The Hague (updated)

The Hague is the 3rd largest city and seat of the government of the Netherlands. Being the seat of government, I would expect that it will be the capital of the country itself but it is actually Amsterdam.

I got to visit the Hague on my second day in the Netherlands. From Delft, you can take a tram for about an hour that will actually take you to The Hague. Unfortunately, the weather is not that co-operative but as they say, its pretty normal to rain in the Netherlands.



Taking a tram in the Netherlands is actually different as you can buy tickets from the driver directly. Unlike in Switzerland, there are no outside machines where you can buy the tickets automatedly. If you have a ticket, you need to validate or ''composter'' your tickets which I found very European indeed.

My first stop was the parliament buildings in the city centre. Like Canada, The Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy headed by a Queen with a parliament.


The city honours its monarchs and historic Dutch personnalities by taking pride on statues.



Inside the parliament square, there are buildings that could be regarded as architecture
heritage.


Outside, I was happy to realize that my work has actually allowed me to set foot in the European Union.



And the parliament from outside:

Strolling down some shopping alleys nearby, something Swiss seem to follow me in the Netherlands (albeit they are not as luxurious as in the land of Heidi):


There are actually public open air urinals for guys in The Hague and they look like this:


And I have actually seem someone guarding some restaurant who looks like this:


Then I passed by the Queen's castle. The monarch takes her privacy very seriously and no tours are allowed on her castles.

And just adjacent to the castle, there's something French I could see:

Finally, I decided to have something to eat. I actually noticed that Indonesian food is such a delicacy in the Netherlands and tried to sample some in The Hague. It was delicious and very much affordable, I just paid € 5.25 (CHF 8.65/CAD 7.89) for a full meal!


And then I went into some of the Hague's shopping alleys....


where I got tempted to buy a two-flavoured ice cream for EUR 1.50 (CAD 2.25/2.50 CHF). Mmm, delicious indeed!


Strolling further, it's my first time to see an Asian settlement/Chinatown in a European city:

Finally, I realized that the logistics company TNT is actually Netherland's postal company:



Arriving back at my host's home, I was feted by my host family to a Dutch dinner with an Italian accent (vegetarian lasagna, yummy!).








After the dinner, we delved into the family's photo archive way back in the late 1980s to see how life was in the Philippines at that time.

This was their house which also looked like our house circa 1987.

This is me with the other kids playing in front of their yard, ca. 1987.

This was taken from our backyard together with our 'tri-bike' which I used to get around the place.

The main gate of our university community.

A kid wondering what's the thing being pointed to him.

Christmas time in a Philippine gasoline station, ca. 1988.