Category: ahiko in Amsterdam

One of the things surprised me was the number of bicycles here.  The survey says there are 880,000 bikes in the city while the population is 820,000.  I have been believing that Beijing is the bike kingdom, but I think Amsterdam beats Beijing.  the city’s favorable measures for bikers such as dedicated roads for bikes encourage people to commute by bike.   The bike road was much wider and nicely flat comparing to pedestrian path.   For pedestrians, bike is not the only thing which you need to watch out while walking on a street.  In addition to car, bus and bike, there was traffic of trams.  Thus, to cross a street everytime, we had to check right and left at least three times or more.  Scary… 

Since I didn’t have many photos, please also see here.

As the country allows people to smoke Marijuana, many foreigners visit here and enjoy Heineken and Mary Jane which is easy to notice due to its distinctive smell.  In European countries, wearing sneekers is always the best choice as many streets are made of bricks.  Holland is no excetion.  With old traditonal buildings and a number of canals make the photogenic city.  Though tulips and wildmills are the two icons of the Netherlands, we didn’t get to see either of them.  However, we saw the latest sight-seeing attraction in the city, “Over The Edge” – a swing on the rooftop of 22 floors building.  None of our group had a courage to ride it, still we could enjoy the observation deck and scream of others.  

My flight going to Amsterdam was via Dusseldorf using two different airline alliances.  It had seemed no big deal until I found that my luggage had not arrived at Amsterdam airport with me.  After stearing at the luggage table for an hour wishing it appears all the sudden, I accepted occurrence of an incident and reluctantly went to the airline desk.  People at the desk were oddly calm, filing the incident systematically.  I guess for them, it was a part of their daily businesses.  The counter lady says she had no idea about current location of my luggage but in most of cases, it could be found within 24 hours.  
Leaving airport without my stuff was sad and strange, but what terrified me most was that my company PC was inside of the suitecase and if it’s gone,  I would be in a horrible trouble…  By thinking all the possiblity of consequence, I could not sleep much at that night.  
My suitcase flew from Dusseldorf to Amsterdam with a next morning flight.  The airline desk offered delivering it to my hotel, however as I wanted to access it as soon as possible, I decided to pick it up at the airport.  Through a special entrance, I went back to the luggage turn table in the next day, then found my luggage left on the floor as if it abandoned.  It was a quite emotional moment, especially seeing my PC inside without any harm.  With an extreme joy, my peaceful stay in Amsterdam was started a half-day later from the expected schedule.

ヨーロッパへ出張。聞こえは良いですが、色々なビジネス上のお付き合いで、全く心浮かれる感じではありません。そしてフライトは12時間以上という長丁場です。機内映画に加えて、ノイズキャンセル機能付きのイヤホンとKindleとNetflixで可能な限りの快適を確保。パーソナルモニター未導入当時、全面の大きなスクリーンで映画を観ていた時代を思い出しては、文明の進化に感謝せずにはいられません！