Holland Trip... Day 1 @ Rijnsburg

this is the start of a series of posts on my recent trip to holland, co-organised by daddy, auntie soo lee and auntie jasmine. it was great fun, and we were blessed the whole trip with excellent sights, beautiful landscapings, and pretty flowers galore!

definitely have to take this opportunity to thank auntie sue and uncle mike for being such hospitable hosts, and allowing us to stay in their house the whole trip. we must have been such a nuisance (well, at least i am!! hehe!) that auntie sue may have a tinge of regret offering to let us stay there! :-)

we arrived at amsterdam's schipol airport in the wee hours of the morning (dutch time, of course!). we were caught unawares by the cold weather... really really cold! daddy said it was below 10 deg C that morning, whatever that meant! brrrr.... freezing!

on the way back to auntie sue's house, i noticed there were a lot of these nice gigantic fans all along the countryside! daddy later told me they were windmills, modern ones that is. gotta clarify that, coz holland is full of windmills, both traditional as well as modern ones, like in this picture.

ahhh, finally reached auntie sue's house in this picture! i dozed off in the taxi, and continued to snooze on even after reaching our destination. hey, i'm still a baby, u know... gotta have my naps!! :-) furthermore, the different timezone has set my biological clock bonkers! i think i slept during the day for most of the first few days there...

what a nice view from auntie sue's house. that's a water canal... and the city is just full of it! by the way, this little town is called Rijnsburg, about half hour's drive from Amsterdam. auntie sue and uncle mike really hit the nail on the head with this property selection... nice location and neighbourhood!

while waiting for auntie sue to prepare lunch, we went out for a short walk around the neighbourhood. this shop called Blokker, just a stone's throw away from auntie sue's house, was to be mommy's favourite shop, as she discovered later on... hahaha! needless to say, we spent A LOT of time in this shop over the next 2 weeks, with mommy shopping and shopping for goods to bring home! :-)

here's a picture of me with grandpa. the weird object in the background is the refuse collection bin. residents in the neighbourhood are given keys to open the hatch, to drop their garbage in. collection is done, uhhh, underground... errr, somehow...

after lunch, we all went out together for an afternoon walk. it was still a cold cold day, despite the time being 2pm in the afternoon. some really nice houses in this area, and according to auntie sue, expensive too!

some people keep their gardens really nice, with beautiful flowers in full bloom! did i say it was cold? yeah, it was really cold... brrrr!!