A Family Visit, part 1

Posted on September 3, 2022 by janstu

During my time in Malaysia, several of my siblings have visited me. The first one was my brother Pim in 2000 and again in 2006; Beautiful Malaysia (16-27)-9-2006. One year later my sister Lous visited me, Beautiful Malaysia II (11-23)-5-2007. In 2011 we had visits of Pim and Nanda in February and three months later of Lous and Arend, Family visit, May 2011. Of course my other brothers were welcome too, but it never resulted in a plan.

Until this year. During my stay in the Netherlands in April, I visited my youngest brother Otto, Otto & Alphen, and we talked about a trip to Malaysia, either by Otto himself, or with his wife Nina and sons Aswin and Xander. We had moved in December to our new penthouse, but our old condo was not yet sold or rented out. So they could stay there during their visit!

On 27 May Otto whatsapped me that they had booked tickets, from 4 August until 25 August. First a few days in Singapore, the other days in Malaysia. More than two months to make plans and prepare the old condo for our guests. Here are some pictures of our former condo, ready for them.

On 8 August, late in the evening they arrived from Singapore by Aeroline bus. We picked them up from 1 Utama and drove home, where we had a nightcap in our roof garden before calling it a day.

The next day was a rest day, we did some shopping and in the afternoon I walked with Otto in the Orang Asli village below our condo. In the left picture our penthouse is marked with a yellow x, the right picture shows one Mat Salleh (Caucasian) and four Temuan (orang asli) kids 😉

What about our first dinner with them? We got the impression that they were slightly overwhelmed by the Singaporean food courts. And Nina was pescatarian. But we had also to show them that Aric and I are foodies. So we decided for a Japanese (!) restaurant in 1 Utama. Aric ordered a large selection of dishes. It was quite a success.

The next day we started with a hike in Bukit Lanjan, my local playground. Not too difficult, we walked to the “Sunset Boulevard” viewpoint, there were ropes on the steep parts.

In the afternoon we went into town, using public transport. We visited KLCC with the iconic twin towers and walked around in the park. We had coffee and cake in the cafe of Kinokuniya, my favorite bookstore.

We had dinner that night in the Seapark food court. Aric selected a variety of food, taking into account that Nina liked veggies and fish. Clockwise from top left: otak otak, popiah, Hokkien mee, cuttlefish, BBQ stingray and Cantonese mee,

The Hokkien mee is a specialty of this food court, prepared on a charcoal fire. I am tasting the cuttlefish. Everybody enjoyed the food.

The next morning Otto told me that they had not slept well, because during the night they had been bitten by tiny critters. Bed bugs? The condo had not been used for several months, could they have been come from the Singapore hotel, in their suitcases? Anyway, a thorough cleaning operations was needed.

In the afternoon we drove to a viewpoint, from where you can see the KL metropolis. During the whole trip. we used our two cars. Otto and I in my Axia, Aric and the others in his Subaru. I don’t like driving, fortunately Otto does and he had no problem with driving at the “wrong” side of the road, while I was his guide, using Waze.

It was a bit hazy that day, so the view of the town was not perfect. The tall buildings in the center are the TRX building (right) and the Merdeka 118 skyscraper (left, still under construction)..

Aric used his drone to take pictures.

Not far from the viewpoint there is a restaurant where Aric and I have been several times, the Veg Fish Farm Thai Restaurant. Location is nice, next to the fish ponds and the food is good.

Here is a collage of the food Aric ordered. In the center me with a glass of toddy (coconut wine). Starting from top left, clockwise: kerang (cockles), mango salad, fried rice, cuttlefish, dessert, deep fried spinach, fish (tilapia) and okra (lady fingers)

On our way back to KL, we stopped again at the viewpoint for a night view

We also stopped for a while at the historical town center, where we walked around a bit. The former colonial government offices are impressive. The confluence of the Gombak en Klang rivers has been beautified recently. A bit too blueish in my opinion ;-).

The following day we went to the Batu Caves.. . You have to climb many steps to reach the Hindu temples in the caves. The temples are dedicated to Lord Murugan, the son of Shiva and Parvathi and the brother of the elephant god Ganesh, my favorite Hindu deity.

From the cave entrance you have a view of the city.

There are several temples in the cave. Very scenic. The cave is one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside India, and already a “tourist” attraction in 1890, when Kuala Lumpur was still a small village..

All deities have their own transport animal, for Lord Murugan it is the peacock, so you see many peacocks in and around the Batu caves, real ones and artificial ones.

There are also lots of monkeys around, trying to steal your food, for example your ice-cream !

Hindu temples are always very colorful, it is easy to keep taking pictures. Here is a collection.

We had lunch in an Indian restaurant near the caves. Roti canai and thosai.

Back home we started preparing for our trip up North the next day. We went out for a simple dinner in a nearby restaurant and had a drink later in our roof garden.

About our trip I will write a separate report.. Here is an appetizer. Our route in the center. Top row, from left to right: Suka Suka, Komtar tower, Penang Hill. Middle row: Kuala Kurau, Taiping Bottom row: Air Hitam waterfall, Cameron Highlands, Boh Tea plantation.

After we came back, our guests went to KL a few times on their own. They visited the Aquarium, the Bird Park, Chinatown and several shopping centers.

Our kitchen was not yet fully operational, so we did not cook for them. But one evening we ordered delivery food. It is called a fishbowl. We had dinner in our garden.

One afternoon we brought them to Kuala Selangor. Bukit Melawati is of historical interest, the lighthouse was originally built in 1794 by the Dutch. Aric used his drone to take pictures.

The hill houses a group of Silvery Langurs, a very beautiful and friendly monkey species. Notice the orange colored baby in the left picture. And notice how contented my brother Otto looks 😉

Kuala Selangor is famous for its seafood restaurants, from where you have a nice view of the Selangor river.

General rule for this kind of local restaurants: the more basic they look, the better the food is.

From top left, clockwise: Stingray, Oat prawns, Seaweed soup, Cuttlefish , Bitter gourd omelet , Salty egg crab. Total cost RM 245. Value for money.

The plan was to visit the fireflies at Kampung Kuantan, but it started to rain heavily, so we had to skip this excursion.

Their stay was coming to an end. Nina was interested to go to an Indian restaurant, so one evening we went to a mamak restaurant in Kota Damansara, the Original Nasi Kandar Penang

More than 20 years ago a picture was taken of me with my two nephews. I asked Aric to take another picture, as similar as possible.

For our farewell dinner, the last evening, we went to the May Chixuan Restaurant near our home, where we are regulars. Their signature dish is curried prawns, served in a coconut. The other dish is tofu in a thick pumpkin sauce.

