Sunday, February 27, 2011

Maritiem Museum Rotterdam (finally!)

After nearly a year of living in Rotterdam, I finally visited a museum. I feel so ashamed for myself, but my excuse is that I've been busy immersing myself and transforming myself into a Dutch person. Which pretty much means someone who never sees what is right there in their own home. Or does that only apply to Malaysians?

Anyway, the perfect opportunity came when I saw that the Maritiem Museum (Maritime Museum in English, I didn't spell it wrongly) was holding an exhibition on naval-inspired haute couture over the centuries. Sounded right up my alley, so I invited CaroBrasilia and we headed over there.


We actually found out at the end of the exhibition that we had entered from the exit. Oops. So basically, this really nice-looking collection of naval equipment was in the front of the exhibition, explaining the purpose of the whole exhibition, and we only saw this at the end.


Believe me, the clothes actually look waaaay better on the models (they have little screens showing the actual catwalk shows) than on these mannequins.

I do really like that outfit with the hood thingy and yellow boots though.


After this, we headed to the general museum area and then to the actual ship just next to the building.


We checked out the decks below where the sailors work, but nothing pretty there. A few things to play with, which were quite fun though. And a really scary basement area where they kept naughty sailors. I was actually quite scared when I walked down there alone cuz they only had UV lights, and they had sounds of sailors groaning and mumbling insanely. Also little notices on the doors and the walls about what they had done and crazy things like that.

This is the nice part, where the captain and the guests hang out.


The captain's quarters are at the tip of the boat and it's so beautiful! I really love that sofa stretching on the back wall all around the room.


I couldn't resist a silly picture on the WC.


Schrobbenmaster came to join us later and was forced into the pic muahahaha.


The eating quarters. It looks really IKEA to me. Except for the people sleeping on the hammocks next to the tables.


Some items from the sailor's lockers.


A typical boys' scene.


From the ship deck. It looks so nice!


And if we're in luck, we will be living in one of those tall buildings there very soon *crossing fingers*!


Yah, it was pretty cold there, hence the beanie and gloves :P Plus, I biked to the museum.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Some festival pics from 2010

Found a few pictures from last year's NS Try Out Festival season.

Although I wasn't working at the stations like my colleagues, I dropped by every Saturday to check out how my signages and other material were working out and to celebrate the end of the week with the rest of the team.


The after parties are always pretty wild with all the girls going mad with drink and happiness. No pictures of those, hehe. But the team does like starting the fun at the station.


There was a DJ stage in front of us and we were making the moves, yo.

When the whole festival was over, we were all invited for a big dinner as a thank you. In total, including our company, the theatre organising company and the team from the NS, there were around 30 of us. The 'big dinner' turned out to be a group activity where everyone splits into groups and is given a recipe and a cooking area, and we all cook each course of the dinner ourselves. Pretty fun!



I was in the same group as Schrobbenmaster and our videographer, Daan. We had the easiest thing - cookies!


Chocolate cookies with some orange essence.


What a nice kitchen area!


We formed our cookie dough into hearts, circles, triangles and initials. Can you see a few 'J's in there? :D


Wanted to try some macro shooting.


The cookies are ready!



The crowd.

Some of you may have already seen this on Facebook, but for cuteness' sake, here it is again!


I was roasting a red pepper for a lamb pasta dish that night that Hanselem was coming over to cook. And I was informed by the Interweb that it's possible to do it this way. Well, we didn't get any stomach upsets, so I'm sure it was fine.

Okie I'm leaving the office now... ciao!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

First girl's night out in Rotterdam

So after nearly a year of being here, I've finally had my first girl's night out in Rotterdam. It wasn't a girl's night out in the usual sense, what I mean is that it was just a dinner outing with only girls. Nothing like going wild in sexy clothes and getting drunk or anything. Hehe.

I was quite excited about it because it would also be the first time I've biked somewhere with girls for an outing. I'd never done it as a schoolkid (as frachely pointed out that it's a normal thing for schoolkids) so don't blame me for being excited :P

Anyway, we were supposed to head to Taj Mahal for all-you-can-eat Indian, but it turns out that they don't do it anymore. So they asked me for suggestions since I'm apparently known to be the Rotterdam restaurant connoisseur. I don't think so myself, but well, it's not a bad thing to be associated with.

Eventually, we chose Chinatown Takeaway (which isn't a takeaway restaurant) on West-Kruiskade, ie. Chinatown. All of them had never had Chinese food before so they were asking about how to eat and how to choose food. And thankfully everyone simply loved the food. We ordered sweet and sour pork, beef in black bean sauce and a plate of vegetables with bamboo (cuz CaroBrasilia just loves bamboo).

It was a lovely night and it felt nice to be part of a girl's group again :) Two of the girls live along the route back home, mine being the first, so it was nice to have company all the way back while making plans for a movie outing soon.

Hopefully more to come!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Was terribly sick.

I've been away for a while because I've been pretty sick.

About 10 days ago, I got a severe attack of rashes all over my body, then fell sick with a fever and cough and was hospitalised because the doctors wanted to observe me (they listed me as an emergency case). Last Wednesday night was spent at the Sint Franciscus Gasthuis and I was feeling very, very lonely indeed. At first, I wanted to have a private room, which isn't possible in this country, but in the end, I was glad that I had 4 other people with me in the ward to keep me company in the silence of the night.

Well, I say silence, but the air was mostly filled with nighttime farts from the old man next to me, sudden yells from the old man diagonally opposite and groans of pain from the woman nearest to the door, which actually sounded more like orgasmic groans, but... yeah.

There was a patient lying opposite me, but from the time I walked into the ward, he had his whole body covered with the sheet. And I was so curious about him because I didn't know if he was a male or female and if he was young or old. Even the next morning at dawn, when the nurses came to check our vitals, I perked my ears up to hear a voice, but all I heard was the nurse asking him questions and apparently getting the answers telepathetically.

Anyway, today, I'm feeling better mentally and physically. I still have dark marks all over my body which should be healing eventually. The only thing I hate is waking up every night with agonisingly itchy ankles, which are swollen.

I also have an appointment in a week with the dermatologist, who took a skin biopsy when I was at the hospital. Oh, that was a little scary cuz I didn't know how big or how deep she would go. I ended up getting stitched back up because I wouldn't stop bleeding. It must've been pretty deep then, eh!

To lighten the mood, let's look at a photo I took at a photo booth during the fashion exhibition at the Maritiem Museum:


Had a good laugh? I was busy concentrating on keeping my head within the marked areas when I pressed 'Foto maken' and they didn't have a countdown, which is why I ended up with a face looking like this. Poo.