Ooo...what's that pungent smell on the street. Ahh...the familiar smell of marijuana smoke emanating from the "coffee" shops. Yup, I was back in Amsterdam to sniff the "fresh" air in the city. It was clear blue sky, how lucky was I. Just when I thought I've seen enough of the city, the beautiful weather coaxed me out from my room. Again, I did a little tour for my new colleagues and enjoyed the sun and photography myself. There were protests in the city by "Occupy" activists against the greedy and corrupted bankers. This is a worldwide protest going on at the moment inspired by the "Occupy" New York activists in Wall Street. I do agree with them that this world is controlled by the greedy rich bankers collaborating with governments to cheat the poor's money to make themselves rich. Since the abolishment of the currency backing against gold, banks have been printing worthless "money" from nothing, which in turn sell it to us in the form of savings and loans. And from "nothing", those greedy bastards are making money from the interests charged on loans to other people which are actually our savings money. Just because we don't use our money and left it in the bank, the banks conveniently use it to create even more loans. Based on "nothing", soon the economy will just run out of steam and resources when more and more people go bankrupt. And when the whole world goes down, the greedy bastards are still laughing their way to the banks with their loot of insane bonuses; while the poor people are starving on the streets and being forced out from their homes. When the meltdown happens, I am very sure that we will not be able to retrieve a single cent from the banks if all of us were to queue up together to withdraw our money. It is because our money which we thought worth a dollar, are actually not worth a dollar. They are sliced up to share with few thousands other and the banks work on this theory that we do not need the money at the same time. So why not use our money without our knowledge, and sell it off as loans to others while charging high interest rates. While they make lotsa money from the interests, they don't pay us back anything for "lending" them the money. And if the loan goes bad, the bank just use more of our savings to cover up the bad debts, yet they still pocket their annual bonuses for the losses they incurred. Evil bastards.
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Day 2, I decided to get out from the chaos in the city. I joined a tour to the peaceful student town of Delft. Delft is also famous for its' pottery and china wares. Chinese porcelains were of course invented in China. But because of the rarity in ancient times, the price for such wares were extremely expensive. Therefore, the Dutch decided to copy the making process and produced it themselves. Thus the birth of the Delft pottery business in this town.
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The finale to this tour is the trip to Mini Holland, Madurodam; not far away from The Hague. If you are short of time but want to see the whole of Holland, then this is the place to see them all, in miniature size. I loved this place as the miniatures are very similar to the real ones and beautifully created. I was having my great Gulliver's Travel fantasy in this lovely place, imagining myself as the giant. And lastly, the plane of my company is proudly displayed here as well.
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Related link:
Tulip Mania: Spring in Holland
Related link:
Mini Travel Log: Amsterdam, Holland (1)
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