Sausages and Beer.

We were so eager to get on the road and start our roadtrip! The first stop was only a couple of hours away from Rotterdam, recommended by Toon and Jannetje: the Rodelbahn!

Excited about the Rodelbahn ride. 

Scared or excited?

Making our way to Hamburg.



Façade of Brahms Kontor, where our host Sina works. She was an amazing host and showed us all the highlights of the city.

The beautifully tiled stairs of the Brahms Kontor (Hamburg).

The staircase of the Brahms Kontor from the highest floor. 

 Heiligengeistfeld Flakturm IV bunker. Some wiki info:

G-Tower was transformed into a nightclub with a music school and music shops. 53.556212°N 9.970104°E.This tower, containing six levels below the rooftop, includes in its design, as part of its air-raid shelter, two identical spaces for protection against gas attacks, one on the first floor (above ground level) and the other on the second floor. Both in Tower 1, they are about 300 sq. m. (3,230 sq. ft.) in area, and have six windows (openings in the wall).

We told Sina we wanted sausages and beer and that's what we got. 

Currywurst!

Sina taking her role as a city guide very seriously. 

One of the things I felt jealous about of Hamburg (vs. Rotterdam) was the amount of people that were outside, using public spaces, also in less residencial areas. It made the city feel more full of life and safer. 

We ended the tour on this beach with amazing views. 

Sina had one of my prints and this Pothead on her wall! 

Tommi in Sina's and his place. 

Enjoying a sofa with Marijke before not having access to one for the following 8 or 9 days.

Thank you Sina, it was great to see you and catch up after all this time! 

The travel companions.

Marijke, Jonas and Phil were my travel companions during an unforgettable road trip to Finland. We talked, we learned, we saw different ways of living, we were young, we were free. Maybe I should count myself out for the young bit, though the older I am the more I believe that age is a state of mind. Does saying that mean I'm talking like an old person? Nevermind. 

This photo was taken during the excitement before beginning our trip from Rotterdam. Plenty more photos to come. 

Julie's hair.

BBQ after BBQ

This time in the Euromast Park, Het Park. With Giulia and Jelmer.

Grilling cheese on the BBQ for the first time in our lives. 

Phil is so tired of my camera already. 

Bella!

Bello!

And then, someone you've known for over a year, suddenly starts strumming on a guitar
and blows you away with his amazing voice. 

's Gravesande

's Gravesande is the name of this beach. It's in the midst of the nature park Solleveld.

We had a rare day of summer in the Netherlands. This summer has been the mildest and wettest I’ve experienced since moving here. Toon and Jannetje offered to take us to the beach to celebrate the glorious weather. We happily accepted the offer.

Pitt, where you can order "Bread Pitt". LOL

Phil and Toon ventured into the water. 

Fris! 

Fresh! 

The light, the sky, the colours! Japan is amazing but the Netherlands is really something else, said Toon.  

The sea looked higher than the horizon.  

BBQ in Roel Landerakpark

It's been a while. I thought I had grown out of blogging my photos but found myself missing looking back at my posts to remind me of when things happened and who was around when they did happen. I'm making no promises but I think I'm going back to using this blog as an extension of my memories. Here we go again.

Jason and Alex looking as stylish as always. 

Jonas

Griff

Marijke's little tootsies

Hot meat

Hot summer for Alex

21 degrees at night

Digestion

Yogyakarta, learning how things are made.

Borobodur is the biggest Buddhist temple in the world. Some wiki info:

Borobudur, or Barabudur, is a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist Temple in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia. The monument consists of nine stacked platforms, six square and three circular, topped by a central dome. The temple is decorated with 2,672 relief panels and 504Buddha statues. The central dome is surrounded by 72 Buddha statues, each seated inside a perforated stupa.^[1] It is the world’s largest Buddhist temple,^[2][3] as well as one of the greatest Buddhist monuments in the world.^[4]

I found the children in Indonesia so beautiful. 

Seeing Java from motorbikes was fun! And a bit scary. But after a while you realise that the apparent chaos is actually not, drivers are very careful in a constant-flow way. 

Chicken on the side of the road were common. 

We had to wait our turn to get over this narrow bridge. 

A motorcyle carrying grass was practically as wide as the bridge and the grass brushed past us.

This was the view from the bridge. 

Laundry. 

We visited the rice fields and got a taste of how intense the rice pickers' work is.

Some people had these machines to shake the grains of rice off. But others who can't afford this machine have to shake the grains off manually. Very hard and slow work. 

Women are in charge of planting rice because it is believed they are better for fertility, for making things grow. They are very meticulous about the positioning of each pod and use long bamboo sticks to make sure the rice in planted in straight lines, making the most of the land.

Our friendly guides. The one of the left studied English literature, the one of the right studied tourism. 

We watched this mesmerizing dance that involved the performers getting into a spastic trance. 

Beautiful outfits and colours!

The children we saw seemed so happy and cheerful. 

I loved these signs from the street food stalls. 

Krupuk is very popular in Indonesia. We went to see how they were made and I was amazed at the labour-intensive process. They are consumed as much as bread in the west. 

Krupuk drying in the sun. 

Finished krupuk. 

Krupuk galore. 

Indonesians invest in cows. Baby cows can be bought for 5 million Rph and sold for 30 million Rph when they are adults.
These places are called "cow banks". 

Indian cow skin. 

We saw how bricks were made. Once a rice field is harvested it is used to produce bricks, as the earth isn't fertile for a while. We saw the laborious process of how the bricks were made. I realised how carefully and meticulously the Indonesians work. 

This man signed each brick with a circular sign. 

Bricks drying. Once they're dry they will be baked. 

We saw how tempeh was made. 

Handling the soybeans for tempe.  

Little packages of soy beans. 

Wrapped in newspaper to dry. Such tidy parcels!

Making delicious vegetable "pastels".

This stylish woman was preparing sweets at the market. 

This woman sold us a bunch of spices. 

This woman was making tidy licky packages of sweet deliciousness. 

Sweet deliciousness. 

Bananas, colourful wall and me. 

Mind boggling hand made stamps. 

All these letters were from the stamps this skilled man cut by hand. 

The lovely plants at our guest house. 

The owner loved her arboretums.