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Japanese ramen (Or: Photo from two years ago)

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Niki

Check out this photo of Japanese ramen:

This photo is from March 2019 and it was taken in Tokyo. Not by me, though. Roger and Marco visited Japan for a week and a half. I stayed in the Netherlands because I wasn’t sure what my work situation would be like, and let’s face it – I wanted the boys to have some “guy time”.

I have heard the story many times by now. Marco and Roger were actually looking for a different restaurant which was highly rated by another friend, but they didn’t find it so they went to this one instead. When they entered they needed to use a machine to order their food, which meant they needed help on how to use the machine. It was their first day in Tokyo and all. It was kind of funny considering they were the only two customers at that time of night. Once the worker helped them figure out the machine they ordered and he took the ticket it spit out. Although learning how to use the machine probably proved to be valuable knowledge for other restaurants.

While ordering they were asked how many noodles they wanted. I believe the choices were 300 grams, 400 grams or 500 grams. They ordered 500 grams without realizing just how much that is, which you can see in the photo. But I am told it was worth it! The dish above is Tsukeman (English Wikipedia) or “dipping ramen”. You dip the noodles into the broth and then eat them. Marco tells me the broth was quite spicy and stronger in taste because it is meant for dipping. At the end you ask for water to add to the broth and then eat the leftover broth.

Here is hoping they can return to Japan next year!

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An odd anniversary (Or: A year of working from home)

Posted on March 16, 2021 by Niki

I recently celebrated an odd anniversary. It has been a year since I started working from home full time. My last day in the office was March 13, 2020. See also my blog post from that weekend. (It is crazy to read that at first they were limiting groups to 100 people. Since December we can only have one guest visiting.)

To go into the office I need to have a good reason and have permission from both my department’s manager and the building manager. In the last year I have been there twice – once to pick up my new laptop (August?) and once to return my old laptop (October? It was slightly delayed because corona cases started going up around then). The office is outfitted with directional arrows and there are designated elevators for going up and for going down. I couldn’t quickly find the one that was designated “down” so I ended up taking the stairs.

On the plus side, my employer was fully ready to work from home from day one. We had recently switched over to Teams and we use Sharepoint (group network share) and OneDrive (generally personal network share, but can also be shared with groups). The “funny” thing was that the office was planning on working from home on the afternoon of Monday, March 16 to test the VPN. However the situation changed so fast that our VPN “test” was everyone logging in on Monday and getting to work. Luckily not everyone needs the VPN, however with my line of work my first action when I boot up my computer is to log into the VPN and my last action before turning off my computer is to log off the VPN. So yeah, I need it.

Marco and I live in a tiny apartment that doesn’t quite support two home workers, but we make it work. I think I held out until August or so last year before I finally caved and said we should get at least one proper work desk and chair. We only had to wait a week or two and I splurged on a desk which allows you to change the height electronically. I also splurged on an extra setup fee to have the company do it for us. I’d rather pay €50 than spend hours staring at instructions, thank you very much.

These days the only pain point is when we both have meetings. In that case one of us moves to the bedroom. Luckily I have less meetings than Marco so it doesn’t happen that often. Which is probably good, since the bedroom wifi is less than ideal.

Generally we don’t have any issues with the current working from home solution, but it is still crazy to think we have been at home for over a year now. My company let me know all the way back in December that we would be working from home at least through August 2021. Crazy.

At least we have the upcoming spring and sun to look forward to. Today it just drizzled, raining on and off. Boo!

Categories: Working & Volunteering | Tags: , | Leave a comment

The weekend has arrived! (Or: Are you ready to party?)

Posted on March 12, 2021 by Niki

Happy Friday, everyone! We made it. Pat yourself on the back, even if you have to work tomorrow. It is still one day closer to your personal weekend, whenever that is.

Here is a look at Marco and I’s meal from last Friday:

That is Sayur lodeh (English Wikipedia), an Indonesian vegetable soup. In this case vegan, since we ordered it from FOAM Catering here in The Hague. Even my auto spellcheck is having trouble with typing out Sayur lodeh! The homemade sambal (pictured above the dish) was very interesting – it had a slightly sour, pleasant taste. I did find the overall dish a bit “earthy” tasting, although I would not be able to tell you which vegetable caused that. It was pretty good, though.