The next morning, at the ungodly hour of 6 am, they left for the airport. It was a memorable visit.

Beautiful Shapes

Posted on August 29, 2022 by janstu

I could have named this blog Uniform Polyhedrons, but I think in that case not many would have read it 😉 A polyhedron is a 3D object, bounded by polygons and a polygon is a flat surface, boudned by straight lines. A cube is a simple polyhedron and a triangle is a simple polygon.MOre terminology in the appendix.

When I was a kid, I was fond of making cardboard models of buildings, ships etc. I bought the “bouwplaten” in the local bookstore. It was quite a popular pastime in those days, now no more. Here are two simple examples, found on the Internet.

It was during the 1970s , on a trip to London, that I came across the book Polyhedron models by Magnus Wenninger. It contained descriptions of 119 polyhedrons with detailed instructions how to make cardboard models of them. With my youthly love of bouwplaten and my interest in mathematics I immediately bought the book. Left my copy, right Magnus Wenninger (1919-2017) with a complicated polyhedron in his hands.

Back home, I bought sheets of colored cardboard and started building polyhedrons. Compared with the commercial “bouwplaten” as shown above, where you just have to cut out he various pieces, you have to draw the pieces first on the cardboard sheet, add tabs and then only cut them out. Here are two examples. The numbers are from Wenninger’s book, which can be found online.

The tetrahedron (left)is the most simple polyhedron, it consists of just four triangles. I have marked how many pieces you have to cut with a colored number. The football like polyhedron with the unspeakable name (right) consists of 30 squares, 20 hexagons and 12 decagons. 62 pieces in total.

Here are a few of the polyhedrons I have built. That was more than 40 years ago, the colors have faded. The polyhedron in the center of the top row is still “simple”, consisting of squares and triangles. The one left on the top row looks more complicated, but when you look carefully, you will see that it only consists of triangles! But only parts of a triangle are visible from the outside. In the right polyhedron, on the bottom row it is easy to see that there are pentagons (five-sided polygon), but there are also hexagons (six-sided polygons), which are hardly visible in this model. In total 12 pentagons and 10 hexagons!.

The polyhedrons where all faces are completely visible, are called convex, the others where you can only see parts of the faces are called nonconvex. See the appendix for more terminology and mathematical details.

Nonconvex polyhedrons are more difficult to build, because you have to be careful that the pieces of one polygon have the same color. But they are worth building, because they are beautiful. Here are a few examples. The left polyhedron consists of 12 pentagons and 12 pentagrams, 24 faces in total. The one at the right is more complicated , 20 triangles, 12 pentagrams and 12 decagons (10-sided polygon), total 44 faces.

Two more. The polyhedron left has 30 squares, 12 pentagons and 12 decagons, total 54 faces. And the beautiful polyhedron to the right has 20 triangles, 30 squares and 12 pentagrams, total 62 faces. The complexity of this polyhedron is difficult to see in a picture. On Wikipedia I found a 3D version which you can rotate with your mouse. Amazing, try it out and see if you can find the triangles (easy) and the squares (difficult).

The polyhedrons at the end of Wenninger’s book are even more complex, Here is a description with templates for the “Great Inverted Retrosnub Icosidodecahedron“. Yes, they all have names, see the appendix. It contains 80 triangles and 12 pentagrams, 92 faces in total .His description starts with “This polyhedron is truly remarkable in its complexity” and at the end he writes “Your patience and perseverance will have to hold out for more than 100 hours if you want a complete model of your own “

At first I decided that “more than 100 hours” was too much for me. But I was curious about this polyhedron, and I used the templates to build a small part of it.. Soon I found out that there was something wrong with the templates for this model. Parts that had to be glued together, had different lengths! I tried to check and correct the size of the pieces (see right image with my comments) but that did not work..

I decided to contact Wenninger, but didn’t have his address, so I wrote to the Cambridge University press ( the publisher), asking them to forward my letter to Wenninger. I didn’t really expect a reply, so I was pleasantly surprised when after a couple of months I got a letter from Wenninger. He explained that in the printing process of the book one or two templates had been incorrectly represented. A few more buyers of the book had noticed the error. His letter contained the correct templates!.

After his kind gesture I felt “morally” obliged to build the polyhedron. I spent many evenings cutting and gluing the 1290(!) pieces. I did not keep track of the hours, but it must have been more than 100. Here is the final result. Of course I took a picture and sent it to Wenninger.

Here is a digital 3D version of the polyhedron. Rotate it with your mouse, to see the complexity.

I assume that in a reprint of the book the mistakes will have been corrected, but when I built the model, it must have been one of the few in the world ;-). Years later I visited the Science Museum in London, where they have the whole collection.

Polyhedrons have fascinated artists, philosophers and mathematicians throughout the ages. Here are Durer;s famous Melencolia I (1514) and John Cornu’s Melencolia (2011)

Appendix

First some terminology.

A polygon is a 2D figure with straight sides, for example a triangle. When all sides are equal it is called a regular polygon
A polyhedron is a 3D form bounded by polygons, for example a cube. A polyhedron has faces, edges and vertices (plural of vertex) When the polygons are regular and all vertices similar, the polyhedron is called uniform.

The left polyhedron has 6 faces (F=6), 12 edges (E=12) and 8 vertices (V=8). The right polyhedron has F=4, E=6 and V=4.

The most simple polyhedrons were already known in antiquity and are called Platonic solids. These polyhedrons have only one regular polygon as face. , a triangle, square or pentagon. Here they are

There are 13 polyhedrons that have more than more than one regular polygon as face.. They are called Archimedean solids, because they were first enumerated by Archimedes, later rediscovered by Kepler who gave them their names. Here they are. Notice that they all have one single edge.

The names give information about the composition of the polyhedron. For example the icosidodecahedron has 20 (icosi) triangles and 12 (dodeca) pentagons.

The polyhedrons often contain pentagrams. A pentagram is related to a pentagon by a process called stellation, extending the sides of a polygon. Polyhedrons can also be stellated by extending their faces. Left the pentagram and right one of the stellated dodecahedrons.(there are three more)

In the Platonic and Archimedean polyhedrons all faces are completely visible, The mathematical term is that these polyhedrons are convex. The stellated dodecahedron, shown above, has pentagrams as faces, but the center part of the pentagram is not visible, it is inside the polyhedron. The mathematical term is that this polyhedron is nonconvex. In total 53 nonconvex polyhedrons exist. This has been proven only in 1970.

