Last Thursday, a farewell was organised down at the beach in Scheveningen in the evening. The eating places were really crowded due to the good weather. Being mid summer, the day lights are at their longest this week with sunset past 10 pm. But still warm enough to just wear T-shirt. Apparently there is currently a heat wave in UK. Hopefully nothing like that will hit us here. Most houses here unfortunately do not have air conditioning.
There are a couple of farewell events and dinners that I'm attending this week - but for a change they are for yours truly. Monday I took the whole team to a go-karting but with a completely different theme - go-karting on ice. Absolutely an amazing experience and very different to the more speed and thrill seeking normal karting. Go-karting on ice is gaining popularity and only happens in the summer when the large ice skating ring in town is closed from normal ice skating. The ring is turned into a go-karting circuit complete with chicanes and sharp corners. Controlling the kart on this ice is quite difficult. The kart would just goes out of control if you try to push the limit, and at the corner it is just chaos. I wonder how those rally drivers in the Swedish Rally could manage to drive over 100 km/hr over ice.
As the tradition here in the office, yours truly got a nice book reminding the land that has been our home for the last 3 years.
What a surprise! The kids were quite innovative. They made a big placard for me. I'm not really into this sort of celebratory day but why not for once if the kids had made an effort and wanted to write a few words to reflect about their father.
That's the sign in front of the Peace Palace here in The Hague.
As far as I know, our country's territorial dispute has not reach ICJ. There might be good reasons for it. Nonetheless ther have been a lot of cases submitted to ICJ. Amongst the recent Territorial disputes submitted are :
Museumplein or Museum Square is a part of Amsterdam where one could easily spend the whole day going into the various museums located there. This place is basically littered with thousand of tourists. 
This is one of the most photographed spot in Amsterdam. It's actually a very simple construction, spelled out the word Amsterdam in bright colours and bingo - it works wonder by making it one of the 'must take' photo spot here.
There are many blogs that I have been following that are now inactive. There seemed to be a loss of interest or energy or lack of time to continue with the 'hobby'. I could also imagine the frustration when one faces with slow connection back home. Hopefully this will change soon with the new fast link which is expected to be ready before end of the year. As for our blog, the end is also near.
It does look like a space ship landing on top of a building. This is Zoetermeer, a small but modern town just East of The Hague, about 20 minutes drive from home. We have never been here but made a trip today out of curiosity. The best thing was the underground parking - it is free for the first three hours!
Today we went to visit Panorama Mesdag in the city.
You simply stand in the middle of the painting as if you are on top a dune and experience the illusion of the surrounding view. Apart from the excellent painting, created by real sands, wreckage, anchors and others, the whole thing seems so real as if you standing on a real dune.
We had a visit from a Bruneian family all the way from Russia, they used to be our neighbour here. The family is on holiday from Shakalin and could not resist to go back here to what used to be their 'kampung halaman' for 4 years.
With the summer, comes the long day hours. The most daunting part of this period is the late prayer times. Maghrib is at 10 pm and Isya at 12 pm. When Ramadan falls during the middle of the summer in a not distant future in a few years time, that will be a time of real test. I remember back in the 80's doing that for four straight summers. I can't remember any of my friends uttering any complaint. Everybody just did it.
It has been quiet on our blog. A week went by. Fizah still in the midst of her GSCE exam. The other kids doing their normal schooling, though they seemed to be doing all sort of after school activities with friends now as the term is ending and some of their friends are leaving. Missus meanwhile joined a small tea gathering amongst the ladies on our street hosted by the front neighbour. Yours truly been spending a lot of time outside taking care of our house compound, mowing the grass and trimming the hedges. Now that we are in the middle of the summer, with the endless rain and sunshine, everything seems to be growing very fast and if not regularly attended, the whole things look very untidy, resembling a small jungle!
This weekend is yet another of those extended weekends - tomorrow is a public holiday. It is a day after Pinkesteren (today) which is a Christian religious holiday that falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter. In a way there is some similarity in our culture where we also have all sort of 'penutop' events for big festivities. After this the next public holiday is half a year away - Christmas!
Seldom were we stuck on watching a TV show. But starting 7 weeks ago and specially since last Sunday with the first of the 5 semi finals in the evenings culminating with the final last night, this years Britain's Got Talent has been a very good family entertainment programme. The semis had up to 15 millions people watching. The audience figure for the final, yet to be released, is expected to be amongst the most watched TV programme ever in UK. Last night show started at 7.45 pm and finished at around 12. This year's final is a real open contest. In the end amongst the 5 or 6 who could have won, the group called Diversity was voted the winner, much to the pleasure of Faris and Zim who predicted them right. We were sure Susan Boyle, after all the initial hype, would not have won it. But yours truly really thought Julian Smith, the saxophonist, would get it but he came in third. Missus thought Shaheen would win it.
