The No Nonsense Nomad

I love to eat. And nothing gets me more excited than a food market, particularly as fish market. I love to eat seafood in general, but a place where I can try new or weird delicacies? I'm there! I also like bargaining so places like these are my heaven!  Here's my top 3 favorite from my travels.

3. Fish Market, Essaouira waterfront - Morocco

Essaouira itself is an amazing place to visit. Google it and you'll find stories of Jimmy Hendrix and other musicians of that time who would travel there to smoke weed and write music. Understandably because it's a very inspiring place and people are offering you hash cakes left, right and center! All that aside, the city is also host to an adorable little fish market located right outside the port. It's not umber big, no more than 9 or 10 stalls. But any more would only take away from the adorableness.

Unlike the other markets mentions on this list, the food is cooked at the stall from which it is purchased. As it was my birthday, we went HAM and bought enough seafood to feed a family of four. We got a whole crab, lots of BBQ shrimp and a whole grilled fish. Everything was prepared at the stall, bbq'd on a grill then served with bread and dipping sauces. The tables are set up out front of the market so you can dine alfresco with other patrons of the market.

Be careful though! As enjoyable and yummy as the food was, I did get food poisoning from it :( Saying that, I would happily go again. I would just make sure to tell the chef to overcook everything slightly!

2. Mercado do Peixe, Maputo - Mozambique

Maputo is not the best city I've ever been to. In fact, it may be one of the worst. Mainly because it's mostly in ruin and there isn't much to do there. There is, however, a fish market. Located a little out from the city, it is worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Mozambique.

It's small, like the market in Essaouira, but is basically a bunch of local fishermen/women who set up shop on wooden tables underneath a large wooden pavilion. The  ground is dirt and is probably the smelliest of the three markets I will talk about. The vendors were unfriendly and weren't too keen on us taking photos so apologies for the lack of. They did have oysters though. As well as massive tiger prawns, different fishes, eels and other local seafood indigenous to Mozambique.

We opted for oysters and some of those large prawns. The smell put us off from purchasing anything else. Once the fish is bought, you take it around the corner where you bargain with the host on a price to prepare your food. We agreed on a price and sat at a table next to two older Israeli women. We chatted with them for a bit while they informed us of how much they loved this market. They go here every year because they love it so much. They also warned us to watch out for the hosts who will probably try to rip us off.

Our food came and it was to die for! The oysters were huge and came with a signature Mozambican piri piri sauce (real piri-piri, not the kind you get at Nando's). The prawns were juicy and perfectly cooked. We enjoyed the food and the company but when it came time to pay, (as the women predicted) the host gave us a larger price than we had agreed to. We argued back and forth for a while and I think in the end paid the higher price just so we could leave. My advice to those looking to visit would be to agree on the price then pay it right then and there so that you can simply leave once you've finished your food.

1. Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market, Seoul - South Korea

Ah, possibly one of my favorite places in Seoul. The fish market in Noryangjin. I could eat there everyday and not get bored. What's especially fun about this market is that they have tons of weird seafood like urchin, different types of mollusks, abalone, even sea cucumber for you to try. If you're not into bizarre foods, there's the usual flounder, shrimp and clams too. I've been here numerous times during my time living in Seoul both with natives and without.

The place is huge! It's a wholesale market so provides fish to the restaurants in the city. When you first walk in, you will first notice the smell. But that goes away within a few minutes. You'll find yourself overwhelmed with the various stalls and fish tanks which hold live fish for you to purchase. There's barrels of clams, mollusks, mussels and other shellfish which line the stands. The front row has the usual stuff like different fishes, clams, oysters, as well as some slightly unusual stuff like sea cucumber and abalone. In the middle is where you'll find the weirder stuff like fermented skates, stingrays and larger squids and octopus. In the back is where you'll find kimchi stands where adjumas (older Korean women) sell homemade variations of the national dish.

Once you've chosen your fare, the stand will then kill your fish (if live) or sashimi it for you. I don't recommend watching this if you are faint at heart because it can be very graphic. Once your food is dead, you then take it over to the plethora of restaurants that will cook and prepare the food to your liking. There, you sit on the floor (proper Korean style) and enjoy your fresh seafood and the ban-chan (side dishes) it comes with.

