Sunday, April 22, 2012

Tulpen Festival at Noordoostpolder

Spring - the season in a year where the cold of winter gives way to light breezes and a little bit of sunny warmth. Being here now, and given the chance to experience a cold hard winter, Spring (known in Dutch as "Lente") gives the impression of hope; seeing the green in trees and bursts of color in flowers that are blooming in gardens and along the roads.

And springtime in Netherlands is a spring very blessed with hordes and hordes of Tulips! Blooming in patches of green along the expressway, in unanticipated areas of the city centers, in personal gardens and sitting pretty in vases in homes. 

I was lucky enough to get to tag along on a day out with Jimmy's colleagues Harald and Udomreip, who was visiting from Thailand. And it was so sweet of Jimmy and Harald to take the weekend to show Udomreip the magic of Spring in the Netherlands before he left for home.

There's something called a TulpenFestival (Tulip Festiaval) that allows residents and visitors to see the fields of tulips either by car or by bicycle mapped by a preplanned tulip route.


The tulip route for visitors with cars

And here are some photos we took of the tulip fields.. They're like a sea of color! Harald told us that these tulip are are planted in bulk in these fields so that they can be harvested for their seedlings which will be sold to consumers the following year. Meanwhile, while the tulips are in their prime, visitors from all around the Netherlands come to appreciate their bloom. And so, instead of hocking it with the masses of tourists in the famed Keukenhof, we get to experience what the locals experience :)


Fields of Purple, Red and Yellow
 Check out the contrast of the yellow field against the looming dark clouds... We were lucky that the clouds cleared after a while to give way to bright blue skies.



And these following photos were taken at the an area set up for visitors of the Tulip Festival where volunteers handed out booklets containing information on the participating fields, the vehicle routes, and some flower bulbs for personal gardens. There were masses tulips in all colors, shapes and sizes in this area with their respective names displayed.

Tulips in all colors, shapes and sizes!
Against the horizon
Such Vibrant Colors!

 


 The tulips and their names:
Apricot Beauty
Jumbo Pink
Rambo
White Heaven
Christmas Exotic
Christmas Dream
Candy Prince

Sugar Prince

And there were a whole load of others that I did not manage to take.. But you can imagine that it was almost magical that we get to see so many colors in one field.

And of course, after indulging in the beautiful colors of the tulips, we decided to indulge a little for the sake of our tummies and so we just walked across the path to a little cafe that was a participant of the tulip festival. Coffee, cakes and tulips! A good mix, I'd say...

 
Two men debating the origins of a wooden tulip

All in all, I thought that the organizers for this festival did a wonderful job of allowing visitors experience the beauty of the Dutch Spring through tulips. And if I have the chance, I think I will try to persuade Jimmy to go again next year :)

Salute!


Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Snapshots of Leeuwarden

I went cycling with Jimmy (from now on, I'm referring to Chin Aun as Jimmy because it's faster to type.. Haha) on Sunday last week just to make sure that I can still cycle. It's been so long since I last cycled that I was afraid that I would need training wheels again...

And I equipped myself with camera-slash-phone to get some scenic shots of Leeuwarden to post up just in case I move away in a few years and forget how this place looks like..

Here goes:

Houses Against The Clear Blue Skies Along Rietlandroute

The Intersection of Rietlandroute and Prinsentuin







We basked for a little while in the sunlight to get our share of some Vitamin D before heading on our way to take more photographs...
Riding Along Emmakade (and lookie, that is my shadow on the ground)

View of the Centrum from the Bridge of Julianastraat

Then from there, we headed on along Archipelweg and circled the empty parking lot of De Centraale a few times just for fun.. And our next stop, the Doctor Zamenhofpark... where we go to look at ducks.. and pretend that we have breadcrumbs so that they'd waddle near us...

Daffodils in Bloom

Waddle, Ducks, Waddle!!

I love the Doctor Zamenhofpark... It's so serene and scenic.. and if I were a permanent resident of Leeuwarden, I could consider investing in a house or apartment overlooking it.  

Here's another photo of the park taken in Wintertime during dusk when I was on foot... Absolutely breathtaking :)



Aside from the last photo which was cropped, all photos posted here are unedited and taken using my phone on its automatic mode. I'm not much of a photographer but I thought the photos taken were pretty satisfactory (especially for an amateur!). I guess it really makes a difference when the contents of the photos (in this case, this little town of Leeuwarden) are naturally scenic..




Saturday, April 14, 2012

Blog - redesigned..

The new blog templates provided by Blogger is pretty awesome!!

I've given my mouldy old blog a much needed makeover of colors.. the green font that I've been using for the past few years is giving me a sore eye. Posts from now onwards will be in this lovely purple color!! Purple!! *hearts* Wheee!~!~!

I thought of changing my blog title..but I figured, now more than ever, the title just fits me to a 't'.. Ah well.. another time perhaps :)