According to plan, I’ve started learning the iPhone SDK, the biggest goal for this one week holiday. Bought a couple books, so far there’s this one called Beginning iOS4 Application Development that interests me the most. Full color, easy to read, THICK (covers tons of topics), and written by an Asian - I find it usually easier to understand when books are written by Asians, I guess that’s because the thinking process for all Asians is indeed very similar. So far I’m a bit stunned by the amount of new concepts and frameworks presented by the iOS 4 SDK - the syntax for Objective C is quite awkward, adding on top the fairly complex Model-View-Controller architecture. Luckily I got Snow Leopard installed successfully, and my Apple Developer account registered and XCode latest version installed. I really like the book for the fact that it’s REALLY freshly out of the oven - iOS4 SDK, Apple’s latest SDK. I got a couple other books that talk about SDK 3, I’ll probably return those and get a refund. And I’m trying to get used to the Mac. The Mac’s been here since 3 years back but I rarely touched it other than the times that I had to run Ivory piano on it while doing my music. The more I use it the more I’m liking it. Great, clean, simple UI…quick response time…everything just works. The one thing I’ve yet to get used to is the keyboard, specifically the key orientation and hot keys. I’m a bit worried that as soon as I get used to the Mac keystrokes I’ll forget the ones for the PC..lol. So far I’m feeling really great learning it, it’s fun and cool. Can’t wait to start writing my own app.

Last week was definitely the worst week I’ve had in the past year. A database server died during an IT maintenance window, it was a disaster. Took me 6+ hours to fix it all up until 7am, just to followed by insomnia. No sleep for the entire day, worked a couple more hours, just to get more support calls and issues that I had to face. Another database server died shortly following that, more work, more freaked, at the end I was having a hard time breathing properly and my limbs were shaking. It wasn’t until 2 days later that I was able to sleep properly again. Luckily this past week was quiet although everyone was out on vacation but me.

Finally it’s X’mas Eve and I get to rest up a bit. No work today! Just espresso, cake, browsing pictures, and calling Logitech to get a replacement of my VX Revolution mouse. They are going to send me a new one! The Anywhere Mouse MX. It’s a $99.99 retail value one, still doubt it’ll really happen but looks like it will. Going to be a nice, free X’mas gift!

Nothing much that’s going to happen this X’mas. Going to set up my Macbook with iPhone SDK hoping to learn a bit about the Objective C language and mess around with XCore (dev environment) a bit. I have a week of free time next week, hopefully I can accomplish something that I haven’t been able to during the past damned year.

It’s been 4 days since I’m back from Africa. My mind’s been pushing me to start writing a journel as usual but then I’ve been procrastinating since I knew it’s going to be a lot of work for my brain. I wish I could do the journel during the trip but the days in Africa were just so hectic, hot, stressful, and packed with activities, plus there wasn’t electricity for a few nights, I couldn’t keep the laptop running for the journel. Also the mosquitos! I hate them but they were everywhere. It was close to impossible to focus on anything while these little guys fly all over you.

I’ll try to remember, hopefully my memory isn’t as bad as I thought.

Day 0 - Vancouver -> Nairobi

We left early in the morning for the flight, connected in Seattle, Amsterdam, and then Narobi/Kenya. It was probably the lengthiest flight time I’ve ever had, close to 24 hours I believe, although Wendy and I had an hour or so doing some shopping at the Amsterdam airport. I had to buy a bottled of water for taking the malaria pills and it costed like 2.8 euro! What a rip off. We safely arrived Nairobi, it was hot already in the airport. After retriving the baggages we called a taxi at the kiosk. The driver didn’t really know where the hostel was (Khweza Bed and Breakfast) and then he took some weird shortcut which scared us cuz it was like some dark industrial area. He stopped the car at one point and we were like, shit what’s he going to do to us! Luckily he was just trying to back up to use another route. We got the the hostel (really nice one depite the mosquitos), checked in, checked out the mosquito nets (kinda cool), the cool African style lamp, and then it came the most devasting news. I found that my 12-60mm lens was broken! It failed to focus in the 12-18mm range. The metal ring at the bottom was bent, probably cuz I put it in the bottom compartment in my backpack and I recall dropping the pack on the ground for once when I was at the airport. I tried my best to open up the lens with pair of small scissors and attempted to fix it. I got it working partially but the 12-18mm range still wouldn’t focus. Almost wanted to kill myself. I had to use F22 for all of my wide angle shots for the duration of the trip. Sigh.

