Hong Kong and Macau

September 12-15, 2006

From our 22 summer vacation days to Indonesia, we planned 4 days to visit Hong Kong and Macau. For this plan we chose to fly Cathay Pacific from Amsterdam to Jakarta via Hong Kong and we decided to stop in Hong Kong on our way back to Amsterdam, as a nice wrap up of our holiday. There was a nice thing when we bought the ticket online at the Cathay Pacific website, we could directly chose our seats. So we could select the best possible seats for all our flights...although still in Economy class.

On Tuesday morning of September 12, we flew from Jakarta to Hong Kong, and we arrived around noon at Chek Lap Kok or Hong Kong International Airport. The airport was located on a sea reclamation area next to Lantau Island, the second biggest island in Hong Kong (after the Hong Kong island, unsurprisingly). After the immigration and collecting luggage, we waited a while before the bus took us to our hotel at Kowloon. Through a cloudy and rainy afternoon, we enjoyed the coast scenery along the hilly Lantau Island. To any Mickey and Donald fans, Hong Kong Disneyland is also located in this island.
After about 20 minutes we passed Tsing Ma bridge, the longest road-and-rail suspension bridge (2.2 km) in the world, heading away from the Lantau Island and not long after that we entered a tunnel and directly came out in a fully packed residential area of Kowloon. Finally the bus arrived at Majestic hotel, the place where we stayed, on Nathan Road, one of the Kowloon's main streets.

Not long after we checked in and dumped our luggage, we walked along the shops on the Nathan Road. There were just shops on both sides of the street, any kind of shops from electronic stuffs, clothes, until Chinese dried herbs and foods. We walked pass Park Lane shopping boulevard next to Kowloon Park, an area that reminded me of the Orchard Road in Singapore. After the boulevard we passed a mosque, quite a unique building in such area. After more shops and passed Tsim Sha Tsui MTR (Mass Transit Railway, Hong Kong's underground) station, we turned to Peking Road, a side street of the Nathan Road, which was also full of shops. We walked further to Canton Road, a street parallel to the Nathan Road and along the harbour of Kowloon, until we reached the seaside.

This southest end of Tsim Sha Tsui has several nice landmarks: Clock tower, old ferry terminal to the Hong Kong island, Cultural Center, Space Museum, Museum of Art, a nice long Avenue of Stars promenade, and a wonderful view of the skyscrapers on the Hong Kong island.

Hong Kong Island landscape from Tsim Sha Tsui in the night

After visiting tourist information center near the ferry terminal, we entered a shopping center to look around on souvenirs until finally we back to the Canton Road and further to the Peking Road, searched a place for dinner. I found a HMV store in that area, and managed to buy the newest Iron Maiden album there. Meanwhile my wife looked around and found a place that sold congee. So it was settled, congee for dinner. I picked the standard one, with shredded pork and century egg, plus the 'cakwee'. It tasted very good, the congee was soft and the egg was not too strong in taste.

Having our stomach full, we strolled back slowly along the still busy Nathan Road. The streets were nicely decorated with colourful neon signs in the evening. Near our hotel we visited a night market on the Temple Street. The whole street was packed with hawkers who sold many different things, from clothes until Chinese souvenirs.
After passing through the street completely, we were back to the hotel. We slept pretty well that night, saving energy for the next walk-till-you-drop adventures in Hong Kong.

The next morning we woke up and watched the heavy rain from our room window. After a filling buffet breakfast in the hotel, we bought a big umbrella at a small store in front of the hotel and headed to Jordan MTR station in the rain. We had planned to visit Po Lin monastery at the Lantau Island that morning. We took MTR to Thung Chung, the furthest point that reached by MTR in the Lantau Island. It was still raining when we reached Thung Chung. We went shopping for a while at a supermarket there, bought waters and a box of mooncake. From the bus terminal, we took the bus to the monastery. There was a new cable car track to the Po Lin monastery, but unfortunately it had not run yet when we were there.
The bus trip was through hills on the island, along a small up-and-down but smooth road. After about an hour we arrived at the monastery. The monastery complex was relatively big, but the amazing view was the giant Buddha statue in front of the complex.

The giant Buddha statue at Po Lin Monastery

Due to the rain and lunchtime, we decided to first visit the monastery to have a vegetarian lunch there. The vegetarian food was OK, made from very fresh ingredients. We also bought sweet dessert after the lunch.
After that we walked inside the complex, entered the halls and praying rooms full of incense smell. When the rain was a bit stopped, we climbed the Buddha statue. There was exhibition and archive room below the statue where we could see ancient Buddhism paintings and statues.

