Stunning View of Iconic Tulips at Keukenhof Garden

Last month on the 3rd May 2019 at the last day of our tour, 5 of us (my mom, my sisters and my brother-in-law) visited Keukenhof after checking out from our hotel. It's the most exciting place we would like to see, people say the best to see Tulip in mid to end of Apr. Arriving Keukenhof around 09:00 o'clock, the weather was quite cold around 10 degree Celsius, so we wore our coat to protect us from the wind and weather. We had to walk from the parking area to the gate, the bus was not allowed to drop us in front of the entrance. While waiting for our tour leader bought the ticket, we took some pictures on the gate which already had beautiful colorful blossom Tulips. The Tour Leader (TL) only gave us around 2.5 hours to explore the garden, and he informed that the meeting point would be right in front of the gate.

Passing through the entrance one by one I asked a map from the guard, they said that free maps were available in different languages on a stand just a few steps after the entrance. The map was important, it's good to help us to see the whole area allocation, and discover the way during our journey. A beautiful girl with traditional clothes was standing next to the map location, she didn't mind when we asked her to take picture together. The area was quite huge, 32 hectares, while the time was limited, so we had to decide which part to be visited. Our TL suggested to go to the windmill area first by turning to the right direction from the entrance, but my family decided to go the other way (left side) to split from the group, 2 couples were joined us.

The 1st part visited was quite amazing already, so many beautiful tulips planted in the area. It's planted in square for different color and type of Tulips. Some of them already bloomed a lot, such as the "Yellow Sun" Tulip with its beautifully ruffled golden yellow blooms. Deep lilac Passionale tulip was attracted us, its color was stand out among others. Our friend was kind enough to take our family picture. Botanical Tulip (Giuseppe Verdi) were also beautiful with its lovely bright gold, wide red stripes on the inside and carmine stripes on the outside. We spent quite a long time there taking many pictures there, till we realized that there were still many other location to be visited in the garden.

We crossed a white bridge, taking the footpath to continue the journey. On the left side of the path we could see 5 big round pots surrounding a smaller pot, the pots dominated with red, pink, yellow and white color of flowers, very few leaves shown. At the right side we could sit on benches with background of Tulip to enjoy the garden, bi-colors tulip and fringe tulips type planted here. Unfortunately we could not take picture in the middle of the flower such as the previous place, they put ropes to avoid people step on the grass. Wandering the garden here was quite shady as some big trees were sheltering us.

Arriving at "Irene" pavilion, we saw a big organ displayed as the decoration. A small pond with its tree fountain was as the main attraction in this area, beautiful purple prince tulips were planted on a big pot at the edge of the pool. Some of us taking time to go to the restroom as the weather quite mild and we didn't know how long we could find another restroom again in the garden. While waiting for them, we kept taking pictures with beautiful rows of Tulips under the high trees. Queen of Night tulip which its color almost black was found near to the river stream.

We remembered that our TL had mentioned around the big pool is very beautiful view with many Tulips. We were rather lost track as we passed by many big trees with no flowers, we decided to turn and tried to find the shortest path to the big pool as the time keep ticking. After walking for a few minutes... finally we could find the right track. We found so many Tulips surrounding the pool, it made us very excited and speechless. Taking pictures from any angles were beautiful, it needed no photography expert to do it :-) They arranged the garden beautifully decorated with different colors Tulips. Combining with purple small flower (looked like Lavender) on the hilly contour had created an amazing view. We didn't have enough time to go around the big pool with its fountain, as our next destination to Windmill was far at the other side of the pool. I'm very fond of the combination of flower, water and blue sky, it's refreshing our soul.

We passed by small hut with Keukenhof signage, it's beautifully decorated with Tulips at the front, while the background big trees with green and red color such as during fall. Next to it was "Wilhemina" pavilion with a small cafeteria, unfortunately we didn't want to waste our time for drinking or snack time as we still had many places to explore. I wish I could have time to sit down admire the garden while having your coffee or tea, maybe someday I'll be back there with more time to explore the whole garden, not in a rush.