Day 1 - Stone Town

Next morning we had a very very nice breakfast in the terrace and had an awesome chat with the hostel driver Juma. We then checked out and went to the airport again for Zanzibar. Fly540 budget airline that we took was actually fairly nice, provided us with sandwich, cookies, and drinks. We connected at New Mombasa and then to Zanzibar. Despite the noise from the small plane it was a pleasant flight and I slept all the way. Zanzibar airport was tiny, old, and hot, and we had to pay for the Tanzania VISA which costed $50USD per person, what bullshit. We took a taxi that brought us to the “meeting point” for the tour - the Garden Lodge Hotel, situated in the middle of the infamous Stone Town. The “hotel” looks nice from the outside with great curb appeal, with hanging flowers and all that. However the rooms were small, hot, dark (and the beds have bedbugs which luckily we didnt encounter but our groupmates did). Luckily there weren’t too many mosquitos. After checking in, Wendy and I went out for a walk in the Stone Town. The buildings were short and “stoney” which I could tell that they were build in the old days. Streets were fairly narrow, the ground was very uneven, but it still has its charm - buildings with colorful doors/windows, nice detailing around the frames, interesting paint colors, and since 99% of the women there were muslims they wear really colorful clothes which make great contrast to the exterior of the buildings and is awesome for pictures. Around 5:30pm we wandered back to the hotel, full of sweat, and met with the group of people that we’d be travelling with for the next 10 days. The tourguide Freddy told us to meet at The Africa House for a drink. We went there, saw the group of people, and surprised that they already knew each other well and started chatting as if they were friends. Wendy and I had no clue what’s happening and not until after a while that we realized these people already had a few weeks worth of travelling together from Cape Town to Namibia. We tried to chat with them but since they knew each other too well we were feeling a bit left out. Oh well, I didn’t really care, just a bit weird. Still, they were nice and I could tell they were all enjoying their trip so far. In the evening we visited the “night market” where local sells grilled seafood, “Zanzibar pizza”, and other delicacies.

Day 2 - Nungwi

On the next day after an average breakfast we left with the group early for the “Spice Tour”. After an hour or bumpy ride we arrived at the Spice farm. The tour was REALLY interesting! We got to see a huge variety of spice/fruit plants, got to taste seeds like pepper, cinnamon, cardmom, and saw mango/passion fruit/mint trees etc. I also saw ginger on the ground! They looked interesting. The local people were kind enough to give each of us some very nice looking hats/handbags that they wove, and I also received a grass tie that noone else in the group had! We bought some spices at the end of the tour, namely curry, coffee, and black pepper. After the tour we had another hour of drive before arriving at the beach called Nungwi. The beach resort was SUPER COOL! We had the best view for the ocean, with torquise blue water, white sandy beaches, great looking bars, and nice roomy rooms with a powerful fan in the ceiling. No mosquitos! We really had a blast there. The rest of the day we spent wandering the beach for a bit, had a lunch at an open restaurant with TONS of flies bugging us while we were eating (super bad experience) although the food was delicious. Wendy and I got down into the water and it was so warm and comfy! We spent the rest of the day in the water, watched the sunset on the beach, and then had dinner at a restaurant next to our resort. I have to say that the food was super awesome. We ordered a grilled octopus dish, and a curry/spinash dish with rice. They were extremely delicious. That was the first night I started to be amazed at the skills the locals have in cooking.