Satisfied with our visit, although we should be able to see more (for example walk the Wisdom Path) if it was dry, we took the bus back to Thung Chung and from there took the MTR to Jordan and walked back to the hotel.
After a short rest eating the mooncake, we took the MTR again, this time to Sheung Wan in the Hong Kong Island. From Sheung Wan we walked until we reached Mid-levels escalator, a walkpath along the old part of Hong Kong. It is a hilly area, so the walkpath was supported with series of escalators going uphill. We walked through Hollywood Road, along the pubs in Soho, and visited Lan Kwai Fong, an area full of restaurants. We stopped at Starbucks near the Lan Kwai Fong to plan the rest of the evening.

Finally we decided to move from that central area to Wan Chai, where we could see Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon) and Hong Kong scenery from the seaside. We walked from the Wan Chai MTR station via the walkpath over the main streets of Hong Kong between the high towers. Finally we arrived at Hong Kong Convention Center and outside the building we could see the Reunification Monument and Bauhinia sculpture, both were located near the seaside. From that point we also could enjoy the nice view of Tsim Sha Tsui and Kowloon area.

At 8 in the evening there was a Symphony of Light show, a combination of music, lights, and lasers show from the towers and buildings in both Hong Kong Island and Tsim Sha Tsui area. We could watch the show from Wan Chai, with complete view of the lights from Tsim Sha Tsui and laser from IFC Tower, the highest tower in Hong Kong.

The show was ended in about 5 minutes. After the show we took the ferry from Wan Chai to Tsim Sha Tsui. Strolling again along the streets in Kowloon, we stopped at a noodle house. I had noodle soup with inner parts of beef: stomach, liver, and intestine. It was nice and really filling.

On the third day we started early to visit Macau. From the hotel we walked via the Kowloon Park to the ferry terminal to Macau. The ferry was actually a jetfoil boat with many comfortable seats. The one hour trip to Macau was passed smoothly on the big nice chair.

Arrived at Macau harbour, we took the bus to the old town of Macau, passing some big casinos along the way. We alighted from the bus near Senado Square, the main square in Macau with nice classic European style buildings in the surrounding.
After collecting city map from the tourist information center we decided to visit almost all of the touristic spots in the old town of Macau. Near the Senado Square we visited Macau Cathedral, St. Dominic's church and Lou Kau mansion. The last one was a nice old Chinese house that still had original interiors and furnitures.

Walked little bit further, we arrived at the ruins of St. Paul's, the facade of a burnt church. It was located on a small hill providing wonderful view. Next to the ruins we saw a temple of Na Tcha and a section of old city wall next to the temple. Walked to the other side we visited Mount Fortress, the old military fortress of the city. From the top we could see most parts of the old town of Macau.

Ruins of St. Paul's, Macau

Getting further we visited St. Anthony's church and Casa Garden, a classic red-white color building. From there we walked back to the Senado Square and had lunch in a small restaurant in the area. They provided Shanghai style dishes, slightly different style than the Chinese food I know, but still delicious.

After lunch we walked to opposite direction from Senado Square, passing St. Augustine's church with its beautiful stone pavement, Dom Pedro V Theatre building next to the St. Augustine's, and St. Lawrence's church before stopped at Lilau Square, an old natural water source in Macau. A bit further we passed Moorish barracks, an old military building that now turned into office. Our final destination was A-Ma temple, which was quite crowded either with tourists as well as worshippers. From the A-Ma temple we took the bus back to the harbour.
In general I found Macau as an interesting place. There was strong Chinese lifestyle, but the Portuguese culture was still very rich as well. The mixture of these two styles made the place unique.

Arrived back at Tsim Sha Tsui, we spent the whole evening in Kowloon. Once again we watched the Symphony of Light show, this time from Tsim Sha Tsui with full view of towers on Hong Kong Island. After the show we walked along the Avenue of Stars, a resemblance of Hollywood Walk of Fame for Hong Kong stars. We found palms print of Sammo Hung, Jacky Chen, Andy Lau and many others. From the long avenue we walked to the Canton Road and visited Hard Rock Cafe to buy a cap, as always.
Near the Jordan area, we found a restaurant with fusion style. I tried curry noodle soup. It was OK but not as nice as the previous dinners.

