Betty in the sky with a suitcase

Betty is a flight-attendant and she tells about her "traveling-life" in this podcast. I listen to it when walking to/from work and I find the stories amusing, interesting and sometimes hilarious. People must think I am totally out of control seeing me laughing by myself.

Batavia stad outlet-village, Amsterdam

We went to this outlet with train from the central-station. Mind you, all the information at this train-station is in Dutch! The train takes about 1 hour and 10 min. depending on the route, how many times you have to change train, 1 or 2.

From the train-station in Lelystad there is a bus, bus number F, which takes you to the outlet-village. The bus takes about 10 min.

The bus stops at the Mexx outlet, which is outside the village itself, but only 100 meter. The selection were good, with some very good offers and some 30% discounts.

In the outlet-village there were some nice shops (look at the link), but the offers weren't very good. Some of the shops had mainly 20-30% discounts! Seriously, I don't mind paying for clothes, but if buying clothes from last season, or even older, I demand 50%. This is what you get at the ordinary sale, so why not at an outlet-village? With regarding the discounts, this is the least exciting outlet I have ever been to.

If I would go back to the outlet? Maybe, to go to Mexx...

Crowne Plaza Amsterdam 4*

I went to Amstedam with my best friend and we booked a 2 room suite.

Checking in went very quick and we were escorted to the room, which was on the 6th. floor, at a corner. The bed-room was like a normal hotel-room but the living -room was huge. Some weeks before we arrived I had called the hotel to ask for an extra bed, but she said it would be 50 Euro extra per night so I said we didn't need it. When we arrived to the room I asked the receptionist for an extra pillow and duvet. He asked if we wanted an extra bed as well and when I asked if it would be any extra, he told me to not think about it! :)

Bed-room

Bed-room

Bed-room

Bath-room connected to the bed-room

Toiletries

Nespresso-machine in the bed-room

Living-room

Living-room

Toilet connected to the living-room

Terrasse with entrance from the living-room

Everybody at the hotel were very nice, warm and smiling.

We had lounge-access in our rate. The lounge was very small and, except from the breakfast, there were almost no food, only some snacks. There were coffee, tea, mineral-water, beer and wine all day. We had continental breakfast in the lounge the first day. OK, but not impressive. The second day we had breakfast in the restaurant. This was much better and nicer, full English with somebody making egg/omelet.

Having a 2 room suite was an excellent choice when going with a friend as you are together but still it is easy to get some privacy.

At this trip I didn't bring my camera, just the iPhone, so the pictures aren't that great.

Soon in Amsterdam

My best friend and I have decided to take a 2-days shopping-spree in Amsterdam. I am not bringing my laptop but you can follow me on Twitter @micacosmetics

We will stay at Crowne Plaza Amstedam and we have booked a 2 room suite. I have not seen any pictures of those rooms so I am very curious. Will upload pictures to Twitter.

Club/executive lounge

Usually it is worth paying the little extra to stay at the club/executive lounge. Mostly because you always get breakfast. Very often there is complimentary coffee, tea and mineral-water all day, some snacks at tea-time and some evening snacks. It varies a lot from hotel to hotel how much food they provide. At Corinthia in Budapest you got a lot of food and both mineral-water and alcohol all day long. In Orlando there were no other drinks than coffee and tea throughout the day, but they served hot food at the evening-service, no complimentary alcohol. At Conrad Tokyo there weren't that much food, but coffee/tea and mineral-water all day. At Ana-Intercontinental there were coffee/tea/, mineral-water and beer all day and a nice selection at the evening-service.

The evening service is not supposed to be dinner, but a pre-dinner.

For me it would be worth it to stay at a club/executive room when going by my own. I don't like going out alone and I don't like to go in the bar. Going to the lounge is a much better option and much more relaxing.

Intercontinental Ambassador membership

This membership costs 150 Usd. a year. If you have the intention on staying at an Intercontinental hotel, I will highly recommend to become a member because you get a one night stay for free with the membership. Usually a one night stay at a IC-hotel is more expensive than 150 USD, so all in all, you get your membership-fee back.

What you get for the membership?