Day 3 - Nungwi

After getting up early we had breakfast at the hotel bar. 360 degree panorama at the ocean, couldn’t get ANY better. And of course I was forced to take pictures here and there. We then head for snorkling. It was a mixed feeling - the boat ride was extremely long (2.5 hours) and almost all of us had serious sunburn due to the extremely fierece sun, despite putting on sunscreen. Wendy had nausea and was feeling really sick, and I wasn’t feeling good either. The snorkling part was cool, although since it was Wendy and I’s first time we had to wear a bulky life-jacket in order to keeep afloat. The coral and fish we saw were amazing though, not super crazy good like those seen in the Discovery channel but still it was eye-opening - fish with catchy colors and weird shapes, sea stars, uni, huge huge corals…etc. Wendy’s life jacket kept on getting loose I had to help tighten it up for a few times, and her airtube was broken so sea water was getting into her mouth while breathing - not a great experience but oh well. On the way back they took us to a location where they had lunch for us and the grilled fish was TASTYyyy! So yummy that I had 2 rounds of fish and rice. Took another 2 hours of boat ride back to the beach, it was better as we grabbed a seat under the roof so we weren’t exposed to the sun. We had some great dinner again at another seaside restaurant. I got grilled calamari (very tender) and Wendy had a chicken stir fried African noodles. Wendy wasn’t feeling too well after the sun exposure, and I had most of the food with half of the noodles packed away.

Day 4 - Stone Town

After breakfast we drove all the we back to Stone Town from the beach. After getting back to the hotel a few of us opted to visit the “prison island” were we got to see some super big sea turtles. They were awesome! Old and huge, and cute in a way. I tried to “pick” one of them up by holding it on its 2 sides and it was super heavy, lol. The prison itself was boring despite some great colored windows. I loved the island though, it’s so peaceful, quiet, and pretty. The sailman brought up a couple colorful sea stars from the shallow water and of course Wendy and I took the chance to snap a couple shots. After that we wandered around Stone Town for a while again, bought a couple paintings at great prices (thanks to Wendy’s bargaining power), and then headed to The Africa House again for a drink with the group. I captured the picture of a lifetime there, with a sailboat right in front of the setting sun! I heard that photographers actually pay to have these sailboats sailing back and forth the setting sun so I considered myself super lucky. I helped Shaline the tour guide fix her computer virus for a bit, and then headed to the night market for food again. This time we had the sugarcane juice and it was sooo tasty! They put pieces of ginger into the cane while squeezing them with the machine and the juice just tasted so good. Had another Zanzibar pizza, and some grilled fish, for our dinner.

Day 5 - Moshi

We got up super early (5am?) had some really average breakfast at the terrace of the Garden Lodge Hotel, and started heading to Moshi. I can’t even remember how long that ride was, maybe 9 hours? Super bumpy ride in the tight/dirty overland truck (although it looks cool from the outside), almost like some amusement park ride. We had lunch at a stopover place (very average), and the ride continued. When we got to the Moshi campsite the sun’s already setting, and we had to put up this huge tent, although it wasn’t too difficult or anything. The site was fairly spacecious. Had an okay dinner (with tasty soup but that’s about it) at the restaurant next to the campsite.

Day 6 - Arusha

After packing up the tent in early morning, we left the site and headed for Arusha. We were able to see the snow capped tip of the infamous Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain. We stopped by some local supermarket in Arusha to “stock up” for supplies since the guide said supplies are very limited in Serengeti NP. We bought a huge bucket of water, some snacks, and exchanged for some Tanzanian cash. After arriving our campsite for the night called “Snake Park”, we checked out the snakes (tons of them there), some small animals, went to the Masai Cultural Museum they have in there (kinda interesting with exihibits of Masai people’s clothings, houses, traditions..etc), and then of course visited the local stores they had there in tiny little huts selling all kinds of beaded jewelry and other local crafts. Wendy got tons of stuff there and I didn’t get any until when I re-visit it a couple days later. Can’t even remeber what we had for dinner, probably some lame stuff.

