Prost!: AMSTERDAM

The city of sins.

Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll baby! If i previously mentioned that any city was eye-opening, Amsterdam was of 'eye ball shoot out of socket bounce on the floor roll into long-gang" standard.

Let's start wit the architecture. Maybe the architects had too much to drink or were high on something. All the buidlings are tilting left right front back.

Amsterdam is full of canals. 2 major floods in the past have killed over 1 million people so these canals are build to contain the problem. In fact, most parts of Amsterdam is under sea-level! It is so easy to get lost amongst these canals cos all the buildings around them look alike.

One of the most famous 'Coffee shops', the Dampkring. For the less-informed, 'Coffee shops' are by no means Kopitiams. They sell soft-drugs yo. A small part of Ocean's Twelve was filmed here! Brad Pitt and George Clooney has a hush-hush meeting here.

XXX Red-light district

This place is sooo interesting we went there on both nights. Some basic facts we found out: the going rate (in case anyone is interested) is 50 euro for 15 min. What goes on in this 15min is up to your imagination hur hur. The 'girls' come in all shapes, sizes, colours and age (oldest being 74). We had so much fun gossiping about their looks and bodies (wah some totally cannot make it!), and when we see a guy going into one of those glass doors, we time 15min and catch them walking out, looking relieved.

A scupture on the groud in the red light district that appeared one morning.

Doesn't look as bad as it sounds right? It's really safe! You see policemen patrolling everywhere.

Neh, no pictures of the girls. We know not to take their pics after seeing how the indian man in front of us got scolded with bleep-bleeps after secretly attempting to take the pic of a girl.

A plesant surprise - authentic chinese food!! You can't imagine how happy we went to sink our teeth into the juicy char-siew, crispy siu-yok and oily roast duck. slurp.

Heineken Experience: 10euro entrance fee includes 3 beers and a free gift!

And keeping the free beers in mind, we browsed the history. I really like the 'smiling e' story though.

Jem says everyone do this pose there. Why ah?

A pretty professional shot at the glass of Heineken, considering Jem has already downed 3 glasses.

Alkmaar cheese market: For fellow Amazing Race buffs, they've done a Detour here! The contestants had to carry many cheese blocks in the fancy-colour sleighs from the market to the weighing scale.

Cheese doctors at work. These white-haired old men in white robes stand in the middle of the cheese market, cutting open the big blocks of cheese, eating and writing notes on their clipboards. That guy with the white hat, he kept eating and didn't participate in the discussion. What an uncooperative team member tsktsk.