Wenninger’s book describes 119 uniform polyhedrons, the 5 platonic solids, the 13 Archimedean ones, 48 polyhedron stellations and the 53 nonconvex polyhedrons. A List of Wenninger polyhedron models can be found on Wikipedia. The list contains images of all polyhedrons and lots of details

Here are the numbers of the polyhedrons shown in this blog (I have built more). 17, 24, 39, 76. 80, 99, 102, 105, 107 and 117.Except 39, a stellation of the icosahedron, they all have a Wikipedia page.

When I built my models, PC’s were still in an infant stage and the World Wide Web did not yet exist. Nowadays there is wealth of information available, there even exists software to create the polyhedrons digitally. Great Stella looks promising. I feel tempted 😉

Why did I write this blog, more than forty year later? Recently I visited the Bellevue Hotel in Penang. The owner of the hotel is a friend of mine. In the garden of the hotel he has built a geodesic dome. He was a close friend of the American architect and philosopher Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), who was the “inventor” of the geodesic dome.

You will not be surprised that there is a close relation with the polyhedron models of Magnus Wenninger. Have a look at the Wikipedia article Geodesic polyhedron, where both Buckminster Fuller and Wenninger are mentioned. Enjoying the view and admiring the dome, the thought arose to write a blog about my “hobby” from the past 😉

Batang Kali again

Posted on August 8, 2022 by janstu

Half a year ago I published a blog My Waterfalls in which I described 48 waterfalls visited by me (with my friends) since 2007, but never included in my website Waterfalls of Malaysia. When you look at the list, you will notice that there has not been much waterfall activity during the last few years. After 2017 only two “new” waterfalls in 2021, the Batang Kali fall and the Pencheras fall. The reason for my lack of activity was partly the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting traveling possibilities, but mainly my growing lack of confidence.

In 2015, during a rewarding “expedition” , Sg Siput Waterfall Recce, we had to cross a river to reach the intimidating Lata Kaku.

In my blog I wrote: I don’t know why, but I felt uneasy, stumbling often, maybe the years are counting…. In the following years that feeling got stronger. I have decided not to visit remote waterfalls anymore. And also only hike in the jungle when accompanied by at least two “strong” “young” friends ;-). My visit to the Batang Kali waterfall in March 2021 is a good example. I went there with Edwin and Teoh, the hike took about one hour and the waterfall, though not spectacular, was nice with a big pool.

When I told my Dutch friend Paul about this waterfall, he was interested, so we needed two young men to join us. Fahmi was willing, but Aric was too busy with his laundry shop. Fortunately Rani was available. On 23 July we met at the Kedongdong recreational park, from where it was a 800 meter walk along. the tar road to the trailhead.

Right after the start we had to cross the Pencheras river. Last year we had to wade through the river or cross on a fallen tree, now a simple bamboo bridge had been built.

There was a trail, although not always clear. Locals collect bamboo here, there were remains of sheds and several side trails, but with the help of Rani we found our way.

Many bamboo groves.

Here and there fallen trees blocked the trail.

Halfway we had to cross the Batang Kali river to the other side. No bridge here, so we got our shoes wet.

There was still a trail and of course there were numerous leeches. Tiger leeches mainly.

After about one hour we arrived at the waterfall. More water than last year.

Enjoying a bath.

Of course we took many pictures.

Upstream there are more waterfalls, but they require river trekking. A few years ago I would have continued to explore them. Now this waterfall was enough for me. After playing around for a while we hiked back. Time enough to look around and enjoy nature.

Almost back, we came across a few spectacular ginger plants. Left a torch ginger, right a beehive ginger.

After the hike it was time for lunch. Rani had to hurry back for a birthday party, Paul, Fahmi and I went to the World of Phalaenopsis café in Ulu Yam. Pleasant surroundings, nice food.

In the future I hope to have more waterfall hikes, similar to this one.

In one of my blogs I mentioned the Australian collection of Malaysian topo maps. I was interested to use one of these maps and add my waterfall trips. Left the map, published in the 1940s, notice how few roads existed in those days. Estates everywhere. Right the same map, with my trips indicated. The Batang Kali waterfall is at the right .

BepiColombo

Posted on August 5, 2022 by janstu

A few weeks ago I read this in the news:

BepiColombo Spacecraft Makes Second Gravity Assist of Planet Mercury – Captures Spectacular Close-Ups

Here is one of those close-ups.

The BepiColombo spacecraft? I am interested in space missions and have written several blogs about space travel and spacecrafts, but I must have missed this one.

So here is a post about BepiColombo. And about Mercury. And about Gravity Assists.

Let me start with Mercury, the smallest of the eight planets in our solar system. And the fastest, orbiting the Sun in 88 days. Its orbit is the most elliptical of all planets, the distance to the Sun varies between 46 and 70 million km. (For comparison, the similar distances for Earth are 147 and 152 million km).

Mercury is not easy to observe from Earth, because the planet orbits so close to the Sun. For a long time, it was thought that Mercury was tidally locked to the Sun, in the same way as the Moon is tidally locked to Earth. It was only in 1965 that radar observations of Mercury showed that it was actually rotating with a period of 59 days. An Italian scientist, Giuseppe Colombo noticed that this value is 2/3 of the orbital period and suggested that Mercury and the Sun are in a so-called 2:3 resonance, with Mercury rotating 3 times during 2 orbital periods. More about tidal locking and resonances in the appendix.

In the nineteen sixties space travel started, in the USA with the Mariner program from 1962 to 1973. Here are a few of the Mariners. The Mariner 2 was the first spacecraft to reach another planet (Venus), It had not yet a camera on board! The Mariner 4 flew by Mars and took 20(!) pictures of the red planet. .

The Mariner 10 mission had a novelty, after its launch it passed very close to the planet Venus. The gravitation of this planet changed the speed and direction of the Mariner in such a way that it continued its course in the direction of Mercury. This is called a gravity assist, often (confusingly) called a gravitational slingshot. See the appendix for more details.

.In the left diagram you see the effect. Three months after launch the Mariner 10 passes Venus at a distance of less than 6000 km. It brings the spacecraft in an elliptical orbit around the Sun with a period of 176 days. On 29 March it passes Mercury at a distance of 700 km. For the first time in history pictures were taken of Mercury’s surface!, A big surprise was that Mercury had a (weak) magnetic field, so it should have a liquid iron core.

The gravity assist was suggested by the same Giuseppe Colombo and was so successful that it is now a standard procedure for spaceflight.

It took almost 30 years before the next mission to Mercury started. In 2004 the MESSENGER spacecraft was launched and its mission was to go into orbit around Mercury and study its structure and magnetic field. Going into orbit around Mercury is not an easy job because of the strong pull of the Sun. Not less than seven gravity assists were needed to slow down the spacecraft enough, one flyby with Earth itself (!), two with Venus and four with Mercury. Here is a diagram of the flight path. Just to show how complicated it is.

