When I had my first assignment oversea late last year, I flew to Amsterdam a few times, but I didn't see much of Amsterdam. Most of the time, I stayed in another small city, a nice college town, about half hour train ride from Amsterdam airport. I guess early on, I thought I would have plenty of chances to see Amsterdam, but I ended up only spending one weekend walking around in Amsterdam; for most other weekends while I was away from home, I visited other European cities.

Day One:
Stedelijk Museum, Central Library, De Wallen, Zuiderkerk, Waterlooplein and Stopera, Flower Market, Dam Square

12:30pm Restaurant 11 in Stedelijk Museum Unlike most other trips I have, I had a late start this time. I got on the train to Amsterdam a little bit after 10am, and by the time I stepped out of Amsterdam Central train station, it was almost 11am. And because I didn't do enough research ahead of time, I was actually debating with myself where to go while standing outside of the station. So I decided to get lunch in a nearby museum called Stedelijk Museum (mostly modern art). The museum is actually in their temporary location as their actual building is under major renovation. This temporary building used to be a post office built in the 60s, so it fits the modern art quite nicely. There is a restaurant/bar/club establishment called 11, on the top floor (11th floor). When I got out of the elevator, I thought it was a mistake; it looked like a run-down back door entrance to some night club that is closed for day time. I double-checked with my book, and it say they do open for lunch. So I pushed the door open a bit (not so much as a door handle), I peeked inside, and I saw a empty dance floor. Then I thought, ok, if I can't have lunch here, I can at least take some pictures from windows looking out from the top floor. As I walked in, then I realized there was indeed a restaurant at the far end of the dancing hall, with dining tables and a bar. It was pretty quiet with only a handful of people (I guess it was still early for lunch) The food was not bad, and the place is kinda interesting. I guess it is a cool place to be after dark.

1:30pm Central Library In a way I wish I didn't find the restaurant, because there is a even better place for lunch next door. It is the brand new Amsterdam Central Library (I actually recognized the word library in Dutch). They have a nice cafeteria (and a wine bar!) on their top floor. They also have balcony there to get a good view of Amsterdam. The library is huge, and their decor is interesting; at first I was wondering why all their books have this white and orange colors on the binding. Looking closer, it was actually the orange and white LEDs that were installed in between the shelves. (LED is definitely the future of interior design.)

2:00pm Oude Kerk (Old Church) and De Waag (Weigh House) in De Wallen By the time I left the library, it was almost 2pm, and I still hadn't start any sightseeing. There are a few walking tours described in my travel guides, and one advises that day time is best time to walk in the red light district (safer because less drunk people in daytime.) It also advises not to make eye contact with the people behind the window. So following those advices, it was not a bad visit; it was still quiet, and the area is kinda pretty with the 16th-century canals and houses. There is an old church right in the middle of all this, and apparently it is still in use; but it is bizarrely out of place. Near the end of the walk in this area, there is a building called De Waag, literally Weigh House, where they used to weigh people accused of being a witch. (And they get executed if they failed the weigh test) Some interesting history behind this building.

3:00pm Zuiderkerk (South Church) Following the walking tour in Lonely Planet, I stopped by this church called South Church in a neighborhood where Rembrandt used to live. While the church is not a major attraction, it is interesting to see how the city is using it as office and for displaying exhibits.

3:30pm Waterlooplein and Stopera Not far from the South Church, there is a big building complex called Stopera, literally City Hall and Opera house. It is also next to a popular market square Waterlooplein, where I had my first Dutch Fries with Mayonnaise (It was quite good)

4:00pm Bloemenmarkt (Flower Market) and Kalverstraat (Calves Street) The Floating Flower Market sounds more interesting than what it is. While it is true that all stores are "floating" on water, but all of them are securely attached to the canal bank, so you don't really feel floating. In fact, from the front, they look just like any other store on the ground.

5:30pm Dam Square Finishing off the walking tour, I walked by a shopping street called Kalverstraat (Calves Street), and then reached Dam Square, Amsterdam's city center. Understandably it is the main hangout for tourists and locals.

