Van Gogh Musuem

From central station, we take tram 2 to Museumplein. The tram ticket can buy from the driver after you go into the tram. There are different types of ticket and the driver will not explain to you. Usually they will give you 1 hour ticket which is E2.60. Mean the ticket is only valid for 1 hour. 2 hours ticket is E5. For 24hours ticket, it is Euro 7. 72 hours is Euro 15. So spend wisely.

It is not difficult to locate Van Gogh musuem after get down from the tram. Along the walkway , there are many colorful elephant statue. It will display for sometime before send for auction. The money receive from auction will donate to charity.

It cost me E12.50 entrance fees to the musuem. Photographing is prohibited inside the musuem. This is the first time i saw so many different style of drawing came from one painter -Vincent Van Gogh. Honestly i really dont how to appreciate it. Maybe i dont have the enlightenment on his painting. Van Gogh's painting style is so dramatic! Some is consider normal for me, just like below picture.
Another famous painting, describing the lifestyle of a poor farmer family, they are having potato as dinner. For this series, whole picture is dark, very dark. Like you look something without the light in the night.This picture consider good already, got some even darker.
Another type of drawing is the whole picture construct from line and dot.Below picture is the self painting of Van Gogh.
The most famous painting -sunflower. When i saw the real picture with my eye, the first question come across my mind is " is this sunflower" ?? Honestly it really does not look like sunflower!

After visiting the first musuem, i just feel that art is so subjective. For me, i prefer Da Vinci's painting more than Van Gogh. But then how do we actually define the value? How do we justify this painting is valuable or not? Maybe Van Gogh is suffered from the mental illness make him painted so many different type of paintings?Why painters always only get famous after they die? Why? However, i think Van Gogh will feel happy by seeing his work been appreciated by people from around the world even so many years after he die.

The Dam

The central of Amsterdam is much more smaller than my expectation. From the central station walk to Damrak Square, it only about 1km. All trams will passby central station. There are a row of hotels located opposite canal and central station.The building behind is the central station, you can get metro, bus, tram, train here.It look a little bit messy and its always crowded.
One of the building along the dam road.
View from Damrak Square looking toward to central station.

Madame Tussaud and Royal Palace both located at Damrak Squre. Basically, you just need to stand on a same point, just turning the direction then you can shoot the photo with different building.The street beside madame tussaud is a shopping street! It is full of shoppers. One of the famous shop item in Amsterdam is "boot" Wow, it is really nice and trendy! The price range from E15 to E 300, of course if you have budget, you can get a true leather boots as low as E99. For me, i bought a grey color velvet boot at E29.90. And surprisingly the boot is very comfortable although i just wear it for the first time.
The Royal Palace, former town hall of Amsterdam is under renovation.
Our hotel is located at the far end of this row of building. Walk straight and pass by 2 canals, you will reach Dam Square.
We walk along damrak to find some excursions package. My colleague-Bergson had recommended us a travel agent - Lindberg, but i only remember it after we purchased the package. There are a lot of shops selling the excursions package. However we decided to go for the main shop - Tours and Tickets which is located at 34 Damrak. We decided to buy a Belgium day trip, cost us E53 per pax, and Marken, Volendam and Windmill half day tour which is E32. Initially we plan to go for Madurodam -the miniature world. But Bergson's comment was so so only, not really worth going. And i am glad that we listened to his advice. :)

Amsterdam Nadia Hotel

From the Central Station, we found no problem in finding the Nadia Hotel. Its a nightmare to find a hotel in Amsterdam. We need to take into consideration of location, budget and hotel condition. Beside that, most of the hotel in Amsterdam require min night of stay during the weekend. I had searched for more than 50 hotels and B&B.

Among the accommodation that i had searched, it included Vita Nova boat house, only euro27.50 per night, however i found out that the surrounding area was port from the google street view and the room was damm small and it was not convenient to look for food there. Another hotel was youth hostel , only girl in same dome, it is quite cheap with euro30 per night. But you need to share room with another 3 girls and was common bathroom.

Backpacker tips no 2: fully utilize the google map - street view while doing your research. I dont even need to look at the map to find the hotel when i was there as i had already know how it look like from street view.

After struggle for few days in searching the lodging, finally i found this Nadia hotel, www.nadia.nl. Reading at the review from tripadvisor, almost all guests gave it good compliment. The location was very near to Dam Square, only about 3 min walked, the room is clean, good hospitality and breakfast provided. The only thing is the room rate was E100 per night and it was a little bit out of our budget. After considerate, i decided to take this hotel as i wanted to ensured we had a good beginning for our trip.The result... i am very happy with this hotel.

