The Hague

Homer Simpson’s graffiti (Or: One man’s trash)

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Niki

Marco and I recently came across some graffiti on a few underground trash containers in The Hague. I just had to stop and take a picture of the Homer Simpson on the side of the trash container:

A lot of places in The Hague use these underground trash containers these days. You lift up the lid, place your trash bag inside and close the lid. Closing the lid causes the trash to drop down automatically. There are sensors to let the city know when the trash container is almost full so that they come and empty them on time, using a lift system to pull the entire container out of the ground and then drop it into the garbage truck. Some streets seem like they have trash containers every 50 meters, although you will still see some folks who leave their trash next to a full container. This is illegal and can result in a fine.

Back on the topic of The Simpsons – I probably stopped watching that show regularly around season 15, but I have fond memories of “Animation domination!” on Sunday nights on FOX. Most of my cultural references come from that show.

Have a look at this Homer Simpson statue on a bench that Marco and I spotted in NYC back in 2012 (!). It must be gone by now, as it was already pretty battered then.

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Sojubar (Or: Coming soon to The Hague’s city centre)

Posted on February 3, 2026 by Niki

The Korean restaurant chain Sojubar is coming soon to The Hague. They already have locations throughout the Netherlands, including (but not limited to) Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht and Rotterdam. They are also present in a few other European countries.

The two things they are known for are soju (Korean alcohol, sort of like sake but sweeter) and fried chicken, as you can see from the picture above. They also have authentic Korean dishes like bibimbap, kimchi, fried dumplings, etc. Have a look at the menu for the Shojubar location at the Mall of the Netherlands.

Unfortunately restaurants don’t seem to last long in this building, so here’s hoping Sojubar does better. The previous restaurant was Wow Crab which was more of an all-you-can-eat crab place. The Italian restaurant Fratelli was also apparently there, although I don’t really remember that so I am not sure. It was also home to Jamie Oliver’s back in 2017-2020, which we did visit a few times when we went to the city centre. I liked their cheesy garlic bread and the fact that you could easily ask for half portions of their pasta dishes for lunch.

In the meantime, if you’re waiting for Sojubar to open, you can also try some great Korean fried chicken at the nearby Five-K comfort food, although that is not their focus.

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Almost ready (Or: Leiden University’s Spui campus)

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Niki

Leiden University has facilities in both Leiden and The Hague, with approximately 25% of their students taking classes in The Hague. One of their newest locations, Spui campus, will open to students on 2 February.

The new location is in the building which used to house the V&D clothing store (1969-2015) and the Canadian store Hudson’s Bay (2017-2019). The main entrance on the side of the Grote Marktstraat is used by MediaMarkt (blog post), an electronics store similar to Best Buy in the US. But MediaMarkt only uses the lower two floors, so there is a lot of space left over in this six story building (20,000 square meters).

Here’s a look at the entrance for the Spui campus:

The entrance is across from the Centrum tram stop. (In fact, I stood on the platform while taking this picture.) The Queen’s Casino is to the left. Marco said this used to be the entrance for the V&D employees back in the day. The best part? Leiden University decided to keep the same font face that V&D used way back when, as you can see in the photo above.

Sneak preview: from department store to university building from universiteitleiden.nl.

To clarify, the new building will also house TU Delft, the Open Universiteit, Leiden University Medical Center and Universiteiten van Nederland, so there will be a lot of educational organizations under one roof. And then MediaMarkt, for all of your electronic needs…

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Snowpocalypse (Or: An inch of snow in The Hague!)

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Niki

Here are some photos from the snow that covered The Hague last week Wednesday. The entire week was quite wintery. Yesterday the low (overnight) temperature was -5C/23F, but to be fair the northern and eastern sides of the Netherlands had it worse, with up to 6 inches of snow last week and -10C/14F elsewhere. But with The Hague being so close to the coast, we don’t see numbers like that.

‘Damage is piling up’: has the Netherlands forgotten how to cope with snow? from The Guardian

Wednesday was quite pretty to be out and about, though. If you went early enough, the snow was still fresh, with the gorgeous crunch under your boots. You also didn’t have to worry about ice, since the snow was still too fresh and not pressed down by everyone walking on it.

Here are some of the photos I took that day:

The red scooter reminds me of the photo I took of the red scooter at Haagse Bluf in 2017.

Above, by The Sting clothing store, not far from the Grote Kerk.

Looking left of the previous image, towards Venestraat, a shopping street (marked by the stork lights).

Cafe seats outside of ‘t Goude Hooft, a restaurant and hotel.

Looking towards the old city hall (the red door is part of it), where Marco and I got married back in September 2013.