Who would have thought 10 years ago that I would eat stuff like this? I can say that because I didn’t move to the Netherlands until the end of 2012. It has been one wild culinary ride since then…

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Brushing up on the Dutch (Or: A new podcast)

Posted on March 10, 2021 by Niki

I decided to start following a new Dutch podcast a few days ago, a slightly nerdy one in fact. The name is Spoorcast (Apple | Spotify). It is about Dutch trains (spoor being Dutch for track). Actually, my favorite hobby has always been to read up on The Hague’s tram system, but trains are second best. However I don’t follow as much public transportation news since the pandemic started.

I listened to an old episode of Spoorcast from last year and learned that Rotterdam is working on their own sort of High Line, re-using elevated railroad tracks as a park. I also felt a bit nerdy when I realized I was actually enjoying one of the more recent episodes about the interior of a train. I was glad to hear they also think the current mini trash cans by each seat area are way, way too loud. I jump every time someone slams the lid down…

When I first started listening I was dismayed to hear that it was very difficult to understand what they were saying, as each episode featured three or four people talking to each other. They kept interrupting each other and talking over what the other was saying. I was starting to wonder if this was actually a Belgian podcast (wouldn’t be the first time!) or a Frisian podcast since it was so difficult to comprehend. And then I realized I had it on my default speed setting for podcasts (1.4x). I reduced it to 1.2x and suddenly it was much more bearable. Strange I guess. I usually don’t have issues with the speed, even with the other Dutch podcasts I listen to like Echt Gebeurd. Who knows.

Photos from the “most loved” Dutch station, Klimmen-Ransdaal. See also this Dutch article from ns.nl: Waardering voor stations stijgt naar recordhoogte which talks about the most loved stations in 2020.

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Former Hudson’s Bay building (Or: The name is still there)

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Niki

Generally the name of a former store does not disappear until the new store moves in. Here is a look at the old Hudson’s Bay building on the Grote Marktstraat (large pedestrian street for shopping):

Hudson’s Bay is a previously Canadian, now American company which opened locations in former V&D buildings (English Wikipedia) back in 2017. Unfortunately Hudson’s Bay only lasted about two years, having closed all of their locations around the end of 2019. The stores just did not take off in the Netherlands, having lost 184 million euros in the Netherlands (article from nos.nl in Dutch). No one knows what will come next for these locations, unfortunately.

Categories: Shopping, The Hague | Tags: | 1 Comment

Himalayan restaurant (Or: Waiting to pick up dinner)

Posted on March 3, 2021 by Niki

It has been a while, but Himalayan is open again! Himalayan is an Indian / Nepalese / Bhutanese restaurant in The Hague’s city centre. We admittedly don’t go there often enough, considering how tasty the samosas are. We noticed that there were on Thuisbezorgd (literally = “Home delivery”) so we picked some up late last year. Unfortunately right after that there was a small fire in the kitchen which meant they were closed for the last few months for remodeling (article at regio15.nl in Dutch). So no samosas for us for a few months…

Luckily I noticed last week that they were opening again, so I quickly told Roger and Marco that we were going to get that for our Saturday meal. And it did not disappoint! I don’t have any photos of the food (dal curry for me, lamb vindaloo for Marco, chicken tikka for Roger) because it was too delicious to wait and take photos. Or maybe I forgot in my excitement of digging into the samosas…

But I do have photos of the new interior:

And another photo:

The restaurant is a bit on the small side, which isn’t helpful in these corona times – they already had to get rid of some tables to adhere to the 1.5 meters rule. Also they are down to just the owner and the wife; the owner does all of the cooking at this point. So since they are open again I need to try and remember to order from them more often. The food is definitely worth it!

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Waiting in line at HEMA (Or: Pickup is allowed)

Posted on March 1, 2021 by Niki

In the afternoon you will usually see a handful of people waiting to pick up a package at HEMA (official website, or check out the English Wikipedia page). It sells housewares and clothes, mostly made under their own label.

Under the current corona measures you are allowed to pick up packages at non-essential stores, although later in the week you will also be able to make an appointment to shop at a non-essential store. The rules are pretty strict, though; only two customers at a time per floor which is not helpful for large stores.

As you can see a few people are waiting for a package in this photo. Technically the pickup point needs to be outside, but it is actually just inside the first of two sets of automatic doors. If you look closely you can just barely see the white cart with three shelves and a blue bag – there is a customer inside picking up her order. And at least this way you don’t get rained on while you are paying for your order!

