Back in my hometown

Hello y'all,

So I have returned home after an indeed very long flight, there was an hour delay and when we got back there was another hour delay with the taxi back home....We were all pretty hammered when we finally stepped into our home again, but the joy of our cats made it even nicer to be back home. Later that day there was a even lot more joy seeing my gf again :D

Always when I return to Holland I only feel back home again once I have crossed the Waalbrug, the bridge over the river de Waal on my way to Nijmegen (I live in a village near Nijmegen, but I used to live and study in Nijmegen). So I did just that today and it again was a very nice experience. I walked through some of my favourite parts of town and I took some pictures of it as I blogged already about Valencia and Malaysia but not yet about my hometown. I started at the Valkhof Park, a very historic site in Nijmegen with a great view over the river, the bridge and lower lands. Due to its strategic location it was used before as a Roman army base.



After walking down to the river I sat down for a nice lunch at Vivaldus with a view over the river and over people that were building the upcoming fair. I repeatedly wrote about food during my stay in Asia, so why not now ;) Looks rather different doesn't it?


I continued my walk through the 'Benedenstad' , lower city, where there are still some old houses left. Nijmegen was bombed during the 2nd World War by the Allies (mistake) which left a big scar in the city centre of Nijmegen, but luckily there are still some historic parts that survived. The lower city was really a poor people's place and due to money and political issues they basically were rather late in restoring the lower city after several decades of decline in that area. When they finally fixed it and tore down some parts as part of the renevation they did it very well and even received an award. 'The renovation and rebuilding of the lower town were carried out while leaving intact the historic street pattern with its beautiful alleys and cul-de-sacs and the remains of the old town were also integrated. Nijmegen received the Europa Nostra Award, an international award for architecture for the exceptional way in which this project was executed. Later on, the Waalkade was also given a face lift.'


I then ended up in the Kronenburgpark, a park that was the subject of a very big hit back in the 80s sang by a singer of Nijmegen origins. Near the park is a small red light district which was also involved in the song as it was about prostitution and family life....After ending up in the main shopping street (the Molenstraat) where I saw lots of bikes again (very Dutch, very home :D) and buying some shoes in the sales I crossed the modern part of Nijmegen (Marienburg and Marikenstraat) which won two awards. In 1999 it won an award from the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment for its intensive use of space and in 2000 the new shopping street in the Mariënburg has received the International Council of Shopping Centres award.


I skipped several parts of the centre but I might report on it somewhere later, if not, just visit the city. It is the oldest city of The Netherlands, 2000 years of history. Besides that it is a student city with a huge part of the population being students whom bring a unique vibe to town, pubs, bars, discos, terraces, etc. Furthermore it has the biggest non commercial movie theatre of Holland. There is a casino, opera, theatre, etc. It is the only city in Holland with a fully left winged coalition, they call it Havana at the Waal.....but they are not the stereotype left winged people, as they are not afraid to also stimulate economic growth of which the FiftyTwoDegrees Business Innovation Center by Philips (or now NXP) is a good example.

Anyways that was Nijmegen for now.

See you next time

Jody

Last KL day

I only have a very brief period of time before we are being picked up so a last mini post.

Today contained:

- biggest mall in the world (times square, at least it was 2 years ago)

- indoor rollercoaster ride in the same mall, biggest indoor rollercoaster of Asia

- 2 other malls (Lot 10, Sung smth) and a great walk between all the malls towards the twin towers to end in the last mall Suria KLCC

- nice refreshing spa pool with bubbles and water therapy (pool is on the picture with the bathrobe behind me...you cannot really see it but it is the cube part)

- nice lunch (one pic shows my lunch being prepared, nice dinner)

CU

Jody

Time flies...except in the plane.....

KL old city centre day

Hello dear readers!!

Here is another nightly post from KL!! This might be the last post before my departure, but you never know....maybe tomorrow I will have some time to kill before going to the airport and I might drop a few lines and images if I have the opportunity. But anywayz we had another busy day overhere in KL. We started off by taking a cab to China Town!

In every city there is a China town nowadays so maybe you already have an idea of what they comprise (remember San Francisco? ;)). Overhere China town (and little India) are located in the oldest part of town, so you see a lot of nice old houses in different colours (and unfortunatly in different stages of collapsing too...). We had a few bargains proving that the Dutch are equally good in negotiating as the Chinese ;) and a drink to refresh outselves (Starfruit juice is pretty good)...After that we continued our walk through Chinatown (passing a Chinese and a Hindu temple) after which we had a small sandwhich near one of the bussiest and loudest streets in KL...very urban indeed ;) love it!!


We continued with a walk through little India where you can find all the gold, fabrics and food you need, very nice!! My mother and I went to Merdekka square in the centre where you can find an old cricket club or some colonial stuff the Brits left contrasting with the clash of styles of the court, trainstation, Sultan bladibla building and a nice mosque (saw my mother in muslim cloths hehehe as we wanted to walk around the mosque).


Well indeed everywhere you see different styles mixed in KL or contrasting. The next and final stop for the day was the Menara Tower, I went up the last time I was here, but my mother never been up...so there we went 270mtrs in 58 seconds, only your ears could feel the difference in hight. The Menara tower is the 4th highest tower in the world and the viewing deck is located at like the 2nd highest in the world. If you add to this that the tower is located on the top of a hill it seems even higher in comparison to the surrounding skyscrapers. The Petronas Towers seem less high from the Menara Tower....We then walked home and after a hardly needed and fresh shower (and a nice drink and spring roll snack on our sky lounge) we had a delicious facinating tour of flavours in Still Waters (a Japanese fusion restaurant in our hotel). Now I am ready to have a nice sleep.....tomorrow is our last day here and we arranged that we can check out at 18.00 (instead of 12.00) so we can have a nice and refreshing shower before we go and sit in an airplane for 12 hours again....Our flight is around midnight.

