Heritage Corner

Saturday, 14 November, on a sunny afternoon and I am still in love with the Chocolate Festival. After attending the opening ceremony in the Amsterdam' s harbour a week before, now I am joining the Choca Tour organized by the Centre Library of Amsterdam. The guide started with showing a cacao bean. It is something I take for granted because in Indonesia I saw it often, but not for the Dutch participants. They studied the bean carefully and probably saw it for the first time in their life. Our first visit was one of the oldest tea and coffee importer in the Netherland. It is located in Zeedijk. They served three sort of tea and all have something to do with chocolate. Silky Oolong, pure Earl Grey Tea and one more with chocolate taste in it. Our second visit was Metropolitan Deli, also in Zeedijk. Kees, the owner is a passionate chocolatier. He let us to taste a cacao bean, 100% processed chocolate (without sugar etc) and milk chocolate. Hhmm..now we know! When chocolate is in the ha...

I love chocolate. I love heritage. And Amsterdam offers the two of them between 7-22 November during the Chocolate Festival ! Looking at the programs I learned that a chocolate festival is much more than simply eating chocolates. They organise a bicycle tour and a walk to trace a history of chocolate in Holland. They display an exhibition about Chocolate Expedition of van Houten whom I am sure sound familiar for chocolate lovers in Indonesia. There is also a fashion show with clothes from chocolates! Museums and library are involved, besides of course, chocolate patisseries, restaurants and hotels. The mission of the festival is to set cacao beans and chocolate industry as images of Amsterdam : sexy, creative and sustainable. Amsterdam is the largest chocolate port in the world. Every year about 600 million kilos cacao beans is transported by ships. That amount is about one fifth of the world's chocolate production. Most cacao beans came from Cote d'Ivoire West Africa countries...

A beauty that I saw this week : a lamp in the former office of the Dutch Trading Company, a succesor of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). The Building itself called " De Bazel" and it is worth visiting when you are in Amsterdam.

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) was the Dutch trading company in the past who brought a lot of wealth to Holland. The admirals of VOC sailed to far away destinations with ships. Two of them were "the Batavia" and "the 17 Provinces." Lelystad has built the replica of the Batavia completely and open it for public since 1995. The complex for these ships called " Bataviawerf." The Batavia ship was for the first time sailed in 1629 with destination of Java island in Indonesia. There were 332 crew inside. There is a book told stories about death, killing and betrayals during the operations of this ship. The Batavia ship The 17 Provinces ship replica is under construction You can find VOC logo everywhere in this place Interior in the Batavia ship which mostly for children's games consist of maps, old text, etc.

Factory outlets became a trademark of Bandung in West Java, Indonesia. My home town Bandung has an acute traffic problem every weekend due to factory outlet tourism. People is starving of branded products, left-over exported quality products. Bandung has begun its factory outlet tourism years ago and it becomes a mecca for shoppers in Indonesia. In the Netherlands factory outlet -in my opinion- is not a phenomenon yet. We can find here and there factory outlet shops but not to the level of craeting traffic jams in the whole city. One of the biggest factory outlet in the Netherlands is " Batavia Stad " in Lelystad. This city makes the Batavia Stad as one of the main attractions. What interesting for me is the combination between the factory outlet and the replica of VOC ship in one complex. About the ship I put it in another entry. So you can learn about history and shopping altogether. Interesting concept.

Building of the childcare de Boomspijker in area of Nieuwemarkt Amsterdam. I came here for a presentation about nomination of Amsterdam as the UNESCO World Heritage City. This nomination is an interesting story and hopefully next year we will hear the decision. But this time I just wanted to share my impressions about the glass windows of the building. Colourful, beautiful and well maintained.

Taking a walk during a Saturday afternoon in 's-Graveland, North Holland, my eyes catched the wooden chairs along the way. They were so inviting..... This area is managed by Natuurmonumenten (Natural Heritage) organisation in the Netherlands. They do amazing works.

These days the city centre of Amsterdam is full with art elephants. In different positions and different colours. They are beautiful and attract attentions due to their sizes. I got off from my bike to read what this is all about. They are all Asian elephants! I remember my days in Lampung, Sumatra, when I drove my car and saw wild elephants from distance. My only hope was that the locals would let them to live and stop chasing them. I admired the initiative that they do in Amsterdam. Bring the elephants to the city centre and let people support. These art elephants are really cute. Every elephant has a name and explanation. "Over 100 art elephants form the Elephant Parade Amsterdam 2009. November 12th, all statues will be auctioned by Christie's. Net proceed will be donated to Elephant Family, the largest Asian Elephant charity in the world. Today, there are less than 4,500 elephants living in Thailand; only 1,5oo of them live in the wild." "Support the Asian Elepha...

On the way to the office this morning, radio Nederland 2 played "New York New York." The Dutch is proud to tell the history of Captain Henry Hudson who found a place in 1609 that became New York now. It means exactly 400 years ago. New York is used to be called New Amsterdam. Today, 8 September, the commemoration takes place in New York. The Empire State Building is decorated orange (the Dutch royal colour) and people can join an orange bike tour tracing the Dutch history in New York. The royal couple, Willem Alexander and Maxima will be the host. Most of the time I think what a history this small country has. Besides New York, Singapore is also a former colony of the Netherlands before it handed over to the British. And now look at these places, both Singapore and New York become two important trade hubs in two continents. I believe there are more places that used to belong to the Netherlands. The glory has long become the past, but I am still curious about the adventures ...