At the edge of the pool we could find some colorful beautiful ducks, unfortunately I didn't have bread to feed them. Near another bridge to pass by, there was a small garden with white horse and its jockey statue. We asked the other visitor's assistance to take our group picture, as we didn't go with our TL who often helped us taking group picture :-) The garden also had a white statue of Tulip bulb as the symbol and decoration. I kept taking many pictures while others kept walking, I was almost always the last in the group then I had to run to catch them.

To cross the pool there were also step stones on the water, close to the fountain. Some people taking this path, actually I would like to try and ask others to take my picture. As I was the last, nobody could help me, so I just took the picture of the view. We still found bunch of Tulips on the way to Willem-Alexander Pavilion. It's an indoor museum where you could find display of Tulips and various flowers other than Tulip. As we ran out of time, we just saw at a glance while we passed, we didn't explore the museum. The museum surrounding by small pool, surrounding by a green field with Tulips. Our young couple friends took a nice picture sitting on the green grass field next to the Tulips.

Finally we reach the windmill area, there was some straw piles as the bench for people to enjoy the park, it's cool, unfortunately all seat had been taken although it's under the sunshine. There's also a high small hut with shelter contains of a person, you had to climb the wooden ladders to sit on it. While taking picture, lucky me there's a straw pile leaving by persons, so I took it over fast to take picture alternately with my sister and my brother-in-law. Some food sellers on the cart were available here. You could shop for souvenirs too in the store next to the windmill. We didn't have a chance to go up to the windmill, anyway taking picture with tulips as foreground and windmill as background was quite satisfying.

Near the windmill there's a boat on the river, you could go by boat trip, no time at all for this. The time given had been finished, so we had to go to the meeting point at the entrance gate. Walking to the entrance we pass through a big green field, picnic area where there's a playground for children. I took some flying pose of my sisters and friends there, while for myself, I ran to the other side of the fields attempted with many colorful Tulips. I took selfie with the Tulips as my background, then a kind woman brought SLR camera was helping me to take my picture using my iphone.

We still stopped by some places to take beautiful pictures. My brother-in-law was able to take a good picture of my sisters on the square long pool with Tulips at the left and right side of the pool. Some cone form trees were also decorated beautifully at the side among Tulips and flowers. Dogs are allowed in Keukenhof as long as they are leashed, we met some dogs with their master. We saw a cute white and grey hairy dog was walking on the garden with her master, we stopped by to greet and caress the cute long fur dog. The dog was very friendly, unfortunately she's quite old, 11 years old already. The dog enjoyed our meeting even her master welcome us to touch the dog.

Running to the exit, we could not find other participant anymore at the entrance gate meeting point, then we checked our WhatsApp group, in fact they were already in the bus at the parking lot, we were the last participants arrived. We still would like to explore more the beautiful scenery and flowers at Keukenhof, unfortunately the time was not enough unless we'll miss the bus. If you visit Netherland in Apr or early May, don't forget to stop by Keukenhof at Lisse, wander the beautiful fields, pavilions and flowers of Keukenhof is very worthy, relaxing and interesting. Weekend is quite crowded, Mon to Wed is less busy while for the hours before 10:30 is better. Free wifi is available around pavilions in the park, you could borrow wheel-chair free of charge (just need deposit which would be returned later) if needed.

