it was memorial day on the 7th, and independence day on the 8th in israel. i decided that i will probably waste the 2 days and another 2 days in the weekend, so i couldnt resist when menno invited me to his place!! that's how and why i finally stepped out of schiphol airport for the first time after transiting there 3 times :)
i have a problem remembering the names of the places we went to, because dutch uses the same alphabets but they are pronounced entirely differently, and looks like mis-spelled words to me.. so i'll try my best to look up the names of the places we went to!
i took an overnight flight from tel aviv to amsterdam.. so was really tired when i arrived.. was secretly hoping that i will be able to nua the day away and only start the touristy activities the next day, but bcos i was lazy to make plans, i left it to menno and he whisked me off to keukenhof the moment i landed!
it was a beautiful and HUGE garden full of tulips and daffodils and other flowers i cant name! the tulip season was coming to the end, so i was very fortunate to see so many them blooming and smiling at me! :)
these gals were under this huge tree and are in the shade alot of the time, so they are all trying hard to get some of the sun! :)
there was a little pet corner in the garden, and we found this weird looking chicken! so much 'hair'! haha there were black ones too!
oh, talking about the pet corner, it was there where i first touched an unshaved sheep!! haha!! menno was pretty amused that i never touched a sheep in my life before.. well.. i'm a city gal, and apparently a very deprived one!
and we also found this huge pair of clogs in the middle of nowhere! haha these kids are very cute! especially the one holding the sunglasses! heh.. cannot resist, so took a foto of them! :)
and of course the kid in me couldnt resist wearing such BIG shoes! wah!!
there was also this wavy bridge that i took quite alot of courage to cross! it's pretty scary, cos it's right on the water and any mistake will mean that i'll fall into the murky stagnant water!!!
after about 3 hours in the garden, even menno was tired out! i was already half dead from the lack of sleep cos had to catch the plane in the middle of the night.. so of course i fell asleep 2 seconds after apologising to menno that i'm going to sleep while he drove! literally 2 seconds! we made a little detour before going to his place.. to see the HIGHEST waterfall in the netherlands, apparently..
haha this is even more laughable than the waterfall at the singapore birdpark, or the suntec water fountain! but well.. at least it is natural (before they added the rippling effects)
the day ended with dinner at a chinese restaurant nearby. inge (menno's wife) joined us after work :) there was this HUGE tree (no picture) outside of the restaurant and menno was estimating that 5 people will not be enough to wrap around the tree! i decided to test his theory, so i walked over and hugged the tree! haha i think my action forced the two of them to follow suit and by the time we were done, we realized that the people in the restaurant were staring and laughing! haha! anyway i think the conclusion was that 4 people were needed, i cant remember exactly, but at least the 3 of us were not sufficient :)
anyway, i must say that the quality of the food was very good!!! we had pineapple duck, deep fried cod fish, teppanyaki beef, and siu-mais (the siu-mai was not that good)!!! it was funny, the lady boss first spoke in dutch to menno and inge while i looked at them blur-ly, then she spoke to me in mandarin while it was menno and inge's turn to be wondering what we were talking about! haha it was quite interesting!
and now i'm going to check out what's the latest update in the chloe-anthony battle! but that's another story for another time! will continue day 2-4 another time! :)
