the Netherlands trip Day1: People with orange colour

The cheapest flight from Japan to Europe is via China in most cases. I flied with China Eastern Airline from Osaka to Pudong Airport and then to Amsterdam. The transit time was just for 1.5 hours at Pudong so I had to rush to the transit process: the arrival dock was a bit far from the transit reception where all of the international transit passengers should pass the passport control and security check.

I'm usually carrying a backpack with me without baggage check-in, in which the whole belongings are packed for the entire trip, so I'm a bit nervous for passing my bag into the X-ray to be checked by insepctors anytime. Well,  if they find mines suspicious, I have to open it and show the whole packed items to them: simply, it would be wasting time. This time: all clear, nothing happened.

First encounter

I'd bought an e-sim for my mobile networking in the Netherlands, so I turned on my smartphone and checked the Google map to map out the route I would take to my hostel when I arrived at Schipol Airport. It showed I should take a train to Station Lelylaan and change to a tram heading to Overtoom stop. The airport is designed friendly to someone with weak sense of direction. I'm not that bad at reading a map (as far as I'd suppose) but after I got out of the arrival terminal, I saw the train stations to the front. Easily accessible.

At the Station Lelylaan, I bumped into a Dutch man. He asked me whether I'm Chinese or not and I told him that I'm from Japan. He said; wow, Japanese! I'm a Muslim and I respect Japan! Welcome!  I found no logic between his respect to my country and himself being a Muslim but he hugged me with a warm smile. I noticec him smelling alchole so he was a bit drunk. Anways, I got welcomed by a Dutch man.

People in orange

In the tram, I saw many people wearing and having something orange: they have orange ballons, orange-color makeup on their face with orange outfits. Why orange???

Soon I figured out the reason from conversations among those orange people. April 27, my arrival date, is the King's birthday.  They use the orange color to celebrate the birth day of H.M. the King, Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands. The Dutch Royal Family is from Huis Oranje-Nassau, a family with the surname of Oranje-Nassau coming from the family's ancestral sovereignty, Principauté d'Orange in the 16th century. Simply, "oranje" means orange and it seems that the color simbolizes the nation and its Royal Family.

Well, Happy Birthday, God Saves the King!

Getting in a hostel

Being guided by the people-in-orange, I finally made it to my hostel in a corner of Amsterdam: Princess Hostel Amsterdam. Well, my trip tips are too unique (I'm not saying I'm weired!) for some people to follow but one of them is that I prefer a hostel to a hotel; Accomcation is cheap (and it is in propotional to the quality of amenity and facility but it should be at our own risk), easy to get along with friends sharing the same room and....I can cook myself. To save the cost in part of Europe where Japanese yen's been depreciating against Euro, and to enjoy shopping groceries in local supermarkets, I always cook myself.  In most cases, hostels have kitchens. In my hostel in Amsterdam, we can use a small kitchen next to the reception. 

and in a supermarket

I was starving when I checked in since I'd not had foods after the in-cabin meals. I therefore walked around the hostel and found a local chain supermarket called Jumbo. Unlike in Japan where supermarkets have several entrances/exits in a store, the Jumbo has a one-way entrance and a separete exit: I had to scan barcode in the receipt after I paid to open the exit (later I noticed every supermarket is the same in the Netherlands). I wasn't used to it but the guy working there helped me.

I got a salad bowl with pasta. The portion was very big and I had to take much time to finish them. During my stays in the Netherland, this food-portion problem always happened anywhere....