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Magnificent Scenic Natural View Wulingyuan, Zhangjiajie

In Sep 2018, my friends, my mom and myself created our own group of 15 people to go to Zhangjiajie which is famous for its unique natural scenery and abundant tourism resources. It's a long way to reach there from Surabaya, we went using CX transit in HK, continued flying to Guangzho. The next day took a 3 hours bullet train to Changsha. Bullet train was very lovely, very clean toilets, that you seldom find in China :-) Hot water was available free for passengers to make your own tea/coffee or instant noodle, an electricity plug also put at each passenger seat to charge your smartphone, with it's convenience soft chair to sit. Although the train speed was up to 350kms/hour, we didn't feel the movement at all, it's very stabil and punctual, more convenience than flight :-)

Zhangjiajie is located in the northwest of Hunan province, about 400 kilometers away from Changsha, capital of Hunan, covering a total area of 9,563 square kilometers most of them are mountainous area. Total population of 1.62 million, 72% is minority ethnic minority tribes e.g. Tujia, Bai and Miao nationalities. After lunch we went to Yuanjiajie, the bus driver drop us near to the market. We walked a few blocks to the beautiful gate with high tower and mountain background. Based on our local guide info, our bus could not go inside the area, we had to queue to ride on their shuttle transportation.

I sat at the back of the shuttle, along the way we could see beautiful scenery, I would like to record it, but difficult to take from the middle seat, so I swapped seat with my mom in the middle of the trip. Lucky the car's window could be opened, so I could take some pictures well although the car moved quite fast. We dropped at the 1st stop, the view was amazing, we passed by a bridge with clean water called golden whip stream. The scenery was amazing, the bridge, river, a valley of freestanding, shrub-and-tree-clad towers surrounded by a wall of massive sandstone blocks.

There was a wide open space where we took a photo group of Yuanjiajie which became more popular as the Southern Sky Pillar inspired the floating mountains in the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar. We still liked to stay longer there, but our tour leader mentioned that there would be better scenery from above. We had to wait for the other shuttle bus to bring us to the place where we could take the lift to the top of the mountain.

To take the lift, it's quite a long queue, we often experienced local people tried to overcut our lane, it seemed that they were not discipline enough in queueing. Bailong lift space was quite big, all of our group could go in together. As it's very crowded and I was the last, I could not get a good picture during the movement, as the glasses area facing to the lift's door. It was the highest and fastest elevator with the maximum loading capacity, only took around 2 minutes to reach the top with 326 meters height. The lift looked like a giant dragon which is built onto the side of a huge cliff. Open in 2002, then Guinness World Records recognized as the world’s tallest outdoor lift in 2015.

Exit from the lift, we could see amazing views, peaks and pillars there are nearly at the same height, which makes Yuanjiajie Scenic Area a great mountain platform. Fields and gardens in the Air will come into view, the mountain trail invited us to walk around the area and taking pictures. All of us were shocked at the sights before eyes. All the mountains you have seen at the foot of them stand in arrays at your feet at the moment. Lucky it's not cloudy, so we could enjoy the scenery well.

Our tour leader was tired reminding us to continue the tracking, as my friends still took picture around lift area while others already waiting including my mom who sat on the wood bench near a souvenir shop. We kept walking through the path, we saw amazing scenery along the way. Our tour leader was kind enough to help us taking picture, we took a beautiful picture on the stairs with the marvelous background of the pillars karst stone garden.

Walking further we found the Hallelujah pillar or the “Southern Sky Column, which was stretched 3,544 feet into the air. Avatar, the famous Hollywood movie, used photographs of the pinnacle as inspiration for the floating Hallelujah Mountains of Pandora. It's one of the successful attempt to bring more tourists into the national park to discover the real world of Pandora.

Some food stalls were available on the way, then we crossed a bridge that enable us walking on the cliff and seeing the scenery from different angle. People was very crowded, so it's not easy to take picture in the middle of the bridge. I also wonder why Chinese people often open their shirt showing their stomach in public area, even they didn't feel ashamed about it although they didn't have a six pack stomach :-). The track was going up and down, it's tiring, but worthy with the views we could enjoy. Finally we reach the end of the path, waiting for the shuttle to bring us to the next destination.

Helong park our next destination, the only huge human landscape of the whole Wulingyuan area, we had to go down the stairs for around 15 minutes, my mom was tired already. One of our friend decided not to go, so I asked her to take care of my mom. Lucky that my mom didn't join us to explore it, I almost could not breath well, very tired climbing on the track. We could see the bronze statue of He Long (a militarist and the marshal of the republic of China). Tourist floods here to recall the history and great feats of the elder proletarian revolutionist.

