Friday, December 03, 2010

5 little things to be thankful for

Sometimes, little things make a big difference in our lives. There are some things here in NL that really put a smile on my face and make me thankful. Yes, indeed, we should be more thankful about things that make our lives just that bit easier.

  1. Drink cartons really ARE no-spill.
  2. Food is as fresh as morning dew.
  3. Drivers are courteous and law-abiding.
  4. Pork is easily obtainable.
  5. Moleskines and Brabantias are affordable.
It is now approaching crunch time! I have to buck up and buy all the souvenirs and gifts to bring home to KL. And it's not ideal weather for going out.

Tonight, we had dinner in a really cosy place on Hoofddorpplein in Amsterdam called Kek, which is a colloquial word for "sweet and cool". We found it through Google Maps (one more thing to be thankful for) because we had planned a dinner with one of my ex-colleagues, Danny Lim (and the guy he's staying with in Amsterdam, Joao), and because of the snow, we didn't want to drive through the centre of Amsterdam. This restaurant is only 10 minutes from our office and in a nice, quiet neighbourhood.

Danny is in Amsterdam for a few days en route to Kuala Lumpur from London, via Madrid, Munich, Budapest, Vienna and a hundred other cities up till Tehran and then the journey stops abruptly only because there are no proper rail transfers across India and Iran.

What an exciting journey!

He's doing it all by rail as well. What a wonderful way to really explore and discover yourself, with all those hours alone. I think it's just great.

Anyway, the past 2 weeks have been really full of 2 or 3-course dinners at lavish restaurants and I'm feeling like I'm gonna be heading back to KL having put on weight that I never had before. I enjoyed all these dinners, experiencing more of the Amsterdam lifestyle. Too bad that it had to be at a time when my skin is really acting up and making me very self-conscious. Thankfully most gezellig places are dim indoors, which makes it easier to hide flaws :P

So back to the point of this post, the next time you encounter something that helps make your life that little bit easier (for me it's definitely the no-spill cartons), remember to pause and smile in appreciation!

4 comments:

frachely said...

what a fresh change from the usual ranting :P

and i think the whole 'discover-self-thru-travelling-part' is solely limited to ppl who don't have to supply for their families.

shoobaba said...

i suppose when ppl don't get enough sleep, anything can make us annoyed :P

as much as i hate emo blogs, i rant a lot here to let off steam. if i'm happy, why should i spend time typing long essays in front of a computer? :D

shoobaba said...

eh woman, btw, besides the post where i was sick and complaining about the medical system (and all sick ppl are grumpy), the two posts before that were not ranting ok!

frachely said...

haha okkk anyways just to let u know that I don't mind the ranting post actually :p provides us with a good insight of the system there hehe