So you said, that's very vivien

very vivien

xoxo, you know you love me

Lead the life you love.

Love the life you lead.

Disclaimer: some parts might be slightly fluffy

Saturday, 4 April 2009

11:17 pm

Day 1- Amsterdam city tour

After a 11 hour long bus ride, we finally arrived at Amsterdam! :D
checked into our hostel
which i played a part in choosing (finally, cos before that it was all my friends who did and i felt so sorry for not helping cos mainly they sorta had more expertise regarding this)
Shelter city is a christian hostel, it's smoke free + drug free.
even though it's near the red light district.
when i use the word near i mean, along the same street there are those "window girls"
(aka women who rent their bodies to guys by the half-hour)
nonetheless, shelter city felt safe.
our shelter ((:

check in

yay! as we stayed for 2 nights (sunday and monday) we had a welcome goodie bag.
which consisted free internet for 30min, free canal cruise (we managed to rush there for the last cruise of the day at 5pm), free stroop waffle(netherlands cookie thingie, i'll show u that later), free hot chocolate, postcard.. :D:D yay
(this plus the price also played a strong deciding factor in our choice for the hostel!)

stepping out...
eh. why ah, look a bit like cph lor!
:D:DD

coffeeshops! can be recognised by green+red+yellow too! and some little sign outside their door.
what are netherland coffeeshops?
let me do a quick wiki for you.
A coffeeshop is a place where the sale of cannabis for personal consumption by the public is tolerated by the local authorities

Heineken is from Netherlands!
And guess why the dutch wear orange? it's because the dutch royal family has "orange" in their names.

clogs are part of the netherlands traditional costume!

this is some sort of taxi vehicle i think.

once again, we joined the free tour for new amsterdam!

Some guy in Darth Vader suit

some anonymous artist put this on display one night outside the oldest church in netherlands
the city council removed it, people protested.
because this to them represented the anonymity of like e.g. prostitutes and their clients here in the Red light district

the narrowest house in amsterdam!
the width is less than 1.8m
(spot it behind us)

coffeeshop again!

was trying to take photo of the chocolate shop ended up with a promo photo with 2 girls (friends) laughing happily (:

We went to the Anne Frank Musuem.
very heart wrenching... her story.. her home when she hid from the Germans.
didnt read the book but experiencing the place, where they kept it quite intact with the words on the walls, the small spaces, the minimal light she got (as she was in hiding) made me sad.

YUMMY INDO FOOD! okay maybe the meat was a bit tough but... i miss home food!
and i ate lontong! i love lontong!

instant hotdogs anyone?
fastfood automat for pple in amsterdam!

Best fries in amsterdam!
(so they say)
we queued 15min...
and it tasted like normal fries..
i mean.. how good can fries taste?

our dabaoed fries on the canal cruise

i was too tired so i fell asleep during the canal cruise and charmaine had to snap this photo of me!

Amsterdam by night

Temple in the chinatown near where we stayed!

Hard Rock Cafe!
rachel collects hard rock cafe pins.. so we went in search of it.

back to our shelter
very ala-maid shelter... u were assigned to a bed in this 16 people dorm!
but oh well at least it was clean and the beds were comfy.

sorry for the choppy post im rushing off to board the bus to stockholm for russia trip!
will be back in 14 April.
but after that busy busy busy.

love, vivien
pray that i'll be safe and sound!

Labels: Netherlands, Travel