Den Haag and Irawaddy

20 September 2017

We rented another all inclusive apartment through Airbnb, again right off the center of Den Haag. This location was also wonderful and quiet, except cold. I think the host either didn't or forgot to turn the valve for the oil heat on.....its not summer here anymore and its getting chilly! We dealt with it, only here for 2 nights. Grapes right outside the door, sour grapes, so not the good for eating kind, but still pretty!!

We just arrived, but one of the towns I really want to visit is Delft, where they make all the beautiful blue pottery and ceramics! So back to the train station for an afternoon getaway- without the luggage this time!

Canals, seconds hand stores(where I found really cool egg cups but forgot to take a picture!!) and a cute little "fast food" place in a sunny square for lunch! Fast food to them means still from scratch! Just fast- who would have thought?!!!

The main square in Delft.

Selfie!!!! Because I think Ken is done with selfies for today...............

Really good cheese crafted in Holland too!!

Bike parking at the train station!

Again with Google, we didn't really want to eat out tonight, so I searched for takeaway. I found a place a 3 minute walk away called Irawaddy whose reviews were outstanding!! The only complaint were people complaining there were not enough seats. It is a takeaway place so we were happy to try it out! Boy, it was like walking into a family run business!! I think a Chinese woman and a Korean woman own and run it together and the FLAVORS!! Oh. My. The flavors were out of this world good!

We walked in the door and were handed forks, then continued to get tastings of almost everything in the case that day(the menu changes depending on ingredients available and basically whatever they feel like that week) One of a kind place for sure!! We even gave them a review on Google it was so good!!

Messy, but good! We would go back to this little hole in the wall again, thanks Google!

Utrecht Dom Tower and Pom

September 19th 2017

The Airbnb we are staying at has a really cute cat host named Pom!
This might have been the reason we picked this place, don't judge!!

It was nice to get some playing and kitty interaction in the middle of our trip. Of course one of the most challenging things for us to travel is: we have animals!

Finding a housesitter can be challenging! But we are lucky to have a really really great one. For this trip our regular housesitter could only do 3/4 of the time we are gone, so we have another one stepping in today......Hope all goes according to plan!!!

So much entertainment! But, we must go explore!! It is truly Autumn here- beautiful sunflower!!

And we came across a shop that sells only hand made by local items, the person that made this lock studied this in university! They also crafted the AMAZING safe(that actually works!!!) in the picture above. Ken wanted to take it home!! Its true, I liked it too.




















Burgers at Ludens for lunch!

The amazing thing I find about both Belgium and the Netherlands is they are proud of where their food comes from, they take time to explain the breeds and the care involved in where their food comes from!!  

Then we visited the historic Dom Tower. Also known as the Domkerk (Dom Chuch) History states it was founded in 43 AD! But its growth happened over many of the following years.














The highest "tower" in the Netherlands, standing at 112.5 metres (368 feet) in height. 465 narrow steps brings you to the top! Sadly, this was under construction while we visited. I was ready for some stairs!!

In 1674 there was a huge storm that knocked down one of the naves. It was never rebuilt due to lack of funding.

The stained glass was magnificent.

Then, we stumbled upon a gaming store! Packed to the brim, everywhere you turned more and more games and puzzles and gag gifts. Really neat place to stumble upon!!

The train Museum was a highly recommended place, but we arrived quite late in the day and they were honest with us and said we did not have time to see the museum in its entirety, but they let us in for free to see what we could in the 40 minutes we had!!

Ken with his translation software again!

Manual change signs telling you were the train is going, I wonder if people got on the wrong trains back in the day? No, of course we have not done that(yet!)

Even the bathrooms were built with functionality as if for a train! Pull the lever to flush!! Luggage storage display......

Then dinner at the restaurant that Xandy recommended, inside a cave like structure below the street! We never would have found this place on our own!!

A real doggy bag!! Ribs for breakfast!!!!

Ken was a little embarrassed that the drink he ordered came in a star shaped glass. I of course wanted to bring the glass home...........

More play and cuddles from Pom(please don't tell Arya!) to happily end the day!!