Haggling here is slightly more difficult than the aforementioned markets as the people who work here don't speak enough English to successfully come to an agreed price. If you go, I would suggest going with someone who speaks the language. That said, it is doable to visit the market on your own, you may just find yourself writing down prices back and forth with the vendors.

One of the more popular things to try at this market is octopus which is taken and killed then while the tentacles are still moving, you eat it. It's an interesting experience but in retrospect is a big gross. Having been to this market a few times, I've tried urchin, sea cucumber and Urechis unicinctus (which is nicknamed 'penis fish' for what it looks like), all of which taste terrible but very fun to try.

If you’ve read any of my other posts, you’ll know that 2009 was a big year for me. I moved to Asia, I discovered real Asian food and was even thrown out of my apartment by a raving lunatic. This was also the year that I went to Thailand for the first time.

I had always dreamed of going to Thailand, mostly because no one I knew had ever been. So as luck would have it, Genine (my sorority sister/Seoulmate) and some other girls were planning a trip to Thailand for Christmas 2009/New Year 2010. There would be 5 girls in total going as well as 2 guys we’d be meeting up with at some point.

I was super anxious leading up to this trip. You may know that I had recently been kicked out of my apartment less than a week prior. I was petrified that I would be breaking immigration law and be thrown into a Korean prison for the rest of my life. But I made it through customs without any problems.

We arrived in Bangkok on a very hot afternoon. During the bus ride I couldn’t help but feel that I was free! Free from Abraham, free from the authorities and free from the crippling anxiety I had been experiencing. The streets were full of families of Thais riding on motorbikes with chickens and other belongings in tow. I’d never seen a place like this before.

We were dropped off at the famous Khao San Rd. A couple of the girls had already been here so I just let them choose our hotels, restaurants and itinerary. All I knew was that I didn’t have to worry about anything.

The Rikka Inn would be our home on Khao San. It was a really cute little hotel that was clean and comfortable. We spent our nights drinking and dancing up and down Khao San Rd. The whole street was full of travellers and backpackers all looking to enjoy themselves. We had so many ‘one night friend stands’ (as I like to call them) because we had bonded with these people, never to see them again. It was one of the happiest times of my life.

On Christmas, we went into the 999 West Bar located on a little side street. Inside, the atmosphere was dead. But they were having a 2-4-1 special on drinks so we decided to stick around for a little. Somewhere after the 4th cocktail, Genine and I were dancing on the tables and eventually got up on stage with the band. We also rallied the rest of the entire bar to stand on their tables/chairs to join us. And they did! But like all good things, this night was slowly coming to an end. To our delight, at around 4am, we came across a man outside our hotel who said he’d open his nightclub if we bought drinks in it. We were back on the dance floor with the DJ in a matter of minutes. It was my first Christmas away from home and I couldn’t have asked for a better one.

During our time in Bangkok, my friends would casually mention going to a ‘ping pong show’. I thought they had to be joking; we’ve got better things to do with our time here so I just brushed it off and paid no attention. I wondered where they even got the idea for this as I didn’t see any signs for it anywhere.

After Bangkok, we travelled down to the islands of Koh Samui, Koh Phangan and Koh Tao. I thought for the first time that this is what paradise must be like. We spent time on the beaches, socialized with other travellers (even made some friends) ate, drank and made memories.

Koh Samui was great. We stayed at bungalows on Chewang Beach and laid on lounge chairs all day to soak up the sun. People were so friendly and only a few little kids were running around selling necklaces and flowers to tourists. We went to a nightclub called the Green Mango that was open until the early hours of the morning. Here, you felt more like you were in Ibiza than Thailand. It was another amazing night.

Koh Samui was a little more developed than Koh Tao and I genuinely preferred the latter. It was more relaxed and had a very strong ‘no shoes, no shirt, no problem’ kind of vibe. As it was 2009, smart phones were very new so we didn’t have our iPhones buzzing every 3 seconds and Instagram to check. Any internet had to be accessed through a computer room. We drank at beach bars in flip flops and ate seafood til we exploded.

