Amsterdam Business Trip - 22 - 25 Feb 2016

First time taking KLM and was apprehensive at first due to the narrower seats.  Turned out to be quite alright as the seats were new with touch-screen TVs.  Food wise wasn't fantastic with cold wraps, but the service was warm.  Slept lightly for 6 hours before waking up for breakfast, which was fairly western affair.

Got a scare when I arrived at the baggage belt where it indicated All Baggage is unloaded.  Checked with service counter and realized it was a computer error and they apologized and made announcement over the PA system! 

After luggage collection, my colleagues and I  took the free shuttle and arrived at Park Plaza Amsterdam Airport Hotel.  Not exactly an airport hotel as it took around 15 minutes ride to reached, more because it's within the airport distinct.  The location was quiet with very little industry and some residential neighborhoods nearby. 

Upon dropping the bags and a quick shower, I gathered with my colleagues and headed towards Amsterdam city.  The nearest team station was around 15 minutes walk away and the Tram took another 30 minutes to reach Amsterdam Central Train station.

It was great to be back in Amsterdam city, nearly 4 years since I was last in the city back in 2012.  This was my favourite European city because of the beautiful historical buildings, romantic canals, neatly planted rows of waterside trees, and cool weather.  This time, though, it was so much colder at around 10 degrees.  It was late winter and the weather was starting to get warmer (but still very cold for a Singaporean!)

It was a brief shop-and-walk along the main street, buying some local cheese and grabbing lunch (Mexican was the order of the day for lunch, and there were so many Mexican restaurants!).  As time was pretty tight (we need to get back for afternoon meetings), we had a one hour canal cruise ride to experience the beauty of Amsterdam.  This was my second canal ride, and it was as good as the first time, and it felt like a brand new experience again!

After the cruise, it was a mad rush back to the hotel where I will be based for our global team workshop.  Dinner was at the hotel's restaurant, Victor.  It was a 2 course dinner with beef pastrami as starter, Guinea fowl for the main, and tangerine creme brûlée for dessert.  Plus the seemingly free flowing red wine.  I was dead tired when I hit the bed after the 3 hours dine, wine and chat dinner!!

Day 2 was a full day workshop within the hotel with nothing eventful happening.  

Day 3's workshop was at The Edge, a technological marvel of an office building that was occupied mainly by Deloitte, our consultant who planned our workshop. The building had intelligent lighting systems from Philips which allowed it to track people movement and adjust lights accordingly.  The lights are also internet points which provided WIFI throughout the building.  It even had a robot to clean the floors of the building!  Oh, did I mention it also had terrifying (but visually pleasing) glass balconies on each floors.

The weather turned cold during our stay at The Edge, with both rain and snow falling from the grey skies.  By the time we stepped out in the early evening, the air was jittery cold!  What a great way to start our night walk tour of Amsterdam City!!

In the frisky cold wind, our big team trolled the cobbled streets of Old Amsterdam.  With our tour-guide, we were imparted with valuable knowledge of each historical buildings.  Even though I had done similar walking tour back in 2012, this was different as it took somewhat a different route.  We stopped by a bar where the whole team had a choice of Bols (a Dutch spirit), wine, beer or soft drink.  I had Bols since I'd never had it before.  It was surprisingly sweet and fruity.  The alcohol warmed the body and everyone was suddenly merrier!

After the drink, we went past the red light district (my first night walk and the glass display had more ladies available!).  We arrived at Van Puffenlen Cafe for our dinner. The restaurant was decorated in a classic manner with dark lightings.  The place was small and cramp, especially with all our winter wear.  Then again, it was housed in hundred years old building.  Dinner was another 3 course, with a fantastically cooked medium rare beef steak! The 2 hours dinner finally ended with our can ride back to the hotel.

The last day's workshop was conducted within the hotel and was concluded by 1pm.  Thereafter, I checked out of the room and headed straight back to the city for last minute shopping.  First stop, the large supermarket near the Dam.  I grabbed some cheese and shampoo (they were much cheaper in Europe), and of course my favourite cherry liquor chocolate (I swept the shelf off all 10 packets of them!).  At the same time, I explored some new side roads (which I had no idea existed and no clue to their names).  Walking based on my directional instincts and not a map, I 'wriggled' through the maze of small roads network across the city.  By 4pm, I took the tram back to the hotel to re-pack my luggage.

