Hallo Amsterdam

Schiphol

I made a short trip to Amsterdam in mid April and it was mainly for business. The amazing thing about this trip is the hotel was in the airport and the office that we are visiting was also in the airport.

Clients

These were the wonderful people that we were visiting and its interesting how 1 German, 2 Irish and 2 Singaporeans are having dinner in Amsterdam during sunset which happens to be about 9:30pm in the evening. I somehow can’t remember feeling this way when i was in UK in January ’04 or when i was in Germany in April ’03. I think Italy in October won’t count. Anyway… being Singaporean living near the equator, i have to say it felt quite weird, but the company of 3 ladies, free and easy food, wine and beer made the night enjoyable and relaxing.

Our German friend was kind enough to take us out to the city to have a walk around on the first night to feel the streets of Amsterdam. The city was charming and its amazing how many bicycles were zooming around the streets, we actually had to watch out for them.

Here are some pictures i took on the streets.

Rijks Museum

Rijks Museum where you can find masterpieces byRembrandt.

Streets of Amsterdam

Romantic houses that slant and tilt as if they had their own individual character.

Streets of Amsterdam

A street corner that might be normal to locals, but rich in culture and history to me.

Dutch Food

The Dutch Kroket. Apparently this is Dutch food and if you ask “What is Dutch Cuisine?”, most likely this is it. Way cool!

Thinking about it actually Singapore Cuisine is acutally made up of alot of street side food like our Char Kway Teow, Fried Carrot Cake and Rojak. But serving food from vending machine as such is way cool.

Streets of Amsterdam

A small charming shop (Boekhandel Veenstra)

Canals

One of many many many canals.

Streets of Amsterdam

Another small charming hardware shop (Gleens Hardware Store).

Sheraton Schiphol

Overall, the trip was nice and I do look forward to visit Amsterdam again… maybe the next time with my wife. Gauw tot ziens Amsterdam…

A day at the Zoo

Cleo on a Cow

Its a family day to the Zoo today and i’ve been looking forward to it for some time already.

Both on Pram

This time we were clever, we did not rent the trolley thingy… we just made do with our sturdy pram. Both Clié and Cleo managed to sit comfortably in it. I think in a years time, this might not be possible already.

Daddy & Clié

My Clié loves using the digital camera and enjoys taking pictures. Maybe its a gadget thing, maybe its a i-can-control-this-device thing, maybe she just wanna do what i do. Ok, so a silly picture for all to see. :)

Elephants

We were in time for the elephant show and Cleo was just glued to the performance. Clié however just wanted to take pictures of the elephants and was afraid when they came close to spray water at us thru their trunks. lol…

The lovers

And i’m glad i brought my best friend along too… my wife, my love…

Our helper

Our helper

Thank God for this beautiful soul. Our helper is such a wonderful person and also an amazing help in our family. She not only keeps our house clean and tidy, she is more importantly the one that takes care of our kids when we are busy. She loves our kids and our kids love her too.

Recently it was her birthday and she wanted to buy us a nice dinner. She asked us if $100 would be enough for her to buy us a dinner at Fish & Co… we were speechless… $100 is alot of money as compared to what she was earning and she still wanted to use the money this way.

She is about the same age as us, but being from a different country with different economy and political environment, we are her employers. Its just strange how this world works. In God’s eyes we are all the same.