The advantage of gravity assists is that you don’t need fuel to change the course, only minor DSM’s (Deep Space Maneuvers). The “disadvantage” is that it takes considerably more time to reach the target. In this case more than six years.

After this lengthy introduction, let’s go back to the BepiColombo mission. Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo died in 1984, this mission must have been named BepiColombo in his honor, as he was the first to identify the 2:3 resonance of Mercury and also the first to suggest a gravity assist for the Mariner 10 to reach Mercury..

BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). BepiColombo was launched in October 2018. The spacecraft contains two orbiters, one MMO) to study the magnetic fields of Mercury, the other one MPO) will study structure and geology of the planet.

In this animation, you can follow the flight path of BepiColombo (pink) from the launch in 2018 until it goes into orbit around Mercury in 2025. The orbits of Earth, Venus and Mercury are in dark blue, light blue and green, respectively. The spacecraft will use a total of nine(!) gravity assists before it goes into orbit.

As it may be difficult to see where and when the flybys occur, I have taken a few screenshots from a very informative video created by ESA: BepiColombo – orbit and timeline .Worth watching. In the screenshots the flyby is indicted with a circle.

The photo of Mercury at the begining of thos post was, taken during the 2nd flyby of Mercury on 23 June 2022.

When BepiColombo goes into orbit around Mercury, it will have travelled more than 10 billion km. Only then it will deploy the two orbiters.

So we will have to wait more than three years before the two orbiters start collecting scientific data.

Appendix: Tidal locking

As probably everybody knows about tides on earth, we will start there. Twice a day the sea will have a high tide and a low tide. Those tides are caused by the gravitational attraction between Earth and Moon. This force depends on the distance between the two bodies. It is a bit stronger on the side of the earth facing the moon, than on the opposite side, resulting in the tides.

The friction caused by these tidal forces, will slow down the rotation of the Earth, increasing the length of a day. Not much, about 2 milliseconds per century. But when Earth and Moon were formed, about 4.5 billion year ago, the length of a day was much shorter only a few hours.

A similar story holds for the Moon, but here the slowing down has been so effective that for billions of years the moon is “tidally locked”, the rotation if the moon (its “spin) is equal to its orbital period around Earth. The technical term is that the Moon is in a 1:1 spin-orbit resonance with Earth. From Earth we always see the same side of the Moon.

Most other moons in our Solar System are also tidally locked to their planet. For example the four Jupiter moons, discovered by Galileo in 1609.

An interesting case is Pluto (no longer a planet) and its moon Charon. Charon is a large moon and Pluto a small “minor planet”.. Both moon and planet are tidally locked to each other! Here is an animation.

The gravitation of the Sun aldo causes tidal forces on the planets. On Earth we are aware of that, but the Sun’s tidal forces are smaller than those of the moon. During full moon and new moon the two tides enhance each other, the high tide is stronger and called a spring tide. During first and last quarter they work against each other, the high tide is weaker and called a neap tide. See the diagram below

Because Mercury is orbiting so close to the Sun, the tidal forces are a lot stronger. Until 1965 it was thought that Mercury was tidally locked to the Sun, rotating in 88 days, same as the period of its orbit => a 1:1 resonance. Now we know that it is a 2:3 resonance, Mercury rotates faster, 1.5 times during one orbit. The reason is that Mercury’s orbit is quite elliptical, so its (orbital) speed is not constant, moving faster when it is close to the Sun. Here is link to a good explanation: Mercury’s 3:2 Spin-Orbit Resonance. .

The length of a day is commonly defined as the time between successive sunrises or sunsets. 24 hours for Earth, slightly more then the rotation period of 23.9344696 h. With 1:1 tidal locking there is no more sunset/sunrise, the concept of a day has no meaning or you could say that the length of a day is infinite ;-). The animation below shows Mercury orbiting the Sun. The red point represents an observer on Mercury. Note that this observer rotates three times during two orbits. Dawn, midday, dusk and midnight are marked. A day on Mercury takes 176 (earth) days, much longer than the rotation period of 59 (earth) days!

Appendix: Gravity Assists

After launch, a spacecraft will move under the influence of gravitation, primarily the attraction of the Sun. Using the precious fuel on board, it can maneuver a bit to reach its destination. When its course brings it close to a planet, the gravity of this planet can change direction and speed of the spacecraft, without using fuel. Depending on how the spacecraft approaches the planet, its speed can increase or decrease. This use of a planet’s gravity is called a gravity assist or a gravitational slingshot.

Here is a somewhat misleading analogy of a gravity assist. “Space balls” are shot at a train with speed of 30 MPH. If the train is at rest, they bounce back with a speed of 30 MPH. But the train is not at rest, it approaches with a speed of 50 MPH. The balls hit the train now with 30 + 50 = 80 MPH and bounce back with the same speed. For the observer along the rails, the balls now have a speed of 80 + 50 = 130 MPH.

This analogy, from Charley Kohlhase, an important NASA engineer, illustrates a few important points. 1).The balls are interacting with a moving object and 2). the mass of the moving object is so large, that its loss of energy can be neglected.

My own favorite example is that of a tennis player, who hits an incoming ball, before it bounces (a volley). When he keeps his racket still, the ball will bounce back with (about) the same speed (block volley). When he moves his racket forward, the speed will be larger (punch volley), when he moves it backwards, the ball will go back slower (drop volley). In this case his own mass is less than the train, so he will feel the impact of the ball.

In space there are no contact forces, everything moves under the influence of gravity, therefore I always found the analogy unsatisfactory. The influence of gravity on the motion of two bodies in space has been described by Kepler using Newton’s gravitation law. We assume that the mass of one body (a planet) is much larger than the mass of the other one (a spacecraft) Here are a few possible orbits. The red one is part of an ellipse, the green one a parabola and the blue one a hyperbola.

On the Internet you can find numerous videos explaining gravity assist. Pick your choice here. Many of them I found confusing and/or too complicated. So I decided to give it a try myself ;-). Here are three images I have created.

The left image shows the course of a spacecraft under the influence of a planet’s gravitation. It is a hyperbolic orbit, where the speed increases until the spacecraft is closest to the planet (called the periapsis), after which its speed will decrease again. The initial speed and the final one are equal, only the direction has changed (the red arrows). If the planet would be at rest relative to an observer (for example Earth), that would be all.

But that is not the case, the planets move around the Sun. In the second image, a planet moves to the right (blue arrow). The gravitation between spacecraft and planet is still the same (the red arrows) but an outside observer will now see the effect of the two speeds: the green arrows. The change of direction of the red arrows now has a clear effect, the final speed is larger than the initial one: here we have a gravity assist to increase the speed of the spacecraft!. This happens when the spacecraft passes “behind” the planet.

