I visited Amsterdam, Netherland end of October-early November 2015. It was almost a week of exploring the city and it’s surrounding. It is my first time exploring the city on my own, on foot, and on tour bus. I did a solo exploration to Munich, Germany years back but, yeah. Amsterdam is amazing.

People are friendly, no matter how Asian you look. It’s a very liberal country, they don’t judge you based on your skin, religion, even sexual orientation. I feel super comfortable roaming around the town on my own. I feel safe.

Literally.

My itinerary was simple:

Day 1: Touch down Amsterdam, get over the jet lagged. Yes, I am really affected by the jet-lag.

Day 1: Visiting the Rijksmuseum !! The BEST museum in the entire Europe. Enough said. Seen the Night Watch by Rembrandt !! Seriously, a masterpiece. Plenty of other masterpiece for all the Master Art. Van Gogh Museum was just next door but I didn’t go. However, I bought a poster of Seascape by Van Gogh, and it is hanging in my living room now. Lovely.

Day 1: Exploring the city on foot, exploring the canal, and the coffeeshop (coffee shop literally means those that selling canabis kinda coffee-shop), I joined the free walking tour Amsterdam, and the the guide describing every history and details of every major part of the city. I made friends from all over the world, but Indonesian are a lot, visiting the country. and every corner of the city, you can find indonesian restaurant. So, I really feel like, home. Ha.ha.

You can get info and book your place at http://www.newamsterdamtours.com Sandman’s free walking tour. Basically, in 3 hours walking tour, I explored

• The Anne Frank House
• The Dutch East India Company
• The Red Light District
• Hidden Catholic churches
• The Strike of February 1941
• Masterpieces of Dutch art
• Widest Bridge and the smallest house in Amsterdam
• World’s first Stock Exchange
• The Begijnhof Convent
• The Old Church
• The Tower of Tears
• Multatuli’s giant head
• The Royal Palace
• Leaning buildings & gable stones
• The Jewish Quarter

with my ever, cute tour guide guy. Gosh. He is funny, and cute and he is Australian.

Day 2: I went to the Amsterdam RAI for some water technology exhibition. Yes, but it was just brief, walk around the exhibition, and then.. back to the city and exploring some more.

Day 3: I took the full day tour to visit and see some of the best wind mill around. I booked my day tour via Tours & Tickets Amsterdam. They are everywhere. I paid about 49 euro for the countryside and wind mill tour. It is like a 5-6hours tour where :

• Guided walks through the villages, Zaanse Schans, the picturesque windmill village with its typical green-timbered houses and warehouses.
• Beautiful traditional Windmills, smaller and bigger ones along the scenic road.
• Cheese tasting in the Cheese Factory Volendam
• Demonstration from a traditional clog maker
• A boat trip on the Ijsselmeer

Again, I met lotsa Indonesian tourists. They are everywhere!

Day 4: I forgot what I did.. but basically, just roaming around the town.

Day 5: Flying back to Kuala Lumpur!

Attempt to selfie with the windmill, standing at the other working windmill

Boarding the boat !!

The famous fish and chips, and my coke light. Or was it zero?

The famous dutch pannenkoeken-poffertjes at De Carrousel. Look out for the Heineken factory, and this shop is located at the roundabout !!

 

My favourite canal shot. I have a lot of favourite canal shots.

Walking around the shopping street. I forgot the name of the street.

one of the coffee shop. No i didn’t smoke nor eating space cake. I don’t want to ruin my trip with hangover and sort.

Another street view during me roaming around the town, on foot

Windmill

Few of the windmill in a picture

Plenty of cheese

Villages !

Ticket for Volendam, Marken & windmills for 45 Euro

I stayed at Bank Mansion. Its all free, on the house! Eh, its full board kinda hotel. And cheese tasting every evening!

Another favourite view !! it’s at Damrak.

At the exhibition. Amsterdam RAI is cute.

Clog! 

Walking with my Adidas Superstar Rita Ora is super comfy

Walking around Volendam

Flower markt at dawn

Another senate view of canal

Hello from Amsterdam Hard Rock cafe !

Bought 1 day amsterdam travel ticket. Hmmm.

I have a lot more photos, but.. I’ll save others to myself. That’s all for my Amsterdam exploration. Amsterdam is the city where, you could go few times, to cover and explore all. I don’t mind going there again.