On the last day in Hong Kong, we visited the famous place in Hong Kong that we could not visit earlier due to the rainy weather: the Peak. We took the ferry from Tsim Sha Tsui to Hong Kong Central, followed with a double decker bus trip passing the high towers until we arrived at the lower Peak Tram terminal. The ascending trip in the tram took about 10-15 minutes, with a nice view along the steep rail track until we reached the upper Peak terminal.

View of Hong Kong Island from Tsim Sha Tsui in the morning

From the top we could see the beautiful Hong Kong Island and Kowloon landscapes in complete view. Luckily we had no rain that morning. We enjoyed the view from both the modern Peak Tower and the old Chinese-styled Lions Pavilion. We spent the whole morning at the Peak by enjoying the view as well as shopping for souvenirs.

View from the Peak

Around noon we took the Peak Tram downhill. From the lower terminal we walked along the busy streets of Hong Kong to the Stanley Street. We ate dim sum in Luk Yu restaurant, because it was one of the first restaurants in Hong Kong that served dim sum. We ordered about 5-6 types of dim sum. In my opinion the taste was not very special, but maybe because we did not order the correct types.

After lunch we walked to the Hong Kong Central ferry harbour and back to Kowloon. During our visit in Hong Kong, it was the first time we were in Tsim Sha Tsui in the daytime. We once again walked along the Avenue of Stars.

the Avenue of Stars

Around 5 in the afternoon we walked back to the hotel. Once again we stopped for the congee and we also managed to shop a bit before arrived at the hotel.
At around 8 the shuttle bus was arrived and we went back to the airport, leaving Hong Kong in its beautiful evening lights.

Jamie's Picnic

Arrow Jazz in the Park
Zuiderpark, Den Haag, 23 July 2006



Last week I got a nice surprise when I checked my mailbox, I had won two tickets for Jamie Cullum concert in Den Haag! So that was my second concert visit this month after Sting in Bospop.

So, there we were, me and my wife, went to Den Haag on a hot Sunday morning. We managed to make appointment with some friends for lunch in Den Haag. After a nice dim sum, we spent some times in the shopping quarter of Den Haag to find some gifts for our trip home next month. Only after 4 in the afternoon we took the tram to the Zuiderpark where the concert would be held.

Zuiderpark is located in the south part of the city (as the name indicates that, 'South Park'), a big green park that really perfect for a picnic with nice jazz music. When we arrived there the Arrow Jazz event itself already more than half way because it had started since 2 in the afternoon. We skipped those parts since we did not familiar with the performers (no offence for jazz lovers :)).
After collecting our tickets at the guest list counter, we queued for the picnic box, and then we were completely ready for the picnic.

The stage was located on a square where already pretty full of people who were enjoying the sun. On the other hand we preferred to stay under the tree shades, so we chose to sit on a further side of the park on a nice grass, reading novels (what a picnic!). We could not see the stage because it was blocked by a tree, but still we could enjoy the music. At that time a band called New Cool Collective was performing some nice dynamic tunes with rich percussions and brass sounds.

About half past six we got up from the grass and took a nice spot at the far side of the square. It was still under the shades and there were line of bushes in front of us, protecting people stood directly in front of us so we had a clear view to the stage.
Some times after seven, Jamie Cullum entered the stage with his band. He directly sat behind his grand piano and played Photograph, a song from Catching Tales, his newest album. He was accompanied with his permanent musicians: Geoff Gascoyne (bass), Sebastiaan de Krom (drums) and two new musicians: Rory Simmons (trumpet, guitar) and Tom Richards (sax, keyboards, and percussion).

They performed nice songs from Jamie's two albums, including the hits Get Your Way, Mind Trick, and of course Everlasting Love. Besides that, Jamie was very attractive on stage. He chatted with the audience, jumped tirelessly..on the stage and from the grand piano, played drums during Frontin' - while Sebastiaan sang the song, played guitar in London Skies, led the audience for a choir, and splashed water to the audience - and of course received some back - during Singing in the Rain. In my opinion he was a good entertainer.

After a nice High and Dry and watery Singing in the Rain, the band disappeared to the backstage, then back and performed All at Sea, the classic I Get a Kick Out of You, and finally Jamie asked the audience to jump endlessly during I Could Have Danced All Night until the show was ended and they bowed goodbye to us.

I enjoyed mostly the jazzy tunes and some calm songs such as What a Difference a Day Made (with bit of Oasis' Champaign Supernova in the beginning) and All at Sea. Nevertheless it was also interesting to watch Jamie tapped his hands on the piano and performed medley of hip-hop songs. In general it was a very nice picnic, relaxing atmosphere, and good performance.

