TheHague - Blogabond

The Hague, Netherlands

as planned, we woke up around 8am (or earlier??) to have breakfast with Yorien and to catch her ride to Keukenhof. this is our 1st official ride from a host. her ride is a Peugeot Cabriolet. eve had to squeeze into d back seat cos it a 2 seater with a really small back seat. we had d top opened all through the 40min trip. was pretty cold but fun! we saw some tulip fields even b4 reaching Keukenhof.

when we got to d entrance around 10am, it was already waaaaaaaaay PACKED!!! ok, a bit of background on Keukenhof. it a huge garden full of flowers, apparantly the world's largest flower garden with about 7 millions flower blubs are planted annually. it's only opened like 2 months in a year between march and may. u can do an internet search for more info.

so, that explain why there were HUGE MASSES of people at the garden. we were expecting to spend about 3 hours in d garden. but after we got in and saw d actual size of Keukenhof, we knew there was no way we will leave in 3 hours!

flower power!

there was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo much flowers!!! (much becos we cant count them any more!!!) there's flowers of all colours and all sizes! especially d tulips! i think there are more than 100 species of tulips in d garden alone! it really is amazing to see so many flowers blooming at d same time! words really cant describe what i see. gotta thank my friend amy who strongly recommended the garden to me. we took soooooooo many photos there and i think i'd never seen so many species of flowers at 1 time.

tulip!

tulips!!

there's a lot of creativity in the container used for planting the flowers. so it was all nice to see. here's some more photo...

flowers in boots at Keukenhof

arts piece at Keukenhof

psychedelic flowers at Keukenhof

nice backyard to have

nice colourful flowers at Keukenhof

Tulips field at Keukenhof

yes we both went crazy with d photo taking (eve's camera went dead b4 we even left d garden!)

after 6 hours at d garden, we left n head to d nearest train station for home. Leiden is about 1 hour by bus and is d birthplace of the famous artist Rembrandt. there's Rembrandt everywhere! we spent a couple of hours walking around town to try n soak up d artistic feel in d air... i think it didnt work cos i still cant paint or draw to save my life!!

we figured we had enough for d day by then n head back. ready to rest our feet and have a gd night's sleep.

written by

wangyng on April 13, 2008 from The Hague, Netherlands

from the travel blog: Hello Europe!!

tagged TheHague, Netherlands, Keukenhor and DenHaag

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The Hague, Netherlands

we agreed to cook for our host Yorien tonight. her name is actually Hilgien but it was tooo hard to pronounce for people so she uses Yorien to make things easy for everyone.

anyway, she was pretty excited about us cooking cos 1) she gets to eat food from a different country, 2) she has some1 cooking for her so she has food when she gets home from work. we head to d city to walk around a little. was really a quick walk as we need to buy d stuff we need fr d Asian Supermarket then head home to cook cos Hilgien has to go work out after dinner (most of our hosts has such healthy lifestyle that we feel ashamed of ours!).

this is d 1st time we r cooking for a host so it was quite exciting for us too! eve is making soup and stir fry vegetables n i'm making curry chicken. Hilgien was home before dinner was ready. but she was extremely happy to see us cook. she says it's d 1st time ever that she come home to d smell of food in her kitchen (since she moved to this apartment). she was taking photos of us cooking n all.

she was very happy with our dinner n told us we are most welcomed to stay another week as long as we can cook for her! i wasnt too happy with d curry as i bought packet curry paste n it didnt taste very good n it was a tad bit too watery! but it was acceptable i guess. n d most important thing is my host enjoyed it!

Hilgien with our dinner

Hilgien dropped us at a beach near her place after dinner. d beach was fairly quiet with a few joggers n dogs walkers. we managed to watch d beautiful sunset. awesome!

Sunset at Duindop beach

o yes, i made a new friend in d city today. he's really cute and i fell in love with him immediately. here's our photo.

a new friend!

Delft, Netherlands

went on a day trip to Delft today. d very 1st thing that amused me was this map vending machine. u go through a series of multiple choice n select d map u want. then d map comes out in d lower winder of d machine. yes yes i know, so easily amused!

a machine that gives out map in Delft

Delft is know for Delft Blue, d porcelain ware. there's everything made from porcelain. cups, plates, all kinds of containers, little ornaments, u name it, they have it! it was really tempting to buy all these well made n beautiful stuff but i knew it would be a nightmare for me to carry them on d trip. so i resisted and didnt buy any!

d main area we went to is d market square, and 2 churches. i've been to soooooo many market square n churches on this trip! i swear i cant recognize each of them by now. all d market squares n churches are all in a blur! except maybe d Old Church here cos it's d only church so far with a wooden ceiling.

Delft Markt Square

Old Church in Delft

we walked around d market square n visited almost ALL d shops there. i only bought a calender cos it was easy to carry. (i knew if my mum was here she probably would buy a whole suitcase of stuff!)

anyway, we left Delft ard 6pm. today it was Hilgien's turn to cook! she said she will cook us a typically Dutch dish after work. it's a winter dish called Stamppot. it's potatoes mashed with some kind of vege/herbs that is only available in Netherlands (i really cant remember d name of that!), n sausages. u eat it with pickles n preserved onion. it is pretty tasty n very filling!

Hilgien making a Dutch dish, Stamppot

we were chatting ard d dinner table after dinner. waiting for d food to settle in b4 dessert. Hilgien decided to invite her neighbor over for a chat cos he's been wanting to meet d surfers at her place. so Richard came over n we chatted about lots of things. he is quite interested in Chinese stuff and we ended up looking at some Chinese herbs over d internet n teaching them some Chinese words.