Guarantied upgrade
Fruit and mineral-water at arrival
A small present (sometimes)
Newspaper
Late check-out

You also get a membership in Priority-club.

Ana Intercontinental Tokyo 5*

Because I am an Ambassador member (I will write about that later) we could check-in at the Ambassador-counter. No problem with check-in. I had booked a club-room so we could get access to the club-lounge. Because of my Ambassador membership we got an upgrade to a suit at the 35th. floor!





The room was very nice and we got fruit and a little present (again, because of the a-membership).



The bathroom was not very big, but not very small, with L'occitane and Shiseido products.

This little machine was placed in the room. I haven't tried it, but it looks like you can put the oil (a lavender oil to get you to sleep)

The downside with this hotel is that it is situated in the Rappongi area. The area is the business-area in Tokyo. All the embassies/consults are in this area. There is not much to do or to see! Luckily there is a tube-station close to the hotel.

Another downside is that we didn't get new toiletries at turndown. This is not good for a 5* hotel!

The lounge is BIG. At tea-time there were some sweets and coffee/tea/mineral-water. The coffee is from a machine and the cappuccino was not good... Grrrr... BUT the evening-service was great with sushi, "finger-food" and some cakes. There were also REAL Champagne, red- and whitewine, beer, whiskey, Campari etc... etc... The atmosphere in the lounge is nice and very international. We even saw some other Scandinavians! There are also two massage-chairs in the lounge, the only downside was that all the descriptions were in Japanese! Well, well, I tried it and it did SOME kind of massage!



The hotel has an out-door swimming-pool. Because the weather has been very bad today, we haven't tried the pool yet. Maybe tomorrow!

I will also write about the breakfast tomorrow, after breakfast... :-D

Harajuku

This is the place where the young people goes to shop and to "hang". The bridge to the right of Harajuku station is famous because every Sunday young people dressed in strange clothing (everything from gothic to lolita) meet at the bridge. We went to the bridge, but there were nobody there, maybe because there were a festival close to the bridge.

Instead we went to the street where all the young people buy their clothing. It was... interesting... :)

Look at all the people!

Not my cup of tea! :-D

This sign hung in the street!

There were lots of stalls selling crepes with different "stuffing" like ice-cream, bananas, strawberries etc... etc... They made it like a cone with paper outside, so it was easy to eat. Not very healthy but .... yummi.... :-D It was very popular, everybody ate it!

By accident we past a wedding. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the anything but the backs, but we could hear the music!

Outside the wedding-chapel

Tsukuba festival

don't know exactly what this festival was about, but there was a "march" and there were lots of stalls to buy food and small things. It looked like the Norwegian "17-mai".

Flea-market in Shinagawa Intercity building

They say you can find some very nice and cheap kimonos at flea-markets in Tokyo. Well... We didn't find much, but it was fun to have a look!

Online again!

We moved hotel today, to Ana Intercontinental Tokyo. Nice, nice, nice, will write about that later.

Today it is raining heavily and there is going to be a typhoon. Not used to typhoons so don't know exactly what it is... :)

It's too warm today!

Today I tried to have a walk between 10 and 11 (am), but it's unbearable outside today. I don't know the temperature, but it is very humid and sunny. Luckily we asked for a late check-out so I will have the room until 15.00. I don't think I am going outside before that time...

Speaking about heat... Some days ago, when browsing through some shops, I found a stall with lots of different "heat-controllers" for children (and grown-ups that can't stand the heat.. :-)). You can get ties, pillows, small cloths, wristbands etc... etc... which you can put in the fridge. I also found small bags with some chemical inside. When you hit it, something inside will burst and the bag will become ice-cold. I can remember we had those when I did sports (long time ago... :-)), but I haven't seen them in the shops at home. They may have it, but I can only guess they are expensive. Here they cost only 0,5 GbP. Needless to say, I bought some.

At 15.00 there is going to be a festival here in Tsukuba. I don't know what it involves, but somebody told me they are going to close some of the roads and there will be stalls where you can buy food and all kinds of things. We are going back to Tokyo tonight, but will have a look at the festival before we return.

