I finally did some touristic stuff in Amsterdam when my brothers visited me earlier in the week. We went to Artis (the zoo) on Monday, which was pretty cool. The Dappermarkt was a little disappointing; I guess once you’ve been to markets in Hong Kong and Turkey, your expectations tend to be a bit high. And we took a stroll in the famous Red Light District. There are talks of ‘cleaning up’ the district in recent years, so I guess we should see it before it’s too late. The van Gogh museum on Tuesday was also nice. It is fascinating how his art progressed from a sober, realistic style (e.g. the Potato Eaters) to a much more vivid and colorful style (e.g. Starry Night). And I saw pictures of the Smoking Skeleton many times before, but I never realized it was painted by van Gogh as well. Finally we went to the P.C. Hooftstraat (the shopping street), but just like the Dappermarkt, it was a bit disappointing. The Passeig de Gracia in Barcelona was definitely cooler, even if I don’t like shopping that much.

On Saturday I went to a Chinese bookstore, which I knew was there but never visited before. I was totally geeked out when I stepped inside, they had a lot more than I dared to hope. Of course, I’m not actually able to read those books yet, but it’s a great incentive for me to brush up on my Chinese. I particularly liked the books containing the Chinese classics in both Chinese and English text. These classics include the “Journey to the West” (featuring the famous and beloved Monkey King) and “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”. I must admit the little I know of these stories is mainly from movies and tv, which of course might not be very accurate, so I was excited about reading the original novels. I was disappointed that you could only buy these novels in its entire set. The Journey to the West set, for example, contains six (huge) books and costs €149, which is just too much at once. I also thought about buying the one-volume books with the teachings of Confucius or Mencius. I ended up buying a Chinese translation of Jane Eyre instead. With the help of a dictionary and the English version of Jane Eyre I own, I hope it will help me to dramatically improve my vocabulary.