6:00pm Dinner at d'Vijff Vlieghen I made a stop at this restaurant before getting to the Dam. Although it was still early for dinner, I was ready to eat, but the restaurant is not open for dinner yet. They said the night was fully booked, but they said they could accommodate me around 6pm, the time when they start serving dinner. The restaurant is a bit tourisy, and kinda expensive with the chef's menu, but it's all good. Some of the courses were uniquely Dutch (Pancake and Croquette) and its Dutch Interior looks very nice.

Day Two:
Jordaan Neighborhood, Vondelpark, Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank House

A friend of mine mentioned to me that he knows someone running a Chinese church service in Amsterdam, and I did find some info online. So the next day I got up earlier, and made it to the location where I thought the church service would be shortly after 9am. But there was no one there. So I walked around in that area, which is residential in the outskirts of Amsterdam. After waiting for a while, a car pulled up in front of the place. I went up to the woman, who was unloading stuff from her car, and asked her if there is a Chinese church service. She said they no longer meet here, and offered to help me to contact the pastor. Since it would have been too late anyway, I declined and thanked her. So I ended up with a little more time to do some more sightseeing that day.

11:00am Prinsengracht (Prince's Canal) and Westerkerk (West Church) Following another walk from a travel guide, I walked to a neighborhood called Jordaan. It is a much nicer looking area, more an upper class neighborhood. The weather was beautiful, a good change from the morning and the day before. There are a few nice churches in this area, but the biggest attraction in this area is the Anne Frank Museum. There was a long line up when I got there, so I decided to come back later on that day, hoping for less people by then. Supposed there are some good restaurants for lunch, but they don't open on Sundays. I ended up going to a Dutch Pancake house. Not counting the little one I had the night before, this is the only time I had Dutch Pancake in Netherlands (because it's really quite similar to pizza, except it's in crepe)

1:30pm Vondelpark Continuing on the walk, I passed by some more residential area, and a nice big park called Vondelpark, kinda like Amsterdam's Central Park. It was cold and wet when I was there, but I'm sure it's nice to visit this park in warmer seasons.

2:00pm Van Gogh Museum Museumplein marks the end of my walk (in this one direction anyway.) It is really a big area with 4 museums. Of the four, one is for modern art (it was under renovation and had relocated at the temporary location where I had lunch the day before); one is the National Museum for more traditional art (also under renovation, but kept one small area to display the best of its collection); the third one is the Diamond Museum; and the last one is the Van Gogh Museum, the only one I visited on this day (although I did have a chance to visit the National Museum a couple months later.) Van Gogh Museum building itself is not too interesting, but the paintings were impressive. They also have tons of information about Van Gogh in audio guide and on display. It's too bad photography is not allowed there.

4:30pm Anne Frank House After the Van Gogh Museum, I went back pretty much the same way, to visit the Anne Frank Museum. Before going to Amsterdam, I had no idea who Anne Frank Museum. When I told my barber, who is Jewish originally from London, that I was going to Amsterdam, he asked me if I was going to visit Anne Frank Museum. That is the first time I heard of it. Actually, I probably have heard of the book that is a compilation of diaries of this little Jewish girl in WWII. I just didn't know it was taken place in Amsterdam. It was certainly an unique experience, and well worth a visit.

6:00pm Chinatown After another long day of sightseeing, I wasn't in the mood of spending a couple hours in a typical restaurant. So I tried one of the Chinese restaurants in the Chinatown, which is basically on this one street. It's not big, but I've seen smaller Chinatown, so it's not too bad. I had Wonton and BBQ pork in noodle soup at this Nam Kee BBQ. It was quite good. I actually came back to this same place a couple more times after.

At that time, I thought I would come back to Amsterdam for more weekends; little did I know that I would start a blitz of visiting other cities in Europe.

