A City of Bicycles.....

The last time pakdokter saw so many bicycles on the city streets was probably many many years ago when pakdokter went to Beijing for a professional meeting. Bicycles were the most common vehicles that the populace could afford then in the now prosperous Chinese city. Ho Chinh Minh ( Saigon) city was another city where bicycles were the most common means of transport for the people. With its booming emerging economy, pakdokter is certain that within a decade Saigon's streets will see the bicycles being replaced by cars....

It was a pleasant surprise to see so many people riding bicycles in Amsterdam. Bicycles must be the preferred choice here for a more 'noble' reason. Amsterdam encourages bicycle to reduce 'carbon-emitting' vehicles on its streets. And its citizens took up the cause with no complaints.....

How pakdokter wishes Asian cities could learn fast..........Pakdokter must admit though that Japan is also at the forefront of this 'green' and 'clean' awareness movement. In the suburbs of Tokyo, a lot of the citizens pedal their bicycles to nearby locations.....

Amsterdam has generously wide and dedicated bicycle lanes on all if not most of its city streets.

bicycle modified to fit in the kids and maybe the puppies too....

The Markets of Amsterdam.......

Amsterdam is a city small enough to allow one to walk to most of the city tourist attractions. The hotel where pakdokter and company were booked into was at most only 30 minutes on foot from the Central Station. From the hotel, the Royal Palace and the Wax Museum are an easy 5 minutes walk, so is the main shopping street of the city. The museums are also within walking distance, or else the city tram service can be used for a small fare. And within 10 minutes walk, is the Jordaan district where many restaurants and boutiques are to be found.

Pakdokter and company decided to visit the markets of Amsterdam on the first day of our stay there. The flower market was about 15 minutes away on foot. Most stalls were selling plants and flowers for the Christmas festivities. One can also buy ganja seedlings at this market - Amsterdam is probably the only city in the world where 'ganja' is not an illegal substance for recreational or medicinal consumption. There is a "Hemp and Hashish" Museum located in this city.

Walking the streets of Amsterdam also allowed us to discover many objects of 'street art' on display at street corners. Many of these were brass and steel sculptures. Below are some of the street sculptures pakdokter discovered during the walk.

A weekly Saturday Market was also being held that morning not too far away from the Flower Market. Everything from textiles to clothes to fashion to shoes to fish and seafood to farm products to cakes and cookies were on sale at this market. This market is not unlike the many 'pasar malam' in Kuala Lumpur....

giant crabs and fresh fish made us want to look for a seafood restaurant for lunch...

varieties of cheese....

chocolates in 'erotic' shapes and forms....

Santa Claus already in town....

On Sunday morning we walked to the Amsterdam Sunday Art Market located at the top end of Spuiistraat which was just a round the corner from our hotel. As it was pouring rain quite heavily that morning with strong wind to boot, many of the stalls opened late and we found ourselves wandering into the shops and malls along the Kalverstraat instead.

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The Canals of Amsterdam....

The hotel we stayed at, the Rembrandt Classic, was situated along the Herrengracht Canal ( Herren - means 'gentlemen'), the prettiest canal in Amsterdam. From the hotel, the main tourist attractions were within 30 minutes of walking. Walking the streets of Amsterdam gave a photo-opportunity of the beautiful canals of the city.

The lovely houses along the canals as well as the boat-houses anchored along the many canals can also be viewed by taking a one-hour canal boat-cruise which cost at least 8.5 Euro per person. Other more expensive cruises may have a free flow of beer and wines thrown in with lunch or dinner included.

the canal cruise boat terminal was located quite near the Amsterdam Central Station..

some house-boats along the sides of the canals...

an old clock-tower..

a museum located at the port of Amsterdam...

a canal at the 'red light district' of Amsterdam...

Dawn in Amsterdam.....

Pakdokter and partner travelled to Amsterdam and Edinburgh (this time) with two other couples who had been regular travel buddies for many years. Ravee and his partner, Siti, and Dolah were pakdokter's and pakdokter's partner's classmates in medical school. Dolah and his partner , Sandra, have been together for about 30 years. Their children grew up with pakdokter's children and spent many many weekends playing together at each other's homes.

The KLM plane left KLIA at around midnight. The plane carried a full load that it was hard for pakdokter to believe that the world was in a state of recession!

The Boeing 777 of the KLM was quite comfortable with a good leg space in between seats. And the food served was commendable.

pakdokter, freezing, in front of Amsterdam Central Station, at 7 am in the morning..

the Amsterdam Central Station...

walking the streets of Amsterdam in the wee hours of the morning...

still dark at 8 am....

Arriving at Schipol at 5.30 am local time, Amsterdam was still blanketed in darkness. It took about one hour to collect our baggages and clear immigration checks.We headed to the train station for a short direct train ride to Amsterdam Central Station. After having been to Tokyo many times, the trains of Europe still have some catching up to do. One has to lug the bags up or down at least 2 steps from the platform on to the train or vice versa. This would have been problematic if one has a huge and heavy bag to carry. In Japan, the station platforms were always flushed to the same level as the train and one has only to pull one's bag easily from the platform into the train.