After 10 amazing days in Thailand we headed back to Bangkok for one last night out before heading back to winter in Korea. Throughout the holiday, some of the group continued mentioning the Ping Pong Shows. ‘I feel bad for them’ was one of the comments made by my friend. But it was our last night and the question came up as to whether or not we should actually go to one. I blurted out over dinner that a Ping Pong show would be incredibly boring along with a reference to Forrest Gump. They roared with laughter, ‘Jenn, what do you think a Ping Pong Show is?’ Well I had assumed it was just people playing ping pong in a tournament or something. When they explained to me what actually goes on at these things, I was horrified. I told them that under absolutely no circumstances would I be going to one and would lose respect for those who did. I felt grateful though that none of this sort of thing had been too apparent on my trip here.

Don’t get me wrong, I was aware of the shady sex tourism that went on in Thailand. During that trip I had seen some (maybe 6) older men with younger Thai women, holding hands and looking like they were enjoying themselves. So to be honest, I wasn’t too bothered by it.

Fast forward 6 years. I had been wanting to go back to Thailand for many reasons. Mostly to experience that same euphoria I had years prior but also for the food. So I had booked 3 weeks (with one in Vietnam) back to Thailand for summer of 2015.

Upon planning our itinerary, we opted out of Koh Tao despite the amazing time I had had there. There had been some tourists murdered there recently and we weren’t sure we’d feel safe. We did add Koh Phi Phi to our agenda though. I hadn’t been last time so was excited to give it a go.

I had made it a point to stay on Khao San Rd again in Bangkok because I wanted to show my friend all the fun bars and restaurants we had been to in 2009. She had heard all the stories from me so was really excited to see these places.

First stop: 999 West Bar, where we had literally turned the dullest night on Earth into a full blown party. But it was empty. Next, we went to find that mysterious club that had opened up for us in the early morning hours. That was nonexistent.

The whole street seemed to have died during the nighttime. There were just plastic tables and chairs outside closed shops with people selling drinks from a cooler. The only lively places on the street were two bars located directly across from each other; it’s as if they were dueling. In fact, patrons at each bar seemed to have dance offs with customers from the opposing bar. There were tons of people at both bars so we went into one, hoping for a good time.

What looked like a good night out ended up being Hookerville. Every single male in the bar was chatting to a Thai prostitute. While every single female in the bar was a Thai prostitute. We found out the hard way that there is no coming between a man and his hooker. No one spoke to us. We sat at a table by ourselves with our buckets of long island iced tea. The atmosphere was terrible. It felt like we were in an actual brothel, maybe we were? We attempted to wander over to the opposing bar and it was exactly the same.  We ended up sitting at one of the plastic table places, met a nice couple and hung out with them all night.

The following night we were determined to have fun. As night began to fall, we went in search for a place to have dinner. During this search, we were bombarded (and that’s no exaggeration) with people advertising ping pong shows.  Streak hawkers were spaced out about 3 feet apart, all of whom got in your face, made that stupid popping noise while holding a sign for the shows. This was a stark contrast from 6 years ago when I didn’t even realize Ping Pong shows existed!

After dinner we bought buckets from one of the street places. We managed to meet a group of boys to hang out with, but sure enough we ended up at the dueling bars and they left us for hookers. My friend also had her iPhone stolen.  We were not impressed.

All this aside, I felt compassion for these women. I doubt they wanted to grow up and sell themselves for a living. In my drunken stupors during the trip, I would often try and ‘save’ them. That would usually consist of me telling them that they didn’t have to live their lives this way and could go to school and become doctors. Most of the women giggled then would walk over to a lone man sitting somewhere close by. So much for my attempt at becoming a humanitarian.

We then headed to Vietnam for a week (which I’ll talk about in another post) after which we went back to Thailand. Upon returning, we headed down to Koh Phi Phi where my friend insisted we meet up with some of her work friends who would be out there as well.

Koh Phi Phi was actually quite enjoyable. Hookers weren’t as much of a thing there.  In the center of Koh Phi Phi is just a little town where you eat, drink, shop and be a tourist. It reminded me of 2009. There were cooking classes, diving classes, I even managed to get to a gym/spa. In the evenings we headed to the beach bars to drink and dance on the beach with the other tourists and backpackers. Without all the prostitutes, the atmosphere and social setting was much better.  We had a lot of fun. After Phi Phi we headed to Koh Samui. I booked us a hotel right near the famous Green Mango nightclub because I knew we’d be going there at night and didn’t want a long commute home.

