I AMsterdam

It’s time to kickstart my European summer travel plans and the first destination on the list is Amsterdam! I’ve arranged myself to go with a group consisting of Carl, Hannah, Carolyn and Wai Yi. The planned period was from 22nd June till 26th June and we were supposed to take Jet 2 down from Leeds to Amsterdam on the morning of 22nd. Due to some miscommunication (me not reachable because of phone problems), WY did not purchase my tickets since she could not get confirmation from me. I tried to get the same flight on the net but just within the time period of 24hrs, the price had risen way beyond the 9.99 pounds to some ridiculously priced 40-50 pounds. The only 9.99 pounds ticket was the evening before on the 21st. I figured out that I should take a chance with that instead of paying unnecessarily. This leads to two options of either going to downtown Amsterdam to stay for a night a hostel or to sleep overnight at the Schiphol airport. Once again, financial considerations had led me to pick sleeping at the airport but I’m confident that it’s not going to be a bad experience. The key is not to leave the transit area of the airport. I did some research on the net about sleeping at Schiphol airport and the reviews weren’t too bad. I had personal experience at Schiphol’s transit area from my transit time at the airport in September last year and I would say its facilities are top class.

So, on the 21st, I made my way down alone to Leeds airport to take the flight. I arrived at Amsterdam around 6.30pm local time. With so much time to kill, I decided to go around to look for dinner (other than McD) that won’t blow up my pocket. My search was not too successful because in the end I still ended up eating Dutch McD because the other food areas were just too expensive. After eating, I went around to find a suitable place to sleep. I was thinking of the chairs near some bistro which I had seen but the characteristics of those chair would not allow me to lie down. The other one was the lounge area with some comfortable sofas/bean bags but the problem is that it may get pretty congested later in the night and there won’t be any privacy. Somehow I bumped onto a section know as “comfort chairs” (lol) and they are perfect! These chairs are reclined with a leather padding overlooking the runway. The section that I went to was not really populated by lots of people. I spent the rest of the night there with my newly acquired netbook and used part of the free 1 hr internet to log onto FB. The 8hrs of sleep was great as I was the only one in the area and I woke up being greeted by the sunrise at the runway. Voila! One night of accommodation saved!

In the morning, my area became rather congested though because flights are coming in. It was time to shift myself to McD since I’ve told WY that I’ll meet them there. I bought myself a McKroket for breakfast which I was feeling rather curious to try. McKroket is only available in the Netherland. After munching on the burger, I have no idea what filling the patty was, other than the feeling that it tasted like mashed potato fried in breadcrumbs. WY and the rest soon arrived and after breakfast, we checked out of immigration without much problems. The first thing to do now is to take a train down to the city center and look for our hostel. One of the first interesting sights that I saw at the train station was the double-decker train which we took to downtown.

It did not take long for us to find the hostel but we could not check-in because we were there too early. We left our bags at the counter first for them to store and then off we went to the main square to catch the free tour. Just like the one in Paris, the free tour gave us a rough idea on where to and what to expect around Amsterdam. We went back to the hostel to check-in after the tour. The room is quite cramped for 5 people. Basically it has 2 double decker beds and one single bed thrown into the middle. I took the middle bed..haha. It was stated that Wi-Fi is charged but we were able to access it without the password anyways, so charge attempt fail. In the evening, we went to pay a visit to Anne Frank’s house, which is now a museum. It was a long queue to get in and to make matters worst, it was raining with strong winds. My pathetic 1 pound umbrella got destroyed in the process and I had to get drenched with my jacket on. We managed to gain entry eventually. Since the museum does not allow camera, I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the interior. Anyways, the layout inside the house is very simple, most of the original furniture had been removed except for a few. The secret attic chamber is still there. Since there were so much of visitors in the house, it gets rather cramped and very often a long stretch of queue forms as we navigate through the narrow corridors of the house. At some sections, we can’t stop the read because the narrow corridor would mean that we would have to continue moving so as not to hold up the people behind. At the end of the museum trail is a small exhibition on the Holocaust in general. We went back to the hostel pretty early at around 8pm also after getting our dinner.