So see you next time, whenever that next time is. Keep an eye on my blog.

Jody

Active day

So what happened today? After checking out the breakfast overhere, which is also more than okay :D we wanted to arrange a cab to bring us to the arts and craft center where you can see and buy local products all Batik, wood carving, etc. etc., but after mentioning we came from the Tanjung Rhu Resort the vice manager said he would call the general manager of the hotel as he used to be the managed of the Tanjung Rhu. We then had a drink and a talk with him, he was a very nice guy with interesting stories about the cultural mix you can find in KL. 60% Malay, 30% Chinese, 5% Indian (he was the 3rd generation) and the other %s come from elsewhere.
After that we went to the craftscentre which was huge with beautiful things.


We also had lunch there in a nice foodcourt (a very non modern one, more like a cantine with 10 stands where you could pick your stand and food. It was again delicious!!



After the Crafts place we wanted to go to some malls, but we took a wrong turn and ended up in the hotel where my parents stayed 7 years ago. We decided to cool down a bit from all the walking with a cocktail and Satay mmmmmmmmmmmm super rico!! And a 30min walk later, which was very nice, as we passed a neighbourhood with loads of bars where I went out 2 years ago when I was doing my 2month Asia trip, we were back in our hotel again where I had a nice shower after enjoying a coke in our sky bar.



Tomorrow I think we will probably go to China Town, Merdekka Square etc. perhaps some malls....we will see

Jody

KL

Kuala Lumpur!!

GREAT to be Back!! (I was in KL well over 2 years ago) Just a very brief post with mainly a few pics. Flight was short and painful, as my ear, head, neck, eyes hurted like mad while going down. For a few hours my hearing was not very good and I had a very strong migraine, but now things are good again. After a nice lunch in a very cool design lunchroom where we had a buffet and a small break in the skylounge/library with a wonderful view on the 13th floor we went for a walk to the KLCC Suria Mall.

This is one of the best malls in town located under the Petronas towers....We spend an hour in a HUGE bookstore and some time just walking around. We then went for one of the 2 foodcourts inside the mall (foodcourt is basically a court with many many small restaurants with one common terrace where you can eat food from all over the world with people from all over the world. It is just too good!! We had Wontan soup which was delicious!! After that we went back to the hotel for some shower and relaxing time....We ended the night in the skylobby on the outdoor terrace on the 13th floor with some spring rolls, cocktails and a magnificent view over the Petronas Towers.....We are in the Maya hotel, a great urban design hotel....

Enjoy the images and see you again soon....internet is not free here and rather expensive (but convenient) so I will keep it short.

Let's see what tomorrow brings

Jody

Last day on Langkawi

Langkawi has been good to us!! It provided us with a paradise environment, delicious food, a wonderful sea, kind people, and just a great time. Today was a perfect goodbye starting with a good breakfast (after 2 days we started eating a bit less in the mornings ;)) They had purple dragon fruit this morning which was kind of special as I only know the white one (talking about the inside). Yesterday we already said goodbye to some of the personal as they had their day off today and today we said bye bye to the rest of the people overhere. After breakfast we went for a 2 hour nature walk on an island of 1000 acres owned by the resort, that ran a bit long which was only nice :D

The guide was the same nature expert as we had on our mangrove tour a very nice guy named Zoher. He is like an enthousiastic teacher joking all the time and telling super interesting stories about nature. We saw many trees like the Tamarind tree (sweet sour in food, and it also has many medical uses, nick named the Village docter, it was either this one or a tree with a name I forgot), Mango tree, Tigerbalm tree (it has an other name of course and is family of the eucalypto), cashew nut tree (nick named the people's tree). Some were good for rashes, eating raw to repell mosquitoes, making a paste to keep your skin young, burning and rubbing the ashes on your teeth to make them strong etc. etc. Endless uses. Also he explained things about how they take care of their reproduction. And in the meantime we just walked through a very nice landscape in the full sunshine, with some cooling down breaks in the jungle. Afterwards we had a nice mocktail, watermellon juice, pineaple and orange juice, this was meant to cool down on the inside and I have to say it worked quiet well :D

Then it was time to cool down some more in the pool and the sea (the pool is cooler than the sea) which was wonderful. We had lunch by the pool and then the rain of course came back....We did some browsing in nearby shops and after a nice shower and teatime we had a wonderful dinner in the famous RHU. This restaurant has been mentioned all over the internet that it is so wonderful and indeed it was very good!! For me the personal high was the chocolat ginger cake freshly from the oven mmmmmmmmmm that was delicious!! So now we tried all 3 restaurant and tomorrow we will have one final breakfeast ;) before checking out. We will be landing in Kuala Lumpur in the morning and I am planning to go to the Petronas towers asap if the weather allows us to and if I am not too sleepy. In KL we will spend 3 days or smth so plenty of time as it is not such a big city (it is not very small neither around 2 million people more or less)

hmmm card reader doesn't want to work together with the pc....so no pictures for now

See you in KL!!
Jody