Start of 2.5 months holidays in Europe

 27th - 28th October 2023, Friday

This is a year plan trip which i had requested my company to let me work remotely from Netherlands for 1.5 months following a 3-weeks AL break. The whole trip will start from 28th Nov 2023 to 7th Jan 2024 and i had planned this with my friend who is currently working in Netherlands. Our plan was to visit her and stay at her place till we go for our long holidays. I had waited for the whole 9 month for it to actually start.  I finally flew to Netherlands on 27th Nov night (23:55 flight). My dad ferried me to the airport and had dinner together before i went to the boarding gate. There was a moment that i feel kind of sad seeing my dad left as this was the first time i ever leave Singapore for so long. I walked around the airport for a while and went to one of the airport lounges (Marhaba) to pass time. The lounges were so crowded and full of people. And it was so hot inside but they do have some snacks and drinks which people can take for free (free-flow).

There was some delay for the plane to take off from Changi Airport, so the plane eventually flew off around 30 mins. So the expected landing time was changed from 7:05 am to 7:40 am (Netherlands time). The plane was full with passengers and mostly were westerners. I was seated beside an elderly couple and i can never get used to sitting on long flights. I watched 3 movies and managed to nap a little throughout the flight and my legs were aching for sitting long hours.  I was glad when we were approaching Schiphol airport, however we got a rough landing. The plane kind of landed and the speed was so fast that we could being being pushed to the front. When the plane was finally parked, the pilot announced that it was a busy day in the airport and there was not enough ground staffs. So we had to wait for about 10 mins for the ground staffs to help open the plane's door for exit. When we finally exit the plane, i saw the plane was parked some distance away from the airport. Hence, we had to take the transfer bus from the plane to the airport. I was just wearing a tee-shirt n jeans when i alighted from the plane and it was soo cold. 

When i finally reached the airport, i took some time to take out my jacket before going to customs clearance. At the customs, i was asked by the official the duration of my stay and the purpose of my stay. However, when i told them it is going to about 2 month of stay, the officer was having some doubts on my purpose though i said it is holidays and visiting my friend. So he questioned how much euros do i have and if i have an invitation from my friend. Once i told them i did not bring any euro in cash, he called another colleague of his to escort me to wait by a room where the other colleague took my passport and disappeared in the room. While i waited outside, i tried to make contact with my friend to let her know of my situation. The officer came out and I showed him my friend's work pass. i also gave him my friend's number so he can call her for clarification. However, he went into the room for some time before coming out and asked me if i can call my friend instead as he wasn't able to get hold of my friend. So i showed him the number again which he recorded in his phone and went in the room. After some time, i got a text from my friend saying she had clarified with the officer. However, i waited for quite a while before the officer came out and notified me that all clarification was cleared. But the officer said that his colleague will still need to do some checks and said it will take a while. The whole time i was waiting there, i was so scared that i will be deny entry or something worse. I waited like almost 10-15 mins before i finally get my passport back with a stamp to enter Netherlands. I was soo glad that i got cleared and able to enter but i think they probably will keep a record in their system to ensure i return to Singapore before the visa ends. 

Well, so i headed to the belt to collect my luggage but when i reached there, the luggage were not even out. So i had to wait again for my luggage to come out and i definitely can't wait to get out of the airport with the drama earlier. My friend was waiting for me outside since and i was soo soo glad to meet her. So we headed back to her house first which was at Alemre Poort. We took train to Weesp and transferred to bus as the train tracks to Alemre Poort was closed. During the ride, i asked her regarding her conversation  with the airport officer earlier. She said she told her she had invited me over for a long stay but there is no letter written since we are friends. And she told him that she already had some friends came over for stay in earlier of the year with no issue. She said none of her friends got questioned by the custom officer in terms of how much money did they bring or how long they are going to stay here except me. When we reached Alemre Poort, we walked to the supermarket to buy some breads and drumsticks to cook our lunch. I was so glad to finally reach her house where i can eat and rest. So my friend cooked the drumsticks and fried her overnight rice with egg. After eating, i unpacked my stuffs and had my shower. Then we watched tv and had nap till 4 plus. After that, we made our way to Alemre Central for the light festival there. When we arrived there, there was a Diwali festival too to celebrate Deepavali here. It was crowded with the Indians at the festival, so we walked around the square first. 

Later, we went up the ticket counter for the light festival (Alluminous Festival) to collect a token and a cute collar pin. The token was for us to get any drinks at the food & drinks stalls in the festival (In the end, we didn't walk till the drink stall which was further in the road). The route for the festival covered a area of 5 km and it was around the lake. It would take 2.5 hours to cover the whole round by walking. As it was not 7 pm yet, we decided to grab some food first. But there were so many people around and we ended up in Burger King instead. We managed to get a table and bought a nuggets meal for sharing. After that, we started our walk in the lights festival and it was also crowded. A lot of people just walked very fast on the route and the light displays were so far away from each other. We only walked to the second point and it wasn't half way of the lake. There was also boat service which would take you from point 1 and point 3 which is on the opposite side of the lake and it cost 5 euro. It was also so cold to walk long outside. But we tried to stay till 8:30 pm which we caught on the fireworks display from the Diwali festival. The fireworks lasted 30 mins and it was a long long time i actually watched fireworks so near (Got tired of videoing the fireworks too...😅).