Back at the hotel, I visited the hotel spa to freshen up myself before the flight.  The spa was unisex, and in Asia, that would mean swim wear is a must.  But I'm not in Asia and the rule here was to be stark naked when in the spa!  I had that experience last time I visited Amsterdam, but luckily for me, the whole spa was empty.  I walked in my birthday suit comfortably with the whole place to myself, steamed myself silly in the super hot and foggy steam room, baked myself red in the sauna, and lay relaxing my by the sun bed overlooking a water canal before heading to shower myself in a very open and spacious shower area.

I met up with my colleague and waited for our shuttle back to the airport (another 15 minutes ride).  At the airport, a simple burger and wings dinner together with the famously local Heineken beer before heading to check in my luggage, which was tipping the maximum allowance of 22kg!!

Just when I thought it was straight back to Singapore via the 8.55pm flight, a huge confusion was formed at the boarding gate.  Turned out our B777-300 plane was down due to technical issue and had to be replaced with a smaller B777-200 plane.  This has forced some passengers to be off loaded to travel via Dubai instead.  It was God's grace that I had selected the second last cabin instead as all in the last cabin was all removed (around 100 pax!!). However, that also meant it was a full flight back.  I loaded myself with everything sleepy (muscle relaxant and flu pills) and managed to sleep a full 7-8 hours of the journey!

It was a pleasant but brief work trip, with a fair amount of leisure time. 

Japan Day 11 - 13 Feb 2016

Woke up early this morning and headed toward Haneda Airport via the Yamanote line (transfer at Shinagawa).  My first trip which I skipped Shinagawa while visiting Tokyo!  A nice change for sure ;)

'Golden' eggs for breakfast

After checking in 36kg worth of luggages (yes, ANA allows you to check in 2 luggages at 23kg each!), it was exploring the airport again and find a breakfast place.  Funny enough, it was tough to find a restaurant that sells Japanese food.  Most of them were selling western breakfast instead.  Well, settled for the least appetizing ramen of the trip, but then again it's the airport and I usually do not have high hopes for airport dining.

Oh, and also more last minute shopping at at 7-11 where I managed to buy several flavours of KitKat!  In Japan, they have countless flavours including Sake, Green Tea, Sakura, Wine, Cheese, Strawberry Cheese Cake and even Wasabi!  I reckon I had purchased around 7 different flavours during this trip, but I must also note that these were not the full collection!

playing around at the airport

Upon passing through the customs, more duty free shopping, with picking up Hokkaido chocolate biscuits and marinated scallops before boarding the flight back.

Food on board was again uninspiring with 2 huge lumps of rice.  It was rather tasteless with unimaginative sides.  The entertainment was bland that I had to watch TV concert shows!  Well, I guessed I was too pampered!

All in all, a great trip with 9 onsen and 2 sento visits, great food, saw snow and snowing as well!  I will return to the Land of the Rising Sun really soon!! 

Japan Day 10 - 12 Feb 2016

Woke up naturally this morning and cracked open some onsen eggs purchases from the supermarket the night before.  It looked like Yakun's soft boiled eggs, except the eggs were very good quality, and every one of those eggs cooked uniformly!  A yummy way to start the day!

After gobbling down the eggs, it was straight to Tsujiki Fish Market, the largest of its kind in the world.  I was here exactly a year ago where I suffered from high fever and extreme fatigue and hence did not enjoy myself.  This time round, it was an all new experience where I got to immerse myself in the fishy business of the market.  First up, to find a sushi shop and start queuing.  The popular ones (those names with 大 characters are supposedly all popular) were already filled and not accepting any new customers.  Still, I had to wait for an hour at the store with relatively shorter queue.

But first, getting a strawberry mochi to accompany my long wait.  This was the same store I bought last year, and was exactly as tasty with plum juicy strawberry, velvety red bean paste and super soft whit mochi exterior.  A great perk me up during the hour long wait!

