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| Nothing says "ik ben hier!" (I'm here) like cruising through Niewe Maas River and seeing most all of Rotterdam's icons -- the good and the bad -- all at once. |
This was perhaps the most fun thing in the orientation week sked - the Rotterdam Harbour Tour.
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| Their smiles spell F.U.N. -- never mind the brooding young hottie. |
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| That's a smile, promise. |
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| Not a fan of the De Rotterdam but this is only the second Koolhaas building I've seen IRL. |
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| Look at the tower -- don't be distracted by the oriental upturned eaves floating (?) structure -- that's the Euromast (1960), one of Rotterdam architectural icons. It may not look it, but at 185m tall, it's actually the highest building in the Netherlands. |
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| Will have to google the name of this building but it's weird caterpillar legs and toy-like shape is especially arresting when viewed from the river. |
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| The windmill in my mind... |
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| Very Miami... |
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| Oooh, could it be an old observatory? |
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| The SS Rotterdam. It's now stationery, converted into a hotel or something. |
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| The scene's become very industrial and goes on further downstream... |
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| It's a harbour alright... |
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| Happy customers! |
Afterwards, we walked further on to the city center to look for the ING Bank branch in front of the City Hall.
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| The organic disheveled landscaping of the park at the foot of Erasmusbrug aka The Erasmus Bridge (1996) is pretty cool. |
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| We're going to the city center... |
There was quite a queue at the bank, so we ended up doing touristy things instead.
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| Like taking pictures in front of an old building - that's actually the City Hall. |
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| Yeeep! |
And because there's always some thing that we need to buy, Asian ingredients for instance, we hunted down the Asian grocery at Rotterdam's very own Chinatown.
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| The Chinatown is near the Rotterdam Central Station. |
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| You know you're in Chinatown when... |
