Under the Weather

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Liken my previous visit to Hongkong, I've caught another bug this trip.

Three days of nightmare, hopefully I'd be seeing a glimpse of sunlight after this.

The weather in Amsterdam is getting warmer by the day, more sunshine than any of the days since I've been here. And yet I'm trapped in the hotel, how sad you said? Nah, I'd be fine.

Side note, travelled up to Valkenburg last weekend for the Redbull Crashed Ice 2011. Bad idea.
We've only managed to catch a few heads swinging by the course.
As a hobbit, I've missed all the actions. Even with Cow being a massive 6"2 , he could hardly see anything. Hence no pix to show and tell for the event.

Weekend's on the way, planning to head down to Zaanse Schans. I've this thing for windmills. Might post some pix here if I'm not too butt lazy.

God Spilled a Bowl of Icing Sugar

... a very very large bowl of it.

Just wondering around the other day in the pure whiteness and chanced upon Bloesempark (Amsterdamse Bos) on the way down to Amstelveen, the sheer size of it is amazing.

Icing sugar? Snow on logs,... isn't that how Christmas log cakes came about? Staring at logs made me hungry, even snow on twigs reminded me of pretzels with icing on it... sigh. I'm such a glutton.

Christmas in Winter Wonderland

My first week into the cold weather here in Netherlands and am enjoying every minute of it.

Though we are not experiencing as much snow as England, which too much of anything could be a disaster, it's sufficient to build snowman and have a jolly good time throwing snowballs.

Spent five hours walking in the park/ snow today, everything from scenery to passerby, the atmosphere just felt so surreal and calm. As if it's hasn't been totally polluted by modernization.

Did I mention that winter's my favourite season? lol Guess it's not hard to tell.

Taipei Day Three

Dropped by Wufenpu shortly to pick up some T-shirts for the Cow, hoping that I'll bump my way back to the shops I lost yesterday. Sadly I had to leave waving my white flag to the maze and empty handed without any bags.

Next stop, Ximending.
Picked up a cheap pair of jeans outside the Red House, ahhhh the Red House, the shops in there were just superbly zakka style (did I mention I love zakka?). The merchandises in there are pretty expensive, but every item is well worth the price. We came out with a bagful of items ranging from T-shirt to postcards, cell phone pouch and stickers.

Crossed the street and we've reached the heart of Ximending, overwhelmed with neon sign boards, eateries, hawkers and shops. Dishes we tried here, stinky tofu (臭豆腐), local pancake (車輪餅), local style kebab.

The stuff in the shops are reasonably priced, otherwise... cheap. Despite the low prices, bargaining with a bit of small talk, the prices dropped even further.

Once again, din't manage to grab any bags there, they are more for teenagers, PVC slings and haversacks doesn't really go for me. But I did bagged another pair of boots which is pretty cheap IMO, SGD 28.50.

Last stop, Shi Da night market.
Mainly food and cheap kawaii and girly stuff. Had high hopes for it since I've heard so much good reputation about it, rather disappointing in terms of shopping, but the food is pretty good there. We managed to try the cold salty chicken (鹹水雞), herbal duck vermicelli (當歸面綫), oyster omelette (蚵仔煎).

Taipei Day Two

Agenda of the day: Wu Fen Pu (五分埔), shopping arcades: NY NY, Neo 19 Shopping Center.

Started off the day trying to find the nearest metro so we could get to Wu Fen Pu for some clothes shopping. In our stumbling about trying to get to the metro station, we found Taipei's Suicide squad... investigation squad I should say.After a little confusion we made it there ok.So many shops to choose from and so easy to get lost. Mainly got boots and a few T-shirts and tops. Sadly only bag I wanted to get I couldn't find my way back to the shop once lost in the maze.

Rather than spend the whole day at 1 venue, we made our way to Taipei city centre to try find my beloved Daiso at the New York New York shopping centre. I've said before part of the fun of exploring a new holiday destination is the getting lost. As such we had a lot of fun making our way there. On the way finding out how to get to Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world.

Cow decided to make a note of the showings of "Avatar" in 3D as hopefully we'll be able to catch a showing while we're here. Also while at it, managed to finally activate our prepaid WiFi card. just SGD$20 per month for unlimited and pretty fast internet access!

Had to make a move before midnight in order to catch the last train back to he hotel and rest up ready for another day. Well that was the plan but I guess the excitement of being here got the better of us and we didn't get to sleep till way past three in the morning!