The show was ended around half past nine, so more than two hours of nice music. We went back by the tram, thanks for the extra tram provided by organizer so we didn't need to wait too long.

Set list (may contain some mistakes here and there, I do not know all Jamie's songs):
- Photograph
- Get Your Way
- What a Difference a Day Made
- These are the Days
- Mind Trick
- Next Year Baby
- Don't Cha/I Got a Woman/Golddigger/One Thing - Frontin'
- Lover, You Should Have Come Over
- London Skies
- Everlasting Love
- Seven Nation Army
- High and Dry
- Singing in the Rain
-----------------------------------
- All at Sea
- I Get a Kick Out of You
- I Could Have Danced All Night

Kaasmaken, klompengolf, en TanteLoes

(Translated: Cheese making, wooden shoe golf, and Tante Loes)

15 July 2006

In a very nice summer weather, last Saturday we went to 'De BoerInn', a recreational farm house in Woerden, a small city near Utrecht in the middle of the country. We arrived at Woerden around 10 in the morning and drove through nice green landscape of Holland before reaching De BoerInn. The old farm house was located in a polder surrounded by small dikes.

De BoerInn offers some interesting summer activities that have connection with farm life: Polder competition, polder tour, indoor polder sport, polder challenge, klompen (wooden shoes) golf, and cheese making.
Because there were only 8 of us and some activities require minimum 10 participants, we decided to do the cheese making and the klompen golf.

The cheese making activity was started around 11. We entered a small room and being welcomed by the farm lady herself. She was ready with a big bowl containing 10 liters fresh milk that would be used to make the cheese. During about one hour with her, she explained the process of turning the milk into cheese from the very beginning as well as interesting information about storing cheese, different kinds of cheese available, the difference between farm cheese and factory cheese, and possible side products from the cheese making process.
Naturally, during the same one hour we were also being involved in the process. We stirred the milk to separate the solid from the liquid until we had a nice white soft curd similar to tofu in texture. After that, one of us moved the curd to the cheese mold. The mold then placed under the pressing block to force the remaining liquid out from the curd.
In general those were the steps, and after that the curd would be salted and packaged. We could taste the difference between the curd with the finish cheese in terms of saltiness.

Pressing the cheese

In the end of the activity, we could pick one cheese block for free and we chose the young natural one. Some of us also bought another block for 7.5 Euro, my wife picked the one with Italian herbs. The free one was cut by the lady and was served to us for our lunch, yummy.

After a nice lunch, with the nice cheese, we went to the backside of the farm house to play the klompen golf. The golf field was a block of polder with a narrow dike in the middle and some cows that grazing on the field. Before started the real thing, we got explanation about the techniques and rules. The golf club was a wooden stick with a klompen-shaped head and the ball was about the half size of a volleyball. The rule was the same as the normal golf, we needed to finish 18 holes with minimum stroke. We could practice the swing and chose the best club before start.
The real game was really fun. We got variety of holes anatomy: easy long ones, some with bunkers and hills, few with waters in the middle, and majority with cows (and their residues) around. I hit one of the poor cow that blocked my shot. We finished the 18 holes in about 2 hours and the best of us got a winning yellow shirt.

Klompengolf...hit the cows :)

We spent the hole 19 (I've told you, it was pretty same with the normal golf) drinking at the farm house. Some of us preferred to take a shower for refreshment toward the dinner (yeah, sure, there must be a nice dinner in our activities). Unfortunately two of us could not join the dinner, so there were six of us who drove to Rhenen, a small town besides the river Rhine. The trip itself took about an hour via the highway near Utrecht and passing part of the green Utrechtse Heuvelrug.

The restaurant was called TanteLoes, a nice white building directly on the side of the Rhine. We got a table at the back terrace facing the river, a beautiful view with the church tower in afar. The food selection was quite fine, although not really special. I ordered onion soup for appetizer and a nice thick tender tournedos as the main course. Had no more appetite for dessert, I just ordered a cup of coffee meanwhile the rest were having more proper dessert :).

TanteLoes

After dinner we shortly visited the riverside and afterward we drove back. Me and my wife were dropped at Utrecht and we took the train back to Eindhoven. It was a nice day.