We headed out on what I like to call ‘Chewang High Street’. The hotel on the beach I stayed at in 2009 was now gone and a mall had been built. There were about 3 McDonald’s on the street and nothing was authentically Thai anymore. It was just a street full of Irish Pubs, counterfeit sneaker shops and ‘message’ parlors (we all know what ‘message’ means). The Green Mango was still good, but not nearly as crowded as it was 6 years prior. And the street it, and our hotel, was on was full of hooker bars. Each night we passed, the bars would be full of old men and young Thai women giggling and awkwardly touching. It was a bit gross to watch.

So I had secured a job. One at a school with a really good reputation and 6 other foreign teachers. This would allow me to speak to actual peers, not just children all week.

I needed to figure out a way to tell Abraham that I was quitting my job. I couldn’t just tell him I was unhappy and wanted a change. He would never go for that. So I came up with a plan to tell him that my brother (I don’t have a brother btw) was really sick and I needed to go back to America to be with him. It seemed foolproof. Abraham didn’t know anything about my personal life so he wouldn’t know if I was lying.

One day soon after I had secured my new job, but before I was able to lie my way out of my current one, David asked if he could speak to me during our break one day. At this point David and I hadn’t talked too much aside from the small talk when we would see each other around school. So I found this request a bit strange. Anyway, one day we went to a coffee shop during our break. He asked how I was feeling about working there. I obviously hated it, but what was he getting at? I asked him what was going on and he started to tell me all these insane stories about Abraham.

He was close with the girl who worked at the school before me, Julie (I’m pretty sure that was her name) and told me so many horrible stories about things that she had experienced which led her to leave. When Julie had first come to work at the school she actually had to live with Abraham for a few months until he sorted a place for her to stay. During that time, he would eat her groceries without question or replacing them. She even witnessed him asking parents of students to bring in supplies (toilet paper, tissues, etc) for the school in which he actually took home to use for himself. Upon hearing these, I wondered if potentially he was struggling for money. David then told me that he pays for his kids live in Canada while he and his wife commute back and forth during the year and that he had a really expensive car. So one could assume Abraham was just cheap. This then explained why he was always turning off my a/c and heating – to save money on the bill. Julie and Abraham fought constantly because he was always taking money from her pay with bullshit explanations. David also had the same flight reimbursement issue that I had, and saw it as his first red flag. He also had numerous arguments with Abraham about various HR things throughout his time there. I then opened up to David and told him that I had actually found a new job and was planning to leave. He warned that Abraham probably wouldn’t react well but after hearing all these stories, I knew I was making the right decision. Lastly David mentioned something about our pensions. In Korea, and as per our contracts, schools are meant to pay a small percentage into a pension in which we match from our wages and we are able to take that money away when we leave. Abraham apparently wasn’t paying into this for us but will still deducting the matched amount. I never saw a pay slip so I never knew.

The time had come for me to tell Abraham that I was leaving. I sat him down one Friday after school in his tiny office. I was so fucking nervous, I just started crying. I hadn’t even said anything yet. I just burst into tears. I told him that my brother was very sick and I needed to be home with my family. He looked me dead in the eye and said ‘you don’t have a brother.’ How the fuck did he know that? I kept lying, ‘yes I do, and he’s dying!’ I was so appalled that he had accused me of lying that I stopped crying and just said, ‘I’m leaving as soon as possible’. Abraham then asked if I could wait until he replaced me. Seemed like a fair deal so I left the office feeling pleased, but still offended he called me a liar.

In the week following my resignation, Abraham and his wife were so fucking mean to me. They would watch me while I was teaching. Abraham’s wife who used to smile at me every day started to shake her head with a scorned look when we would make eye contact. One time, she yelled at me in front of the students for sending a quick text. It was a very hostile working environment. I would have complained to HR, had there been an HR to complain to.

During my notice period, they had started looking for someone to replace me. Also during this time, we were working on a Christmas show for the parents. I had briefly seen the woman they had were looking to hire in Abraham’s office one day. But on the night of the performance she had come to watch the show. Abraham had introduced her as the new teacher to an audience full of parents. I debated whether or not to tell her to run for the hills but David felt it best not to. For whatever reason, I listened.

