amsterdam: happy to be alive.

dear liz,

so, less then 2 weeks for chatswood huh ? i m sure everything will fall into place. they always do.

Day 3 : near death
was a relaxing day. spent the morning walking around and doing some sketches. spent the afternoon with nick and susanne, picnic in the park. was another nice sunny day.

on the way home, we were standing at the lights, waiting to cross like good school kids. when the pedestrian light turned green, i looked and there were no cars. so i started to cross. i took 2 steps forward. but for some strange reason, i stopped. maybe because i wanted to see where nick and susanne was. but i stopped. then i heard susanne screaming "JXEEEEEE" then i felt a car ran pass me. the car was so close what if i was another step forward i would have been hit. also, if i didnt stop but continued crossing, i would have definitely been hit. and at that speed that idiot was driving, he definitely wouldnt have been able to slow down in time. i dont know why i stopped but i did and i lived. counting my blessings now.


(picnic & chinatown)

city walk at night.

Day 4 - rain
ok it literally rained the whole day. went exploring the city without an umbrella. rained on me. and rained some more. managed to find what i think is chinatown haha. and rained again. but the highlight of the day was when i went to watch a film - hairspray. anyone who is a fan of john waters would know the classic and the musical. anyway this film lived up to john's name. totally love it. definitely have to go watch after the submission. maybe after the team lunch, go do a team movie. i am so downloading the soundtrack now with the itunes voucher. yay ! btw. it rained again after the movie. gawd. no one told me that it rains so much in europe.

ok. comfort zone has ended. belgium tomorrow.

xxx. j.

amsterdam: me gateway to europe

dear mei ...

so i promised u that the first post from europe is to you but more importantly you wanted to know my opinion on amsterdam. so here it goes...

DAY 1 - the arrival
my plane was delayed by 2 hours because the plane was waiting for 25 people from auckland. damn kiwis.
well, got interrogated at the immigration (as usual). its not easy being good looking because everyone wants to interact with you. so i really don't blame them.


(my bag - 11kgs and the arrival)

still recovering from my cold (coughing and blocked nose) i arrived at schiphol air port. dont believe i actually made it out of asia pacific. as i was figuring out where the train ticket machines were and how to operate it, there were people more clueless than me. people were actually asking me questions like i belong. again, more because ... interaction. sigh. if only they were cute too.

i arrived at susanne's place, dropped my bag, said hello and literally left the unit and went exploring. i was so fascinated by rows of 4 storey buildings running the whole length of the street and they were the entire city. took me a while to figure out that there were dedicated bike lanes on walkways and people driving on the wrong side of the road. almost got run down by cyclists (many times too).


(amsterdam & bikes)

found the van gogh museum and really enjoyed it. spent the rest of the day just looking around exploring. even the rain didnt slow me down.

VERDICT: i love this city even though by the end of the day i found the 4 storey height limit abit annoying. very monotonous. after a while i kept walking back to the same place. is the city that small ?

DAY 2 - lucky day
It was a beautiful day. apparently the first nice day in summer. whoa. lucky me. hung out with susanne all day. We went to the Rijksmuseum. enjoyed van gogh better but the rembrant's stuff was pretty cool.

found the proef amsterdam place you sent.
http://www.proefrotterdam.nl/proef_nederlands/proef.html
again. they were supposed to have closed till march next year. they only open for a particular season but the amsterdam indesign is on and they opened just for this event. we tried the picnic sampler which consist on a sandwich, pumpkin soup, some crumple desert and some organic drink. it was great sitting under the warm summer sun (still about 25C).


(proef amsterdam)


(proef amsterdam food)


(proef amsterdam surroundings)

after spending hours sitting under the sun catching up, we went to the old central post office. the elevator is amazing. will post a video sometime somewhere. and the entire ground level is filled with graffiti. made it all the way to the top through restaurant 11 to see the view.


(post CS)

walked by and saw my first architecture feature. a renzo piano building. pic to proof it too.


(renzo piano - so i was told)

walked though the red light district and made it back home.

hows everything back in sydney ?

xxx.jxe