On the next day, we took a bus down to the outskirts of Amsterdam to have a look at one area with lots of windmills. The windmill is one of the trademark symbols of the Netherlands but it’s not the only thing that is found there. There’s a cheese shop which makes traditional Dutch cheese and also a Dutch clog factory. We did a small walk around the area, filled with streams and rivers before proceeding on to the clog factory. I had the opportunity to watch how a clog was made from a block of timber. After feeling satisfied going around, we took a bus back to the city centre. The group decided to rent bicycles to go around Amsterdam instead of taking the public transport. I was a little apprehensive but decided to give it a try since one of the Amsterdam experience is to try riding a bike around the cities like the locals. You see, the problem with Stan is that most of his cycling days are in a park. I have no problem riding a bike, but add cars zooming beside you and other impatient cyclists along a narrow strip of pathway sound alot like a recipe for disaster. Anyways, we cycled to a nearby park so that Carolyn can have a crash course on biking. That took quite some time and when we were done, we cycled back to city centre to park our bikes somewhere before heading off to search for food. Mhmmm..food choices are a little bit hard because everywhere seems to be expensive but we settled to eat at one Italian bistro in the end.

We started off the 3^rd day by checking out the wet market. It was literally wet because the morning weather was gloomy and it was drizzling all over the place. There ain’t much to see because tulip season is over and most of the stuff that are being sold were gardening materials. We proceeded next on our bikes to the Heineken factory. This was the original brewery which was first established in Amsterdam. Hmmmm..I never knew Heineken was Dutch..lol. The museum was quite interesting as it provides some information regarding its origins. There’s also demonstrations on how beer is created. The room with the giant boilers were preserved for visitors to see and those metallic containers are huge! We get to sample Heineken straight from the tap too. At the end of it, we were given two complimentary pints. We redeemed one only though because drinking 2 during an afternoon may be a little too much. Besides, there is a risk that we may be too drunk to ride a bike too..haha. I got myself an interesting souvenir – a Heineken bottle of beer personalised with my own name on it. It’s only 5 Euros and the only setback is that I need to pay another 5 to transport it across back to England. We returned our bikes to the rental shop at around late afternoon and at that time, I was feeling relieved to be able to walk on two legs instead of man-handling the bike in congested Amsterdam. Nevertheless, I have to say that cycling in Amsterdam itself is quite an interesting experience. We spent the remaining evening just exploring Amsterdam on foot. The red light district was an ubiquitous feature and we were warned not to take pictures of the booths because they don’t like tourists doing that. Other than the red light district, there are numerous shops selling everything related to love-making – condoms, DVDs, live shows. Weed of course is another prevalent substance distributed throughout the city and they can be easily obtained from the 200 over “coffeeshops” spread all over Amsterdam. Some of these coffeeshops don’t only sell weed-smoking services but also various other cakes laced with weed (which they call space cakes) and some weird nonsense known as magic mushrooms.

On the final day, we did a short visit of the city’s Heineken souvenir stall before heading off to the airport to catch a flight back to Manchester. Ahhhhh, Amsterdam has certainly been fun and eye-opening at the same time.

P.S. While I was in Amsterdam, I received rumours and congratulations at Facebook for my exam results. You see, the provisional exam results are to be out while we were holidaying in Amsterdam. While hundreds of law students are eagerly checking their results, WY and I are two law students who are still lepaking in Amsterdam, having no idea or confirmation of our results other than rumours from friends. Now, I didn’t want to get excited over anything while I was in Amsterdam and I shut out any news on the results from others because I really wanna enjoy myself without thinking about exam results. The confirmation of classification will be finalised on 1^st of July. Till then, I ain’t gonna speak anything about it!