In the last image I have reversed the speed of the planet, so now the spacecraft passes “in front of” the planet. With an opposite effect, now the final speed is less than the initial one, The gravity assist in this case reduces the speed of the spacecraft.

Spacecraft exploring the outer planets have to overcome the gravitation of the sun and will need an “extra push” from gravity assists, passing at the rear of planets. BepiColombo is getting closer to the Sun and has to break to be able to go into orbit around Mercury. Therefore it needs gravity assists, passing in front of a planet, reducing its speed.

For me, this explanation of a gravity assist is satisfactory, I am curious about the opinion of others. Comments are welcome 😉

Visiting Penang, 2018

Posted on July 1, 2022 by janstu

A very belated report!

In April 2018 we met LCK at a friend’s dinner. We had an interesting conversation and a few days later he visited us in our condo in Damansara Perdana. He told about a few of his projects, a colonial hotel up Penang Hill and his private botanical garden Suriana. When we showed interest, he invited us to visit him in Penang, where he is living.

On our way to Penang, we stopped for lunch in Ipoh. Aric is an Assam Laksa lover and maintains a website: Assam Laksa List where he has collected many assam laksa shops. His verdict about Kee Poh: so so.

Around 3 pm we arrived in Penang, where we had booked a room in the YMCA, next door to where LCK is living

A clean hostel-like hotel.

After we met LCK, he took us up Penang Hill, to have dinner in “his” Bellevue Hotel

The next morning we drove around Penang. Another project of Aric is to take drone images and videos of fishing villages. This is Kuala Pulau Betong in the South-West corner of the island.

For lunch we went to another laksa stall, only known as Laksa Stall Under The Tree in the Sungei Ara region. Aric’s verdict: Very good.

After lunch we went to LCK’s house, where transport to Bellevue was waiting for us. The house is an impressive colonial style mansion.

LCK’s driver brought us to the Bellevue Hotel where we checked in. Spectacular location with impressive views of Georgetown and Butterworth. Notice the geodesic dome at the right, more about that later.

We had a very pleasant room. Colonial atmosphere. Writing this blog more than four year later, I am not sure about details, but I think we had no TV in the room. What a blessing.!

The garden is well kept.

We went for a walk. The hotel is surrounded by other heritage. Left the monumental entrance of the Bel Retiro bungalow, founded in 1789 and still exclusive government property. Right the Penang Hill Mosque, much more recent (1966)

Left the attractive police station (1929). Penang Hill has become a major tourist attraction, which is spoiling the character of the place. Transport is basically via the cable car, bringing up crowds of day-trippers. We walked around and had a snack before returning to Bellevue.

Even Bellevue must take care not to succumb to modern developments. Buggy tours, Segway rides? Why? Sedan chair trips would be more appropriate ;-). Just promote the Garden Terrace, the Panoramic View Restaurant and the Nostalgic Charm of the past.

A collection of prehistoric animals might be fun for kids, but also doesn’t fit in the colonial charm of the place.

And lots of charm Bellevue has. Waiting for our dinner, we enjoyed the views, changing all the time.

Dinner was steamboat, well prepared. A few more visitors were also having their dinner.

The next morning around 8 am. Georgetown is still covered with clouds. Pure magic.

Enjoying an (almost) English breakfast. (No bacon because halal)

And slowly Georgetown appears through the cloud cover

Aric did some droning. A staff member is interested and watching closely ;-). View of Bellevue in the right picture.

General view of the hill. Bellevue is bottom right.

Before leaving, we took more photos of the interior. It is clear that LCK is interested in art and music.

He is a friend and admirer of the American architect and philosopher Richard Buckminster Fuller. The garden of Bellevue has a geodesic dome, a structure popularised by Fuller.

Buckminster Fuller passed away in 1983 and a room in the hotel serves as a kind of memorial. If you are interested to know more about “Bucky” and his relation with the Bellevue Hotel , have a look at this website : Buckyworld Confluence @ Bellevue

At 10am LCK’s driver came to bring us back to Georgetown. It is a winding road, no public access.

Our next destination was the Suriana Botanical Garden. LCK is an architect (Komtar , Jurong Town Hall) but also a trained botanist who has collected in this private garden many rare pants. Waiting for him, we walked in the garden around his house and had a look at a new building, still under construction.

The garden is located between Balik Pulau and Air Hitam.

We had a drink and duriasn at a small house in the garden. Very peaceful surroundings.

Also here a geodesic dome. LCK is very knowledgeable about ginger and banana species.

We walked around with LCK as our guide.

Of course I took many picture Here is an Orgy of Red

And Shades of White

Black & White

After an interesting walk in the garden, we drove back home, with flowers and fruits produce of the Suriana garden. A very pleasant trip, thanks a lot to our host..

Taiping, June 2022

Posted on June 28, 2022 by janstu

In my blog Penang & Taiping, 2022 I reported about a 4D3N trip with friends to Penang and Taiping. I decided to stay a few days more in Taiping, my 2nd home town. I had lunch with my friends in the Old Railway Station and decided to walk back from there to the Furama hotel, where I had dropped my luggage already. An easy walk, about 2km, less than half an hour. The Central Market is under restoration and I wanted to have a look.

As I would pass on my way the house of my friend Ms Long in Barack Road, I called her and asked if I could pay her a visit. I was welcome and we had a nice chat.

In March, during my last visit to Taiping, I also visited the market, Click here for my blog. Left picture shows the main market in March, the right picture was taken this time. I could not see any sign of recent activity.

But progress has been made on the wet market (better known as Siang Malam). Left the situation in March, right this time.

Some details of the restoration.

Of course I also had to have a look at what I have named the Shame of Taiping, the sad remains of the heritage Rest House (1894).

After checking in at Furama I took a rest before going out later to walk in the Lake Gardens and watch the egrets coming back to roost at the bamboo bushes.

After the food orgy in Penang, I was more thirsty than hungry 😉 I bought some chips and had satay in the Taman Tasik food court. A quiet evening.

During my last trip Halim and I had visited a few Indian temples in the Matang region. See my blog for the pictures I took during that trip. I talked about these temples with Muthu Pillai, a member of the Taiping Heritage Society, who knows a lot about Hindu religion. He was willing to accompany me on a trip to several Hindu temples..

