the first week (24Jun-1Jul2007)

it has been one week since i left kl. time flies when i'm having fun i guess. hope you guys and dolls are all well.

i still remember how it was like on the first day, i didn't sleep well on the plane as the flight was bumpy at one point. i have flew pretty often and i can handle bumpiness but not that one, it was so scary that i tot i was going to die! i think i was about to sleep around 2am m'sia time at the upper deck of business class (hehe, never fail to mention that ;), suddenly the whole plane was like rocking and shaking and baking for like 10 seconds, which was enough to keep me alert with the slight bump thru the rest of the flight.

reached amsterdam around 5.30am, took the train to den haag the city where my office is, and arrived the hotel at 6ish, which came to my surprise that i have a room ready at that hour, so i checked in and took a fresh start with shower and breakfast. spent the whole 9 hours floating in the office with the help of many cups of coffee. crashed around 9pm that nite.

last week was the week for farewell party, i had 2 evening(drinking) and 1 morning(snack) party. tuesday night was the farewell for a vendor and wednesday night was an old colleague. tuesday nite was kind of fun , we were drinking in a pub and i didn't know the crowd that much as they were from a different team, it turned out pretty well after a few beer, hehe. same pub on wednesday but i had rock climbing
appointment that evening so just had a cola light (in KL we call it diet coke).

never done rock climbing before this. it was fun, challenging and tiring, not recommended for those who afraid of height tho. as a beginner i spent too much effort on hands, should have used my legs more instead, didn't try too many route as fingers were all sore and weak after a few climbs :(, for those who didn't know about rock climbing, it takes 1 to climb and 1 to belay at the bottom, try it out and you will know. chicken hand duck leg (cantonese proverb) for the first time as i hurt my left thumb a bit while trying to land my boss safely. apart from that, it was all good. check out some of the highest route can have there, i dare u :).

my rock climbing sifu(master). from left Yuri, John and Ton.


some of the highest route.


picture taken at 10.45pm, that's how summer is like here.


met up an old friend (ex-colleague) and his family for dinner on thursday. one of the many things that i've gained and treasured visiting NL is get to know and meet some really nice ppl. attached you can find some pictures of him and his family, the baby boy is 4 weeks old. it was a very nice sunny evening and we were dining outside. oh yeah, the rack of lamb is fucking awesome, one of the best meal i have ever had in NL. we then took a 20 minutes walk back to his house for some really nice decafe expresso and had a very good chat about everything. very very nice evening.

my humble dinner.


Servaas's new born.


Servaas's family.


i got free lunch on friday! the canteen in my office uses card system, ie the patrons need to load up some value in their access card or buy a lunch card. so hapened the system was down (it never happened i heard) and some of us were there earlier and got what ever food for free. some even gone back to get more. unfortunately that lasted only a couple of mins. hehe.

sunday was a great day, bright sunny, hottest day for weeks. went to the beach side, caught a movie (die hard 4.0), did a bit of walking along the beach and met a colleague for dinner.

some pics taken ...