Next week is the Sintvoorieder1 toy drive for the upcoming Sinterklaas holiday on 5 December. I have donated for the last 3-4 years and I look forward to this week every year! Sintvoorieder1 is short for “Sint voor iedereen”, or “Sint for everyone”. “ieder1” is because “een” is how the number 1 is spelled out. (een, twee, drie, vier, vijf…)
Sinterklaas is actually the precursor to Santa Claus. I amsterdam has an article explaining the differences between the two holidays if you are curious.
Sintvoorieder1’s goal is to donate gifts to kids in need throughout the Netherlands, with the gifts usually delivered via food banks or similar organizations. Last year they received 88,000 gifts which meant they could make packages for around 31,000 children. A package contains something to play with, something to read, something to learn or make, and chocolate.
This year the main location for donating gifts is at the The Hague’s central library (click the translate link in the upper right if needed), which will be accepting gifts this week, from 10:00-20:00 Monday through Thursday and 10:00-17:00 on Friday. The total number of gifts will be announced around 19:00 on Friday. You can follow the action on social media or check the local radio broadcaster (Den Haag FM)’s Sintvoorieder1 page for all the details. Den Haag FM will be broadcasting from the library all week as well.
List of other locations which are accepting gifts in the region
And for fun, here is an 2022 article from Omroep West about Sandra, a volunteer jigsaw puzzler. While new gifts are easier to donate, you can also donate old items if they meet certain criteria, which jigsaw puzzles do. If they have all of their pieces of course! Sandra’s job is to put used jigsaw puzzles together to make sure all the pieces are there before it ends up in a gift package. That’s cool if you ask me.
The Dutch department store HEMA has a few characters that are associated with their brand.
The Takkie and Siepie merchandise was all over during last year’s Christmas – it was almost impossible to get certain items and the homepage of hema.nl told people to check store inventory before going to the store to prevent disappointment. Part of the craze started because the two pets appeared on a HEMA holiday commercial (you don’t need audio to understand the story).
This year HEMA brought out the Takkie and Siepie merchandise out in full force, and I don’t blame them.
Here are some examples. First, Takkie as a rocking horse (funny that the stickers also mention “use at your own risk”).
Takkie stuffed animal with an adorable sweater:
Christmas tree with Siepie ornaments (at least it looks like Siepie):
Continue readingHere is a random photo this week, of a store window in De Passage:
This is a store window at Hamilton tobacco & gifts, a souvenir store that I can still remember visiting back when I was actually a tourist around 2009-2011 sometime. As you can see from the photo, they have a nice collection of Dutch memorabilia, Delft blauw pottery, Nijntje (or Miffy if you’re not from the Netherlands), etc.
Random news:
Artwork stolen from Scheveningen hotel; Man walked out with 50 kg statue in suitcase
Dunkin’ to stay in the Netherlands but some stores will shut
Here are a few photos that I took around The Hague this month. First, a canal with some beautiful flowers and clouds:
Then, a set of apartments and a pond around the S100 road (a main artery), also known as the Burgemeester Patijnlaan. Apparently it is the Athena condominiums. Who knew?
And finally, a photo of a crazy looking tree along the Koninginnegracht, another main road where tram 9 runs. The trees stand on the edge of a canal. It’s most likely the same canal in the first photograph, just in a different part of the city. It’s all interconnected.
It’s definitely the type of tree which could feature in a Halloween story, if the lighting was a bit darker.
Marco, Roger and I went to Five K Comfort Food in The Hague’s city centre on the Gedempte Gracht. Its speciality is Asian fusion. Roger also likes it because they have ice cream floats… a bit of a sweet tooth, that one!
Although my blog post title promises chicken, unfortunately I don’t have photos of that. My apologies. But I take a photo of the graffiti at the table next to us before another group sat there:
I had the orange popcorn chicken. It was really good, and it was a great portion size (bordering on too much for one person). If we hadn’t been going to a movie after, I definitely would have asked for a doggy bag and taken the rest home. Marco and Roger had a few different types of chicken wings plus they shared a platter of duck pancakes.
De Passage (the covered shopping area in The Hague’s city centre) has started getting ready for the coming holiday season. It’s a bit early, but in the Netherlands the first holiday is Sinterklaas. That holiday is on 5 December, a full three weeks before Christmas.
It’s not much yet (there’s no Christmas tree yet), but it’s a start.
And in other news: Jeers for beers: mechanic chucks out artwork at Lisse museum from dutchnews.nl. The artwork was two handprinted beer cans left on display in an elevator, so the mistake definitely makes sense. The museum has gotten a lot of publicity due to it, so I am sure they are happy. (The not-beer cans were later found in the trash, so there was no harm done.)
Last weekend Marco and I went to SET restaurant here in The Hague for lunch. I had a bento box, which is what I always get for lunch there because it is so good. I didn’t take a picture this time since I have posted about it before. As always: yum!
On this rare occasion I also decided to get dessert. Here is Marco’s dessert, a mochi ice cream mix.
I have to admit, the restaurant name in powdered sugar is a nice touch. Almost like they know these photos will show up on social media…
I went for the green tea ice cream. It was a great choice, since the ice cream was a slightly more bitter green tea.
Did you know there is a store in Tokyo which sells 7 different types of matcha ice cream (reddit.com)? With 7 being the most bitter and the most intense. That is what I was thinking of while having this ice cream, although I’d probably rate it as 4 or 5 on the “intensity scale”.
As mentioned in my last post, the oliebollen stand opened yesterday, 1 October. As you can see it was immediately swarmed.
Marco also made good on his promise to go take the picture above and buy oliebollen, so we already had our first ones of the season yesterday evening, with the obligatory coffee.
And yes, it is rainy in the Netherlands of late. I took a chance this morning by not bringing my umbrella on my walk to work. I regretted it around the halfway mark. Boo. It looks like there will be less rain the rest of the week, though.
I was in Bijenkorf yesterday picking up a greeting card when I spotted a sign that the Christmas section was available on the third floor. Of course I just had to see for myself…
It’s true. So I decided to take a few photos of ornaments. The soy sauce because the animal was cute.
And this because it is oliebollen (Wikipedia). Yum.
Oh, and stayed tuned for pictures of the oliebollen stand on the Grote Marktstraat, perhaps. Marco and Roger spotted it yesterday after we went to the movies (we saw Transformers One), although we suspect that the stand won’t open until Tuesday (October 1). It is always interesting how it either opens on October 1 or November 1. Pre-covid it wouldn’t be allowed to set up shop before November 1, but they made an exception for a few years in 2020-2021. But I thought last year it didn’t open until November 1.
Anyway – it is almost oliebollen time!
Life in the Hague 