Day 7 - Serengeti NP

Did we have breakfast? We must had but I can’t remember what. Anyway we hopped onto a really cool looking safari vheicle in the morning and headed for the Serengeti National Park. On the way we stopped by a local craftstore where I got a really cool looking “snake box” made with stone and when you pull the cover a snake would stick its head out. When we were almost there we opted to visit a local Masai village and I’m glad that I did. A few of our groumates also came along and as soon as we arrived at the village, we were being welcomed by the local people and they sang us a “welcome song”! They performed some additional traditional dances, and guided us to their “houses” which were some tiny little hut made with mud. There’re two beds inside, a fireplace, some super tiny holes for the “windows”, and that’s pretty much it. I was surprised how well the guide spoke it in English, and I highly doubted that they actually live there. Nevertheless we visited a local kindergarden with tons of kids. The main guide explained how the lectures go and one of the kids there demonstrated how they learn the English alphabets by yelling them out loud. They were really cute. We were brought to the craft booth of course for some selection of beaded crafts but they were overpriced and we didn’t get any. Overall it was well worth the price and detour (I think it was like $10USD per person). we had a game drive the very same day in the afternoon all the way until sunset. Now this was really eye-opening. The driver opened up the roof of the vheicle and we had 360 degree view of the safari plain. We saw a leopard, tons and tons of zebras, African elephants in the far (glad that I brought my 2x teleconvertor and the 50-200m zoom lens), cows, gazelles, giraffes, some weird looking birds called Secretary Bird which spends most of its time walking on the ground, lions (saw a few baby lions playing on some rocks!), hippos from a distance, and a great great African sunset. I really love the shapes of the Umbrella Thorn Acacia trees, just feels so Africa and I really felt like I was watching the Animal Channel - silhouette of the trees in the setting sun - what else can be better. That night we camped at a site within the park I believe, with tents and dinner already set up so we didn’t have to pitch them which was a relief. Dinner was great (our cook makes awesome food), with soup, main course, and fruits. Campfire followed which was nice, however the washrooms were dark and nasty, had to make my way there with a flashlight. We were pretty much surrounded by animals like hyenas (they howled at night!) and buffalos (I saw their eyes with a flashlight, perhaps 50 feet behind our camps). It was a restless night but an interesting experience.

Day 8 - Serengeti NP to Ngorongoro Crater

We headed into the Serengeti NP early in the morning again for a game drive, towards the Ngorongoro Crater area. Again tons of animals on the way, and we got a closer up to some of them like the Marabou vultures, hippos at a waterhole, and a family of lions with a male and a female. We saw the vervet monkies recognizable by their blue “balls”. Saw a few hyenas (good to see them in real as I’ve seen them numerous times on Discovery Channel), a White-backed vulture on top of a tree, the super colorful song birds, ostridges, tons of warthog (Pumbaa in Lion King, and apparently they have really bad memory), leopard… We stopped by the entrance gate to the Ngorongoro Crater for washroom break and a giftshop, then continued our way further in for a lunch stop. Craziest lunch ever, as we were completely surrounded by 4-5 Marabous ready to take over our lunchboxes. One of our groupmates actually got her piece of fried chicken taken away by one of them! Scary but cooool. Further game drive brought us to some buffalos, an African elephant (took the driver a while to find it, by tracing the trees they were destroyed along the way). We camped at the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, although we couldn’t really walk down the rim as it was blocked by thick vegetations and tons and tons of poo on the ground which was super gross. The site was okay, dinner was awesome again, and we had campfire and some chats after that. It was really cold up there at night and I had to cover up myself with a fleeze insert for the night. No animals walked by I think…