Backpacker tips no 3 : see the photo from traveller in tripadvisor rather than believe in the photo on hotel website. The truth can be quite scary sometime . :)

The hotel main door was locked, you need to press the bell then only they will open the door for you. Although i already prepared for the "famous" staircase, but yet i still felt "phew....." when i really looked at it. It is damm damm small and slant! In fact, mostly all the building in Amsterdam had this kind of staircase. Curious on how they move things up? i found the answer when i went to Belgium. However, the hotel staff will help you to carry your luggage. So no worry!

Each time when we go down from the staircase, Allysa will walked in front of me. When we go up, she will walked behind me. Reason being was due to our size. For just in case she fall down, she will not hit me.haha.

The room size is just nice. Washroom is a bit small but no problem to fit me in. hehe.
Hotel facility included tea making, luggage room, fridge, hair dryer, tv, wifi, safe box, individual bathroom...
From my observation, this hotel was run by a family. The manager name is Mr. Osam, and sometime you can see his father, Osam senior at the counter.When we reached there, it only 9am in the morning so the room is not ready yet. However, Mr. Osam invited us to wait at the breakfast room, enjoy some free food :)He also pass us a map and tourist guide. Which later i found out the map is very useful and clear. Our room ready after about 20 min. Really appreciate for their flexibility and efficiency.

Some hotel will charge additional if you pay by credit card. As for this nadia hotel, 2 nights rate was Euro 220 if pay by credit card, while only Euro 206.80 if pay by cash. They gave me discount Euro 0.80. So end up we pay Euro 206 for 2 nights, each person cost about RM 515.

Backpacker tips no 4 : Check is there any additional charges or not if you want to pay by credit card.

After settle everything at the hotel, is time for us to go out and hunt for some day trip.

Arriving in Amsterdam Schipol Airport

I had not taken such a long haul flight since 2002.As usual, i prefer to gain more precious sleeping time by skipping supper. It is difficult for me to sleep well for the whole journey as my butt was felling pain. Or maybe i am already aging...Haiz...after slept for about 6 hours? or maybe less, i became so aweken until i finished Terminator 3 movie, and the last part of night at the musuem 2 movie before breakfast was served. Allysa told me: hey we take the cup , spoon and folk ya, later if we want to cook mee then at least we have some "ka chang ". Oh... i had been long time never doing this kind of "stealing" things from plane already :) . However it turn out we had made a wise decision by doing so, Those thing really help.

Backpacker rule no 1 : Get the spoon, cup, folk, nuts, cake, juices... from the plane if you forget to bring yourself.

Finally, the plane touched down at 645am at schipol airport. Once came out from the flight,cool air make me felt so fresh. There are some officers checking our passport and asked what is our purpose to come to Amsterdam. My colleague told me, last time she had been questionned until she felt like they suspected her to go there for prostitution.Hihi.

On the way going to custom, i saw a cow statue nearby a shop. Netherland is famous for the cow and cheese. So i asked allysa to take a photo for me. Just out of sudden this Mr. XX appeared from no where and he just wanted to take the photo together with me. Hmmm...well, ok lor what to do. After taken the photo, as an asian i was prepared to shake hand with him. But i forgot here was not asia, He, as a non-asian open his arm widely and gave me a hug! What the....??!! Can this consider my first encouter with Amsterdam?Next time can send someone more handsome or not har? End up there was no sight of the cow in my photo.

The immigration was ppl moutain ppl sea and yet they only open up 4 counters. The most annoying part was the luggage collection.Can you immagine that 3 flights shared a same luggage conveyor? What the.... There are many other luggage conveyors which were not working but why they only open up one? Compare with Schipol, KLIA had the better service.

We took sometime to find the train ticket counter. After we got the ticket from the officer with Euro 4.30, Allysa asked : can you tell us which platform is it ? The officer say : no cannot. hahahah!He was really a joker.
The train to city center is a double decker train. I was attracted to their annoucement board. Out of my suprise they are still using this a bit "lao ya" turning board rather than LCD display!So i got another conclusion, Do you think Europe countries were very advance? Think it agian!

From KL to Amsterdam

18.9.2009.....the departure day

I still worked that day, all my colleagues came to ask me, " are you excited?" Honestly speaking i dont felt the excitment. Maybe i need to settle too many jobs before i went on leave. but thanks to them who send me all the regards and best wishes for my journey.

However, everything changes after working hour when i on my way going home. The excitment raised bit by bit. I had been treated with seafood dinner at Lala Chong by 3 handsome guys (or perhaps they pitty me had to eat roti for 9 days??!!) Then these 3 body guards accompanied me to airport, make me felt like VIP. HEHE!

Wow, now i became really excited when i stepped into KLIA and looked for the check in counter.

See see, MH0016 Amsterdam !

I had already done the web check-in, so i just went to the counter and check in my luggage.

Amsterdam! Here i came!