Our tour leader showed the original steep path of the stairs before they built the shortcut, it took more than 4 hours to reach the place using the track. Continue following the track to Yunqing Rock, it's also stunning, to go back the stairs were very challenging. I had to stop to get more energy and take a deep breath. The Imperial Writing Brush Peaks covering 4,810 ha, one of several national parks within the Wulingyuan Scenic Area. Zhangjiajie is a green treasure house, the forest coverage rate is above 98%. Within the park, there are altogether more than 8,000 cliff mountains, towering into the sky like a dancing group, with various physical appearance and grand force of character.

Finally, we took the bus again to the last destination, the Tianzi Mountain Cable Car, located in the center of Wulingyuan. The queue was not too long anymore, because it's already 17:15, it's almost close. We still have to climb more stairs to the cable car station. Inside the cable car could contain up to 6 persons, low at four sides and high in the center. The view, a large forest and spectacular scenery was very amazing from the cable car, it's not too long but it's very impressive. Looking from the top, the magnificent view stretches with distinct layers, so that it is an ideal spot for viewing Wulingyuan peak forest.

I'm very satisfied with the most beautiful scenic view, you should visit the magnificent Zhangjiajie. Its unique geographical features make it as popular tourist destination. You should be ready wearing comfortable shoes to walk and prepare a good stamina to explore quite challenging track path.

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Enjoy The Beauty of Warsaw in 2 days, Poland

In Jun 2015 I visited Warsaw, the capital and largest city of Poland, with 2 of my friends joined ATS tour.

It's 12 degrees Celcius temperature when we'd arrived, the bus dropped us to Golden Terrace shopping mall where we could find supermarket to buy fruits, beverages and snacks. I love cherry, and I could find the good quality here. It's sweet, big and yummy, it's difficult to find in Indonesia with reasonable price :-) Different kind of cheese was also available, which could be eaten directly as snack.

On the way to our hotel DOUBLETREE By Hilton Hotel, Skalnicowa street 21, Warsaw 04797, Poland, Phone +48-2227 80000, we passed by National Stadium Warsaw with its retractable roof, mostly used for football matches also as the home stadium of Poland national football team.

On the next day we visited the beautiful Łazienki Park (Palace on the Water) is the largest park in Warsaw, Poland, occupying 76 hectares of the city center. It's the lavish summer residence of the last King of Poland, Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1764 - 1895).

Took quite some time for photo group, it's difficult to gather the participants who were busy taking their own pictures as many interesting spots to take photos.

As the name meaning, we could find many pools around the park. Some buildings looked as if it's built on the water with white color. Unfortunately we didn't enter any building, just saw from outside. We had to walk to enjoy the park, as our bus would pick us on the other side, not the same as the entrance.

Peacocks were walking freely in the park. We also found squirrels jumped from the tree, and busy chewing something, maybe peanuts. In the middle of the park we smelled something good, it's from waffle stall, my friend bought a portion to be shared, it tasted good, crunchy and yummy.

Continued the trip by bus, we had passed by some beautiful landmarks of Warsaw.

Our next destination was Warsaw's Castle Square (Polish: plac Zamkowy w Warszawie). It's a historic square in front of the Royal Castle – the former official residence of Polish monarchs – located in Warsaw, Poland.

It is a popular meeting place for tourists and locals. The Square (in a more or less triangular shape) features the landmark Sigismund's Column to the south-west, and is surrounded by historic townhouses.

It marks the beginning of the bustling Royal Route extending to the South. We had some free time hours to walk around. The guide left after showed us where the toilets and the meeting point, we were free to explore by ourselves.