As pakdokter had checked out the location of our hotel from the internet before the trip and decided that it would be 'walkable' from the station, we decided to take a morning walk from the Central Station to our hotel, the Rembrandt Classics.

The walk allowed an opportunity for snapping pictures of Amsterdam at early morning hours....

The first thing that struck pakdokter about Amsterdam was how friendly and helpful the Amsterdamers were. At the station, as Siti and Ravi were struggling to carry their bags down the steps, a young gentleman offerred to help carry the bag for Siti. And while walking the street and looking at the printout of the Amsterdam map for direction, an elderly boatman, without being asked, stopped and helped pakdokter with the direction to the hotel.

These two incidents gave a pleasant start to our holidays.....

at the canal cruise boat terminal along Damstraat..

half-way from the train station to the hotel...

tranquil....

Amsterdam trams along Damstraat..

Amsterdam...

Friday 20th November 2009

The Amsterdam Central Station..

This would be pakdokter's third trip to Amsterdam. The first trip was way back in 1978. Pakdokter went on a 2-months back-pack holiday in Europe with pakdokter's life-long partner. It was our honey-moon! Amsterdam was one of the last stops, after having trekked and 'train-ed' all the way from Prague ( it was still under the communist regime, then) to Paris, on to Spain ( where the train tracks were blown up by the Basque rebels forcing us to walk back all the way from the Spanish town of San Sebastian - Basque country - into France to continue on the next leg along the French Riviera into Italy, then the Switzerland, up the Black Forest into Germany, cruising up the Rhine before taking the train again to Amsterdam.

the canals of Amsterdam..

With the little money left, we checked into a 'dingy' hotel ( must be at the red light district!) near the Amsterdam Central Station. Pakdokter's memory of Amsterdam of that trip was the 'red light district' for which Amsterdam is famous for and of a black African peddling 'hashish' to pakdokter from across the street. Pakdokter's partner remembered that our hotel bed was not that clean, with strands of pubic hair on the blanket forcing us to sleep without changing into our 'jammies'.....So, it was only a one-night stop in Amsterdam for us then!

The second trip to this city of tulips was in the 90's en-route to New York and New Orleans where pakdokter attended the Annual Convention of the American Psychiatric Association. With a little bit more money in the pocket then, pakdokter remembers some of the nice restaurants we dined at in Amsterdam, the Riijsk Museum as well as the canal cruise that we took during that cool autumn day.

But what made that trip more memorable was the fact that we were pulled out from the queue while boarding for the North West plane to New York at the Schipol Airport by the security officers and were interrogated by them on why and what our previous trips to Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan were for as evidenced from the visas pasted and posted in our passports. And true enough, a year or so later, the terrorists struck the World Trade Centre when we were driving in the Cappadocia of Central Turkey. I guess the Americans had already got wind of the terrorists plans even then and were on the lookout for any suspicious-looking characters going to the USA. Being Muslims, probably was the reason that made us being picked out by them.

This current trip to Amsterdam was en-route to Edinburgh. Pakdokter's daughter, Raena, had completed her MSc(Econs) at the Edinburgh University and we were going to attend her university convocation. We chose to re-visit Amsterdam as we had not gone there for quite a long time.

Blind Willows, Sleeping Woman....

Yes, Harukami is one of pakdokter's favourite Japanese writers. Pakdokter likes his style, simple and clear and easy to read. And being from the 'baby-boomer' generation, pakdokter guessed pakdokter could relate to most of Harukami's ideas.....

This book is a collection of short stories. The stories are short enough and engaging enough that each story can easily be finished during pakdokter's daily train ride from home to office.

Some of the stories were probably about Harukami's own lifes experiences....

Grotesque....

Yuriko, half European and half Japanese is stunningly beautiful. Kazue was a corporate executive with a full time job in a blue chip company. Both of them were educated at an elite school for girls in Tokyo. Both of them were found murdered within a span of 1 year. And to add shock to the story, both of them worked as prostitutes by night.....

Pakdokter bought this book in 2007, admittedly, drawn by the stunning picture on the cover. However pakdokter only read it last week after pakdokter started to rummage through the library at home and found at least 5 more books by Japanese authors which pakdokter had bought some time in the past but had yet to read. And this book did not disappoint!

Very well translated into English, this book will definitely send pakdokter to go to the book-shop to look for Natsuo Kirino's another winning book entitled "OUT". Ms Kirino was born in 1951 ( same year as pakdokter's birth year) and has already written 16 novels and many short stories. She has also won many literary awards in Japan.

This is a great psychological thriller. It gave at least one insight into the social-psychology (or psychopathology?) of prostitution. It also broached on the subject of the impact of a highly competitive environment on individual development - using the matrix of the group of students in the elite school as a sample.

These complex issues were interestingly dissected through this un-put-downable crime thriller.....