Categories: Everyday purchases, The Hague | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Butter flavored…? (Or: Curious possibilities at the Asian store)

Posted on February 25, 2021 by Niki

Sometimes I like to go to a local toko, which I usually just call “the Asian store”, to see what odd things they have on the shelves. Next to the awesome things Marco and I can’t live without, of course. I’m back on my faja lobi peanut butter kick (orientalwebshop.nl), which is Surinamese peanut butter mixed with Madam Jeanette peppers. So awesomely spicy.

Anyway, today I spotted these crackers:

The yellow Magic creams product is apparently “butter flavored cream cracker sandwiches”. Who wants cream that tastes like butter? Probably a lot of people, but I can’t wrap my mind around it. The chocolate version on the right looks pretty decent, though.

And sticking with the subject of crackers, check out these Fita crackers:

Does the logo and packaging remind you of anything? They are definitely going for the same branding as Ritz crackers (English Wikipedia), down to the color scheme and the amount of holes on the crackers. I haven’t tried the Fita crackers but they will probably disappoint. Marco and I purchased similar crackers at Xenos (xenos.nl) last year but they weren’t that good. So we still get our Ritz crackers at Kelly’s expat store (kellys-expat-shopping.nl). And since I am on a spicy peanut butter kick, as mentioned above, we usually get two boxes at a time…

Categories: Everyday purchases, Food | Leave a comment

Fleeting – Scents in Colour (Or: Upcoming exhibition at the Mauritshuis museum)

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Niki

The Mauritshuis museum in The Hague will be unveiling a new exhibition as soon as it is allowed to open its doors again. The exhibition will run through 29 August. The name of the exhibition is Fleeting – Scents in Colour (mauritshuis.nl, in English). According to the Dutch website nu.nl scent dispensers will be available at 8 paintings to allow visitors to “smell” the scene, as it were. The dispensers will be foot activated. The smells range from pleasant (spices, tobacco, coffee and teas from faraway lands) to not-so-pleasant (foul-smelling canals and unpleasant body odors).

It’s an interesting way to make museum visits even more interactive. There is also a book available at the Mauritishuis webshop, in either English or Dutch. The nu.nl article also mentions that the museum is working on packaging the scents so that you can experience the scents from home while visiting the exhibition virtually.

In other news: Foutje herder veroorzaakt babyboom bij schaapskudde Balloo: ‘Nu al 20 lammetjes’ from nos.nl in Dutch. (Herder’s mistake causes babyboom in a flock of sheep: ‘There are already 20 lambs’). In short, a young ram was allowed to stay with his mother too long because he was still nursing. In the meantime he managed to get very frisky before the herder noticed. Since then twenty lambs were born. Since the ram is black, and all of the offspring are black, it was quite obvious to see who the culprit was…

DUO maakt printfout met brieven: burgerservicenummers op straat, from nu.nl in Dutch. (DUO makes a printing error with letters: BSNs accidentally visible). DUO is an government which helps students with financing. They recently printed letters with the burger service number (think social security number for Americans) visible in the address portion of the envelope – that is, visible without even opening the letter. Opps? Up to 1,700 students could be affected although the number is likely to be much less than that as some letters in the batches were fine.

DUO said that the numbers were printed a bit too high on the paper. They are now investigating whether the numbers need to be on the letter in the first place. It does seem like a good idea to leave them off…

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In the meantime, at Albert Heijn (Or: Different batches, I guess?)

Posted on February 18, 2021 by Niki

Earlier this week I was at Albert Heijn and idly looking at the focaccia breads on sale. My eye was immediately drawn to a focaccia that looked almost burnt, next to a pale one that looked okay.

I suspect I’d probably buy the lighter version if I really wanted it, but I can’t say that the darker version didn’t look tasty as well. Just… slightly burnt. (You can also see some dark exemplars in the back, so it seems like there was just a difference in the batches.)

Today is kind of a weird day, probably a day when I should stay away from checking the news. A few days ago we were at 2,700 infections, then yesterday 3,600, and now today 4,600. Last week’s winter weather could be a culprit, since a lot of testing areas were closed. There were also closures this past Monday when rain came while temperatures were still around freezing. Still, I think it is a sign I should read less news, to avoid feeling frustrated.

For a crazy-but-very-interesting story, check out: People are rescuing thousands of ‘cold-stunned’ sea turtles in Texas from theguardian.com. The cold-blooded sea turtles became paralyzed due to the temperature of the water. At this point over 3,500 sea turtles have been brought in. They will be released once the water warms up, but that will take some time as another cold front is expected in the coming days.

Categories: Everyday purchases | Tags: | Leave a comment

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