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www.flickr.com View as slideshow The very first thing we decided during planning is destination, which is Prague. Then next thing we figured out is the flights. We figured we can be a little flexible on the dates (that was 4 months ahead) and we knew it should be open-jaw ticket (no point going full cycle back to Prague) and we also know we would be going west (Prague is enough Eastern Europe experience for us the first time.) Soon it became clear that Munich would be a good final destination, about the right distance from Prague with Austria in between. And then we switched it around, landing Munich first and having Prague as final destination, mainly because there is more direct flights from Toronto to Munich (I would hate to miss connecting flights at the beginning of the trip; not so much for coming back home.) Even though we didn't choose to visit Munich until we bought air tickets, I think we enjoyed the time there better than Salzburg or Vienna. Unlike most other places we visited, we stayed in a hotel that is in a suburb of a big city. The hotel is actually in a business office park, with people driving to work or taking the bus; so it feels very much like North America. To get there from the airport, we figured it would be best to take airport express train to a station close to the hotel, and then take a short taxi ride. It worked out very well, even though there were only a handful of people in the small station we got off. Language wasn't a huge issue, as a lot of people there know some English. Being in a business park, the hotel is designed mainly for business people, but it was quite new and we got a good rate. The only issue is to get to city center; it requires a 20 min bus ride, and then about 10 min subway. All in all, it wasn't too bad, and I would recommend this hotel, but only if they offer this good rate again. Munich is where we had our only fine dining of the whole trip. It kinda happened by mistake; the book suggests a cafe that is on ground level of a department store, but the department store was actually closed by the time we got there, and only the restaurant upstairs was open. I knew even the cafe was supposed to be a little more expensive, and so when I took a quick glance of the restaurant menu, the price didn't jump out at me like it should. So we proceeded to get our table, and then of course by then it was too late to turn back. We figured we might as well enjoy the meal, got some wine, and ordered full 3 courses dinner. The restaurant was quite nice, this being fine dining after all. The food was good, but we all agreed desserts were outstanding. In the end, after paying the bill, we knew we could not afford another fine dining in this trip. Hence we ended up mostly looking for cheap eateries, just to keep it closer to our budget. Here is the list of places we visited in Munich: Hofbräuhaus am Platzl (Beer Hall, reviewed in all books) - one book says it's the world's most famous beer hall. It is a huge beer hall, with tons of people (both locals and tourists), and a brass band playing music; a real festival atmosphere. Of course beer was good, and they serve some inexpensive food, like pork knuckle. Restaurant Dallmayr (Continental, reviewed in Frommers) - this is where we had the fancy dinner. I think Frommers is mistaken to state two $$ for the price. Sushi & Soul (Japanese, reviewed in Frommers) - cool looking place, and we got a good deal for early-bird dinner. Food was ok, except everything seemed salty, including sushi rice itself. Maybe that's how the locals like it. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=122

www.flickr.com View as slideshow We had an ambitious plan for our first day of the trip, and our execution was pretty good. We arrived Munich airport shortly after 10am as scheduled, found our way to the hotel (which is more or less in between the airport and the city center), checked in, then came back out to visit first attraction of the trip, Nymphenburg Palace and Park. I knew pretty much nothing about this place, except that it is one of the top attractions in Munich. Getting there was a bit tricky, as we had to switch from Metro to streetcar, but their transit system has an excellent website, allowing us to print out detailed instructions, so we got there no problem. (I wish we had done the same for all places in Munich, especially for the art museums, where we lost quite a bit of time looking for them.) On this trip, we were planning to visit a few attractions just like this: a palace with a big park or garden. So Nymphenburg became my reference for comparison, and I think Nymphenburg is as good as the other ones in most area. The interior of the palace was a little old, and the exhibits were not that memorable (although carriages and snow sleighs for the royals were kinda neat.) The palace does have a nice big Grand Hall in the center. On the other hand, we enjoyed the park much more. The park is huge, probably bigger than any other park we saw. The parks in Austria probably have better gardening than Nymphenburg park, but we got better weather here, and there are lakes and canals with leaves turning. Nice thing about this park is that there are numerous pavilions we can visit (so we forced ourselves to walk most of the park.) Of the ones we visited, I like the Amalienburg (with a octagonal hall of mirrors, rococo style) and the Pagodenburg (Semi-Chinese style pagoda with two levels only.) We stayed there until sunset, around the closing time. But this is only half of our ambitious plan for the first day; we still had a museum and a historical pub to visit that day. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=121