Walking through the area, watching some churches such as Cathedral Basilica of the Martyrdom of St. John the Baptist, a Catholic church with Masovian Gothic style, it’s been listed by UNESCO as of cultural significant. St. Anne's Church, one of Poland's most notable churches with a Neoclassical façade, ranks among Warsaw's oldest buildings. Over time, it has seen many reconstructions, resulting in its present-day appearance, unchanged since 1788.

Shrine of Our Lady of Grace Patron of Warsaw, Built in the late-Renaissance style, between 1609-1629, the temple was constructed at the order of King Zygmunt III Waza with unique Angel’s door by famous sculptor Igor Mitoraj

The must see is Monument of the Warsaw Mermaid (Pomnik Warszawskiej Syrenki), the symbol of Warsaw. Many souvenirs and snacks seller around the monument. Lucky there was a man with traditional costume, to take a cool picture together with the local.

During the exploration on the medieval street we stopped by to buy ice cream cone. While eating we continued walking on the paving street to enjoy the beautiful buildings and its exterior.

Finally we ended the day by having dinner in Chinese Restaurant.

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Enjoy ethnic Mongolian Culture at Ordos Grassland, Inner Mongolia

In Sep 2017 my friend offered me to join Inner Mongolia tour using charter flight, the difficult part was to get the correct pas photo for getting China visa, so many pre-condition, the pas photo size was not in normal size using cm, but even till mm. It's the first time difficult experience although I have applied visa for many other countries including China. Our travel agent rejected all my pas photos although it's passed for other embassy, finally I took at the photo studio that had been used by my colleague to get China visa recently. Finally my visa had been approved about 3 days before the departure, the departure city was Jakarta, while I lived in Surabaya, an hour flight from Jakarta. One of the destination place I like in Mongol, was the Ordos Grassland.

By bus from the previous city, we passed infinite grassland scenery, we could see a herd of horses or sheeps grazing, even some camels. Part of The Great Wall could be seen on the way to the destination. Our bus stopped at the tourist center building, there was a beautiful carriage in front of the building where we could sit on the red bench in the white carriage to take picture. A "Prairie Resort of Ordos" monument with wolves available at the central, unfortunately it's quite difficult to take picture as it's against the sun shine.

We welcome by Mongolian ladies wearing traditional clothes and put a blue scarf on us accompany with traditional live music. There's a corner decorated with Mongolian accessories, my friend and I waited for a turn to take picture there. In the building available a souvenir shop, most of us directly went there to find Mongolia souvenirs. Lucky I could got a bronze candle holder with standing horse which I would like to buy in the previous place, but it was finished, no much time to find other souvenirs, our tour leader asked us to go faster to the bus that had waited at the back of the building to pick us up to drive to the hotel.

We would stay in the unique Mongolian yurt. I thought it's the real yurt, in fact it's a normal 2 stairs hotel, but they build as if side by side yurt. It's beautiful, I like the design with white wall, white dome and blue ornaments. As there were many visitors, we had to wait for a long time at the lobby, waiting for the room key. Boring waiting, I walked outside to take pictures, but I had to be careful not stepping on the horse's shit :-) As soon as we'd got the key, we rushed to the room to take a rest after a long hour bus driving. Stunning going inside the room, I felt like inside a yurt, my eyes stared to a large half circle bed which could be used for 4-5 persons, but it would be only used for 2 of us. The decoration was nice, the bed was surrounded by woods, wide windows available for enjoying the scenery. As the weather was quite mild, we didn't turn on the air conditioning, just open the windows to enjoy the fresh air. My friend and I chatted, charged our mobile phone while resting on the bed waiting for the dinner time.

We would attend gala dinner, it supposed to be for ceremony/celebration with the king. Before enjoy the Mongolian ethnic culture, they would lend us traditional clothes to wear during gala dinner. We would be treated as the king's guest, so we have to dress up properly. There were around 150 tour participants, so you could imagine the chaos to take the clothes as nobody guarded the clothes and taught us how to wear them. No reservation for the clothes size either, if the clothes were too small, people would try to get the change, so people rushed to take the best costumes, the earlier was the lucky person as they could have more option. The costumes were worn on top of our own clothes, so we could change anywhere in the restaurant area, no need to be inside of bathroom or changing room.