London Fashion Week, fall 2009

I am going to work backstage at this event! :-D

A sight-seeing around Tsukuba

Our group had three buses leaving Tsukuba at 08.30. First stop was Mt. Tsukuba Shrine Station. We took the cable-car, which reminded me of “Fløyen” in Bergen, to the top.







It was steaming hot down at the station so it was VERY nice to get up in the mountain where it was a little bit cooler. From the top of the cable car we walked for 15-20 min. to Nyotaisan Station where there were a rope-way (hanging in the air, similar to Ulriken in Bergen). The rope-way took us down to Tsutsujigaoka. From there we drove in about an hour to Mito Drive-in where we got Japanese lunch. Surprise, surprise! I am not sure about what I ate and to be honest, I didn’t taste everything…




After lunch we drove in 30 min. to Yamasa fish marked. The marked was a little bit disappointing as there were no live fishes/crabs, like in Hakodate. It didn’t smell very nice, while in Hakodate it smelled nothing! Maybe because it was 12 degrees c. in Hakodate and 30 in Yamasa???








Well, I lied… there were some live “sea-things”: Oysters! I don’t think I have seen oysters before, so it is difficult to compare, but the others said those oysters were the largest they have ever seen! The people who ate it said it was impossible to eat the whole thing in one “slurp”! I have never tasted oysters and didn’t today… Lots of people ate/slurped and it looked… sorry… disgusting…







After the fishmarked we had to drive for one hour to get to Hitachi Nippon Mining Museum. For those interested, I am sure it was great, but I have to admitt I was tired and my interest for mines have never been great..  I walked very quickly through it and then went out in the garden. Much more peacefull and lots of well-manicured trees!

I don't know what this means, but I liked it... :)

I was very happy when we arrived to Tsukuba after 1,5 more hours in the bus! Where exactly I have been today? I don’t know… around Tsukuba… 

Negishi restaurant in Tokyo

is located in Sotobori Dori, close to Nikko Ginza hotel. The restaurant is not fancy, more like a café, but the food was very nice. You can choose between different grilled meat complimented by tororo (grated jam), rice and ox-tail soup. Everything was delicious except from the tororo, which had a very slimy consistent without taste. The restaurant claims that the menu is very healthy.

OMG!!!!!

Today, when I went for a walk, I "bumped" into this small shop. First I thought it was "fake", but after browsing around for... eeeeewwww... well.. some time... looking inside the bags and purses, looking for stamps etc.. etc... I found that it had to be original. Haha, after all, with all the designer-stuff the Japanese are buying, it has to END somewhere when they get tired of it! :-D And it ends here, in this shop... Some of it looked a little bit used, but most of it looked perfectly new! And the prices? OMG... I have been looking for a brown bag/purse for a long time and I found it here! Normally I am not very fond of LV as it "flashes" too much (in my opinion), but these purses didn't look very LV and they were what I have been looking for.

I also bought the white Ferragamo. That neither "flash". I would never have bought it full price, as it's not that usable, but I got it for... hahaha... 25 Gbp (it had some scratches, but not much. The steel also has to be polished.)! The reason why I like Ferragamo is that it is very good quality and I HOPE LV is the same. I have a Ferragamo-bag I bought 5 years ago. I have used it VERY much, all over the world, at planes, airports, trains, buses, cars... you name it... and it still looks very good. There are a few scratches here and there, but it doesn't look *used*.


And the price for the small LV was 45 Gbp. and the big 250 GbP. I saw a red LV on sale... I MIGHT NEED that too... :-D

The shop is very close to the hotel. Unfortunately it's kind of difficult to explain, but I can try... If you go from Tsukuba Express. Go to Q1 center, follow to the next shopping-center (J-something, can't remember the name) and follow that shopping-center to the end. At the corner go straight ahead (over the road) and follow the buildings there. After walking for about 5 min. you should see a 7/11 at the left side of the road. The shop is the house before the 7/11. Hmm... I think this is the direction... :)

High-tech Japanese toilet

Food-hall in Japan

Yesterday I went to the food-hall for lunch. Oooooh, I LOVE the Japanese food-halls. There
are lots of small stalls where they make food, so it is always fresh. And the best, you always get small "tasters". I am never afraid of eating anything in Japan, the hygiene is the best here!