3 Doors Down LIVE @ Manchester Academy

It was Carly who gave me the heads up for this concert a few months before. Since I couldn’t find any worthwhile concerts to attend during summer, I quickly snapped it up online after hearing about it. There were plans to be there early to get the front row, so I booked a 9.30am train ticket to Manchester Piccadily. I met up with Carly at the station and we went to have food at the Arndale shopping mall food court. Since we had lots of time to kill, we ended up chatting for a couple of hours.

We started to make our way to Manchester Academy around 3hrs before the start of the concert. Along the way, we bought our packed dinner from McD to eat. When we arrived at Manchester Academy, there were a few people waiting in line already. Wow, I didn’t know 3 Doors Down were such a big hit in England..lol. Our waiting period was made complicated when it started to rain. It wasn’t a heavy downfall but it was potent enough to make one wet. We squeezed ourselves to the side pavement with a thin shelter. It rained for quite a while before the grey clouds passed away. By then, two queues had already formed, one on the left entrance and we were standing on the right entrance. It looks like one of the lines is gonna get short-changed in entering early. It turned out in the end that my line was allowed to proceed in first! Ah, I felt sorry for the other line because they would have to join my line’s queue which by now would have extended beyond the student union.

When we entered, there was already a first row there which I assume is the people with VIP pass. But we didn’t get it too bad at second row. For the opening band, we had a British hard punk rock band from Brighton called the Crave. Although the doors were opened, 3 Doors Down did not start playing until around 9.15am. Their status as an internationally recognised band is apparent. After the Crave had departed, the stage was cleared of all wires. 3DD’s stage set was clean because all of them were using wireless instruments.

Well, 3DD is one rock band which I would regard as a nostalgic reminder of the high school days of my generation. During the early 2000s, 3DD was prominent with Here Without You and Kryptonite. I wouldn’t say I’m familiar with all of their other songs like how I am with Paramore or Muse but 3DD makes good listening. Another one that’s worth listening to is Away From the Sun. The 3DD band members ain’t young anymore. They look like they’re going into their 40s already and somehow the lead singer Bradley Arnold gave an “apek-ish” aura when he came out in his white singlet. Somehow, the song list for the concert got passed around the audience and as expected, Kryptonite was left to the last during the encore period. I have fond memories of course, of Kryptonite because when I was in Sec 1 at SJI, I saw it being performed live by my Sec 4 seniors. While “Holiday” was the threshold of me getting into the rock scene, “Kryptonite” was actually my personal prototype of that inspiration.

I was getting a bit worried at first on the late starting time because I may end up missing my train at 11.30pm. Thankfully, it ended just on the dot at 11pm, giving me ample time to walk from the academy to Manchester Oxford station, which is of a considerable distance. Ahh, it was a good concert and yesh, yet another one to the list. The only thing that I lament about is that thanks to some bungling up in phone numbers, my new Panasonic FZ45 camera did not arrive on time for the concert. And silly me did not borrow Henna’s camera as a back-up plan, thanks to some bad overconfidence that the new camera will arrive in time. As a result, I had to record concert footage with the lousy video recorder from my Nikon camera. Ahhhh, I’m not pleased. This is not what I envision for my last rock concert outing in Europe. I’ll have to hunt harder on the net for one last big bang rock concert where I can utilise my new HD camera gear at least once.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

It all started out in Leo’s photo album where I spotted a comment from one of my former journalism junior, Clara. It turns out that both of them are mutual friends with each other at NUS. From there, I got to know from Clara that my former JC English Lit lecturer, Miss Kwok is making a trip down to London in June. Arrangements were made on when to meet and it was decided also that we would catch a show at the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. I took a bus down as it is a cheaper option and would plan to return back by bus too. This meant only a mere 13 pounds for a 1 day London return trip. Once I’ve reached Victoria station, I met up with Clara and we went to find Miss Kwok. Along the way, I received news that we’ll meeting a fieldtrip group from my JC and that another one of my former lecturers would be there too. Woah, during my time, the only fieldtrip that we heard of was to Vietnam and now the kids get to fly to England.