Our first visit was to the Vinayagar Temple, dedicated to Ganesha, my favourite Hindu deity, son of Shiva and Parvati. If you are interested to know why he has an elephant head, you should read this: Short story for kids: How Ganesha got his elephant head

Muthu told me that many temples have a place, dedicated to the nine planets, the Navagraha. Nine planets? Actually it is better to call them the nine heavenly bodies. Sun, Moon and the five planets, known in antiquity: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Plus two demons, Rahu and Ketu, related to the moon. All nine play a role in Hindu astrology.

Next we visited the Sivan Temple, dedicated to Shiva. Here some pictures of a few deities.

The left image show Shiva as the cosmic dancer. The right image shows Murugan again, this without his spear, but with his characteristic mode of transport, the peacock.

Muthu helped me to put a pottu on my forhead ;-). While we visiting this temple, we were invited to have vegetarian food. Very friendly atmosphere.

The third temple was the Mariamman Temple on Jalan Kota. Mariamman is an incarnation of Parvati. This temple I had visited already during an earlier visit

Finally we went to the Muniswaran temple at Simpang Halt. When we arrived, the temple was closed already for lunch, but the friendly lady caretaker let us in, through a backdoor of her shop. During my earlier visit with Halim I was captivated by the beauty and serenity of this temple, although the weather was too hot to enjoy everything. The weather was milder now, I walked around and took numerous pictures. It confirmed my earlier impression, that this is one of the most beautiful temples I have seen.

Hanuman

Inside the temple. Right the shrine of Muniswaran

Some of the statues are colorful, as is common Hindu temples.

But I was very impressed with the many “uncolored” statues.

On the Internet I have found colored pictures of this temple, for example in this blog, written by my friend Liz Price in 2014. Are the statues painted for special occasions?

The temple has a romantic, relaxing garden. I was pleasantly surprised to find a Buddha statue in the garden.

A monumental angsana tree on the temple grounds is very old, you can see it on a photo of the Simpang Halt railway station. The temple itself is actually very new.

After our visit we had lunch in the small shop at the entrance of the temple. Really a very rewarding visit.

In the afternoon I visited the Perak Museum. Of course I had been there before, but this time there was a special exhibition about Taiping and its history.

The exhibition was interesting, mostly photos, but not spectacular.

I liked the photo of Captain Speedy, dressed as an Englishman, because mostly you see him in his exotic Ethiopian outfit. The map of Larut should have come with a comment from the museum staff 😉 The map was published in 1883 and shows the Port Weld-Taiping railway, , but this line was not opened until 1885!

A real mistake from the museum staff concerns the landing of Amelia Earhart on 7 June 1937 at Tekah Airport. As I have shown in my blog Amelia Earhart and Taiping, this American aviator flew on 7 June 1937 from Brazil to Africa! And actually she never landed at the Tekah airport.

I walked around in the rest of the museum. Well organised, worth a visit

On my way back to my hotel, I passed the All Saints’ Church, the first church in the Federated Malay States, founded in1886.

A cemetery next to the church has interesting tombstones.

Muthu had suggested to meet again for dinner that evening, after first attending a meeting of the Taiping Toastmasters of which he intends to become a member.. Some of my friends are Toastmasters, with some hesitation I accepted his invitation. It was an interesting experience. Members were asked to give a short, unprepared speech on a given topic. Memories surfaced of my college days as a member of a sorority ;-). Of course I was asked to participate, but i politely declined.

A nice group of friendly people. This photo was taken by Lawren, the outgoing president of the club

After the meeting we adjourned to a nearby restaurant for supper.

The next day I had my usual chee cheong fun breakfast in the stall of my friend Tong.

In the afternoon I was going back by train to KL. My friend Halim often brings me to the station where we have lunch together.. This time he had organised a durian party at his house. Would I mind joining the party, he asked. Of course I accepted his invitation. The durians came from Batu Kurau and were first class. For the first time I tried them together with pulut (glutinous rice) and santen (coconut milk), A delicious combination.

There were lots of other food as well. Nice Malay atmosphere.

As Halim was busy, being the host of the party, one of his friends took me to the station.

A short visit, but full of variety!

Penang & Taiping, 2022

Posted on June 25, 2022 by janstu

A scuba diving friend of Aric, Tony, has an apartment in Georgetown and invited us and a few friends for a food trip to Penang. He was also interested in Taiping, so it became a 4D3N tirp, two nights in Penang and one night in Taiping.

Tony lives in Kota Kemuning. After meeting him, we first had breakfast at Kheng Chew Kopitiam. From left to right Aric, John, Tony and Rodney. I had my favourite breakfast, half-boiled eggs and toast. with coffee.

With only an intermediate sanitary stop we drove straightaway to a small village, Bagan Samak, not far from Parit Buntar. Here is a Google map of the region, as you see it is a very small village. Surprisingly there are quite a few popular restaurants.

A friend of John had suggested the Sloam Mit Thai restaurant and that was a good choice. We had catfish, lala, prawn crackers, fried pork and paku (ferns)..A good start of our food trip 😉

We continued to Penang, where we decided to have a dessert in the Kek Seng coffee shop. Founded in 1906 the café is famous for its durian ice-cream and its ABC. Nice antique furniture

The coffee shop is not far from the Komtar tower. Left picture from the ground, the right one from Tony’s condo, where we arrived around 3 pm and had a well deserved rest.,

Tony’s apartment is spacious and has wonderful views

In preparation for our trip Aric had selected a few interesting food venues. One of them was the Peng Hwa Lok Lok in Pulau Tikus. Lok Lok is a kind of steamboat, where the food is skewered on sticks, which you dip in boiling water. Interesting at this stall is that the skewers are already present on the table and regularly refilled. You keep the sticks which at the end are counted to determine what you pay. The place is very popular, you share a table with others. A very interesting experience.

Back in the condo we enjoyed the night view and had a glass of wine

The next day we went again to the Pulau Tikus market, this time for Apom Manis at the coffees hop of Swee Keng. Another must-try on Aric’s list. You have to come early otherwise they are sold out.

After breakfast we split for a while. I visited a friend, LCK, who is living in a colonial mansion at Macalister Road. We had a nice chat with coffee, durians and interesting miniature bananas from his own garden in Balik Pulau.

The others visited the Penang Botanical Gardens.

When they came to fetch me, LCK invited them for more durians.

For lunch we went to the New World Park, where we only had some light food, because more food was waiting for us in Tony’s condo 😉

Through Facebook, Aric had discovered an Assam Laksa “shop” that did delivery service only and had good reviews. Here you see Tony and Aric preparing the laksa. Aric loves this kind of noodles and has a website, Assam Laska List in which he describes and assesses the various Assam Laksa shops. His verdict: eatable, but not that special

Afternoon view of Gunung Jerai, from the condo.

