Arrival at Amsterdam and was amazed by their airport – new, modern and massive! It was a nice and sunny day, so after check-in, lunch at Esprit Café, spent the entire afternoon wondering around town, the canals, etc. It is quite a pretty city, with the quiet canals off the main roads and the beautiful terraces lined up around the water. Started doing the self-walk tours but got lost half way after seeing the Dam (Square) with the WWII memorial, Madame Tussauds, Town Hall and the impressive Diamond Centre! Didn’t realise but apart from the clogs, cheese and tulips, Amsterdam is actually famous for diamonds!! So after giving up the guide walk, we wondered into a gay festival where I had my poffertjes (Dutch mini pancakes). Continuing round the corner we somehow stumbled to Anne Frank’s house, where the queue was heaps long. Not sure about its value though, the exterior looked really modern, and many have said that it’s not worth the visit. Also visited the red light district at day and night time - can’t say that it’s as bad as walking around in Patpong. The funniest thing was when one guy came out of the ‘box’ and another group was walking past and just cheered and applauded him.

Day 2 was dedicated to visiting Keukenhof, where the tulip farm was. But what dramas trying to get there! Plan was to catch the train to the airport and hit the direct shuttle bus there. However, there were signal or track problems and there were no direct trains to the airport from the city. So to exchange the tickets to Leiden instead (which costs a lot more!), we had to queue up, kept explaining to the lady that we didn’t want to go to airport anymore and wanted a refund etc and had to present IDs cos the tickets were ‘stamped’ (used). So after all the fuss, the train took forever to depart (which was meant to leave in 10mins… is that Amsterdam time for 30-40mins??) and didn’t arrive at Leiden until 12.30. The direct bus there took another 20mins but luckily I saw a sign to buy tickets from the counter whilst there was a group of people already lining up infront of a different sign instead. So being the kiasu me I was able to swoop in as the crowds just realised they were wrong and managed to find the right stand for the bus to be near the front of the line!! ;)

Keukenhof turned out to be a huge botanical garden with heaps of tulip patches throughout. There was a lake in the middle somewhere and the course was laid out with a few stopping points/pavilions. It was a bit difficult to follow since there were smaller tracks throughout but when you’ve spent an hour+ there, you’ve pretty much seen it all. Unfortunately it was late in the season to see the tulips, so the rows & rows of tulips that you pictured in your mind does not exists, except for the dying leaves & stalks! :( In that sense, what I saw at the Tesselaar Festival outside Melbourne is a lot nicer. However, Keukenhof does have its own windmill! The flowers that were still blossoming were quite nice, especially the hybrid ones. Went around making the most of my SLR and must say that many turned out quite well! (Anybody wants to buy my photos?!?) Luckily it only started raining just as we exited the gates at 4pm!

Dinner that night was at the famed supperclub. I had no idea what to expect as the website was a bit eccentric. All I knew was it was a 5-course dinner on beds and perhaps a performance of some sort. First course was peking duck, but we were supplied with rubber gloves to eat with our hands!! Such novelty! Hehehe… anyway, rest of the food was quite good, potato soup, fish fillet, steak and some pastry with cream thing for desert. In between the mains there was a weird fellow dressed up as something resembling a clown doing weird tricks. First was playing a mini piano (right..) then there was a table with food which he made a sandwich(?) which he ended up eating according to the beats of the music. So as the music played faster, he just shoved everything in sight into his mouth and it just ended up as one big mess… Weird right? Anyway, the ambience of the place was pretty much a night club with beds with food.

Final day was left in the air as we wanted to go to Kinderdijk which is a UNESCO World Heritage Listed sight for its windmills. Since it was a bit of a trek, and the weather soured, went to the Van Gogh museum instead (the Rembrandt one had long queues!) Admittedly, I now appreciate his artwork a lot more, beyond the Sunflowers etc. Lunch was at an Indonesian restaurant (google what is Dutch food and a lot of responds seems to indicate a link with Indonesian food, due to its history in trading) and also managed to see the floating flower markets (hmm.. Bangkok was also better!) and after being drenched by the rain, it was time to head home and towards the airport.