Europe - Amsterdam
Amsterdam wasn’t part of the cities we planned to visit but we had no regrets making a stopover at the City of Bicycles.
Our Easy Jet flight departed from Marco Polo to Schipol Airport for a 2 hours journey. Love how fuss-free the check-in was as we only had to drop our luggage at the counter. Check-in had to be done online beforehand which was good to avoid long queue and delay in waiting time.
Landed AMS at 6pm and realized that my Cony luggage tag was missing when I got my luggage haiz. Isit ada staff took it for their anak??? I will never know. (I'm a fan of Line characters and had matching tags with Yazid haiz.)
Made our way to the train station but got confused with the signboard prolly bcs it wasn’t in English and there were many platforms to go to. Gave up on using the machine and proceed to queue at the counter because communicating with a human is always better, guys.
Bought disposable single fare ticket throughout the trip since we were only in AMS for a day. Reached Sloterdijk Station and walked for quite a distance from train station to look for Teleport Hotel as lousy me (OIC) had no sense of direction. IF ONLY WE COULD TELEPORT TO THE HOTEL. Ended up walking the long way instead of a 5-minute walk but we were welcomed BY SUPER FRIENDLY STAFF(S) so the long walk was worth it hehe.
Location was definitely not the best (it was kinda isolated) but I wished we stayed longer all thanks to the excellent customer service! SO enthu and humorous pls. The room was uber clean and they gave us a new extra bed (case masih in plastic, they unwrapped it in front of us!) and also had a microwave and sink (not those in bathroom), of course we felt that we got more than what we expected!
Do you see our cup noodles? Huhu. Cancelled our night plans as all of us were tired and the beds was calling for us. Really not sure if we were still jetlag (but we were already in Europe for a week by now) or that we walked A LOT or having to drag our luggage around that made us exhausted all the time.
Woke up the next morning full of energy instead of sleepy although it was raining in the morning. Can I also say that AMS WAS FREEZING?!! The girls felt the same way too so imagined how I (tried to) survived the cold and thanks to that, I looked like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer hahaha. OH, remember how I said the hotel was isolated? Just see how empty the road was >>>
Made our way to the Centraal station where we rent a bike (and totally forgot to take pictures, wait what?) to explore Amsterdam. I don’t know if I was too laid-back despite the fact that we were lost the whole day but those were actually my favourite part of the whole trip HAHA IM SORRY GIRLS. I mean, it got quite frustrating sometimes but as long as we had each other, the company was still good kan…….. hehehe.
Spot the 'Yellow' bike hahahaha yes we rode that.
AMS is beautiful!!! Luvvvvv the housing estates and our cycling journey. They had a lane for cyclists on the main road but there were times where we cycled at the wrong one because there were no arrow signs! Thank God for the locals who would point out the correct way since they knew we were tourists hahahaha (green or yellow rental bikes are meant for us).
It was crowded by the time we reached ‘I Am Sterdam’ slogan so it was challenging for us to take a photo of it AND with it.
We then decided to walk to Albert Cuyp Street Market which was slightly less than 1km away. It was a quiet walk and wasn’t too touristy, I luv’ it.
The market was nothing short of amazing so it was nice roaming around the streets and eating snacks during chilly weather.
Tak lepas dengan bubble tea this person
It started to rain again and by then our hands were so numb!!! I had gloves and heatpad with me, but the girls were real survivors for having neither of them hahahha good job girls. You belong to live in such weather :P
By evening, we returned back to our hotel to take our luggage and took Metro 50 to get to Duivendrecht Station. This is a different train from the one we took from airport and to Centraal station. CONFUSING KAN. Of course the best way is to always ask and communicate with human hehehe.
If you’re wondering why we didn’t stay at AMS long enough, it’s because our main plan since the start was to be in London FOR A WEEK (which happen of course!). EXCITING PLZ. Took an overnight Eurolines coach for 10 hours from Station Duivendrecht to Victoria Coach Station which have free wifi muahahaha.
SWEAR TO GOD I WAS SHIVERING LIKE CRAZY when we had to alight at Coquelles to stamp our passport. We expected the weather to be about 10 to 13 degrees based on our research but guess we underestimated it. Ni lah budak Singaporeans tak pernah pergi negeri sejuk tsk tsk.
On to London for the next few entries. Felt like home here thanks to the busy cities life!