Sting at Bospop Festival

Sting - Broken Music Tour
Bospop Festival, Weert, 7 July 2006



For these two years, 7th of July was a special date for me. July 7 2005 was the evening when I visited Coldplay concert in Arnhem. One year after, July 7 2006, I went to one of my dreams come true concert: Sting!

During summer of 2006 Sting toured in Europe with title 'Broken Music', the tour that was inspired by his autobiography, to back to his basic rocking music style. In Holland the show was part of Bospop Festival in Weert, south Holland. I went there directly from work by train in a nice cool summer afternoon. The festival was lcoated in Boshaven, a nice wide park about 20 minutes walking from center of Weert. I arrived there around 7 in the evening. The park was already quite crowded, people were sitting on the grass, enjoying foods and drinks. First I stopped at the official tour store to buy a Broken Music tour shirt, then I walked around visiting some interesting shirts and CD/DVD shops. I just realised there, in one of the shops, that Pulse DVD was already released officially, finally.

The main festival stage was relatively big for the park, giving a nice view from any spot in the park. I chose to stand on the front, first row, at the left side in front of the huge speakers (later on I realised that it was really loud!). The stage was already set for Fiction Plane, the first performer. Fiction Plane is a British pop rock band, fronted by vocalist-guitarist Joe Sumner, son of Gordon Sumner (aka Sting) himself. Joe and his three band mates were the opening act during his father's Broken Music tour this year.
They entered the stage some times after 7, relatively on schedule. Joe resemblance the look of his father, also bit of the voice and stage act. The songs were mostly in modern pop rock style, pretty similar with Coldplay or U2. It was enjoyable, fit perfectly for warming up.

After about an hour, they left the stage with nice applause from the crowd. The stage was rearranged for the second performer, The Charlatans. They are British band from 90's era with music style similar to Oasis. Some songs were pretty much the same as Oasis' songs with heavy-crunchy riff style, also the vocal style kept reminding me to Liam Gallagher. Some other songs had some reggae style. I was impressed with the bass sound, very deep and dynamic.

The Charlatans performed also about an hour. After that the stage was rearranged again. Being in the front row, I could say that the stage crews worked very good, efficient and fast. The crews from Sting were old guys, looked very experience. It was a nice view on its own to watch them set the instruments and did the sound check.

Around 10 o' clock, when the sky was already darker, I saw Dominic Miller (guitar), Lyle Workman (guitar), and Abe Laboriel Jr. (drum) entered the stage. They directly started with intro of Message In A Bottle, and Sting entered the stage and took the center position, ready to rock with his Fender Precision Bass. As promised, this song was really rocking, very energetic opening. Two thumbs up for powerful drum style from Abe Laboriel Jr. (Paul McCartney band).
After the blasting opening, Sting directly continued with Synchronicity II, another powerful song. It reminded me to the first time I knew The Police about 20 years ago.

Little bit slowing down, they performed If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, a song that could be easily joined by the crowd. Then back to the old time we got the Walking On The Moon. After a heavier style of Englishman in New York, Dominic Miller changed to acoustic guitar and they performed Shape Of My Heart. This soft song got a perfect nuance by the light rain poured down from the sky.

The rain was getting bit heavier as Sting back to heavier stuff: Driven to Tears, followed by old time favorite Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. Sting really knew how to arrange the setlist, alternating fast and calm songs. We were little bit cooled down again by Why Should I Cry For You and the beautiful Fields of Gold. It's terrific to watch Dominic Miller's fingers dancing on his acoustic guitar.

Not letting the crowd getting too cold, they performed Beatles' A Day In The Life, If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, and some other songs from The Police era, with a nice solo sessions by Dominic Miller and Lyle Workman. I was pretty close to Dominic position and it was a wonderful view to watch his solo. At one point Sting also switched position with Dominic, and that was the time when I was closest to Sting in my life :).

Never enough with the classics, the crowd went crazy when Sting started "Roxanne...you don't have to put on the red light...". The song was getting longer than usual with a nice inclusion of So Lonely at the near end of the song.

After a short break they back to the stage with an additional Arabic percussion player. Yes, it was time for Desert Rose, a different tune from Sting. They played heavier version than the original with Dominic played the eastern melody. The crowd went more energetic after that when we heard the famous intro of Every Breath You Take. We were singing along, clapping, jumping, and shouting during the song because we knew it was almost the end of the show. The climax was reached when they performed another song from Outlandos d'Amour, Next To You.
It could be a perfect show with an opening and ending from the first two albums of The Police, but it was much better when I saw Sting replaced his Fender with an acoustic guitar. It was indeed couldn't be better to end the show by reminding all of us about how fragile we are. With a wonderful ending solo acoustic guitar, Sting ended the show. Four of them said goodbye to the crowd and that was it.