The following Monday I came in and I was hungover as balls. I don’t know why but for some reason I had the brilliant idea of calling Abraham out about the pension thing. I figured I was too hungover to give a shit. I asked him into my classroom and said, ‘are you paying into a pension for me?’ He responded very calmly and said, ‘no.’ To be honest I can’t remember his reasoning but it was in our contract so in my mind there was no excuse. I also mentioned that he was taking out money from my paycheck for a pension to which he didn’t have an excuse. I flipped out. I started yelling and cursing at him asking why he lied to us, blah blah. I stormed out of the school and turned off my phone so he couldn’t reach me.

I went home and started packing. I wasn’t even sure where I was going, but I started doing it anyway. At some point I had turned my phone on to find it was now not working. The contract was in his name so I assumed he just turned it off. A while later, maybe around 6-7pm, I had a shower and got into my pajamas. With my hair still in a towel, the doorbell to my apartment rang.

There was a camera at the door so I could see who it was. There was Abraham’s wife and she looked like she was about to kill someone. I hesitated a bit; perhaps I would just pretend to not be home. I stood there for a minute trying to figure out what to do. Then the banging started. He was there too. In my state of panic, I assumed they might just have their own key and just come in anyway. So like a complete idiot, I opened the door.

The two of them flew into my apartment screaming and hollering at me in half Korean, half English. Abraham was threatening me with all sorts of things: he was going to call the cops to get me out of the apartment, he was going to have me blacklisted from the country, he was going to have me put in jail, and he went on and on for what seemed like hours. They were up in my face, pointing and making very aggressive hand gestures. I was terrified. Abraham’s wife even started throwing around some of my belongings. I just stood there, in my jammies and towel, crying hysterically, screaming for them to get out of my apartment. Finally, they stopped screaming and told me they would be back in an hour and I better be gone by the time they got back.

I ran down to David’s place and thank goodness he was home. I couldn’t even speak; I was crying to hard that the words coming out of my mouth were incoherent. He sat with me a minute and calmed me down so that I could tell him what happened. We then rushed back to my apartment to pack everything up as fast as we could. We brought everything to his and I used his computer to get in touch with my friend to see if I could go to hers. He also let me use his phone to call my parents in America. He then suggested we get some food to relax which he weirdly didn’t pay for. I had just been evicted; a free dinner would have been nice. We also went to the bank where I took out every last penny in case Abraham wanted to close that down as well. Afterwards, David put me in a cab with my stuff and I was off.

I cried the whole hour drive to my friend’s house. I was terrified as to what would happen to me. Could Abraham somehow find me? Could the Korean police find me? Would I be banned from Korea and the rest of the Asian continent?

I was still paranoid as fuck, but finally calmed down after I arrived at Hayley’s house. I called my mom and explained that I was safe now then she and Dad quickly booked me a flight home. But it wasn’t for 2 weeks. Luckily I had a vacation during that time so it wouldn’t be so bad.

The following morning, I checked my email. I had one from David, asking me if I was ok and telling me that after I had left, Abraham had gone to his apartment and told him not to let me stay there, not to help me at all, and not to speak to me but Abraham didn’t even explain what happened. I was so relieved to get out of that place. I was now on the opposite side of the city so I hoped I’d never have to see that man again.

A second email was in my inbox. It was from the recruiter who had gotten me the job with Abraham. She was asking me what had happened in which I replied and told her. She then responded saying that Abraham was ‘sorry’ and would like to know if I could come back to finish my notice period. Was this a joke? This man, who verbally raped me the night before was asking if I would come back and work for him? I had to be dreaming. But I wasn’t, he actually asked me to come back. Where would I live? Was I allowed back in my apartment? I told the recruiter that because of what happened I feared for my safety and would be leaving the country asap.

That weekend we were off to Thailand for 10 whole days of stress free relaxation. I was nervous about my visa though and thought perhaps Abraham had actually blacklisted me from the country. It worked out fine though and I was able to leave and re-enter the country without a problem.

In the time between Thailand and leaving to go back home, I sought out legal advice on my situation. Not because I wanted to sue Abraham or anything but because I was worried I wouldn’t be able to come back to work at my new job. The lawyers assured me that his threats were empty and he couldn’t blacklist me unless I was convicted of a crime. He also had no grounds for the cops to come and find me. I also asked them about his request for me to come back. Was this normal? They were as baffled as I was.

I flew home shortly thereafter to wait for a new visa to arrive. 6 weeks later, it came and I was back to Asia in no time.  