Finally, the moment to enter the store, and both feeling hungry and with anticipation.  Dishes ordered were a bowl of seasonal sushi don, sea urchin sashimi done in 3 ways (salted, original and flamed), a whitish looking sashimi that looked either like fish intestines or sperm but oh so soft and creamy, salmon and roe combi sushi, large sweet prawn sushi, otoro sushi and a very interesting salmon fat sushi.  The most memorable ones were probably the Uni and salmon fat.  The Uni, which was in season, just melted in the mouth and flavoured the entire throat with creamy richness of sweetness.  It was tasty for all 3 ways of preparation, and I could still remember the taste as I was writing this down!  The salmon fat, now that was a new thing to me.  I had initially thought it would be salmon belly, but it turned out to be pure fat and no meat!  The fat was gently flame-grilled with some char at the edges and had a distinctive flavour some scent.  When put into the mouth, the fat immediately melted into the rice and the fresh sweetness of salmon could be savoured.  This was probably the main highlight of my most expensive meal of this trip!

After the sushi meal, it was time to walk off the guilt, with an interesting stroll of the Tsujiki market.  Of course, with so many stores selling on the go food, one could never be able to resist trying some.  Hence, a scallop shell that was topped with freshly grilled large scallop, a plum fresh oyster and a dollop of sweet Uni, and then flame-grilled for extra sweetness.  The freshness and sweetness were beyond words as I slowly enjoyed every bite of this JPY 1000 snack.

Another snack I had was grilled unagi, which is essentially grilled eel meat.  This is a very typical Japanese dish and I was having it on a stick without the rice.  As it was pipping hot, it tasted great and fantastic.  Of course, I also had the usual free samples along the way.  This is probably the place in Tokyo to be able to get full just by eating samples!

You could never not buy anything here as well, with things so fresh and abundance in variety.  In comparison, Sydney Fish Market (2nd largest in the world) was pretty and orderly with limited variety.  I bought a box of crunchy prawn crackers, marinated scallops, black garlic (at a faction of Singapore's price), and seaweed.  And this was after undergoing heavy deliberation to restrain my purchases! 

After the purchases, it was a stroll towards nearby Ginza district.  Along the way, I found my cheese ice cream again!  Well, with a slight variation.  This time it was cheese cake ice cream, so there were bits of cakes embedded all over.  However, it still tasted divine with the richness of the creamy cheese and vanilla ice cream mixed in perfect proportion.  How apt to have the cheese ice cream again on the last day in Japan!  (I had cheese ice cream on my first day in Yugawara).

The walk towards Ginza was only to soak in some of the glitz before taking a metro back to Shinjuku for some last minute shopping at Uniqlo and MUJI.  Back to the apartment to drop off all the shopping before heading back to Shimiyuzu Onsen, by now my favorite onsen in Tokyo.  This time would be the first time I was there when the sky was still lit.  Surprisingly, there was still a sizable crowd there.  Where did they come from???  I spent another wonderful hour soaking in the black water, soy water, and the brown sea water.  It was so therapeutic 

After onsen, it was yet another round of last minute shopping in the vicinity.  For some strange reasons, things here were much cheaper than the rest of Tokyo, even cheaper than Chiba (according to my local colleagues).  I stocked up on sparking alcohol, snacks, fruits, masks and other items before heading back to Shinjuku.

Once at Shinjuku, it was almost a mad dash as I headed towards Takashimaya to purchase some Fancl products for my sister. Why mad dash? Cos Takashimaya closes at 8.30pm on Fridays, and it was already 8pm!  After grabbing the items and claiming the tax refund, another mad dash to the basement to pick up my dinner items.  Even though it was near closing hour, all the staff was so polite and gracious, they guided me to the section I wanted to, and even recommended me to get food from another stall if they had ran out!

my takeaway dinner, not too shabby at all!

Well, after all the running about, I still managed to soldier through and explored 7 levels of Tokyu Hands and got some gift items as well!  After that, it was a brisk walk back to the apartment and ready myself for a late dinner.  And I was rather proud of myself for transforming a takeaway into something that looked like restaurant serving :)

It was some final packing up to do before heading to bed.