www.flickr.com View as slideshow None of us would have imagined spending more than two hours in a science museum, but that's what we did on our second day of the trip; we were in the Deutsches Museum for six hours, and if it wasn't closing for the day, we would probably have stayed longer. It is supposed to be the world's largest museum of technology and engineering. Our plan was to spend two hours there, and our strategy was to go to the top floor and work our way down; we would skim through all floors (there are 6 floors) and we would stop only when we see something interesting. I think it would take two hours just to walk thru all exhibits non-stop (there were more than 40 exhibits) I think we tried to finish our visit before we have lunch, but by 2:30pm, we were only half way thru. So we gave up rest of our schedule (to visit two more museums that day), and decided to stay there for the rest of the day. Here are some of the exhibits that we spent a little more time than others: Astronomy, Computer Science (I wonder why), Agricultural and Food Technology (I really wonder why), Photo and Film (very nice exhibit), Aviation (most time here), Marine Transportation, Bridges (I never thought building bridges could be that interesting), and Mining. Everything there is massive, both size of the collection and the artifact itself. It is the opposite of our Ontario Science Centre, which is very much hands-on and interactive, but not so much exhibits (maybe that's why it's not called a museum?) It might be the reason why we were so impressed by the Deutsches Museum. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=120

www.flickr.com View as slideshow In our original plan, we were going to visit one science museum and two art museums in one day. The plan would work if none of us have the slightest interest in art and science. It turns out that we had some interest in science, so we had to visit the art museums the next day. Actually we had visited an art museum on our first day, the Bavarian National Museum. It is actually more than an art museum; it's more like a museum of the Bavarian culture and history. It is only when I planned for this trip, that I heard of the Bavaria nation, and that Munich was the capital (it is still the capital of the state within Germany.) If there is one thing the Bavarian National Museum stands out, it is its huge collection of miniatures that depict the Nativity scene (it certainly shows Bavaria's deep Christianity roots.) We got to the museum one hour before it closes (happened often in our trip), so we had to rush to go through the rooms, but we still managed to take some pictures. The two art museums that we visited on another day were the Alte Pinakothek and the Neue Pinakothek (the Old and the New Art Gallery.) Based on the time we spent there, I'd say we have more interests in the New Art Gallery (2.5 hours) than the Old Art Gallery (1.5 hour); the New Art Gallery truly has some pretty neat stuff. Actually that 1.5 hour in Alte Pinakothek was spent by me alone, as Vincent and Naomi took off to see some more of the city. I thought I shouldn't skip the Alte Pinakothek, being one of the most famous and important art museums. And I know I want to see some famous artwork by Rembrandt and Rubens (little did I know that I would get plenty of opportunities to visit other museums in Europe.) It is also where I saw famous Spanish painter El Greco's work for the first time (extraordinary and definitely unique.) I don't blame Vincent and Naomi not being so interested, all these paintings are common in one thing after all; they are all biblically themed. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=119

www.flickr.com View as slideshow During our lunch on the third day, our last day in Munich, Vincent suggested him and Naomi to do some more city tour, as I continue visiting the art museum we were in. (So it took him 3 days to notice this light bulb...) Actually Vincent understands that I was determined to visit this art museum, but he also felt he had not spend enough time to get to know Munich, even though we had been crossing the city a few times, going to different attractions. In the original plan, I did have reserve some more time for walking around the old town on the third day. But since we did not went to all the museums we planned for the second day, I thought I would rather to visit the museums than touring the city. So we agreed to meet up in the Old Town around 6pm. So for that afternoon, Vincent and Naomi spent some time visiting the Englischer Garten (or the English Garden.) It's a nice big park with some interesting landmarks (one of the more famous is the Chinese Tower.) They also visited a couple churches, and climbed the St. Peter's Tower. (They got some nice shots of Old Town Munich from above.) As for me, it turned out that I needed only an hour and half to finish my visit of the art museum. So I did a little bit of city walk myself. I walked by a major shopping area, pedestrian-only street called Neuhauser Strasse. Walking toward the Hofgarten (Court Garden), I passed by a few big churches and squares, so I think I did get a good sense of Munich. I do think that we could use another day in Munich. In the end, I guess Munich has exceeded our expectation. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=118