In my opinion it was a great show. The pieces were almost equally selected from The Police and Sting releases, and it was a nice feeling to be able to watch Sting performed the old songs. The sound quality was good (I found that The Charlatans was much noisier than Sting). The stage layout was nice, with brilliant but not overdone ceiling and background lighting. The weather was friendly as well, little rain but still tolerable. Overall, I had a very nice evening.

The complete set list:
- Message In A Bottle
- Synchronicity II
- If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
- Walking On The Moon
- Englishman In New York
- Shape Of My Heart
- Driven to Tears
- Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
- Why Should I Cry For You
- Fields Of Gold
- A Day In The Life
- If You Love Somebody Set Them Free
- Voices Inside My Head
- Solo
- When The World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around
- Roxanne/So lonely
-----------------------
- Desert Rose
- Every Breath You Take
- Next To You
- Fragile

Oslo, Norway

June 2-5, 2006

In a long weekend of Pentecost Day me, my wife, and two friends of us spent nice spring weather in Oslo, capital of Norway. It was not a really well-planned and well-learned holiday, we just booked the tickets and hotels and flew there. It quite different with our normal vacations, where we searched information about nice and interesting places to see at our holiday destination.

Me and my wife flew to Oslo from Schiphol on Friday evening after office hour. It was a quick flight, about 1.5 hours, after a long wait during the check-in. We arrived quite late in Oslo Gardermoen airport. Before landing we saw beautiful scenery of sunset over hilly landscape of Norway. The airport itself is quite small but nicely designed, especially for cold winter weather. Most of the external doors are double and it has wooden floor.

We took express train from the airport to Oslo central station. The train was very modern, clean, and fast. We travelled through green hills and small villages and some tunnels before reaching the city. The Oslo station building was not very impressive. It was shabby and looked quite old. We waited for our friends there before taking the bus to our hotel. For first two nights we stayed at Radisson SAS Park Hotel. It was located in nice green area quite outside the city, about 20 minutes by bus.

We started pretty early on our first morning in Oslo, full of spirit to explore the city. After a nice and filling breakfast in the hotel we took the bus and alighted near the Royal Palace. The Royal Palace is the residence of the Norwegian Royal Family. It is a yellowish big building with a park at the back and a nice view to Karl Johans Gate at the front side. From the palace we walked through the Karl Johans Gate, the main avenue in Oslo that laid from the palace until the train central station. Along the way we passed the National Theater building, university building, nice park with fountain and statues, and the parliament building.

From Karl Johans Gate we walked to the City Hall building. It is a big red brick building with twin towers, a good landmark located by the waterfront of the Oslofjord. The front side of the City Hall building has U-shape and is decorated with wooden friezes about Norse mythology. The inside part of the building is mainly a big reception hall where the annual Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held. The walls are decorated with colorful paintings.

Oslo City Hall

Behind the City Hall we directly reached the Oslofjord with view of Akershus Fortress on the left side, modern harbour part Aker Brygge and Nobel Peace Center building on the right side. We had a wonderful bright shiny day on that morning to enjoy the scenery of the harbour.

Because of the perfect weather, we decided to visit Frogner Park and Vigeland Sculpture Park that is located inside the Frogner Park. We took the tram from the Aker Brygge that passed through shopping and residential streets of Oslo before reached the park. The Vigeland Park maybe the most famous park in Norway. It was designed by Gustav Vigeland, a Norwegian sculptor. There are 212 sculptures in bronze and granit that modelled by Vigeland himself. The theme of the sculptures is 'human life'. They were divided into several parts: the Bridge with mostly sculptures about children, the Fountain, the Monolith Plateau, and the Wheel of Life.

The Monolith in Vigeland Park

We already could see the Monolith from the bridge while we were enjoying the detail human interpretation in the statues. The most popular statue on the bridge is Sinnataggen, the 'Angry Boy'.

The Angry Boy in Vigeland Park

The Fountain is located more or less in the center of the park, very relaxing place thanks to the water fountain and nice wide green parks on both sides of the fountain. Some people were enjoying the sun on the green grass, also some were doing the sport and there was also a cheerleader group practicing there (who got some applauses from the tourists on difficult acrobatic movements).
The best part of the park is the Monolith Plateau. It is located higher than the other parts of the park. There are 36 granit statues arranged in 12 lines along rising circular stairs and the 17 m high monolith on the top of the circle. The circular shape somehow reminded me to Borobudur temple in Central Java that has similar circular shape.