As a uni student now, I suddenly felt quite old looking at the JC kids in the group. 3 years ago, I was at their stage. We hang around the group for a while before moving off to our own directions. We proceeded on to have lunch at one of the Spanish BBQ stalls near the Thames River. We had 2 bowls of paella shared among ourselves. After lunch, we took a slow walk to the Globe Theatre. I’ve heard of the Globe Theatre (from playing Civilization games) but never seen it personally myself. Apparently this famous Globe Theatre in London is merely a reconstruction of the model that Shakespeare had during his time. Clara booked for us standing tickets for “All’s well that ends well” and it costs just a measly 5 pounds! That’s really a value deal for a unique experience of a lifetime. Wow..apparently the more expensive tickets are the seated ones but the irony is that the standing area is the actually the better experience. This is because the standing audience get to be as close to the actors as possible and we get to have an experience how an open-sky theatre feels like.

The Globe Theatre management were strict on camera policies – no video taking or cameras during performance time. During the performance, I could see that Shakespeare plays were the medieval cinemas of his time. It was like watching a film, except that very old English was used and live music were played. There was a slight drizzle at the interval but thank God there’s no heavy rainfall. Anyways, it was a very good show and kudos to the actors for bringing out the comedic effects of the character.

After the show we had some ice-cream before sending Clara off to the tube station since her bus is coming earlier. I accompanied Miss Kwok along the Thames River for a short walk before heading off to Victoria Bus Station myself. It was great catching up with some of the old people from my previous stage of life and I certainly never expect us to meet up in a foreign land – of all places..lol. The irony is that we probably wouldn’t be able to find the occasion to meet up at Singapore itself. Nevertheless, Miss Kwok pointed out that it’s always nice to share moments of exploring a new place with her students. In any case, Miss Kwok herself has always been one of the lecturers that I personally respect because of her passion and dedication in teaching English Literature. Even after years later, I still find her passion for teaching English Lit is burning as strong as ever and I’m indeed thankful to be able to learn under her during my time in JC.

The Brontës and Haworth

Ever since I had found out that the Brontë sisters had originated from West Yorkshire last year, I’ve been interested to make a trip to check out the house in which they had grown up. The village which the sisters grew up in is called Haworth and it’s situated very near to Bradford. It is reachable from Leeds with a bus ride away. As a former English Literature student, this is definitely something not to be missed with me living so nearby. On the week before, I sent out invitation to as many as possible to see who’s interested and in the end, only two responded in coming – Leo and Xinzhe. The bus trip took longer than expected and we had to change at Keighley bus station for another bus which heads into the village. Haworth used to have a functional rail station but right now, it’s just for aesthetic fun for tourists who wanna experience steam trains.

One of the locals had overheard us in the bus that we were heading to Brontë Parsonage and offered to lead us there since she’s working in that area. The parsonage is a simple house, nothing grand about it but it is worth noting the words of Charlotte Brontë describing her dwelling place. Inside the parsonage, we get to see the layout of the house – the kitchens and the important rooms. Some of the personal belongings of the family were placed on display. It is quite interesting that among the belongings of the father, Patrick Brontë, were locks of Charlotte’s hair sealed in a locket. Now we know that hair do not decompose and it’s always one of the last things that remain after a person is long gone. So, if we were to take Charlotte’s hair and subject it to some DNA testing, I bet we can find out a thing or two on her family lineage and the reason for the sisters’ early demise to diseases. Another peculiar exhibit was Emily Brontë’s room where pencil scribbles on the house wall were preserved. There were also works of the sisters on display and I’m amazed how they had actually squeezed all their writing in mini-books which were only readable by a magnifying glass. The parsonage does not allow cameras in the house, so it’s unfortunate that I could not take pictures of the interior to share.

After going through the whole house and reading accounts on how life for the sisters were like, I can’t help but feel that the parsonage has an air of tragedy about it. It is interesting to note that Patrick the father survived the longest, outliving his wife and children to a ripe old age. I guess it must have been painful for him to live through the remaining of the years, especially after the death of Charlotte and to see his loved ones wither away while he remained alive. Nevertheless, within that short period of time, the 3 sisters had produced literary works which remained very much respected within the domain of English Literature scholars today. My first encounter with the works was on Wuthering Heights which was briefly touched upon by my primary school English textbook and I had heard of Jane Eyre before. I had never really gotten down to read the books though and maybe after this trip, I should check them out.