I was so excited to get back to Seoul and teach English in an environment where I felt comfortable. I made friends with the other English teachers at my school instantly. My new apartment was in the biggest officetel complete with restaurants (that delivered to your apartment), a gym, a supermarket, a pharmacy, you name it! It was all there! I was finally happy in Seoul.

Looking back, I don’t regret anything I did which lead to what happened with Abraham. I do realize that some of my actions led to his bad behavior but had I not done that, I probably would have left Seoul with a bad taste in my mouth. I also wouldn’t have been miserable during my year’s contract. I probably wouldn’t have stayed as long either and wouldn’t have made the awesome memories that I did.

For a long time I was really embarrassed about what happened. I only told a couple people and didn’t want to talk about it. I even got a bit anxious while writing this post. The lesson to be learned here is to make sure you research something before you do it!

Turns out this sort of thing happens to a lot of foreigners in Seoul, especially in smaller schools. I recently Googled the school to see if I could find anything about it and came across a post from someone (I assume it was by the girl who replaced me) that said they heard Abraham’s wife had hit me, which is why I left.  She didn’t, but she did humiliate me. She and her husband also caused me to become very paranoid for a long time while I was in Korea, even after my return on a new visa. I developed proper anxiety which led to panic attacks. One was so bad that I had to go to the hospital to be sedated.

I may be the only person I know (besides my boyfriend who came with me) that didn’t like Amsterdam. Saying that, there were some contributors to this opinion. Firstly, I had a bad cold during our 5 days there. Secondly, we went between Christmas and New Year therefore it was packed full of tourists. And lastly, we were there for 5 days. It’s a small city you could easily enjoy in 2 or 3. With all that extra time on our hands, we were bored.

I was really excited to go because I had heard so much about Amsterdam. Smoking pot and prostitutes aside, I kept hearing that it was such a wonderful place to visit and there were so many things to do. With that, I stupidly didn’t do much research.

We got a good deal on Expedia for flights and a hotel during Christmas time. I, always taking advantage of free stuff, wanted to stay as long as we could because my office was closed so I wasn’t using up extra vacation time. Frank warned me that 5 days may be too long, but being a brat, I got my way. We were off to Amsterdam for five whole days.

Possibly one of the only good things about going to Amsterdam (from London) was that the flight was only 45 min. You literally take off then land. So we were there in no time!

We arrived at Central Station in Amsterdam from the airport and made our way to the Movenpick Hotel. It was very nice but they wouldn’t let us check in for an hour. We decided to have some food at the hotel restaurant while we waited. I normally never eat at hotel restaurants because they are overpriced and the food is never traditional, but the hotel was located a little way out from the center so it was easier to just eat there then wander out, come back for check in, blah blah.

To my delight, the restaurant had ‘Dutch nanchos’ on the menu which was described as ‘tortilla chips with Dutch sides’. I was weirdly really excited to be on vacation (probably because I hadn’t been on one in about 4 months) so that hindered my decision making skills leading me to order these. They arrived and were basically just tortilla chips with melted cheese. Nothing Dutch about them. I never waste money, so I ate them all. First disappointment. But I didn’t let that deter my enthusiasm for being there. The disappointment soon faded after we got into our gorgeous hotel room and wandered into the city.

At this stage I was really excited to see what Amsterdam had to offer. The cheese shops (fuck me, I love cheese), the ‘coffee shops’, and oh dear lord the Chinatown was enough to make me move there! But I really curious as to what was authentically Dutch?

What was authentically Dutch? Still to this day, I’m not 100% sure. Cheese? Pot? Those weird wooden shoes? I was on the hunt to find some traditional Dutch anything! But it would have to wait until tomorrow because by this time I was exhausted and there was a Thai restaurant in Chinatown calling my name.

Keep in mind I am not a museum kind of person. I find them very boring and Frank reads every plaque so we end up spending half a day there when we could be done in an hour or so. Saying that, I felt very strongly that we needed to see the Anne Frank museum. I looked up opening times but had heard that it gets very crowded so you should arrive about 30 min before opening to make sure you don’t spend a day in a queue trying to get in. This was probably the only thing I told Frank that we HAD to do while in Amsterdam.

The next day we slept in because we were exhausted. And we have 5 days, remember? So plenty of time to see Anne and her attic. We wondered around the streets of central Amsterdam. We shopped, we ate (nothing Dutch tough) and still searched for our piece of culture. We also decided to get stoned. I had this brilliant idea to get stoned and then decide what we should get for dinner.

