Mon 17 Oct 2022
Today is my last day in Amsterdam. Rather than having breakfast at the hotel, I woke up early, and headed to Pancake Amsterdam. It was highly recommended and was relatively near to my hotel.
There were 2 types of pancakes to choose from: Dutch traditional, or American. Since I am in Amsterdam, I decided to try the Dutch pancake. It’s flat and stretches throughout the plate. I had the one with chocolates and banana. It tasted okay. I guess I still preferred the American pancake with maple syrup.
After breakfast, I walked around, and since it was raining, I popped into Stock Coffee which was along Damrak street. I had trusty ipad with me and did some work (it was afternoon in Malaysia). The rain subsided after an hour. From Stock Coffee, I headed to The Rubber Duck Store. I saw it a few days ago and thought I should definitely get a few rubber ducks for my girls.
I passed by the Red Light District (RLD) on my way to The Rubber Duck Store. During the day, the RLD looks like any other street in Amsterdam. After 10 mins of walking from Damrak street, I arrived at the duck store. It’s a small store, but they had a huge collection of rubber ducks. I had to really focus on finding the right rubber duck!
From the duck store, I took the long route back to my hotel. Along the way, I decided to stop by for another snack. Haha, yah, I know, it’s just too much eating on this trip.
I checked out from Kimpton De Witt Hotel at 1PM. That was the longest extended check out they could give me.
I decided to head to Amsterdam Centraal a bit early. Visited the bookshop and then later had a hot chocolate at a cafe. Interestingly enough, there was another Malaysian family at the cafe. Apparently they were at London for the Battersea Project launch (by Sime Darby) a few days ago and decided to have a quick trip to Amsterdam.
I took the train to Schiphol Airport as I was keen to try the service. The train was quite empty as it was the middle of the day. We arrived slightly early as the people at the conference told us there might be long delays at immigration. I had a quick look at the shops at the pre-check in area at Schiphol, before going through security and immigration.
The queue at immigration wasn’t that long, and we had ample time to explore the shops within Lounge 3 (our departure area).
There was a small art museum at the terminal which I thought was interesting. There weren’t that many items on display though.
After the museum, I walked around and explored a few souvenir shops before having a quick meal at McDonalds. I went to check out the business class lounge but it was too crowded. It was more comfortable to sit outside at the green sofa outside (top left photo above).
We had a short transit at Heathrow as our flight out from Amsterdam was delayed. I was really glad to get on the Malaysia Airlines flight heading back home.
Imran Jaafar 