A statue in the Monolith Plateau, Vigeland Park

The statues still have humanic theme, mostly showing adults in different poses. The monolith also carved with human shapes that intertwine with each other.
Walk further from the Monolith we saw a sundial that decorated with zodiac figures, and at the furthest part of the park stands the Wheel of Life, a sculpture of women, men, and children holding on each other as wheel.
More detail information about Vigeland (the person and the park) can be found here.

From the park we went back to Aker Brygge for a quick lunch. After lunch we took boat to visit Bygdøy, a peninsula on the west part of the city. There are several popular museums in Bygdøy. From the stop of the boat we walked through a street with nice wooden houses until we arrived at Viking Ship Museum. It is a small museum, showing three wooden Viking ships that were used for burial in the Viking era around 9th century. Two of the ships (Oseberg and Gokstad ships) were still in a good shape and we could see the detail of the boat design. The museum also displayed items that were found from the ships, for example the burial chamber, small boats, and several grave goods.

From the Viking Ship Museum we walked to different corner of the peninsula to visit Kon-Tiki Museum. This museum showed boats from Thor Heyerdahl expeditions, the Kon-Tiki raft and the papyrus boat Ra II. Ra II was located in the first room, where we also could follow the story of the expeditions, how the team designed and built the papyrus boats (Ra I and Ra II) as well as the expedition trip description crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Marocco to Barbados.
In the next room we could see the Kon-Tiki balsa raft, that was used by Heyerdahl and the crews crossing the Pacific from Peru to the Tuamotus archipelago. Besides these two main expeditions, we also could see some findings from Heyerdahl's later expeditions to the Easter Island, Polynesia, and Galapagos.
Personally I found the Kon-Tiki Museum was much more interesting to visit than the Viking Ship Museum.

There is another museum located in front of the Kon-Tiki Museum, the Fram Museum. It showed the Fram, a ship that was used by Amundsen to reach the South Pole. We did not enter this museum, just looked briefly the big ship from the entrance, before we took the boat back to the Aker Brygge.

Aker Brygge

The last trip on that first day was a short Oslofjord boat tour. We went with a boat circling the fjord with some explanations by the tour guide. We had a nice view of Oslo and the Bygdøy peninsula from the boat.

After a short rest in the hotel, we went out again for dinner. We aimed for a decent meal with reasonable price due to very expensive food price in Oslo. We visited the area near the train station and found a traditional Indian restaurant in a quite 'international' neigbourhood. They served quite authentic Indian food, curry and tandoori, complete with the traditional Roti Prata. After the dinner we back to the hotel to get our sleep.

The second day, again we started with nice breakfast from the hotel. It was the last breakfast in the Radisson hotel because we moved to KNA Scandic hotel that located nearer to the Oslo city center.
After got our room in the Scandic hotel, we went to the train station. We planned to go out from Oslo because we already visited most touristic places in Oslo on the first day. Unfortunately the train ticket price was quite expensive to visit some far places, so we decided to take local train to Kløfta, a village between Oslo and Gardermoen airport. With a very minimum knowledge about the place, we walked around the village, found nothing interesting at all, only in the end we arrived in a church on a small hill. The church had cemetery complex surrounding it, and we just sat on a bench enjoying the graves while eating our snacks. Quite an experience, had a picnic in cemetery!
From Kløfta we took the train back to Oslo and we stopped at Lillestrøm, a suburb of Oslo. It was bigger than Kløfta, and we spent a short time enjoying the peaceful riverside near the train station before we continued our trip back to Oslo.

In the evening we went to the area near the train station, again to find a place for dinner. We found a nice Vietnam restaurant that served quite real Vietnamese food. I found the pho was very good, more or less the same taste as the pho in Indonesia.
After dinner we walked back to the hotel via the Oslo Cathedral and through the long Karl Johans Gate until the National Theater.

Akershus Fortress

The last day, we started also with a nice breakfast from another hotel. We had a relax planning then because we only had about half day anyway before we need to go to the airport. After breakfast we walked to the Akershus Fortress. There is a castle inside the fortress, which was quite beautiful and had several rooms and things to see, for example royal mausoleum where King Haakon VII and King Olav V were buried with their wifes.
The fortress itself gave nice view to the Oslofjord as well as the city of Oslo.

