I "own" Blaak. Antique shopping in Delft. And someone has a new bicycle.

Last weekend, Rik and I decided to be productive and proactive about the wedding, so we headed to Delft to see if the antique shops and market had anything we could use.

But first, let me show off my larger-than-life designs currently gracing the city centre of Rotterdam (Blaak).

Yes, that's right, I designed these huge wall stickers for Oude Haven (the yellow bit) and CitizenM hotels (the black bit which is cut off). Following their respective house styles, of course, but most of the time was spent searching for appropriate images and technical bits like measurements and cutting off and joining the images and text at the right spots.

And now we return from the promotional break...

Do you see my brand new bright yellow New Balances? A month ago I had zero sports shoes, and now two New Balances have popped up in my shoe cupboard. Life always works that way, doesn't it?

I love all the green on the surface of the canals in Delft.

Soooooo Dutch. Definitely not for the locals.

I love these colours!

Just a random picture Rik felt like taking, I guess.

And Rik's new bike! Some of you who know us on Facebook will have seen this already. It's a chrome/champagne Sparta and it looks super hip and cool (more so without the bike bag). Rik's trusty old crappy orange bike had been involved in one too many accidents and was pretty much beyond repair. At least it would have cost almost the same amount of money to fix as to buy a new one.

Maybe you're wondering, did we manage to find anything good in Delft? Well, we did! We walked into a small antique shop (no pics of it) and tried to haggle the price of copper spoon box down, but we only got € 2,50 off. We wanted to use it for the rings in the church, and € 20 was over my budget for such an item, but I figured, it's not easy to come by these things, so what the heck. No pics though, let's save it for the big day :)

Swedish Christmas Market 2012 @ Rotterdam

It's that time of the year again, when I get all excited about Christmas markets and all things cosy and Christmassy!

To start the season off, we went to the Swedish Christmas market at the Svenska Sjömanskyrkan - the Swedish church - at Zalmhaven in Rotterdam. Wayne and Martijn had planned to go as well, so we met them there. Zalmhaven is a really beautiful area, with fantastic old and big homes (which are mostly no longer homes as they are too expensive) and right on the Maas.

As Rik and I were early, we decided to take some photos outside with the nice autumn leaves.

Me and the Euromast.

Me in front of a pretty building.

The building of the Swedish church itself isn't very outstanding, but they have a nice plaque with their address on it.

It wasn't very big inside, with only about 10 stalls in total. But I found it better than the German Christmas markets in Düsseldorf that we visited last year. Well, those looked Christmassy and were really busy, but I was disappointed that most of them sold things that they bought from suppliers. It was really commercial and that's not what I like about markets.

At the Swedish market, things were definitely a lot more Swedish-based, some were handmade and some were just supplied, but it was super busy and popular all the same. Things weren't very cheap, which is unfortunate, as our purse strings are extremely tight at the moment, what with me being jobless and all. But we were definitely open for buying tea light holders to make the home cosy for Christmas/winter. There were paraffin candles in the shape of snowballs, which were super cute, but quite pricey at € 4 a pop. But at the same stall, we found two amazing holders made of crystal, that look like ice... also for € 4 per piece. So we bought them :) After all, they will last year after year, unlike the paraffin ones!

Looking really pretty on the windowsill.

Next week is the Finnish Christmas market, so I'm looking forward to that since I have absolutely no idea of Finnish culture!

Bruxelles 2012 - the arty city

I just really like Brussels. I wouldn't live there and I wouldn't go there every weekend, but as a city, it's definitely a place I would recommend to people.

There are so many things to discover if you're into the arts and creative scene. I didn't make it into any cultural venue or museum this trip, but I saw a lot of shops, and boy were they nice shops.

Almost all bookshops had old, secondhand arty books, almost all comic stores had anything you would want to find. Almost all music shops were vintage and collector's, and the variety of everything a hipster would want is staggering.

I even bought two piano books, even though I don't have a piano. Yet.

After buying my piano books.

Art landscaping in front of the Royal Library.

 

Saved from financial ruin by all the books being in French.

Cappuccino with Belgian chocolate powder on top. Luxurious! But not that tasty, actually.

Grand Place.

Nativity scene under the thatched roof left over from Christmas.

This is a community service message: Don't buy waffles from this shop. They're mushy and don't represent the opinions of Belgian waffles nationwide.

I wanted to buy these cushion stools but there was no price attached. After browsing the shop and seeing the prices of salt and pepper shakers (averaging € 60/pair), I decided that my purse wouldn't like me very much if I bought them. Super cute though.

This shop is located in the gay quarter of Brussels and I'm absolutely convinced to be targeted only at gays. Because straight singles and couples in general just can't afford these things for their homes. Somehow, gays always have the best stuff in their homes, doncha think??

