We made an Easter holiday plan to visit Keukenhof, Leiden and The Hague in Holland and Brussels, Belgium from 19 to 23 April 2011.
Back to the train story, we both ran towards different directions to search thoroughly in the train, but there was no sign of the bag-pack. We alerted the train conductor, and she said bags are always reported stolen in the train (yikes!!)
Keukenhof was super awesome! And funny part was, we bumped into Julia & Jessica Wong in Keukenhof! Such a huge flower garden, and of all places, we bumped at each other under a huge tree without flowers! HAHA!!
I will post up photos of Keukenhof very soon.
Little did we know that the NH Leeuwenhorst hotel we stayed has a HUGE tulip farm just next to the hotel. Simply breathtaking, no words could express our feeling when we stood at the farm that evening. The sunset makes it a whole lot more special. :) Definitely recommend this hotel if any of you guys are planning to stay in Holland in Spring! :)
We enjoyed every bit of our holidays even when we were in Brussels, where we managed to have a free night stay in Stanhope Hotel because of the Thon Member points when we stayed a month in Thon Hotel, Oslo last February. Again, little did we know that Stanhope is a 5-star boutique hotel! Service was excellent, and the room is superb! This pretty yellow flower display is one of the beautiful thing we saw at Stanhope Hotel. I love how they placed the quail egg together with a pearl on this flower display. Soooooooooo pretty! :)
In Belgium, we had the best rum & raisin ice-cream on Belgium waffles in the park, best strawberry waffles at the shopping area, and bought so much chocolates!
After a great holiday and adventure well spent, it was time to get back home to Oslo on 23rd April, 2010 (Saturday) and spend Easter BBQ-ing with our OIC church friends. Our flight was at 8.50pm, so we took the train at 3.22pm from Brussels station all the way to Schiphol airport, Holland to catch our flight.
And, little did we know again, our great adventure didn't end there. Just three hours before our flight, of all things that could have happened, our passports were STOLEN!!
It happened last Saturday, about 5.30pm, and our flight back to Oslo was suppose to be at 8.50pm. We were very cautious with the bag-pack at EVERY stops in the train when we were heading from Brussels, Belgium to Amsterdam Schiphol airport. We were still taking the bag-pack down to grab some apples and placed it back at the top compartment just before our second last stop. Then, almost reaching our last stop, we realized the bag-pack was missing! The culprit must haven taken the bag-pack and went down on the second last stop quickly. The bag-pack contained two passports, a 3-day old Nikon lens worth RM900 (ouch!!), some HollandPass vouchers and a new bag of Lays potato chips.
The amazing thing was, usually we will put our Oslo apartment key in the bag-pack, but early that morning, just before we checked out of the hotel, Kang Wei suddenly placed the apartment key in our huge luggage bag, and that huge luggage bag was not locked, thus allowing us to access our toiletries and clothers, plus enter home when we reach Oslo :)
There was no time to cry or sulk or get angry. Time for IMMEDIATE action. Surprisingly, we were pretty calm and composed. We quickly got down the train and made a report to the Schiphol police station. Sadly, KLM barred us from taking the flight home to Oslo that Saturday. And all hotels were fully booked due to the Easter holidays. The nearest hotel would be 1.5 hours car ride away from Schiphol airport. Thank God I was discussing with a friend of mine, Mei Sin, a few weeks back about meeting up with her and hubby John in The Hague if our timing meets. So, at the last resort, we called Mei Sin and she was staying with one of her Shell friend's apartment in The Hague. Her friend, Shahran (posted from Malaysia also early this month) offered to let us stay at his place for free until all things are settled, and his aparment has free WiFi and xbox 360!! :) Woohoo!!!! Praise God for such providence!! We saved up a lot on hotel, and WiFi in Holland hotels are not FOC.
So we gotta know Shahran on Saturday, the day we lost the passports. The best part is the Malaysian embassy is also situated in The Hague!! And little did we know again, Shahran actually knows the Malaysian embassy folks because they always play badminton together every Sunday at The Hague. He informed to them of our lost passports, and asked on the procedures to go about getting a temporary passport for us. God is so so good at orchestrating every step!! :)
God turned this bad situation into something so much more beautiful and amazing!!! We got to hang out with Mei Sin & John for the next two days (Sunday & Monday), and Shahran has been a very very good host, so we didn't thought too much about the loss but enjoyed all their company. We went around Amsterdam the whole of Sunday and enjoyed ourselves!! :D Malaysian MMU folks reunion in The Hague! HAHA!!!!! so funny...
