4th Years Plan Series : Part 18 - Exploration

Wow...a long week indeed. I have started my countdown on when I should return to my home country. The past one week was a total fun and excitement but now the product training has finally started. Guess what, my exam is tomorrow and I am doing my blog update..;-)The trainer has been trying her best to make the course really interesting. I am glad she did that since I am having fun with her interactive training course. In this part of my write-up, I just like to share a bit of my mini-tour around Holland.

Last weekend, I managed to spend my time in 2 big cities in the Netherlands. And they are Rotterdam and Amsterdam. At first, I was wondering why both the names ended with "DAM"..it is not a fowl language..but based on the definition in the Oxford Dictionary, it means : "a barrier to obstruct the flow of water"
The truth is that they are really surrrounded by water...and guess the word really fit the city name. Seems like Holland is a DAM itself..;-)

The first city I landed in was Rotterdam. Since I am staying in Delft(a small city in Holland), it only took me 15 minutes train ride to my destination. Does it sound familiar to anyone of you? If you have actually watched the movie "Who Am I", I am sure you got what I meant. That is where Jackie Chan filmed the movie. I was searching for the building where he did the fantastic stunt. And I did find it and took a couple of pictures for my collections. It was a really really tall building. See it to belive it. Well, back to the history...this is a new city developed after it was destroyed during the World Wall II. After all the rebuilding and restructuring, it was now the 2nd biggest city in the Netherlands. In Rotterdam, I could see the CUBE HOUSES too. This is one of the attraction there. Too bad, I need to pay for the entrance fee, so I took photos instead of going in..;-P....After all the walking, the weather was a bit no so good as it drizzled. Hence, I stopped by a "koffie" house to have a cup of cappucino. It costed me 2EURO. I guessed I better have it back in Coffee Bean or Starbuck...haha..To tell you another Patrick's Believe It or Not....the Dutch had 15-20 cups of coffee a day. And the offices are always equip with very advanced coffee machines. May be the convinience making them to cultivate the coffee-addiction.

The next day, I explored futher to the North where Amsterdam is located. It was an hour ride using their Sneltrain. As it is the BIGGEST city in Holland, I could see crowds and cars everywhere. Frankly speaking, I do not like it very much but it is worth a visit. Compared to KL, I still think KL is better. The first thing I did here was going for a boat ride. An hour tour around the city was great, at least you do not need to walk..haha. I saw all the bridges and of course they are well-known for the leaning building. Not forgetting too, these buildings can go up to millions of EURO and many have moved out from here. Leaning buildings are very common here so do not be surprised when you bumped into one. You do not need to go Italy to see the Pisa tower, just hop into Holland and you could see tonnes of them. The highlight of the tour was ..of course..the Red Light District. If you do not know what it really meant, just do a search in YouTube and you can get a preview of it. Having seeing it LIVE here in Holland, it was a real EYE OPENER. The tag goes "Good to see..but NOT good to touch..once taken...considered SOLD". Still do not get what i meant...GO GO GO ...search YouTube for Red Light District.

After much walking, I have decided to call it a day. Going around these places really gave me all the insight of the western world. A good exploration indeed and my OOOOhhh...WOOOOWWW....have gone whenever I came back to Malaysia. This could me my once in a life time experience. For those who are yet to explore, better think again what you could see beyond the WALL in front of you. Till then....DAAG

^Daag (Dutch) = Bye

Quote of the Day:
"What you ASSUME might not be the same with what you SEE"