Route map of Alluminous Festival

Light display in lake

After the fireworks, we took the bus home and the bus was also crowded with people. We reached home around 10 pm and it was so lucky that the rain came after we reached home. Then we washed up and rested for the day. Such a long day for me.

Photo Album: Click here!

Lake Toya, Hokkaido Trip (Day 9)

19th May 2019, Sunday

Sunday Flea Market

Today we were leaving Hakodate and going to the next destination, Lake Toya. We woke up early and packed our bags. My friend also cooked some of the sausages we bought yesterday as our breakfast. After we were done with everything, we checked out from the hotel. However, we loaded our luggage onto the car and walked back to Lucky Pierrot and Misuzu Coffee cafe to have our last meal in Hakodate. This time, we walked past a Sunday flea market where there were people selling off their own stuffs for a cheap price. I bought a Mickey Mouse towel from one of the stalls for 50 yen and it looked new. Also, it was made in Japan.

Lucky Pierrot Clown

Curry Rice

 After that, we continued walking to Lucky Pierrot place but it was not opened for business yet. There was already a short queue outside the entrance, so we just queued and waited for the store to open. Everyone looked so excited when the store opened. After some while, there was a elderly couple came in the store and the elderly man kept thanking everyone in the queue. Then we saw them walked into the store and the elderly lady walked into the counter and to the kitchen. It looked like she was giving her thanks to the staffs for their hard work. When the couple left the shop, they still gave their thanks to us and the people queuing. When it was our turn to order, we ordered their chinese chicken curry rice and the chinese chicken burger. The curry rice was yummy too.

Misuzu Coffee

Musical Concert @ Yakumo

After the breakfast, we walked to Misuzu Coffee cafe to get their coffee and cake to go. After buying, we walked back to the hotel to collect the car. Then we drove further in front to have the petrol pumped. It was my first time to pump petrol, so we were trying to figure what we suppose to do....hahaa..it was a self-serviced petrol station. It appeared the petrol was pumped into the car based on the options you chose on the machine. So we tried with one of the options first to test and then continued to pump slightly more. After that, my friend took the receipts and went to the office to make the payment. It wasn't full after the pumping but we guessed it should be enough for the next few days. Once done, we drove out on the road to Lake Toya. We even stopped by the same stop and ended up buying small packets of uncooked rice and some snacks before we continued on the road. There was even a music concert held there and there were more people compared to the previous time we came.

Beds in living room

Mini Jacuzzi tub

It took us around 3 hours to reach Toya area and we were surprised to find the hotel which we were staying was soooo far away from the town centre. Nevertheless, we managed to find the hotel with not much problem. The only problem i had was i was not able to park the car into the hotel's parking lot in the reserve way. Even i tried to drive in the car in, i ended up scratching the car on the left side (quite bad scratch though but we didn't really thought of reporting it to the car rental company as it wasn't really a serious accident. That was where i was wrong when i returned the car on the last day). In the end, i had to give up and parked the car in the open on the side. After that, we unloaded our luggage and went into the hotel for check-in. We were brought to our room by the hotel staff. Once we entered our room, we were blown away by the view from the glass window. We could see the whole view of Lake Toya and the town centre behind it. The next best thing was the room had a mini Jacuzzi tub. The toilet itself was as big as a room size. There were so much space in the living room and toilet.

Lake Toya giant photo frame

Foot-bath

Corn Soup

Hamburger steak

Pork Cutlet with Rice

We rested for some time before we drove out to the town center. We tried to navigate to the town information building in the town center on the car's gps and we drove to the place. Luckily there was available parking lots there where we could park our car. Then we walked down to the lake to explore. There were ducks boat where you can rent out into the lake but it was late and was closed for the day. We also found a foot-bath while walking the lake, so we decided to go and had a nice foot bath. We had our foot soaked for about 20 mins and decided to look for a nice dinning place. We decided to have our dinner at Boyotei, a western style restaurant where they were famous for their hamburger steak. The place was very cosy and we had a table further inside. We ordered their famous hamburger steak and pork cutlet rice set. The pork cutlet rice set came with a corn soup an and a drink. The pork cutlet was very tender and the rice was nice. My friend had the steak and it was yummy too.

Cruise ship

Our cruise boarding tickets

Interior of the ship

Night view from the lake

After the nice dinner, we walked back to the lake and booked a cruise ride where we can see the fireworks from the sea. We waited for the cruise to dock and headed out at the specified time. We bought the tickets for 8pm cruise. The cruise boat was very huge and looked very wonderland. It looked some time before we headed out deep in the lake and waited for the fireworks to start. There were two speedboats speeding left and right the lake and the fireworks were lighted. The fireworks performance lasted about 20 mins and it was lighted from right to left. It was quite nice but the sound of the fireworks was very loud as it exploded in front of us. Anyway, this was one item we won't want to miss as the fireworks performance was only available during summer period. When the show ended, we were brought to the pier and we walked with fast pace to the car as it was super cold. After that, we drove back to the hotel slowly as the road was quite dim. But we reached the hotel safe and sound where we had our turns in the jacuzzi tub....hohoho...

Did i also mention we noticed the rental car's gps always say we had reached near our destination instead of saying we had reached our destination most of the times when we navigated to the different places (kind of weird)? Hahaaa....

Places visited:
Lucky Pierrot
Misuzu Coffee Daimon Branch
Yakumo
Boyotei (Address: 049-5721 Hokkaido, Abuta District, Toyako, Toyako Onsen 36-12)
Toya Lake Line Cruise

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Cocoa