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

5:09 pm

Day 2- Amsterdam- Flower Market, Van Gogh, Keukenhof, Sex Museum

so we woke up and had brekkie!
this was provided by the hostel.
(non buffet sadly, but it was nice to have pancakes for a change (i have been eating bread with everything/ muesli for ages)
i tell you i miss my economic beehoon and niangdoufu so much!

pancakes with hot chocolate (:

viv at flower market

selling all sorts of flower seeds and flower... er bulb?

and some souvenir stuff with mini clogs!

and what.. even starter seeds for cannabis?? :S
dont worry i didnt buy!
lol... why would i need them!

and cannabis biscuit, lollies, tea... all sorts!
and this is amsterdam of course!

how the flowermarket looks like, it's just one street!

I amsterdam sign near museumplein

I AMsterdam!
with that i proceeded to the vangogh musuem. i really liked the place, the art pieces. and learning about vangogh's life. vangogh was from the netherlands and he often painted the peasant life, then he moved on to paint about different things in his life. but he committed suicide because he suffered from a mental condition. nonetheless, he painted a lot of great works of art.

had my "lunch" at a bakery selling pastries. (:
'cos charmaine and rachel were late by 1 hour to meet :( cos they didnt want to go for vangogh museum!
almost wanted to call vivian boy (in spain) to get rachel's malaysian number to call them.
cos being late for 1 hour is mad!!!! (even if that constitutes getting lost)
but oh well. at least i saw them at the end.

me and thy pastry. i love pastries! i love walnut

stroop waffle!
=yum!
it's a bit like lou fong binggan with mai ya tang inside. but strangely very nice and addictive.

& we reached keukenhof
keukehof is the biggest flower bulb park in the world. it is open every year from end march to early may. but we were there end march (meaning that majority of tulip formation has yet to bloom) but nonethelesss, it was a pretty sight! but if only we were there a bit later would be able to see e.g. statue of liberty formation made of tulips (cos this year's theme is America)...

pretty flowers everywhere
and yes, i took the photos below!
combined them into collage for easy viewing!

mei li de hua duo!

this vase is made specially so u can poke flowers!
specifically tulips i think!

lol, i look so awkward here.

v luv flowers!

me and my big shoes

hahah beneath me is really the pond!

&& windmill again!

&& then back to amsterdam!

houseboat by amsterdam canal... really they were having dinner (yes i peeped)

amsterdam by evening

fries again!
from the store called Manneken Pis, recommended online apparently voted #1 holland fries!
We shared a very biggie fries and that was our dinner. Somehow Amsterdam-ers have a thing for fries+mayo!
It's sold everywhere. Called vlaamse frites.
Like 7SGD, not exactly cheap but shared among 3!

yes, this fries is bigggie

& then, we went to the famous SEXMUSEUM!
it cost us 3 euros.
i was thinking "eh so cheap"
but then... 3 euros= SGD 6.3???
thats the thing that happens when things seem cheaper cos ur currency is smaller... :((
and in denmark i was so used to dividing everything by 3.67
*lol

lol.. even the sexmuseum has the amsterdam code of arms!

outside the sexmuseum. quite small really.
it was really sex thru different times/cultures and even porn from 1950s.
not that appealing for me i think. oh well, im a girl.
i just took photos of some "tamer pictures of cartoons/sculptures"
the ones of real people is too porno for my M18 rated blog. lol

lol! butts, boobs and more butts.
when u pass this butt with eyes, it actually lets out a very loud "pssst sound" :DD

sexy or not? u decide

erotic boxes?

penis-fountain

err... riding a... *****

butt on!

animal sex even :(
the world is so screwed up.
( somehow i never got the idea of human+animal sex) which is actually so scary
grossed out by the pictures (real life + cartoon ones)
eeewwww

telephone sex is just purring and heavy breathing :oooo

poker cards!

happy breast-day!

Would you like a cake like this?

eew. i wouldnt dare to eat this cake..

RLD sign

& we went to The Bulldog Coffeeshop.
which is apparently the first coffeeshop in Amsterdam.a
and one of the most famous ones!
& of course by now you would have known, a coffeeshop in Amsterdam is not a cafe.
It's.. eh.. much more than that.

There is even Spacke cake on the menu! 6 euros.
i didnt eat that though, charm and rachel shared one
i'm a timid little girl! lol.. no la.. eh.. i thought just to be on e safe side! i didnt want my friends carrying me back! (not as if the ingredients would have that much impact, but just in case you never know)

my bulldog drink with a cookie.
it was actually quite yummy the drink.
espresso + mocha? (:

their space cake..
google that if you don't know what's a space cake.
(added secret ingredients like marijuana but i dont think a lot of that)

did anything exciting happen to them?
er...
cos we were all too sleepy too
so they weren't sure if there's any special effects.

Labels: Netherlands, Travel