Day 13 - Jazz day in Ginnekin, Breda

A little visit to the wind mill in the morning..

Typical houses in Dutch land. A lot of green pastures.

Andrea enjoying her bubbly iced lemon tea. She like!

We then moved on to Jazz in the street which are lined with pubs. It was monday, Easter holiday. Everyone flocked to the pubs to listen to some jazz.. They are preparing for the annual jazz festival in May.

Swing..

This is another bar we went to. Uncle Hans like this one.. A trio here

Again! We are on the terrace eating, drinking, chatting and joking.

Bitterballas! Chicken paste covered in fried bread crumps, dipped in bitter mustard! It's a dutch thing.

Eindhoven Day 12

Before arriving in any of the countries that we were visiting, i did my research.. see if there's any exhibitions on or whatever. They had one on in Eindhoven. That's like 45mins drive from where we were staying.

we were off to STRP festival. Light, sound and technology festival. Weird stuff.

So we set out on the long drive. Long drives cuz we have long chats and the locals tell you about history and the dutch jokes.

Yea. So you see.. Weird stuff at the exhibition. Loud weird ear piercing audio experience.

you can visit the webbie if you wanna know more.
www.STRP.nl


The expo was held at the old Philips (the electronics company) factory. The original. It's kinda messed up as you can see.

After the expo, we headed around the town of Eindhoven to check it out. (that's us driving aorund town!) As you can see from above, the roads are empty cuz it's Sunday!

All the shops are closed. And it's custom that ppl stay home and hibernate. Ghostly roads.

Eindhoven, birth place of Philips. There are Philips buildings everywhere!

A Dutch boy at the road side picking flowers for, i suppose, his friend.

Yeap, we needed a tea break, so we settled down for a dutch sausage and some fries.

a little video..

This is at a restaurant in St. Germaine En Laye in Paris. Thang Long Vietnamese, entertained by the boss himself, who was a concert pianist.

Antwerp Day 11

Hello again to my dood around the world. It is small indeed!

Today, the weather was warmer than the usual cold. We slept in while the parents went on a supermarche(supermarket) trip to buy the breakfast/lunch.

So the plan was to go on a short road trip down south to Antwerp, Belgium. So yea! Add 1 more euro country to the list! England, France, Netherlands and to Belgium! But now we’re back in their house in Holland.

So this is Benjamin(family friend of the aunt Siew Kien), driving, and andrea holding on tight. We set off in 3 cars. A 2 Citroens and an Opel. An average speed of 130km/h on the freeway.






This is Andrea at Antwerp. The streets are very tight. Everything has been conserved and kept as original as possible. I like this common European policy. Conservation!

Nick and dad with the town hall in the background. De cathedral the tallest structure in the area..

Pointy houses that are now cafes, homes and chocolate shops

I forgot what we were doing.. yea.

After walking though the more trendy area of Antwerp, we settled down on the terrace for a drink.

“At the terrace!” – meaning lets have a drink, alfresco style.

This is Mark(my cousin), Benjamin and uncle Hans.

Tight alleys and walkways. And look at the roads we're walking on. Even the roads we drive on are like that. Rocky road..

Ah! We finished off Antwerp with a movie at some kickass cinema. Then a last drink here at the terrace! Ooh it’s getting cold again! Brr!

Netherlands

Hello! We've arrived in Netherlands already! A 3 hour train from Paris, and here we are at another cousin's house.

Cut the long story short yea. My camera has 'malfunction' or 'cease to operate' yea? so there will be a lack of photos. I am sad. But dont worry, i still have andrea's and mom's camera!

take care everyone! =))

Paris Day 9

Ah! I’m writing on the train now. We’re on the way to Netherlands now to meet my other cousins. It’s been a busy 2 days, that’s why we haven’t been blogging..

Anyways. Yesterday, we devoted the entire day for an educational trip to some art universities. But before all that, we went to Galeries Lafayette. It’s like a Isetan in Sg.

This building you see here is devoted to the Women, the building next to it is for the Males.

The view from the main atrium, it’s just very beautiful!

Ok.. so we are here at the first university. Beaux-Art de Paris. This uni is quite up there. Not sure if it’s the best in France, but yea.

One of Julien’s friend, Jean-baptiste, (JB in short) took us for a tour around the premises, to the classrooms, studios and galleries.

The have all the freedom in the world to do whatever they want.

On the way to the next school, we passed by some pretty cool shops. Like this one where Julien goes to buy his art materials. It’s the oldest around. And sexpensive too.

The next University we went to is Julien’s very own school. They have animation, product design, fashion design etc.

What’s cool is that popstar designer Philippe Starck designed the interiors and retro fitted the exteriors.

We couldn’t tour the insides but we visited the toilets. That’s all.

Dad eating some very sweet juicy yummy strawberries on the way to another school.

And at long last, we arrived at a art school in Gobelins. This is one of the best animation school around.

St Germaine (Paris) Day 7

1.hi world. yesterday was a lazy day. so ern didn't blog. if you havent noticed, im not ern. and ern's not blogging for yesterday. reason being: ern was not involved yesterday. that's him at 11am, volcano hair and the lack of pants means he just got up... up and about on facebook, not caring about ernksy@blogspot.

2.so we woke up late and wasted the morning (yes i know, we're on holiday in europe, we should squeeze every penny/euro/krono out of the trip, blah, blah, blah). we were too tired from the day before's strainous activity: holidaying. there was a football match too. UEFA Champion's league. very odd that we didnt have to drag ourselves out of bed at 4am to watch these matches.. Regarding football match timings, living in Europe's quite glorious. I'd rather eat after-dinner-desserts and chug a beer during a match than rub crust outta my eye.

2.5. michel is happy too.

3.this is me, ern and domo-kun satisfied at one of life's simple pleasure- microwavable food, aka. food on demand.
did i mention one of life's simple pleasures are microwavable food, aka. food on demand.
anyway, we bought for 4 boys to eat: mash potato with cheese, cordon bleu x6, lasagna (1kg), rissotto, cheese burger and fries.

4.5. the men + andrea chilled in the garden out in the cold while waiting for dinner. chasing whiskey with beer.

4.after the ladies returned from shopping, they retired to the kitchen.. to cook. not really a retirement there eh?

Andrea is happy.

Julien is happier.


5.dad presents the beer.