We had another typical western breakfast which is scramble eggs and bacon at the hotel which i actually adore having and the croissant there is just ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!! Totally different feeling from the ones best made in Malaysia too hehe. Lunch on this day was no provided in our tour (yes one of the cons of going with a tour) so some of us just wrap some food for later and even one of the uncles made a sandwich and wrapped it in tissue so no one will notice. Well that saves his lunch money for later..
So anyway we checked out of the hotel after breakfast (yes we stayed for a night only) because we are going to head for Belgium later.That morning was really foggy and still so freezing cold. It had rain last night but still sadly no snow! (Darn it). But it was only 8am and it was 0 degrees celcius. Thank god i wore 4 layers of clothes including my coat so it wasn't too much for me like last night's experience. But that did not stop the beauty of the streets of Amsterdam. It was so early and there were already a lot people walking and cycling to work already. The houses there just catches my breath and i couldn't stop looking out at the window in the bus. I took some pictures inside the bus on the road to our next stop.
After that we went to see how diamonds are made in a diamond factory called Gazzan Diamonds and there also sell branded watches and diamonds of course.
Okay after looking at a girl's best friend and had a free cup of hot coffee. Next stop, SHOPPING!! Teehee.. So our next stop is shopping at the factory outlet shops called the Batavia Stad which is like a place of lots of wholesale shops where branded fashion are there also like Nike, Polo, Converse etc. We were given 4 hours of alone shopping time there including the time to fill up our tummy. One of the best things i saw in Amsterdam is that a lot of people there have dogs and most of them (the small breeds one) wears a shirt! It is so adorable just looking at them in cute little shirts walking infront of their owners! They say because the shirt keeps the little dogs warm especially those dogs with short furs. And not only that, the dogs follows wherever the owners goes like literally WHEREVER (exp for restaurants). The owners will just go inside shops with their dogs on a leash beside them and walk around the shops and shop. You don't see that in Malaysia for sure. Even though the dog is a huge and fluffy dog, they don't bark or even go mad around strangers, they just follow quietly with their owners into the shops! OMG to me that is just so cute and nice.
My family and i actually shop for really 4 hours flat forgetting our lunch and we only got the chance to walk at the first street. Totally spent too much time on one shop at a time. The things there are really quite cheap and acceptable (due to the 16% of tax refund).
After 4 hours of shopping, we are headed to Belgium!!! It is a 4 hours drive from Amsterdam to Belgium and the worst thing that happen that day was a massive traffic jam which delayed our trip for an hour or two i think. The scenery during the drive was really beautiful as the sun was setting and there are lots of windmills.
see those white sky lines??
Those are the tracks of an aeroplane that took off.
We had reached Belgium around 6pm and the sky was like 9.30pm dark, totally weird feeling. We had chinese food for dinner that night which was not really nice (especially the spicy sour soup which taste absolutely bad that no one drank it at all) and after that its back to the hotel. We were staying at Hotel Mariotte which is about 20 minutes drive from town. Belgium is totally different from Amsterdam. Belgium is more of a little busy city and there are many migrants there whereas Amsterdam is more of a quiet place and there are no africans there. Belgium is much dirty compare to Amsterdam and the number of migrants on the street pretty much scares me and yes, there are a lot of pick pockets there too. The people there are a bit different from the people in Amsterdam. There are still a few people that cycles there but many just drives. So just a 20 minute drive at town to go to our hotel has already made my mind up about Belgium.
So as a conclusion, we din't do much on that day except shop and see how diamonds are made. We din't go out at night to the town at Belgium which is not included in our tour package (an another cons of going with a tour) and non of us feel like going out by ourselves anyway with the number of migrants that we just saw on the streets. (no offense they all look really big and fierce-looking) But from what Sam said, it just takes us 20 minutes to reach town from our hotel by using the metro. So to me it was not much of a day and i would definitely want to go Amsterdam again by myself as there are so much more not seen yet.
Stay tuned guys!! :D
Nichole
