Touching down in Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam after a long flight from Sydney and a connecting flight in Singapore.Lucky to be able to meet up with Little P and Moo Moo Cow in Changi Airport. They have been really nice, and willing to travel to Changi to meet up with me. Thank you for the dinner and buns... helped heaps. I was able to go to sleep once boarding the flight and even skipped the supper on board while the buns held the hunger a little when we were looking for food on a very rainy day in Amsterdam.

Train ticket vending machines in Amsterdam does not take paper notes, only coins, debit card and credit cards. Purchase over the counter will incur a surchange. We looked up strippenkaart (which is now no longer on sale as a new OVChipkaart will replace the usage of the strippenkaart) which was sold in AKO bookstore. Bought a 45 stripes strippenkaartwith some loose coins change, we got our train tickets out of Schiphol Airport. Went to the platform and then… trouble came. We didn’t know which train will bring us to the station we wanted. While we were trying to make sense of the Dutch words, a fellow traveller told us it was the next train and even told us to get on the train when the said train came. Alas, we saw the train went straight pass the station we wanted to get off… the train is a fast train, and didn’t stop at that specific station. To cut the story short, we somehow manage to get to the apartment we made our booking, after 2 hours since the flight touched down when we were told we could probably there in less than an hour.

Day 1 in Amsterdam, after we reached the apartment, we were greeted with pouring rain. Rain that did not stop till night, in fact I dont think it stop till the end of day two. My umbrella which I had only used once, during the 7 bridges walk is now in bad shape. 2 days in rainy Amsterdam and I need a new umbrella.

rainy Amsterdam, but still beautiful :)

While trying to get our bearings in Amsterdam, in addition to walking in the rain and cold, cold weather, we finally reached the Van Gogh Museum (Ticket: 14 euro for adult; 5 euro for audio guide).

Outside Van Gogh Museum (of course, no photo allowed inside)

Blasted weather forecast, it was not 20 degree celcius, it was less than 10! The cold weather and rain did not deter anybody from paying tribute to the great artist, the queue was long. We joined the long queue as we did not get the museum pass. After approximately 2 hours of queuing up with my eyes closed intermittently and sleep creeping over, we finally reached the ticket booth. Got an audio guide to share between the 2 of us and marched on in. Don’t ask me since when I put so much effort to go in an art museum. :P


Side note: Actually type part of it on the train to Brussels :P