Day 9 - Ngorongoro Crater to Arusha

The breakfast was good, filled us up quite well. We then headed for a morning game drive down into the crater itself. Now this one was truly spectacular! It differs from game drives in the Serengeti NP in a way that you no longer see these vast plains with no ends like in the Serengti, but the landscape was surrounded by the rim of the crater.. though the crater itself was hugeeee. TONS of animals down there actually, in great concentration, due to the confined space I believe. We got super close up view of the buffalos (got their head shots =D ), very high concentration of zebras and babies, plus everything else we saw the day before. We went through a thick rain forest area in the crater with really interesting vegetations, and it was also where we spot a few rhinos (yay for seeing all of the “Big 5″!) despite them being super far away. We witnessed a possible hunt for zebras by a few female lions although the zebras got away, which was really intense and cool (again felt like I was on Animal Channel!) We saw bones and remains of animals along the way which was kind of cool, and we also spotted a mating male ostridge doing a “dance” in front of a female! Just so awesome. That concludes our 2 day safari and it was really satisfying and eye-opening. The way back to Arusha was BRUTAL, with roads that weren’t even properly built and tons of roadworks. I could hardly stay on the seat…and I really dislike the overland vehicle because of that. Took almost an entire day of driving and we were dropped off at the Hotel Boulevard where we met our “potential” driver for the Nairobi day-trip there. He took us back to Khweza Bed and Breakfast, and gave us a fairly good deal for our day trip for the next day. We asked him to bring us to a laundry place where we can drop off our huge bag of dirty clothes. We ended up using “Queen’s Cleaning” and too bad they couldn’t return the clothes the same day and we had to pick it up the next day at noon. We paid Juma at Khweza to bring us to the Masai Market where Wendy and I went crazy shopping for local crafts. We were approached by a few locals and they told us we could pick whatever we want in the market and then we would have a chance to bargain/pay at the end. We got jewelry, shirts, and a bunch of other stuff, ended up costing $100 USD although the guys initially asked for $3xx, lol. We had an awesome and cheap (in price) dinner right at Khweza and I was shocked by the value. Portion was huge, and delicious! The staff were all super friendly and they even have a section of the patio with plastic sheets put up on the sides to block the wind. We had a great stay there for the night.

Day 10 - Nairobi

Our potential driver David couldn’t make it and he called his cousin Tony to replace him and luckily Tony was a great guy and he treated us real good. First thing in the morning we headed to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust animal orphanage to see the orphaned baby elephants (we didn’t get to see the rhinos). At 11am visitors were lined up near a pool of muddy water and in a short while the caretakers started to lead a dozens of baby elephants out and man, they were cute..!! They started off drinking milk in these supersized baby milk bottles, and started playing around in the mud pool and occasionally had drink at a huge metal bucket full of water with their trunks. The caretaker did a great job explaining everything from how these elephants lost their parents, how and when they were brought to the
facility, to their daily routines, food they eat, things they do, they names..etc, though I was so busy snapping pictures and I missed a lot of the info. There was a second round where they brought out another dozen elephants that were a bit older and bigger. We got to pet them and play with them, touch their trunks, and have photos with them. It’s a heartwarming experience not just because of their cuteness but it was really a privileged experience to be able to get so close to these wonderful animals. I was super happy. After that we headed for the Giraffe Centre, where we were given a handful of giraffe candies” which looked like tiny corks but apparently the giraffes love them. Wendy tried to put them in her mouth and the giraffes would give her a “kiss” grabbing the snack from her mouth. The place was crowded, but luckily we were still able to get some super close-up shots, plus of course we got to pet them! The driver brought us to a restaurant called The Verandah and apparently it’s where tourists usually go for lunch. Drivers get free lunch there as a complemental service. The food was good. I had seafood curry and Wendy had a ham sandwich with melted cheese and fries. It was a bit pricy though. They have a really huge giftshop there where you can get local crafts from many different countries in Africa. I ended up getting a wall-hanging crocodile made entirely with beads, which costed $1xx USD but I fell in love with it at first sight…so…lol. We then headed to the Nairobi Animal Orphanage which was an overpriced facility, most like a tiny zoo. At least we got to pet a few baby cheetahs by
paying a small fee of $30USD, which was the highlight of the tour. Nothing much in there otherwise, I wouldn’t suggest going there especially after a great safari trip. We had an incident at the end of the day - we totally forgot to pick up our laundry! Tony was worried and he waited for us at the entrace gate to the animal orphanage, and rushed us back into the city centre. Traffic was extremely bad, and we almost missed the closing time for the laundry. We finally made it, and immediately headed for the airport to board our plane towards Amsterdam. We met three of our groupmates at the airport, they looked really tired and I almost felt sorry to tell them how much fun we had in our Nairobi day trip..!