To be honest, it was kinda cool walking up to the counter at a coffee shop and saying, ‘I’ll have one joint of marijuana, please.’ But it did feel a bit weird sitting around getting stoned in public. We quickly smoked and left. Then as soon as the munchies came, we were at the nearest chip (French fry) shop each ordering a large funnel of chips smothered in mayonnaise. Don’t get me wrong, I love fries dipped in mayo but not mayo dipped in fries. Our stoned selves dived in anyway potentially OD’ing on mayo. We ended up with massive stomach aches and swearing off mayo forever, which ended up being about 6 weeks. Disappointment number 2.

The next day I woke up sick as a dog. We had set the alarm to get to Anne Frank’s house 30 min before opening, but when the 7:30 alarm went off, I thought I might die from this cold that had worsened overnight. So we decided to go back to sleep and would go the following day when I felt a bit better. We awoke around 10am that day and went into the center of town to do some more shopping and searching for something, ANYTHING Dutch. Still, nothing. We couldn’t even find this elusive Dutch pea soup we heard about.

It started raining on our walk to the Rijksmuseum so we popped into a Wagamama (Asian food, for those unfamiliar) for lunch. I love Asian food but why the hell am I eating ramen in the Netherlands? It doesn’t make any sense. Frank was so embarrassed he made me swear not to tell anyone.

After lunch we continued our journey to the museums. Reluctant as I was to go to any museums, there wasn’t much else for us to do. But on arrival, the line was about 150 people deep and the entrance fee was €17.50. A bit steep when you consider that all the museums in London are free. Disappointment 3.

The Van Gogh museum was the same story, line for days and €17 entrance fee. Even that really cool ‘IAMSTERDAM’ sign was just full of people climbing all over it so you couldn’t get a pic of the ‘I’ if you tried.

We did, however, see a sign for something called the Bols museum. I had heard about this because my kiwi friend had mentioned it before my trip. We had literally nothing else to do so we gave it a go. This place had no line, a €15 entrance fee that came with a free shot and cocktail at the end. Definitely a better value than the other museums.

To our surprise, the museum was actually quite fun. It gave you a history of Bols followed by little activities to get you to learn about the liqueur. There was also a room where you took whiffs of Bols flavors and had to guess which one it was. Then at the end you end up in a bar that has darkened mirror walls where you can stay and drink as long as you want. We enjoyed ourselves so much we even stayed post free drink.

We left on a high and then happened to come across an actual Dutch restaurant on our way back into town. The famous Dutch pea soup was on the menu so we indulged in that with loads of bread to dip. How was it? Eh? Not bad but was fairly similar to the split pea soup my mom made me growing up. I still wasn’t wowed.

The next day was our last chance to go to the Anne Frank museum because the following day we would be heading back to London. I set my alarm for us to be on time to avoid the queue. We were actually early so we took a leisurely stroll to our destination. There was also a market nearby that we planned on going to afterwards. All things looked promising until we turned the corner to where the museum was located. Shit. People. Tons of people. So many fucking people already lined up to go in and the place wasn’t even open yet. I asked the guard how long the wait was. 4 hours. 4 mother fucking hours. Turns out I screwed up the times. It opened at 9 when I thought it opened at 10. So by 9:30, the line was so long, we wouldn’t have gotten in until 1:30. Still sick, I decided this was not worth standing in the freezing cold for. At least the market was still there. Or was it? Turns out that was closed for the holiday season. So we actually had not a single thing to do that day. We went for pancakes (which were nice, but not filling) to discuss what to do for the day. A canal tour was probably our only option if we didn’t want to sit in our hotel for the rest of the day.

We headed back and got on a boat. I had high hopes for this but I wasn’t dazzled. Don’t get me wrong, it was pleasant but freezing and full of obnoxious tourists.

For our final night in Amsterdam, we headed back to Chinatown for one of the best Chinese meals I’ve ever had. We went to a place full of Asian people where you were served quickly so that new customers could be seated. The pork belly and roast duck was to die for. And the soup, oh god, the soup! But again, this was Chinese, not Dutch.  

The following day we left Amsterdam feeling unfulfilled.  We had not experienced any culture on this trip to The Netherlands. No Dutch food, no Dutch traditions, not even a Dutch souvenir.