A Fruitful and Tiring Week

Finally it's the end of a very very busy and tiring but fruitful week. I learnt so much about what the rest of the people have been doing and of course I shared what I have been doing as well. I'm like half way across the globe from these guys. Let me summarise what's been going on this past week.

On Monday morning,I was woken up by a call at 2.15am (which is around 9.15am singapore time) from a withheld number. The caller hung up when I picked it up. Tried to go back to sleep but finally woke up around 5am. Not a good day to start the day by.I went to take a shower and went down for breakfast at 7am. The next day, I got a call again and this time at 3.30am (10.30am singapore time) from the credit card company asking if I made a transaction with my card in Netherlands. My goodness, if they know I am in Netherlands, can't they wait till later to call me? Disrupt my sleep again.

Watched the news and saw that the temperature will be going down this week and can go down to -2 deg. That was indeed very bad as I think I was not well prepared for the cold weather and I had on 4 layers of clothes already.

So I asked the hotel to get me a cab to the office and that costs me 17euros for a 15 mins ride. Look at the snow covered tulip fields near my office.

Things start to kick in after lunch, we had meetings, presentations and workshops for the whole of the week. But not forgetting the fun we had as well.

We went to the SnowWorld for skiing or snowboarding (for some). It's like the snow city in Singapore, I guess although I have never been to the Snow City. My boss had so kindly brought all the ski pants,jackets,socks and gloves for me. Thank God I can fit into them else I think it's going to be very embarassing for me.

Skiing was no easy task, at least for me. First of all, I had problems wearing the ski boots and then I had problems fastening the boots onto the ski and after that I had problems trying to walk up the slope in the skis.

Then I tried to ski down the slope and ended up crashing into the trainer. I had to walk up the slope again and this time, I crashed into my other colleagues so I was practically crashing into everyone that is on my path. Finally when the ski lesson ended, I managed to ski a little without falling or crashing into anyone. You would never imagine that you can actually perspire under all the thick clothes you wore for skiing but yes, I was perspiring. It was tough but fun to experience it. Whether I will be back for more, well...that depends.

Next, we went for rock climbing. I always believed I lacked the wrist strength for rock climbing but surprisingly, it's pretty easy. I can go all the way to the top. Here's a picture of my team at the rock climbing place.

After all that exercise, we had a good dinner. Meat Fondue...never tried before but it was really interesting. I thought it would be somewhat similar to cheese fondue but I am wrong. There was oil in the fondue pot and then you had a plate of different meats - veal, beef, pork and chicken and you put them in the fondue and fried them.

The weather was getting colder and colder by the day with yesterday morning at -3 deg. My face and skin were so dry that I can feel them peeling off. The feeling was terrible. I was also almost down with a cold with me sneezing a few times a day and on some nights, my nose was blocked. I tried to pile on the moisturiser and hand lotion as often as I can.

We went to another city - Leiden for dinner one of the nights and we had indian food. Leiden is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in The Netherlands. It forms a single urban area with Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten, Valkenburg, Rijnsburg and Katwijk, with 254,000 inhabitants. It is located on the Old Rhine, close to the cities of The Hague and Haarlem.It was a nice city and there is even a windmill museum there as well.

One thing I had an issue with was on the service by the restaurants. We had dinner in one of the japanese teppanyaki restaurant and the waitress just refused to serve us until there was another order from another table. It's really sickening. The whole dinner was finished only in about 2.5 hours.

Had quite a late evening on the last day of work. Was in the office till around 7pm. All other colleagues were coming in to say goodbyes to me and wishing me a safe trip home. Left the office around 7pm and went to Amsterdam for dinner. Guess where we had dinner? Hard Rock Cafe...hahahaha. It was cold and we didn't want to walk too far from where we parked the car. After dinner, we walked around the surroundings for a bit before returning to the Hotel. Say goodbyes to my boss and colleague as they were on an earlier than me the next day.

On Saturday, I checked out around 11am and met up with a friend living in The Hague. He picked me up and we drove to the airport to deposit my luggage at the storage room. Then we took the train from the airport to Amsterdam Centraal station. From there, we decided to just walk to the Van Gogh Museum. It was a nice walk as the sun is shining and there isn't much wind. I realised I know more about Amsterdam than my dutch friend. He said he seldom come to Amsterdam so he didn't know much about the place. In the end, I am the one who is bringing him around.

Walked past the sex museum and decided to pop in for a look. It costed 3euro for entry. Frankly, there's nothing much. Photographs of sexual acts, rapes, sadism etc. Some artifacts from the past and paintings, drawings etc.

Here are some pictures I took inside the museum.

Always remember to get your tickets for the Van Gogh Museum in advance else you have to join in the queue at the museum. Frankly, I am not a great fan of Van Gogh but I just need to visit the tourist attraction,right? Hahahaha. Bought some sourvenirs at the museum shop and then I went to the LV shop along the expensive shopping district of Amsterdam. Bought myself a wallet and a small sling bag. Bought some stuff from the HRC for my cousin, chocolates requested by my friend and colleagues and bought some cheese as well for myself. I also did some shopping at H&M and Zara. Most of the shops were on sale and some of the items in the shops were so cheap. Time went past so fast that soon it's 6pm and all the shops were closing.

So we walked back to the train station and caught the train back to the airport. I had a hard time trying to fit all the stuff into my luggage and had to hand carry another 2 bags and 2 paintings I bought from the Van Gogh Museum. After checking in, I said goodbye to my friend and I went to the lounge for some rest and drinks. The flight back was pretty ok, I fell asleep after watching a movie.

Finally back to Singapore after a long and tiring week. Couldn't get used to the heat and was perspiring in the airport. Sort of miss the cool weather there. Sleep in on Monday as I was feeling so tired.