Nice girl with nice eyes makes nice earrings which Yelleh Belleh bought.

Yet another bookstore. I just can't get enough.

Super beautiful Christmas nature decorations. I wanted to decorate my place nature-style for Christmas 2011, but I just couldn't find enough. It doesn't seem very popular to have nature-style decor :s :s

Nice, bright mustard door in the middle of the ghetto.

Famous Marché aux Puces flea market, open daily from 6am to 2pm.

Yelleh Belleh bargaining with an Arabic Dude:

YB: How much is this?

AD: Ten euro.

YB: That's too expensive, can you make it cheaper?

AD: Uh. How much you want?

YB: Uh, seven euro?

AD: Uh... (calls over Arabic Dude 2 and discusses)... (turns back to YB)... eight euro.

YB: Uh, that's too expensive. Never mind, I don't want it.

(After standing still for 5 seconds)

AD: Five euro.

YB: Oh. Okay.

Yelleh Belleh's shoulder hurt from the heavy backpack.

View while I was waiting for her to finish putting muscle gel on.

Buying last minute beer at De Bier Tempel just off Grand Place. Tourist prices, so don't go there if you want to get Belgian beer at normal prices. We were just in a rush as we had a train to catch. After paying for the beer, we actually had 7 minutes to run to the train station, with our heavy backpacks and 6 bottles of beer in plastic bags. We arrived on the platform panting and cramping just as the train pulled in. Talk about cutting it close!

Good trip overall and nice to see Brussels again :)

Christmas Shopping Day. Robinson's +1, Jusco -10.

So today was our scheduled Christmas Shopping Day.

Schrobbenmaster couldn't come out with us yet again because he's still recovering from his flu. The poor guy is spending the last few days of his holiday in bed. Sigh.

Anyway, Yelleh Belleh and I headed to Robinson's in The Gardens for our shopping. We knew what Mumsy Bumsy had asked for so we headed straight to that department. Holy moley, that item is pricey! But we did receive an RM20 voucher to spend in the same department. What a good decision then, to get similar items from the same department for other people.

Talking about receiving vouchers as a reward for spending a certain amount of money...

One of the things that irritates me about Malaysia are the measly, pathetic excuses for rewards and rebates they have.

"Spend RM300 with your credit card and get an RM10 Coffee Bean voucher!"

Just tell me, won't you, what exactly you can buy with RM10 at Coffee Bean? A small cup of orange juice is what I think.

So if you spend RM900, you get an RM30 Coffee Bean voucher. OMG. You know what? Keep your lame vouchers. As much as I like free things and things that are value for money, this is just insulting.

Another one I saw a few years back:

"Buy 2 Absolut Vodkas and receive RM5 off!"

RM freaking FIVE.
Off bottles which cost RM200 each.

Keep your RM freaking five and leave me my dignity, thanks.

ANYWAY.

Yelleh Belleh and I managed to get everything we needed, and the two shop assistants at Robinson's were so helpful and patient with us. Robinson's really knows how to train their staff, I can say that for sure.

As opposed to Jusco.
Ugh.

We couldn't find some of the cheaper items in Robinson's so we knew Jusco would be a good bet. Sure enough, we found what we were looking for, but not without some heartache from lazy Jusco staff.

Imagine:
We want to find out if there is more stock of a certain item, so we approach the nearest shop assistant. He says (with a smile, at least) that he doesn't know that section, but the woman in charge should be "over there". Okay, after Robinson's, this service just doesn't cut it. Just look for the woman and bring us to her or vice versa lah. We had to wander off in the general direction of his pointing finger and hope to find that woman.

She turned out to be alright, quite enthusiastic but also unable to help with stock enquiries. So we gave up and chose another design instead.

The cashier was really the one who irritated me. She was talking to a customer in front of me, and after waiting behind him for a bit, I realised that she was actually really just talking to him and not serving him. He was just some other staff member who was discussing an item. I had already looked for the Closed Counter sign, but it wasn't anywhere to be seen, so was I to know that she wasn't serving him as a customer? Could she not see me standing behind him with my items to be purchased? It would have been easy to just point me round to the counter behind her who was really serving customers.

Inefficient, blinkered staff.

But the funniest (in a not-so-funny way) was when we went down the escalator and turned the corner to the next escalator, and nearly bumped into a short Malay shop assistant standing right at the edge of the escalator, staring into space. Yelleh Belleh gave her three huge: "EXCUSE ME"s. But the light never came into her eyes. Even when, going down, I turned back to look at her.

Ah, Jusco. Always good for low blood pressure.

Robinson's, you're the best.