Day 11 - Amsterdam -> Cologne

Got off the plane, headed straight to the car rental place. Wow it was SO SUPER COLD in Amsterdam and we could barely feel our fingers. It really pissed me off that Dollar-Rent-A-Car didn’t have an office at the airport and we had to make a phone call in the cold to ask for a pick up. We waited in the cold under the huge Panasonic screen outside of the airport where the major car rental companies are for around 15 minutes. We quickly got our car, headed to Mcdonalds for a warm drink and to charge up my laptop, and began our European journey. I was worried about the VW Jetta lacking winter tires but it actually performed really well on snow and I was impressed. First stop was the De Haar Castle. It was actually open although the inside of the castle was closed. We paid a small fee, walked around the garden area, took tons of pictures in the freezing temperature, took a peek inside the castle as its main gate was open. They were heavily renovating it and construction workers were everywhere. I think this is the first time I’ve ever visited an actual castle so it was really interesting to me. We drove to the town of Urchet next, saw its Dom and went inside it for some pictures. Again my first time in a gothic church and also first time seeing those enormous organs hanging in mid air. I felt awesome. Saw the gothic looking clock tower as well, but the light/weather wasn’t ideal so I didn’t really feel like taking too many pictures. Next we drove to the Dick Bruna huis, or the Miffy Museum that Wendy dreamed to go to. We had to pay a steep fee which also includes admission to the Centraal Museum but unfortunately we didn’t have time for it. Went straight into the Miffy one after getting the ticket and we were greeted by a golden Miffy statue right away. Further inside was a room with huge walls full of Miffy childrem story books, really cool. There were more Miffy stuff inside and also a Miffy gift store where Wendy got her very cute Miffy tee. A long drive all the way to Cologne followed, and it was dark when we got there. Headed for the underground parking right underneath the Dom, we visited the enormous Christmas Market despite the freezing temperature. Tons of people, very festive, with booths selling delicacies and all kinds of cute little things. We started off getting a “Gluwine” which is essentially a cup of warm red wine with some cinnamon spice added. I paid a bit more to get the cup which has the logo of the Dom tower gold plated on it. Had an interesting pizza, and also some German sausage in curry sauce. We met with Wendy’s friend Christian to have a drink at a local bar, he’s friendly and I can tell he’s a really bright guy. He brought us to another Christmas market which looked even better than the one we were at but then we didn’t really have time for it, what a bummer. It was too cold, we saw him leave and headed straight to the hostel. Now I really have to talk about this hostel, which is more like a nice hotel, with super clean, bright rooms, awesome bathroom with super nice showerhead and waterflow, and we discovered two extra beds that were hidding inside a closet! Sadly Wendy felt really sick for the night and she didnt get to enjoy the warm shower at this cozy hostel. It was the “Youth-Hostel Cologne-Riehl”. I will definitely stay there again.

