Wet and .....

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Well, let’s just say it was wet. This refers to the Boat Tour we took on the canals and rivers of Amsterdam. The wild part didn’t materialize, which of course refers to the other attraction this City is also well known for. When I boarded the plane in Honolulu, the guy next to me asked me where I was heading. When I told him Amsterdam, his reply was “Woo-hoo, this man is on a mission!”. Well, young man, have say, mission was not accomplished.

The boat tour was very nice, passing the many old beautiful constructed residential homes with decorative facades. They were mostly 4 stories high, yet narrowly built. The story was that the law taxed the home owners by the size of the lots, so to save, owners built on narrow lots and upwards. Umm, are Dutch the Chinese of the West?

There were also house boats or more correct boat homes. They were actually homes almost like trailer homes but on stationary platform anchored at the sides of the canals. They didn’t seem to be meant for traveling. Unlike the boat houses in Hong Kong, it was fully enclosed so you couldn’t see inside. Speaking of Hong Kong, we also passed a large Chinese Floating restaurant, called Jumbos, like the one in Hong Kong. We also had a beautiful colorful one in Honolulu, several years back, called The Oceania. The trouble was when the ocean got rough, people got seasick while dining, or something like that.

After the boat tour, they dropped us of somewhere in town for about 2 hours somewhere near a famous museum. Several years back, in The National Geographic, I had seen a picture of Amsterdam, at which seem to be at a main square with lots of old beautiful buildings and people just hanging out. Hope we were close to it, but evidently we weren’t. We weren’t in a very interesting part of town, though they was fair amount of activity. There were a bunch of young people, about 10 of them, beating on various devices like garbage cans, in rhythm with a bit of showmanship, to an appreciative audience.

After, when we got back on the bus we got to see more of the city, and I even got to catch a glimpse of the square, I mention about earlier. We also saw a small Chinatown, whose inhabitants were mostly Chinese who immigrated from Indonesia.

Eventually we stopped in little town called Vollendam, which didn’t really have much in the way of architecture or natural beauty, but mainly souvenir shops and restaurants. Also on the way back to the hotel, we eventually came to our first Windmill of the trip, after 2 days. Boy, was everyone excited.

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