Since Monday was Easter holiday in Europe, so we took this time to rest at Shahran's place as well, playing xbox 360 with him all day. Haha... Fun time indeed!
We went to the Malaysian embassy on Tuesday morning at 10am (26 April, 2011), and they told us the nearest photo shop was just 7 minutes walk away from the embassy. After getting our passport photos, we headed back to the embassy and they gave us a computer to print out all our ICs, birthcerts, marriage cert etc for free. Thank God we had the scanned documents in our emails last year. And thank God they accepted our scanned ICs because we left our original ICs back in Oslo. teeheehee~
While waiting for the temporary passports, we chit-chat with the embassy folks, and they offered us tea and fries. Haha... Very nice bunch of embassy folks. They told us pickpocket stories in Holland and also, cases of Malaysians losing their passports were quite frequent, about 1 case every week! (gulp!)
We finally got our temporary passports (aka Emergency Certificate) about 1.30pm, just within 2.5 hours of waiting at the embassy. They issued our emergency travel documents quickly without any question. Temporary passports will last for 6 months.
We were sooooooo happy, thanked the embassy folks, and walked around town and celebrated with a huge bacon and cheese pancake! God is so so good!!!
Question : Whereabout are we going to make a replacement passport then?
Our ICs are left in Oslo, but there is no Malaysian embassy in Norway, and the nearest representative embassy is in Sweden. If we were to request for a replacement, it will take us about a month of waiting because the documents have to be couriered to London (main base). The only Malaysian embassy that is able to issue us the passports to replace the stolen ones is located in London, and it can be done within ONE DAY. Ideally, we would have taken a bus to London from The Hague and settle it. That will give us another reason to visit London, see the wedding of Prince William and Kate this Friday (29 April, 2011), and stay at Mei Sin and John's place for free because Mei Sin is posted to work in London!! :)
But, since we have already made plans to go back to Malaysia in May for holidays, and our temporary passports will last us 6 months, we will just make a replacement passport back in Malaysia then. :) We shall make a plan to visit Mei Sin and John soon in London!
Finally, we bid farewell to Shahran on Wednesday (27 April, 2011) and head to the airport for our flight back to Oslo at 11.40am :) It was another mad rush at the airport because we reached the airport at 10.30am to pay for our flight in the airport because we couldn't pay online, thus were unable to book any seats! Not to mention, the temporary passports looked a little cheezy, and we didn't have any Malaysian ICs as a prove, we thanked God we had our Oslo bank credit card each to prove of our existence in Oslo :)
The check-in counter lady said that this flight is full, but to try getting our seats at the gate. Should there be no seats, we will have to wait for another flight 3 hours later. And so, we quickly rushed to the gate 20 minutes away from our check-in counter, praying to get seats on this flight. Little did we know again, God orchestrated and planned everything nicely for us. We got the last two seats on this flight home! yippee~!!!! We had never felt happier staring at the airplane from the window! HAHA....
It was a very great adventure, experience, dependency on God and a testimony birth forth indeed! And we made a new friend there.. We are from a foreign land (Oslo), went for holidays and got stranded at another foreign land (Holland), and being among Malaysians throughout the whole ordeal, without having to worry about where to stay and having free WiFi to connect with friends and family back home and all around the world. The best Easter thus far! :)
Facing a difficult situation?
Don't worry or fret, there is always light at the end of the tunnel! :)
God is good, He will never leave us nor forsake us.
Read this during our ordeal in Our Daily Bread (which coincidentally falls on our wedding anniversary day):-
When we experience tragedy, we may wonder about God’s goodness. Is God always good? Yes, He is. He doesn’t promise that bad things will never happen to us, but He does promise to be “our refuge and strength” (Psalm 46:1). He doesn’t promise that we will never walk through heart-wrenching circumstances, but He promises that we won’t be alone (Psalm 23:4). God is good—no matter what suffering we are experiencing. Even when we don't understand, we can say with Habakkuk, "Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation."(Habakkuk 3:18)
After such a great adventure, lost our passports in Holland, met up with Mei Sin & John and made a new friend, Shahran, we are finally home!
Am so amazed at how God orchestrated everything for us step by step all the way without us having to cry or sulk in a foreign land, especially with our original ICs kept back in Oslo throughout the entire ordeal. It's like... WOW!!!!!! :)
It can only be from God! :)
We had THE MOST adventurous trip this Easter!
Thank you for all your prayers! Prayer works!!
God,You are so amazing!
You hold my life in Your hands..
Words can't express how much You mean to me~
Also, am very happy to reach home and found out that my basil leaves grew one cm!! teeheehee~
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