From the Akershus at the seaside we took the tram continued by local train to visit a much higher place in Oslo, Holmenkollen hill where the ski jump arena is located. From there we could see the Oslofjord until far away in the horizon.

Holmenkollen Ski Jump

Back to the city of Oslo, we had lunch in a local restaurant. I had typical Scandinavian meatballs with mashed potato and peas. Actually it was the only time we ever had local food in Oslo. After lunch we picked our bags in the hotel and rushed away to get the train to the airport. In the airport we spent our last Norwegian Kroner on ice creams and a piece of bread. Then we flew back to Holland, enjoying the scene of the Oslofjord for the last time from the plane.

Rembrandt - Caravaggio Exhibition

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
20 May 2006

It's been a while since we visited Amsterdam the last time, and last week we 'need' to go to the big old city two times. The first visit was to meet my good friend from Indonesia. It was a quick visit on Thursday evening. We walked around the famous Red Light District and had a dinner in the Chinatown area. Then we walked to the Dam and went back to the train station. We got delicious pempek from Indonesia, thanks!

The following Saturday we went to Amsterdam again. We visited the Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibition in Van Gogh Museum. The exhibition was an effort to compare the masterpieces from both great artists side by side, who worked using similar Impressionist style that use lots of light on their paintings.

Before went to the Museumplein, we had Chinese dim sum for lunch. It was not really special, but good enough so we decided to have dinner there after the museum visit. After lunch we took tram to go to Museumplein, and we arrived on time to queue. It turned out to be a popular event based on the long of the queue, and it was full as well inside. Sometimes we need to 'fight' to get to the front of the paintings.

They provided audio tour from where we got explanation in detail and background story for every paintings. The exhibition itself was located on two levels. There were several highlights on the first floor. There was betrayal topic, where we could see the Betrayal of Christ by Caravaggio placed side by side with the Denial of St. Peter by Rembrandt. On the other corner there was seductive women topic, which compared the Blinding of Samson by Rembrandt and the Judith and Holofernes by Caravaggio.

The second floor provided more interesting paintings. The Abraham's Sacrifice by both artists, the emotional expressions on A Schoolboy at His Desk by Rembrandt and A Boy Bitten by Lizard by Caravaggio, and the peaceful Jewish Bride by Rembrandt.

As an extra, there was another floor that filled in by stories connecting Van Gogh to Rembrandt. It was interesting to know that Van Gogh, who claimed that he could only paint real and current events and not something from the past, was still influenced by Rembrandt, artist from two centuries before him. It was known that Van Gogh used to stay in front of the Jewish Bride painting when he visited Rijksmuseum. In the end of his life he adapted the Raising of Lazarus painting by Rembrandt into his own style. It was known as his last work before he passed away.

After about two hours enjoying the paintings, we walked from the Museumplein to the Leidseplein. We stopped there to get some drinks at the nice outdoor seat, enjoying the spring weather of Amsterdam. Then we walked back to the China town area to have our dinner.

Exhibition website: Rembrandt Caravaggio website

50 Years TU Eindhoven

April 27-28, 2006

Celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Eindhoven Technical University (TU/e) was held big, not only in the university but also in the Eindhoven city center.

At the Eindhoven city square there was a big stage for two days. This was the biggest stage I've ever seen in the Eindhoven city center. And for these two days there were live music on that stage, totally free for everyone!

The headline at the first night was BLØF, one of the most popular Dutch bands. They played for around two hours from 10 pm until midnight. The city square was totally packed with people, students as well as older people. The performance was great. Although I was not very familiar with their songs, but BLØF surely can be considered as good musicians.
The sound quality was almost perfect, non-stop music for two hours. The stage lighting also good, with a wide screen at the center background.
For you who are not familiar with BLØF, their style is kind of U2 and Coldplay combined together, with Dutch lyrics.

The second night was totally different atmosphere. The music was from Philips Symphony Orchestra with Celtic Tenors for some vocals and Geert Chatrou for some whistles. The stage was arranged for full orchestra, and they played broad selections, from famous Dutch songs until Broadway musical pieces. The Celtic Tenors sang Yesterday and Hey Jude from The Beatles, some Spanish and musical pieces, Nessun Dorma, Danny Boy, and closed the show with We Are The Champions.

Those were very nice evenings, free concerts with big stage and good quality artists. Congratulations for TU/e!