www.flickr.com View as slideshow One of our most anticipated attractions on this trip, our plan was to visit the castles on the 4th day, first thing after we departed Munich. That day when we checked out of our Munich hotel, we got ourselves a rental car from Avis. Both the hotel and car rental place are in the suburb of Munich, but not exactly close to each other. Because it was Sunday, not many places open, and even the one we visited opens for a few hours in the morning only. (Actually most people were there to return cars.) When we got the car, I was a little disappointed. First it was a Kia (I was hoping for a German car), and second it was automatic transmission. They probably figure they are doing us Canadians favor, giving us automatics. Oh well, at least the car was quite new. It was about two hours driving from our hotel to get to the castle area. We actually stopped by the town Fussen nearby, to check in hotel and left our luggages there. We were right on schedule, which is good because we have booked tickets in advanced, with time of visited arranged. In fact because I put in buffer time just in case, we were actually early, so we had a bit of time to walk around before we visited the castles. Weather weren't promising, from the time we left Munich till we got to the castles, there were drizzle on and off. Then when it was time to visit the first castle, the older Schloss Hohenschwangau, sky cleared up a little, but it was still hard to see the other castle (which is the bigger draw.) The tour for the old castle was quite good, the guide gave us plenty of stories and background about the castles and the royal family. He also mentioned a couple times that the King who built the other castle monitor the progress of it being built from this old castle, but at that time, we could barely see it with some clouds and fog surrounding it. But as we finished our tour and stepped out of the old castle, sun actually broke in. By the time it was for us to go up the other castle, Schloss Neuschwanstein, weather was perfect. This castle looks like the castle of the Disney logo; it should be noted that this castle came before the existence of Disney. A shuttle ride took us to a spot just a little above the castle. From there, we walked a little bit and reached a bridge that gives the amazing view of the castle. In my mind, we didn't need to see the inside after viewing the castle from the bridge; not that the rooms inside weren't any good, actually the throne room was quite nice. Instead of taking another shuttle back down to the parking lot, we walked down and saw some more nice view of the castle, with trees and leaves turning as well. I'm sure all of us thought that was a very good day. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=117

www.flickr.com View as slideshow The last place we stayed in Germany is in the town of Fussen, just across from the famous Bavarian castles we just visited. In fact, we checked into our hotel in Fuseen before we went to see the castles. Fussen is also just 5km from the Austrian border, so it allows us to have a quick visit in Innsbruck, our first stop in Austria, the next morning. Our hotel in general was pretty good, although some of the furnishings was a little old, but at least bathroom was newly installed. The restaurant where they serve breakfast was quite nice as well, but for dinner we went to a pretty good restaurant nearby, as recommended by a book. After dinner we did a little bit of walking around the hotel area. And that's all we saw in Fussen. Then the next day we started driving early to go to Innsbruck, a major Austrian city that is famous for winter sports (two Olympic Winter Games were held here.) The Old Town there is nice, and its major attraction is the Golden Roof. But we spent most of our time in another major attraction, Swarovski Crystal Gallery, Swarovski's biggest store in the world. Both me and Vincent understand it is important for Naomi to get the gifts for her family, so we kept quiet most of the time. We ended up spending more than an hour there. It was only later that Naomi realized we had a pretty tight schedule for the rest of the day. So shortly after our visit to the Swarovski store, we left Innsbruck. We had plans to make some more stops along the way, including our hotel check-in at Zell am See. But we decided to skip all that and headed straight to Grossglockner High Alpine Road, probably our most interesting attraction on that day. And of course we ran into some traffic jam for no good reasons. Being the driver, I tried not to lose my cool, but it got Vincent a bit miffed (first time seeing him like that.) I guess he was quite looking forward to the Alpine road. We did manage to get there to have a good Alpine road trip. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=116

