Amsterdam and Brussels Trip

hey mummy, daddy and both jie jies.. have been missing you all so much.. have not been contributing to the blog for such a long time that i have forgotten my password. lucky thing i still managed to access it. i will start with the beginning of my easter holidays. i went down to dublin for a 3 day trip as my fellow frens organized a barbeque party. i cant believe that we actualy wasted 1 hour trying to get the fire going because me and another fren was endeavouring on rolling the ball after which we actually realized that charcoal could not burn... they bought fireplace charcoal which was not suitable for bbq!! we all had a good laugh about it. the night was good and the few of us had pretty alot of drinks bringing us in quite a improper state of mind for the night. the following day was when we headed to amsterdam from my place. we touched down on Schipol airport and began looking for directions. everything was dutch, lil english... but did not bother much cos the girls in out trip were the hardworking ones, and they chose to be so... thus we as guys juz took up the responsibility of taking care of belongings etc. the accom was pretty satisfying, its a hostel but every1 slept comfortably except for a few guys blowing trumpets in the night (including me?) and the place was hygienic. we walked to several museums such as the 'Van Gogh Museum', Coster diamond factory and round the city area taking pics of anything that looks interesting. by the way, amsterdam and brussels was freakin cold and was snowing on a few days.. this easter is said to be the coldest easter in ..... (dunno ler, i heard sumtin like that). anyways, we also visited the 'Tulip Garden', bet mum and jie jies would love to be there so much. we missed it the last time cos it only opens to toursits in Easter and it was snowing! have to say the place was beautiful. the place was beautiful, full of patterns.. nearly everything is worth a pic and the place as loads of history as well. there was the chinese garden as well in conjunction with the olympic games.. there was also the largest Tulip which we did not manage to find it, and the largets Orchid garden(not sure if we passed it, haha) the place was too large i guess...(32 hectars of plantation) i will load up some pics soon. surprisingly, as the guys who are not suppose to be the flower enthusiast, we were the camwhores who took more pics than the girls throughout the trip including the tulip garden with a calculated ratio of 1 to 4. dutch food is actually quite simple.. nothing particular such as ' Croquettes" we had some local food in restaurants mostly indonesian associated. pretty good such as 'sates' prawns, bla bla bla which tastes similarly to malaysian food but in an indonesian environment. food were overpriced as well probably because we normally go to those places recommended. we had a night of clubbing as well in the most famous club in town. first time in my life i enter a club where u have to go through security machines! the club was pretty spectacular though. not to forget.. being in amsterdam of course we were obligated to take a walk in the 'Red Light District'. just walked, walked and walked around. we also did some random touring around such as 'Anne Frank's House' she is a popular girl who belonged to a Jewish family being hunted down by the German Nazis in the 1940s. she and her family together with 4 others(in total 8) were housed in a secret attic by a Dutch family for quite a few years. Anne wrote a diary about her daily lifestyle on living in the dark. unfortunately someone betrayed them and their hideout was revealed where Anne died in a German retention camp a few years later. her father then published her book. we also took went to see the windmills again and cheese factory. A complimentary cruise was included allowing us to observe the city once and for all again. Brussels trip to be continued...