Amsterdam:

Veni, vidi, but not quite vici: in terms of everything I'm interested in....

:: Shopping ::

* Oh the selection of all vintage paraphenalia! If only I had my own apartment! All that groovy Barbarella garb and furnishings!
Tho I realised that finding the purrrrrfect mod lil' dress is as hard as finding Mr. Right. You can't force it dear, if it wasn't meant to be, you can never find it even if you rummage through all the best shops in town. It's unfortunate that I've been more successful on ebay =(
* Who needs Herman Miller when you have HEMA?
Apparently the Dutch equivalent of K- Mart is a lot swankier than, erm, K-Mart. It's like Muji on acid. The colours! The minimalist designs! The cool kitchen gadgets!
* Flower power at the Bloemenmarkt
I discovered that it ain't so hard / unaffordable to do the 99-stems-of-roses thing if you lived in AMS. [you know, the standard thing they do in the Chinese equiv of Mills & Boons]. 20 roses for 6 euros... and in all shades and sizes!
So the flower market is packed with tourists, but who cares when you can smell candy-scented orchids?!

:: Boys, gay and straight ::

Checked out the gay parade - such campy fun! It happened to be Gay Pride the weekend I was there, and so I caught a glimpse of the gay pride float parade on the canals. My, were the boys fine! Muscley pecs everywhere!
and the Best [un]Dressed Award goes to..... the Topless Firemen! ;D

As for *the* straight one....Veni, vidi, (adamavi even) but not quite vici. Sssiiigh!

:: Architecture ::

the cruise ship terminal..... the canal-strewn residential streets of Java Island

[img's from Eastern Docklands]


the Whale - it's a state-of-the-art apartment building
the off-limits private garden inside the Whale

[img's from NedZink, Architectuur and Guido Fijen]


the Dinosaur Bridge connecting Borneo Island and Sporenburg... the vertigo is dizzying

[img's from Eastern Docklands]

Walking around the Eastern dockland islands of Java & Borneo have been really inspiring. It's nice to see a well-balanced mix of modernist / deconstructivist / post-mod'ist architecture work successfully on an urban scale. Lots of compact multi-storeyed houses with bright and airy interiors, irregularly placed balconies, windows and staircases added to my delight.
What surprises me most is that this visually avant-garde neighbourhood houses NORMAL people. Average families with young children and not painfully-uberhip-designer-couples. I met an angelic blonde little girl who tried to say hi to me in Dutch, and Dutch teenagers who said hi to me in Cantonese!

I took tonnes of what-would-have-been-archi-magazine-eye-candy pics, but of course, being the mal-coordinated clutz that I am, I exposed the film by accident when rewinding the roll of film. *gggrrrrrr*
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It's good to be home, even if no one else is here...

Just flew in this morning, to find no one ('cept my lil' bro) home. Arg.
Raided the kitchen for lunch and managed to serrate my thumb whilst trying to de-shell a lobster leg. What kind of retard injures themselves eating?!