Den Haag and Kinderdijk

While in Amsterdam, we spent two days at Den Haag to visit our high school classmate Hui Nih, who is currently staying there with her husband and two kids.

Den Haag (also known as The Hague) is the seat of the Dutch parliament, government and Royal Court. All foreign embassies and government ministries are located in the city. The Hague is also the seat for over 150 international organizations, including the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court.

On our first day there, it was very cloudy with slight drizzle so wasn't a good day to take photographs.

A glimpse of the Parliament building

We met up with HN's husband, who works at the Peace Palace (also known as Vredespaleis). He was kind enough to bring us around the compound where we go a glimpse of the building and its surroundings. I was quite excited to find out this was the very place where the Pedra Branca dispute took place. This was the case whereby Malaysia and Singapore had a territorial dispute over some islets along the Singapore Straits area. As how some people put it, as a result of the case, Malaysia got some rocks, and so did Singapore :)

Entrance to Peace Palace

Another view of Peace Palace

At night, we joined HN and her family for a scrumptious dinner at a Chinese restaurant (can't recall the name), followed by a night walk around town. We went into the parliament grounds which surprisingly is not locked up from public at night. After that it was time to call it a day.

Inside the Parliament compound at night.

On the second day, we have planned to visit Kinderdijk together with the family. Unfortunately due to some mishaps with our train route, we ended up being very late to Kinderdijk :(

Kinderdijk is located in south Holland, and is famous for its windmills. Though not so much a common tourist destination as compared to Volendam, they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. I personally think it's a good thing they kept Kinderdijk that way, else all the tourism may just kill off the scenic view which I love.

It started raining by the time we reached Kinderdijk, and the view was getting misty. Nevertheless we got a few shots of those famous windmills. I would definitely come back here again!

Instead of going to Rotterdam, we decided to head back to Den Haag since it was still raining. We spent the rest of the evening with HN and her family, chatting with them as well as playing with their children.

HN has been kind enough to prepare dinner for us. I love how the steamed salmon was prepared, we never tasted steamed salmon before! She also prepared some lovely apple crumble with vanilla ice cream. I had already gotten the recipe from her, hopefully I can try it out one day :)

Yummy dinner prepared by our lovely host HN :)

Thanks HN and Lybil for your hospitality!

Hopefully one day if time permits, we will be able to visit HN and her family again in Den Haag, and pray that it would be better weather by then so we can go to more places :)