Day 12 - Cologne -> Brussels

Wendy felt really sick in the morning, I had to call her insurnace company the activate her medical insurance. After checking out we headed straight to the Sankt Marien-Hospital which was really close to the Dom. Wendy saw a doctor there and he said she was having a viral infection or something, and prescribed nothing but some pain killers and nausea drops. I walked to the pharmacy near the central train station to grab the drugs while Wendy awaited at the hospital. She took the pills and they actually worked. We saw down at a Mcdonalds near the Dom for breakfast (I loved the German sausages they had in it, came with three of them! And tons of eggs). Went into the inside of the Dom, took some pictures, Wendy went back to the car to rest, and I kept on snapping. Didn’t have a chance to go up to the top part of the Dom, will do it next time. While Wendy had a nap in the car, I drove to the next stop which was the Horst Castle in Netherlands. Damn, it was closed! On the web it says it’s empty and you can walk freely in it but it was closed when we got there… Regardless that wouldn’t stop me from taking pictures and I spent a good 30 minutes wandering around the frozen lake and snapped away. I like how it looks, very cute, and fantasy-like. Our journey continued all the way to Brussels/Belgium. The hostel we picked was kind of ghetto, with old room and with no amenities (the breakfast was AWESOME though). After dropping
off our luggage we drove the the Grand Place to check it out. It wasn’t really snowing but was super cold, but they had this very cool projection onto the biggest one of the few historic buildings there, which I could tell was designed specifically for the shape of the building. With some neat animation and sound, it looked really interesting and hi-tech. There are lamp posts in the centre which lit up with different colors going with the sound. We were starving and not after long we went into this restaurant very close to the Grand Place for some food. We ordered a huge bowl of mussels and then a braised beef cooked in belgian wine, both were very delicious =D The bill was a bit on the steep side but I think it was worth it. Since it was too cold we checked out a bit of the Christmas market around the corner and
then headed back for the night.

Day 13 - Brussels -> Domberg

Breakfast at the hostel was awesome! They had this huge coffee machine that makes all kinds of italian coffee. The cereal was tasty as well as the ham, and I really liked this chocolate paste that they had, called Kwatta. We parked near the Manneken Pis, didn’t take long to find it and he was in fireman outfit! I’d rather him naked though so I can take picture in its original form..oh well. Godiva Chocolate was right next to the statue so we went in and got a cup of really delish hot chocolate. After that we walked along the narrow streets nearby, had a super tasty strawberry chocolate cream waffle at Leonidas, walked back to the Grand Place, and then it started to snow like crazy. It was pouring! Checked out some souvenir stores and then we decided to head back to the car. When we walked pass the Manneken Pis
again someone’s already changed his outfit! He’s now a Pope, looked hilarious. Despite the bad weather we went up to the top floor of “Parking 58″ to check out the “360 panorama” which was recommended by the guidebook we grabbed at the hostel. The views were okay, but everything was blocked by railings so it was kind of shitty. After staying for 15 minutes or so we’ve decided to skip a few of the stops and spend our time at the Atomium, which proved to be a wise chose that we made. I’ve seen that structure on paper a couple times but it was wayy dramatic when I actually stood underneath it looking up. We paid to get into the “balls”, took an elevator to the top floor, checked out the INCREDIBLE panorama views (10x better than at Parking 58), went into the other “balls” on the sides which hosted some exhibits and snack shops. It was very cool to traverse along those “tubes” from one ball to another. We had a hot soup and some snack at the cafe at the ground floor, and headed straight for the hostel in Netherlands. The Westhove Castle we were supposed to stay at locates at the west end in Netherlands, when we got nearby the snowstorm started to build up very quickly and it was really scary to drive - without winter tires and four wheel drive. Somehow we were able to locate the castle, but couldn’t find the parking. Not until we asked the guys inside we realized that the parking was on the other side of the castle, and once parked you have to walk a dark, lengthy trail covered in snow all the way back to the castle. We dropped off our luggage, Wendy went to the room and I took the keys and headed for the parking, not knowing how scary it’s going to be. Turned out to be alright, and I made it back safe with help of a flashlight. I really liked the wooden “covers” for the windows, I think they were original and people just painted them over. Super high ceiling, with comfy beds but the heat wasn’t strong enough.