We had bought (expensive) tickets for the Komtar tower. More precisely for the Komtar Skywalk, added to the tower in 2016. These top floors offer spectacular views of Georgetown. In the left picture I have marked with a x the location of Tony’s condo.

But the views were not what we came for ;-). Both the 65th and 68th floor have glass walkways, where you can look to the ground below, 250 meter down. The walkway on the 65th floor is the most scary, because the glass is transparent and colorless. I have no fear of height, but, to be honest I had to force myself to stand on this glass. Here Aric is lying down.

Of course we took many pictures. Once you are on the glass, you feel safe, but the first step is really scary.

On the 68th floor a curved skywalk has been created. If you look carefully at the Komtar picture at the beginning of this blog, you can see the “horseshoe” sticking out. A limited number of people is allowed to enter at any time. Because the glass floor has a blueish color, it is less scary.

We wanted to see the sunset and Georgetown after dark, so we had to spend quite some time on the roof, taking more pictures 😉

The sunset was not special, but the view of Georgetown with the lights on, was worth the waiting

On our way down, we passed this giant durian. Rodney doesn’t like the King of Fruits 😉 The Komtar tower was nicely illuminated.

We had Crab Char Kuey Teow at the Bee Hooi Cafe for dinner and as a dessert Tong Shui at the Traditional Home of Dessert ,

We walked a bit along the esplanade. I took a photo of the City Hall (1903), just to show that I was not only interested in food 😉

The next morning , before leaving for Taiping, we visited the scenic Hean Boo Thean temple, at the edge of the Yeoh jetty, dedicated to Guan Yin.

We lit candles. I wrote my Chinese nickname 😉

On our way to Taiping we stopped for lunch at the Law Cheang Kee restaurant in Nibong Tebal , another eatery on Aric’s list. Mud crab porridge is one of their specialities. The fresh stock of crab was just brought in when we arrived. We also had fried kembong , a kind of mackerel.

This was our table when we left.

We arrived in Taiping around 3pm and had cendol and pasembor at the Ansari Famous Cendol shop, before checking in at the Flemington Hotel. From the rooms and especially from the roof (with swimming pool) you have a beautiful view of the Lake Gardens

After a short rest we went out again, to visit Port Weld, now renamed Kuala Sepetang. On our way we had a look at one of the charcoal kilns. During my last visit, a few months ago, I was disappointed that it had become very touristy. But this time, almost 6 pm, it was deserted and very scenic.

One of the kilns was working. Controlling the temperature inside to transform the mangrove wood in charcoal, is a complicated process.

Another kiln was being filled with mangrove logs

We walked around in Port Weld and had a nice view from the bridge.

I had invited a few Taiping friends to join us for dinner in Teluk Kertang. There are several popular seafood restaurants in this village (where in 1879 Isabella BIrd landed, see my blog). We had booked at table in the Lemon Tree restaurant. It was a pleasant meeting with nice company and good food.

The next morning we walked in the Lake Gardens. Splendid weather.

Not even all Taipingites know that the Lake Gardens have a few Cannonball trees. After I “discovered” them, many years ago, I always have a look at these magnificent trees..

Here is another view of the gardens, with Maxwell Hill in the background.

After our walk we went back to Flemington to take a shower and check out. My friends were going back to KL, I was going to stay a bit longer. I dropped my luggage at my usual Furama hotel and then followed them to the old Railway station where we had another Assam Laksa.

It was a nice food trip. About my two extra days in Taiping I will write a separate blog.

Kumari Kandam & Lemuria

Posted on June 10, 2022 by janstu

Recently I came across an article The Lost Continent of Kumari Kandam in which I found this map:

I had never heard about Kumari Kandam and had to check Wikipedia: Kumari Kandam, “a mythical continent, believed to be lost with an ancient Tamil civilization” The Wikipedia article is interesting and worth reading.

Kumari Kandam never existed. The concept of a lost continent with a Tamil civilisation is the result of Tamil Nationalism . As I want to avoid this sensitive topic, I will give in this blog only some background information, starting with Lemuria.

In 1864 the English zoologist Philip Sclater explained the presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India, but not in Africa and Arabia by assuming that in the past Madagascar and India were connected by a landmass , which later was submerged by the ocean., He named this lost continent Lemuria.

A couple of years later this idea of a lost continent was picked up by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel, a staunch defender of Darwinian evolution. He suggested that this lost continent could have been the cradle of human evolution. Here is a map drawn by Haeckel.

Here is a detail. Notice the alternate name Paradise for Lemuria!

The “Out of Asia”” theory of human evolution was quite popular in those days.

We know now that Lemuria never existed and have a much more fascinating explanation: continental drift. I will write a separate blog about this topic. Continents (tectonic plates) have not a fixed location ,but move slowly. Here is a video of the continental drift the last 100 million years. India was still connected to Madagascar, but moved north until it collided with Asia (the collision caused the Himalayas). Also notice how at the start of the video Australia is still connected to Antarctica.

The classical Tamil literature (Sangam) mentions the occurrence of flooding, resulting in the loss of land. At the end of the 19th century Tamil scholars and nationalists suggested that Lemuria was the center of Tamil civilisation and named it Kumari Kandam. After its submersion Tamils had to migrate to other parts of the world, bringing there civilisation and language.

The submersion is often explained by the rise in sea levels after the last Ice Age. More than 100 meter. In itself that makes sense, as you can see in the Google image below where I have roughly indicated a contour line 120 m below sea level. Considerable amounts of land were lost to the sea during the past ~ 20.000 years.

But not a continent.

The Netherlands 2022

Posted on May 27, 2022 by janstu

My last visit to the Netherlands was in 2019. In March 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic started, making (international) travel almost impossible. Only in spring 2022 countries started to reopen their borders and I booked a six-week trip to the Netherlands. In this post I will report about my activities during my stay in the Netherlands. I have been very (too?) busy , here is a chronology of my agenda. To keep this blog readable, I will often refer to separate blogs about specific activities.

31 March

Arrival in a very cold Amsterdam. Detailed report here: Perdana View => Backershagen

3 April

My friend Yolanda is singing in a choir and had invited me to attend a performance of Bach’s St John Passion in de beautiful Dominicus Church. Afterwards, we had a drink with her and friends at a nearby café..

5 April

Invited by my friend Nico for a mussel dinner. My friends know that I like to have “Dutch” food when I am back 😉

6 April

Same when I visited my soulmate Inez the next day. What would you like to eat, she asked me. I chose “hutspot met draadjesvlees”.as main dish. A stew of potatoes, carrots and onions with braised beef. Very traditional Dutch.

