopranos. Yup, I'm a soprano! Singing high notes can be really difficult, but if you really train and be disciplined about it, high notes can be sung very well. I did not start out as a good choral singer but I eventually climbed my own mountains. :D Anyway, we achieved 2 silvers.

The above and next two pictures are from our day trip to the Summer Palace called Peterhof. Peterhof has 155 fountains! It's beautiful and I coulde just imagine Russian princesses and princes walking along the fountains and gardens everyday.

At the back of Peterhof is the Baltic Sea. So yeah, the vast waters behind me is the Baltic Sea. Imagine my thrill when I saw such a beautiful sight. Apparently, durin the Russian Revolution, many nobles escaped by walking on the frozen Baltic Sea to Finland.

Russia Part I

I've been trying to put off blogging about Russia for a long time. (And there's still Amsterdam to cover) What can you put into words about the trip of your life? Well, at least, it's the trip of my life so far. Obviously, I'm not as well travelled as I wanna be. I hope these selected snippets will provide myself and other readers and idea what life was like in the romantic city of St. Petersburg.

Me trying out my sofa bed for the first time. I was to sleep in this tiny thing for 10 nights. Thank God that every night was a peaceful one and I had no need to worry for the lack of space. It's surprisingly comfy. But tiny. I had to share the room with 4 other sopranos. We sure showed our messy sides as we tossed clothes everywhere. Once, after washing my panties, I hung them on the side of my bed. When the boys came in, I ran to hide them away. Hahaha.


This rarely-seen Chinese restaurant is called Red Tower, or 'hong lou'. We ate here twice a day, breakfast and lunch. For many days, amongst other dishes, they served pigs' ears and tongues. Yup, you did not read them wrongly. Out of ignorance, I ate them quite heartily at first. But when the lady boss told us what they were, I stopped. Most of my choir friends complained that food was simply too salty there. That, I can't dispute. But I'm really thankful that because of Hong Lou, I found a special place to feed my Chinese palate.
This is a canal, but I can't remember what's it called. This is my first picture with the canal, I'm standing about 3 minutes walk away from my hostel. You can obviously see the excitement on my face at seeing a canal, little did I know that I was to walk pass here everyday and probably more than twice.
This is an inactive church called St. Isaac. This is one of the more touristy ones. Inside is a museum on religion. There's also another entry up into the observatory deck, which I went a few days later. A good shot! You might be thinking that the weather there is simply perfect, cool climate and yet so bright and sunny. Ha, St. Petersburg receives only 60 days of sunshine a year. We happen to come during the White Nights season. Yup, the sun sets at 11.30 pm and comes up at 3 or 4am. Even night fall was a greyish tone, not the dark kind.