By the restaurant By Ami, which coincidentally was advertising for their Burlesque night, which is probably much more mild than you might think, as this is a restaurant after all. But I thought it was a nice juxtaposition to have the snow-covered summery trees next to an advertisement with a woman dancing in what is basically a one piece swimsuit.

No blog post is complete or Dutch enough without a bicycle, and in this case a fully snow-covered one.

Since The Hague is so close to the sea the snow was gone by Thursday. Yesterday was the coldest day of the week, as I mentioned, but today is already back up to 6C/43F, a more normal temperature for a Dutch winter.

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Fireworks in The Hague (Or: The final edition?)

Posted on January 4, 2026 by Niki

In theory this was the last year that fireworks could be purchased for New Year’s Eve in the Netherlands. I say in theory because the government said they were banning it, but they still need to work out compensation for the companies who sell fireworks. But I do expect it will be the last year.

Here’s a look at the aftermath in just one corner of The Hague the day after:

A lot of people don’t clean up after themselves as they expect the city will do it for them…

You can also check out a short 3 minute video of fireworks over The Hague just after midnight on New Year’s Eve.

And, just because I’ll forget to post otherwise, here’s a final picture of the holiday displays by Bijenkorf from a few weeks back:

In other news, we got some snow this weekend! The people setting off fireworks got really lucky because the weather turned on January 1, after the festivities were over. Of course, it is mostly slush here in The Hague. But there are some good pictures out there – check out Reddit for some beautiful pictures someone took today in The Hague.

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Christmas tram in The Hague (With: A Santa hat)

Posted on December 9, 2025 by Niki

I recently saw the Christmas tram riding around in The Hague. It was the second time I have spotted it this year, but this time I was able to stop and take a picture.

Don’t you think the Santa hat on top is cute? Apparently it has 6,300 lights on it and it also plays Christmas music non-stop. Haha. (I wouldn’t mind, though. It isn’t like you are in the tram that long.)

You can check out ovzoeker.nl to see where the tram is riding. The URL looks for HTM tram #3109.

Also, if you are in The Hague, check out the Royal Christmas Fair, which is open on the Lange Voorhout until December 23.

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Flags for Princess Amalia (Or: Decorations at the De Passage)

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Niki

Today when walking through De Passage I noticed that Dutch flags had been raised. After a second it clicked ー today is Princess Amalia’s 22nd birthday (Wikipedia). She is next in line for the throne.

Although you can’t see it that well in the photo, one of the big clues was the strip of orange also hanging by each flag, for the royal family.

In other news, if you are looking for something to do on New Year’s Eve, check out this article from indebuurt.nl (in Dutch): Everything about New Year’s Eve in The Hague.

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Golden lights (Or: Christmas tree in De Passage)

Posted on December 2, 2025 by Niki

Last week, the Christmas tree arrived in De Passage, a covered shopping area in The Hague.

This is in the older part of De Passage, outside of the Apple Store. The older part meets at this point. De Passage is designed in such a way that the Christmas tree is visible from everywhere.

Here is a photo from a bit further away, to give you an idea of how the area looks:

It’s a great place to walk through, especially when the weather is bad. The older part is a bit cold in the winter, but the new part closer to Grote Marktstraat is much warmer.

If you click the “De Passage” tag at the bottom of this post, you’ll see similar blog posts about this part of The Hague.

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Toothpaste and tanks (Or: Unexpected art)

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Niki

Recently I was walking along Prinsestraat in The Hague and I noticed some eye-catching art in the window at the art gallery Chiefs and Spirits:

Pretty cool, huh? I also squeeze my toothpaste tube to get every last bit out, so I enjoy it even more because of that, I think.

The Hague’s official website has a list of art galleries in city. For instance, De Affiche Galerij, or loosely translated, the poster gallery – it’s found in tram tunnel at Grote Marktstraat. Most people walk right on past, myself included usually. I need to stop and check the posters out more often!

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Surprise (Or: Giraffes walking through the Grote Marktstraat)

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Niki

Well, not real giraffes of course. But as part of De Betovering (an art festival for the youth), there were performers walking through the city centre a few weeks ago dressed up like giraffes:

And a close up:

Apparently there was also a hippo, although I didn’t see that one. You can read more about De Betovering on the official website, which translates to “The Enchantment” in English. The event was from 17 October to 25 October, during the autumn school holiday.

If you can, don’t forget to vote tomorrow! The vote is for the Dutch House of Representatives. In theory for the next four years, though the government seems to collapse faster than that lately. Of course, you need to have Dutch citizenship to vote, so I won’t be voting in this one. I do plan on getting it, but at this point it is easier to wait and do the option procedure, which I can do once I have lived here at least 15 consecutive years (and because I am married to a Dutch citizen for at least 3 of those years). So that would be after December 2027. Time flies…

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