7 April

The next day my brother Pim came to Backershagen and I was the cook. Herring as starter, meatballs with chicory as main dish, and a fruit salad as dessert

10 April

On Sunday I visited my ex-colleague Rene in Nieuwegein. His wife Caroline prepared asparagus for us, a seasonal delicacy. Ice cream as dessert. Writing this report I realise that I did a lot of eating ;-).

11 April

I visited the Stedelijk Museum. In the evening I went to the St Matthew Passion in the Concertgebouw with friend Lambert. No photos of the concert but about the Stedelijk I wrote a separate report, click here.

12 April

In 2019 we did not organise a family reunion, instead I visited all my siblings: Family Visits. This time I did the same. My first visit was to Arie and Ineke in Alkmaar. Before I met them for dinner, I spent some time in the town of Alkmaar, looking for Art Nouveau architecture. It resulted in this report : Alkmaar 2022 .I arrived at their place around 4pm, we had a drink, a lot of chit chat and a nice dinner.

13 April

Raoul is a former student of mine. In 2010 he married Aunn, from Thailand, and in 2011 Aric and I went to Thailand to celebrate their wedding with Aunn’s family and friends, We keep in contact and this time they invited me for dinner. It was a pleasant meeting. There was a beautiful sunset when I took public transport back to Backershagen.

14 April

The next day another former student came to Backershagen to have lunch with me. Wim is one of my earliest students, we are friends for more than forty years.

16 April

Yolanda is another student from the same batch as Wim. I visited her in Utrecht, where she lives. We had lunch together and visited the Public Library, beautifully housed in the former main Post Office. More photos in the album Yolanda & Utrecht .

17 April

I celebrated my 78th birthday in Alphen with my brother Otto and his family. In the morning Otto picked me up from Backershagen and via flower fields we drove back to Alphen, where we had lunch. In the afternoon we drove around in Alphen. Detailed report: Otto & Alphen ..

19 April

A busy day. In the morning I met my friend Nellie at the Amsterdam Zuid station. The original plan was to visit the Cobra Museum in Amstelveen, but, as we had only a few hours, we decided to go to the Stedelijk Museum again. I had been there on my own, one week earlier, this time I was in a better mood. I added the photos I took to the album Stedelijk 2022.

In the evening I had my usual “special” dinner with Yolanda. A yearly tradition where she selects a new/trendy restaurant. . Because of the pandemic three years had passed since our last dinner meeting! This time we went to the Juwelier, a new restaurant with rave reviews in several newspapers. It was a bit of a disappointment. The food was ok, the service mediocre and the pricing was too high. Read some reviews by others here.

21-22 April

A 3D2N trip to Ruud and Jur in Groningen, a tradition when I am back in the Netherlands. We visited the new Forum and made a trip to a nature reserve in Drenthe. Of course we had nice food as well. Detailed report here: Ruud & Groningen

..24 April

Another busy day ( I call it busy when I have two “events on the same day 😉 ) I had lunch with my friends Marjan and Mike. who live now in Huizen in a very nice apartment. First I went by train to the Naarden-Bussum station (1924) an interesting building. From there I oontinued by bus. Mike and Marjan were waiting at the bus stop, we had a nice walk to their apartment.

A nice apartment and a delicious lunch

I could not stay long because that evening I had a concert in the Concertgebouw, a performance of Bach’s Hohe Messe. During my dinner with Yolanda in the Juwelier we found out that we both had bought tickets for the same concert! So of course we had to have a beer after the concert. and talk about it. It was a wonderful performance, of course you are not allowed to record it, but here is a YouTube video of the same ensemble and conductor Philippe Herreweghe) recorded in 2017 in the Concertgebouw: Heavenly music, Bach at his best.

25 April

Dinner with ex-colleague Dick Jurriaans, He suggested restaurant Elements and it was a very good choice. The waiters and cooks are students of a Hotel School and work here as part of their training. We started with oysters, after that smoked eel, duck breast fillet and panna cotta as dessert. Finally coffee with Armagnac. Nice atmosphere, very reasonable prices.

27 April

Koningsdag! The King’s birthday. The biggest celebration in the Netherlands, but not possible the last two years because of Corona. I went to the Vondelpark, here is the report : Koningsdag.

28-29 April

A 3D2N visit to Lous and Arend in Valkkoog. Another tradition when I am back in the Netherlands. Detailed report here.

30 APril

Last year around October my friend Inez messaged me that she had bought two tickets for a concert on 30 April by two countertenors, Andreas Scholl and Maarten Engeltjes. At that time the COVID pandemic was still in full swing, I was locked up in Malaysia. But in the beginning of 2022 the situation improved and I decided to take the risk t and book a ticket for a period which included 30 April. We were both so happy that it worked out well.

We met at the Muziekgebouw and had dinner in the Grand Café there before the concert started. If you are interested in what we ate, here is the menu (pdf file) Delicious.

It was a very nice concert, the two countertenors sang duets by the English composer Purcell.

2 May

A day trip with Inez to the windmills of Kinderdijk. We visited our ex-colleague Piet and his wfe Helma in Slikkerveer. In the afternoon we went with them to Rotterdam for an architectural walk. A full, interesting day. Here is the report: Day trip with Inez.

4 May

A lunch at home with ex-colleague Hans, his wife Annabella and Atie, the wife of my good friend Dick, who passed away a few years ago. Perfect guests, not only did they give me presents, they also helped washing the dishes and even cleaning the stove! They will be more than welcome next time I am back in the Netherlands.

The fourth of May is Remembrance Day in the Netherlands. In the past I went to the Dam Square, where a massive crowd kept two minutes silence at 8 pm. But there is a smaller, more intimate ceremony opposite my apartment, which I attended.

5 May

As my visit was coming to an end, I decided not to prepare complicated food at home, I needed to clear and switch off the fridge. Therefore I invited my friend Lambert for a simple meal of soup and bread with herring, cheese and salad.

6 May

The next day I had dinner with my friend Roald in the restaurant Scheepskameel , located on the former Marineterrein. Roald is another former student who became a good friend, we know each other for more than forty years. To say that it was a pleasant evening is an understatement 😉 We chatted a lot about our shared past, had very nice food (and quite a lot to drink). We left the restaurant after 11 pm.

8 May

Discussing with my friend Gerrit how and where to meet, he suggested a walk in the parks not far from my apartment. A splendid idea. The weather was perfect, he had planned an interesting hike of about 10 km. Detailed report here: A Hike with Gerrit

Dinner that evening with my brother Pim.

9 May

And the next evening With Inez

10 May

My last evening in Amsterdam I invited Nico for another dinner in restaurants Elements, where I had eaten two weeks earlier with my ex-colleague Dick,. .Basically the same menu, only pity there were no oysters this time. Instead we had a cheese platter.