Just kidding..... while I am typing this, Barcelona just lifted the trophy.Now the football season is almost over with only the FA Cup final remaining. No weekend football to look forward to for next three months from now. Other sports take their turns. But we are not really into tennis, circket or rugby. The F1 this year also seems to be quite wierd.
It was a really stormy night last night. The lighning went on all night till the morning. It was like back home. The aftermath in the morning was quite disastrous. By 7 am, two main motorways leading to Amsterdam and The Hague were jam locked a distance of 30 km. Broken trees and branches were everywhere on the road.A: The short answer is from the ground to the cloud, but it's a complicated process. When too much negative charge builds up in a cloud, a bundle of charge moves from the cloud toward the ground in the form of a "stepped leader." As a stepped leader nears the ground, it attracts a surge of positive charge that streams skyward from the tallest nearby objects. The stepped leader and "streamers" typically meet around 100 to 300 feet above the Earth, forming a path for the lightning stroke. As electrons race from cloud to ground, a return stroke of current shoots up from the ground. It is this surge of current that we see as lightning.
Our youngest went to his friend's laserstorm birthday party today in a place just on the outskirt of Amsterdam. The place, called Paintball Jungle, is the largest outdoor paintball place in Holland. With 14 fields in use, the place is very popular here and clearly busy today. No doubt many so called grown-ups are taking this game very seriously. The kids were only allowed to play the laserstorm, similar but without the paint pellets.
Last week Germany wanted to ban pintball and laser tag entirely but was overturned. The move came as part of the German government's response to the horrific school shooting in Germany recently. Paintball and violent video games came under criticism from some German officials after the massacre. Nonetheless, seemed to be an immediate European Union directive, the sport is now banned for those younger than 18 in Holland, and is generally not allowed to be played in military fatigues.
This game is popular with many of the Bruneian students studying in UK where they organise big annual events regularly involving many of the universities. But apparently the effort by some of them to establish the game back home didn't get the approval from the authority.
They were given the chance to try out many of the fields, each has different set-up, from plain jungle to urban warfare set-up.
Grote Markt or town square is a great place to start and end the day in the city. It is the heart of the old city.
The best parts are the endless outdoor cafes and restaurants that line up the streets. We found an Eyptian restaurant amongst the many there. We managed to find seatings outside. During a sunny and warm weather like yesterday, it was definitely a beautiful spot to enjoy meal. In all we spent nearly 7 hours in Antwerp.
Yesterday we decided to make a short drive to Antwerp and spent the whole day there. Antwerp is a port city in Belgium which takes one and half hour ride from home to reach the city centre. It is famous for being one of the world centre for diamond trading industry.
The city itself is quite nice and pleasant to spend a day out. This time around we managed to get all the kids to join us. Fiz as usual printed her own map and made a bit of research in the internet. Then off she went on her own exploring the city only to see us 3 hours later. For our parts we were just taking our time and enjoy walking around and exploring the city. One thing that is quite visible in the city is the high number of muslims seen in the crowd. 
Definitely the most beautiful place worth visiting is a shopping centre called Stadsfeestzaal. The Stadsfeestzaal is a large hall originally built at the beginning of the 20th century as a permanent site for official festivities. After it was destroyed by fire in 2000, the glass-vaulted hall was renovated and reopened recently in 2007 as a modern shopping center. The venue was restored in all its splendour. Inside it is heavily decorated in gold, marble staircase, mosaic floor, gilded facades and glass-domed vault. 
A real eye-catcher in the main hall is the champagne-shaped Laurent Perrier bar. We only sat down at the coffee bar on the floor, a great way to enjoy the place. 
In the news yesterday, Scotland just switched on Europe’s largest onshore wind farm. The wind farm represents an investment of £300 million, and the 140 wind turbines generate 300 MW of electricity, enough to serve some 250,000 homes. The developer is planning to double the capacity in the coming years. This is in line with UK government aspiration to generate enough power from wind turbines to light every home in the U.K. by 2020.Apparently more than 50 countries are active in using wind energy. Most of the ideal places are those that are facing open oceans. UK and northern Europe are in an ideal location for harvesting the wind energy as they got the North Atlantic system feeding the shore with constant strong winds. In Asia, it is Japan, China, Taiwan Philippines and Indochina. The potential is a lot less for those further to the south particularly around the equator where the winds are more subtle and malign. Those countries that are always blighted by tycoons are where the active wind system are present. Nonetheless it should not prevent us from at least investigating and investing a bit on this renewable resource as we can't forever rely on non-renewable.