Day 14 - Domberg -> Gent -> Rotterdam

We had breakfast at the ground floor or the castle, it was fairly tasty, with ham again, coffee, boiled egg, cereal..etc. Somehow there were quite a few people coming in for breakfast even though I thought there were way less people staying at the castle the previous night - didn’t hear much noise for the night. After the food we walked along the path around the castle to check it out, took quite a few pics, saw the frozen canal with tons of ducks in it. It was a fairly neat castle with nice details here and there. Sadly the museum and the garden were closed so maybe we’ll have to visit them next time. Next we headed for Gent, an old city in Belgium, for the Gravensteen Castle. I didn’t read much about Gent but as soon as we got there you can easily tell that it’s a super old city with historic building everywhere in town - in fact I don’t recall seeing anything that looked “recent”, perhaps the city has special building codes in order to retain its old town look and feel. Now this castle is really very “castle” - With old, stoney, greyish exterior, and the typical “dents” on the top edges of the walls. I was glad that I paid to get in, it was really an eye-opener. The castle was hugeee, with lots of different rooms, passages, exhibitions, cellars…etc. Most of the exhibits were about how criminals were tortures and executed in the past. My fisheye lens was greatly used here and I was glad that I brought it with me, worked super well in the confined spaces. I liked how they preserved a lot of the original details, or maybe it was a result of a renovation with stones that mimic the past, I don’t know. After getting out we walked along the streets in the city centre, had some very tasty, super long hot dogs at a hot dog stand, checked out the super old-looking Dom (Sint-Niklaaskerk), kinda neat. Wendy got more chocolates at Leonidas, and not after long we headed back to the car for Rotterdam where we would spend the night. Not hard to locate the hostel “ROOM”, which was a funcky place with lots of neat little decors. Our room was tiny but nicely decorated by some designer. It was clean and warm, can’t complain, although having to walk the 3 stock of stairs that lead to the room was a pain. Ended up having “dinner” at a Mcdonalds as most stores were closed on the Sunday night, but any food is good food when you are starving.

Day 15 - Rotterdam -> Amsterdam -> Vancouver

We had an average breakfast at the hostel and headed to the city of Schiedam to see the “world’s biggest windmills”. Schiedam was a pretty and peaceful city in the outskirt of Rotterdam. The streets were extremely narrow, with canals here and there. We parked near the first windmill that we were supposed to go, called “Palmboom”. These huge windmills were mostly built in the 1700’s and you can tell by its exterior and each of them has a stone carving on it which shows the date it was built and some other stuff. Most of the windmills were closed, including the Palmboom which is one of them where people can go in and check out the inside of it, kind of sad. Still we took tons of pictures, saw 5 of the windmills, checked out the alleys and canals. Sadly I stepped on a poo, which took me a while to get rid of with help of grass and fresh snow… Our final stop was Gouda in Netherlands, where there’s this townhouse with very nice stained glass windows that I wanted to check out. Turned out that the exterior of the town hall was more interesting than the inside of it, which were mostly renovated space for conference uses. The stained glass windows were interesting though, although they looked fairly new. We were lucky enough to witness these construction people trying to erect a 60 feet tall Christmas tree right outside of the town hall. Police were around and there was this huge crane that picked up the tree and workers were putting it into the right position, kind of cool. We picked up our lunch at Subways after that and headed straight to the airport as we were really tight in schedule. Stupid KLM made us pay 55 euros for one of our luggage which really pissed me off, other than that the flight back home was good and that concludes our journey, pretty much. Very satisfying trip, other than the jet lag I’m experiencing, and the weird dreams as a result of the malaria pills, I’m a happy man. Can’t wait to go back to Africa, really.