We came on time, but others already came much earlier, we're not lucky enough to get the costumes we wanted. My friend grabbed the available clothes in the room, succeeded to get me a red dress while she chose the golden one. Unfortunately my dress was too small for me, I could not close the right side button. As there were no more option for another bigger costume available, I tried to hide it by holding the right side when taking picture. The restaurant decoration was quite luxurious, full of red and golden colour, many places could become a good background of our photo wearing the Mongolian costume such as beautiful bronze sculpture painting, golden pillar, also royal seat which had to be queued.

Reaching the dinner time, we were asked to enter the restaurant room which was more amazing. It's arranged like a circle with different height for the guest seat, so whoever sitting behind was still able to see the middle area under the beautiful chandelier. Various meals were provided on the table for each person with a coke tin for drink :-). Opposite the entrance was the king throne, accompanying by 2 queens at his right and left side. They chose one man as the king and 2 women as the queen from the guests.

The celebration was started when some people entering the room behind a messenger, they went towards the king, reading the message that I could not understand as I can't speak Chinese. Then some dancing were performed for all of us, the king and the guests. While enjoying the entertainments, guests always served one by one with more and more food by the waitress and waiter in traditional costume. Most of the food was traditional which was served during the ancient days for the king, mostly made from lamb, it's not too suitable with my appetite. Finally the dancer brought a the main special menu, a whole grill lamb, to the middle of the room as one of the attraction, I heard they provided 4 grill lambs for all of us. Each of us got a full portion of small plate, first I only wanted to try a small bit, as I don't like lamb. When I tasted it a little bit, it's delicious and not lamb smell at all. I like it, it's very crispy, finally I finished the remaining portion for me.

The dinner was finished around 1.5 hours, we didn't forget to take group picture to record our experience with Mongolian party costumes before returning the costume. Another event had waited for us at the bonfire building. Outside the weather became very cold, my jacket could not help a lot to warm my body. I almost run to avoid the cold and getting faster to the place. As my friend jacket was thinner, she almost gave up with the cold, and planned to go back to the room first. Finally she agreed to join us to the bornfire place, she ran fast and reached the place before us. On the way we saw some Mongolians riding horse with their costumes brought archers or swords.

Entering the building was warmer, but we had to go to the open air bonfire area looked like a stadium, we sat closely to each other to make us warmer. The attraction opened with the horse parade with soldier on top of it. They started lit on the fire in the middle of the area, 2 master ceremony opened the event using Chinese, unfortunately I didn't understand what they said as I could not speak Chinese. It's continued with other performance such as singing and dancing by local people, till made fun with some guests for running race on the sand while carrying a woman, the winner who had struggled and tumbled many times finally got souvenirs from them. It's quite fun to close our day. The place was far away from the light pollution, we had a chance to see the shining stars at the night sky. Inner Mongolia has extreme weather. The difference in temperature between day and night was quite dramatic.

After early breakfast that I skipped, we had to bring our luggage to the bus. My roommate friend preferred to stay in the lobby while waiting for the departure time as she needed the free wifi in the lobby to check her email. I went first to the bus to put my bagpack, I saw the scenery was beautiful with some yurts, I took picture with my friends. We tried to jump while our friend took the picture, unfortunately it kept failing as he hadn't configured properly. We saw my roommate friend went out from the lobby, we shouted to ask her hurry to take picture together. She ran, unfortunately she tripped and stumbled down on the asphalt made her knee's hurt and her jeans torn. All of us were very shocked then ran to help her, after reaching her we could not stop laughing, when describing what's just happened. Poor my roommate friend, she didn't focus on the road, rushing to join us for taking picture while all of us encouraged her to come as fast as possible. Lucky it was the last day of the trip, as she was difficult to walk after that, it hurt when she bent the knee. Fortunate that her knee was not broken, so she still could walk by herself.

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