After the parsonage visit, we went to check out the surroundings. There was the Haworth church where Patrick used to preach and inside the church is also the Brontë family vault where the remains of the family were laid to rest there with the exception of Anne who was buried in Scarborough. Then there’s the surrounding moorlands where sheep were grazing peacefully. We checked out the small town center of Haworth and proceeded to have lunch at one of the shops over there. After lunch, Leo suggested that we go explore the Brontë trail which stretches deep into the countryside where we will come across a waterfall and streams. That was something which I did not thought of and I was kinda lazy to walk long distance but since we were already here, might as well go taste some Yorkshire countryside. We went to ask for directions in the parsonage shop and we were told that it would take at least 3hrs to go back and forth and one way would be about 5.6km. Wow! It was almost 4pm when we set off but since this is summer time, we need not worry about getting lost in the dark since the sun sets only from 8/9pm+. We had to walk almost 30 mins along the main road before even hitting the start of the trail..haha. As we walked through the dirt path that cuts along the moorlands, we went through plenty of sheep (hence the reason why the United faithful always sing about Elland Road being full of sheep). The terrain gradually became less flat and smooth as we went on and there is a need to climb through rocks and jump across muddy patches. Bronte falls came into view and we had a small wash over by the stream. The water is terribly icy and yes, one could imagine the sisters coming over here for their daily evening walks. But this is only halfway! There is another half more to complete and the end destination in mind was the old willow tree and house on top of a hill which was Emily Brontë’s source of inspiration for Wuthering heights. From the falls, I could spot the willow tree in the horizon. It is quite ubiquitous in its surrounding and there’s a house beside the tree too. There seems to be a strange aura surrounding the tree.

After the rest, we proceeded on by climbing up a steep rocky slope. My mind kinda wondered what would that mysterious house turn out to be. An empty haunted wooden house? A shop? Toilet? Or a place with vending machine? I was joking to the other two that I hope someone would be making us Yorkshire tea at the other end. Part of me hoped that my joke was true because by then, I was extremely thirsty and I didn’t bring any water bottle with me. The house became larger as we moved nearer. It was interesting to note that there were signboards in Chinese. I see that the house has somewhat become an international pilgrimage site for literature lover..lol.

It took quite some time but we made it to the top in the end. And the ‘house’ turns out to be made of stone rather than wood and it lies in ruins without a roof (although from the distance, it looked like it had a roof). There’s still a structure outline of the house and what remains of the living hall is a square filled with plants and weed. There’s a plague which was laid on one of the house walls which mentioned about it being an inspiration to Emily Brontë. What a mysterious house indeed! Who would live all the way out here in isolation and how would life be over here in the 19^th Century? The oak tree beside the house looked like a wrinkled gargantuan trunk, and I presume it’s also at least a century old, sitting there through the sands of time in blissful isolation as the world outside of the Yorkshire moorlands crashes to its knees. Anyways, the scenery up there at the house is amazing. I could see vast masses of land in the horizon with nothing but sheep and grass and some modern windmills. Once we were satisfied in exploring the place, we started to descend back to the way we came from. The oak tree started to look smaller and smaller until it became a merely a speck in the horizon. I just can’t help feeling an aura of tragedy swirling around that tree as I watched it from afar. The journey back felt shorter and at the bus-stop, I was thirsty but only had Leo’s potato chips to munch on.

Overall, it was a memorable and reflective journey. The Brontë sisters may have tragic lives but they left behind a legacy in the English Literature world. The track across the countryside was not on my original list of agenda but I was glad to have tried it. Nobody should leave Yorkshire without experiencing its countryside..lol. Looks like I can give another tick now at the list of things-to-do for English Literature!