The Hague!!!

The first day of our second weekend in the Netherlands was spent at The Hague! The Hague is where all the governmental offices are, like the buildings of the various ministries. Certainly not as tourist-y as Amsterdam, which we visited on day two (more on that, next time...) !

Our "tour guide" for the day is none other than Gwylim! As some of you may remember, Gwylim was in Singapore for SEP one year ago! It was really strange to finally see him again --- only this time our meeting place was in the Netherlands!

We saw many impressive and tall buildings but didn't take any pictures of them simply because tall buildings aren't that intriguing to us. We like nice gardens, greenery and not-more-than-three-storyed-houses :)

Maggie & Gwylim in front of a church

A pity we could not enter the church because there was some sort of event going to take place afterwards but oh well, no matter.

The cafe where we had our lunch

My lunch - a ham and cheese bagel :)

Maggie's sandwich (very thinly sliced beef)

View from the table we were sitting at

Wherever there's good weather, we always dine outdoors! It's really a pity to dine indoors when the weather is nice! I used to not be able to understand why Caucasians adore sunshine so much and love sun-bathing or picking the sunniest spot. But from those few gloomy, rainy days we had here, I think I know better now.


After lunch, we proceeded to Madurodam! It's a miniature city of all the important places in the Netherlands!

(Gwylim: Help! What is this building called?)

The Dom Tower in Utrecht, minituarized!

And again!

Yup, I'm sure you get the idea what Madurodam is all about. The thing I really liked was that everything built there is pretty detailed. Close up, you can really see all the fine workmanship of these miniatures.

After Madurodam, we took another tram to Scheveningen beach!

We tried something typically Dutch --- HARING! Haring is raw fish but not like Japanese sashimi. We weren't brave enough to try haring on its own, so we opted for the haring in bread with onions!

Maggie with a mouthful of haring and bread!

The close-up picture I took of it turned out blur, so here's the best picture I can find from the internet of what haring looks like :

A small fish, unlike the salmon sashimi

Maggie was the brave one! I ate only one mouthful and decided it was enough. Maggie finished the rest!!!!! +three claps for Maggie!+ But we both agreed we would not get a second helping for a long, long while. Heehee.

Just people sitting around near the pier

The beach!

The sand was pretty fine..... Slightly coarser than those of Siloso beach but lots of broken shells. In any case, much better than East Coast Park......

Maggie's new love interest - Not Gwylim but Miffy, the bunny on top

For those who recognised Miffy, I bet you didn't know Miffy's creator was Dutch! Miffy has a Dutch name - also probably the original - Nijnje!

Beer in the breeze on the beach!!!!! Gosh, how much better can it get!

Looking really cool only when you can't see most of my face :)

Maggie looking absolutely content, again!

View of the pier from the beach

Took a train back to Utrecht, where Gwylim stays in an apartment on campus, which we spent the night at ! Here's his student room!

Nice for a student room huh? But well, most of the stuff, including the flooring was fitted in by Gwylim himself so yeah, you could do that to your hostel room too :)

Okays that's about it for Day One of the previous weekend (behind time, again!) Blog on Amsterdam the next time!