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 Dogs

' Taurus are reliable, focused, practical, and usually right on time.'

Practical definitely a yes, judging that this batch of photos were backlogs from last Christmas, I'm not so certain about my other horoscope traits.

Taipei is an absolute heaven for dogs, owners being city dwellers love to bring their pooches everywhere they go. They get all the oohhhs and arhhs from passerby, many of canines gained frame overnight with people asking for a snapshot with them. All it takes is one person pointing the camera at any one of pooches to gain instant attention. As I found out, the moment after these photos were taken, the admirers just flocked in like bees to honey.

Next to Switzerland, this is the second country I've visited where dogs roamed freely off-leash. Many a times we thought we saw a stray, the next moment the owner turns up...

Once we saw a pooch in the wee hours of the morning, sitting by a road. Just as we wanted to grab it, it strolled back around the corner, down the alley back into this shabby looking shophouse.

Dog heaven it is, where they roam carefree.

Much unlike where we are at staying at the moment. Just this afternoon I was chasing and hunting down two little brats who threw stones at Yumi. She goes bonkers when the postman and garbage collector comes too close to the gate, and there she is sitting in the porch staring at these two monkeys throwing stones at her... and she's still smiling and wagging her tail. One might say that she's naive, but I choose to prefer the word "stupidity".

Hopefully those two won't be doing that anytime soon, while I'm still holding grudge against them. If not, with my last straw, I'll soon be dealing directly with their parents.

HK Day 2 (Back log)

Feeling better after much needed rest, I'm sure many out there understand that once the flow of work gets interrupted, it's a bitch to get back to it seeing all the back logs. Yes its one of those days.

On the first day of arrival I've uploading my first batch of photos, while on the second day Cow actually hogged my laptop... and hence from then all updates are nothing but painful back logs...

Second day here in the land of Dim Sums (ironically we've yet to try them) managed to meet up with Ian and his missus, she's such a gem. If only they stayed longer, some girly time around here would be nice.

Since we were still recovering from the two flights, strolled around the habour area down at the cultural hall followed by supper and ended our day out short.

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If there's one word to describe what type of traveller I am, ... I'd say I'm a rat.

I like to explore alleys rather than grace through high street,I prefer local delights rather than sitting in some fancy restaurants sipping champagine, I would rather stay in a B & B than in some posh five star hotel.

I'm a rat, one of those rat with more guts than sense.

Since this is a back log (lol) I'd like to fast forward time to our fifth day here. Walking down the back streets and unwittingly stumbled upon the night market down in Temple Street, one Indian fella mumbled "copy bags?" and the Cow lost sight of me. After ten minutes of calls from him, I reappeared from a dark corner. Yes he gave me a good scolding, but that was just fun.

That's how I like to travel, like a rat....

I never liked travelling with tour groups, walking around gives me a better feel of the country I'm in. Free and easy IMHO is the best way to travel if time allows. Next week I might just make plans to venture out on my own when the Cow's in school.,provided I can drag myself outta bed early enough to do that.