www.flickr.com View as slideshow This is one of the first attractions Vincent suggested when we were planning for the road trip. Usually for road trips, I think i usually look for attractions that take just a little bit of time, especially when we have all our luggages in the car. It turned out, for this trip, all our stops were quite lengthy. In fact, this attraction, the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, was a 4 hours driving detour. I actually have friends who had been there, but it was a disappointment for them because it was foggy the whole time, so my expectation was not high. Also, I had some unpleasant experiences before getting on the road; twice I was shortchanged, once at the gas station, and another at the entrance of the road. I got the gas station person to correct it, but not the one at road entrance (because we were in a rush as it was getting late, and we only realized after we drove a little bit.) Not a good impression of Austrian people (or were they East European immigrants?) I want to think it is their math skills... As I was saying, it was getting late, but weather was great, and I wanted to drive as fast as possible, without skipping good view points. There were numerous checkpoints, and we stopped for a few of them. It was all very nice, and surprisingly, it reminded me of driving south shore of Maui, but instead of water ocean on the other side of the road, it was the big mountain range. If there is a destination of this drive, it would be the visitor center located close to Grossglockner, the highest mountain in Austria. But by the time we got there, it was pretty dark. It wasn't that late, but the visitor center is surrounded by mountains, so there would be sunlight only when it's earlier in the day. Our hotel for that night is in Zell am See, not far from the entrance of this alpine road. But it would be a harder drive, going back the same way, in the dark. So we chose to finish the drive, and got out at the other end of the road. Then we speeded through the highway around the mountains. By the time we reached our hotel, it was well past 8pm. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=115

www.flickr.com View as slideshow On our way to the city of Salzburg, we made a stop at a town called Zell am See, and stayed there overnight. It is not far from Salzburg, in fact it is in the same state, also called Salzburg. This is basically ski country in winter time, hiking for the summer. Our hotel (more like a road-side motel) seems to be a good place for skiers, but this time around the hotel is filled with people doing road trips. The town itself was pretty quietly, with only a handful of people. Maybe it has more to do with the fact that we got there pretty late. Most places were closed already, so we were lucky to find a restaurant open late even in quiet season. Food was alright with good price, but they spoke little English; so we kinda feel like eating where locals eat. There are a few interesting attractions between here and the city of Salzburg. One of the more well-known attractions is the Grossglockner High Alpine Road, which we visited just before we checked into our hotel in Zell am See. Then on the next day, we visited two more attractions before getting to Salzburg. In terms of timing, I think we followed our plan quite good; one attraction in the morning, another one in early afternoon, and then reaching Salzburg in early evening. Both attractions require some hiking (nothing Naomi could not handle.) First attraction we went to is called Liechtenstein Gorge, where they built walkpaths in a narrow canyon in mountains. There is a river running through it as we walked up, and eventually when we reached the end, there was a nice big waterfall. Then in the afternoon, we went to an attraction called Eisriesenwelt, literally means World of the Ice Giants. It is supposed to be the largest ice cave in the world, and with some lighting inside, it is quite nice to look at. However, it is a long way from the parking lot to the actual cave; there was 40 minutes of walking with a cable car ride in the mix. I actually thought the hike going up was not bad, and we got some really nice weather. We just had to rush a little bit when we got close to the cave because the ice cave tour was about to begin. The tour wasn't terribly exciting, we just get to walk a bit in this huge cave, and to see some interesting ice formation with pretty lights. Like most other places, we weren't allowed to take pictures, but I doubt we can have any nice pictures in such dark cave. MSN Sync from http://www.lightrelay.com/?p=114

You know you are watching a pretty good movie, if not a great one, when the movie got complete attention of you and most other people in the theatre.  It happened when we were watching WALL-E, closer to the end of the movie, when the female robot EVE had tried everything to fix WALL-E and nothing seems to work, there was complete silence in the theatre, a theatre jam-packed with small kids, teenagers, and parents; everyone was just so intently watching.  Obviously this kind of experience works the best in a full theatre (it's kinda easy to get that in a mostly empty theatre) but it doesn't happen for most movies.

 

There was another moment in the movie I remember, when WALL-E was about to enter the scene (to "save the day"); while it was nothing spectacular and little suspense of who is coming in, one kid yelled out, "it's WALL-E!!".  It's funny that everyone in the theatre can hear the kid so clearly, and most people including me just had to laugh.  It almost felt like a community in the movie theatre.

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