I had been sitting in the little garden house all day watching the birds and taking notes. In-between the showers, I sometimes went outside to stretch my legs and look at this or that plot...think about spring cleaning and what to put where in terms of veggies and flowers. Most of those flower plots will require a good cleaning this year, as this past season was simply too busy to properly clean them all. I sort of held a cursory field day now and then. You know--a superficial facelift, as it were. It looked passable to the eye, but under the soil's surface there runs an "Interstate highway system" of ground elder and bindweed. This must be sorted in the coming season before any plans of replanting and plant changes can be realized. Well, the birds had all gone to roost except for the little roodborstje; who is always the last one, and it was well dark. Time to turn off the heater, lock-up the garden house and hop on the bike to head home. By the time that I got to the front gate it was completely dark and I could see the lights of the garden centre across the rail road tracks (where I had to stop )...the little Christmas baker's tent was still open and there was a short queue off to the left where bundled-up customers and waiting in the cold to place their orders. The lights of this little stall-on-wheels looked so charming and cosy with its small and jolly lights twinkling in the slightly foggy air. The little place cast its wiggly reflection on the intermittently melted ice of the parking lot. A constantly billowing steam cloud poured out of the little kitchen's smoke stack and was carried away by the wind. You know how steam does--it blows away for a distance and then just disintegrates, making the lateral plume look like the end of a long pony tail. I paused for a few moments and took it in as I waited for the train to pass. I thought that the scene looked like something Anton Piek might have painted. Well the arm with its flashing red lights finally began to raise and the bells were coming to an end. Once the bells and lights had stopped and the crossing barrier gate had returned to its vertical position, I pushed-off and headed down the bike path in the darkness. The streets were busy with the traffic of folks returning from work--now there was a feeling of haste and impatience in the air. Everyone wanted to get home, I did too, but I had to stop off at the supermarket to do a bit of shopping for the weekend. We do not have 24-hour a day shopping here, so getting supplies in-house requires planning. I rolled up the store, gave an arm signal and cruised into the parking area for bikes. I locked it and pulled a plastic shopping bag out of one of my panniers. I could see through the revolving door that it looked warm and full of last-minute shoppers inside. My cheeks were cold and my nose wet, from the weather. It felt immediately warm in there and I made a bee-line to the area of the supermarket where free coffee and tea was. Some supermarkets even have a table with the days' newspaper. This supermarket was one of those. I greeted the couple sitting there with their handcart and asked if I could sit with them (a formality). I hung my bag on the back of the chair, unzipped my wax and poured myself a cuppa tea with sugar. They began talking about how drab it had been, and I hastened to add that it had been this way for days now. They agreed and said that they had just come from the garden where they had hoped to do some work...but the ground was so wet and the showers off and on just made it impossible to get any serious work done. I said, "Just come from the garden-WHICH garden would that be"? To which they replied, with a knick of the head, "The one up across from the garden centre". Me too, I said. I told them that I had a garden there and we agreed that we had never seen each other there. Well, of course we talked about gardening and they type of year it had been, failures and winners. About this time a work colleague came up and I introduced everyone. I asked if he had time to have a chat. I offered to buy him a coffee, and winked at the gardening couple. Once he had his coffee, I asked them all if they had heard about or seen the China Light Show in Rotterdam. They had not, so I said that it was quite an interesting sight. They asked if I had been there, I said that my bride and I along with my sister-in-law and her husband had indeed driven down there. Here is what I told them: There is a park at the base of the Euro Mast (a tower). The light show was laid out in this park and consisted of groups of illuminated figures made of colourful cloth, stitched together to create whatever form was displayed. I could tell you everything that I had seen there, but it is better to just show you, I think. To see all the displays, one is guided along them via foot paths. The first thing that we saw when we came to the little lake was this: It was pretty eye-catching from a distance...looking out into the darkness. As we came closer we could see this large dragon (100 yards long). He had a huge head that spouted misted water. There were no doubt a number of scenes that have to do with Chinese culture, but significant or not, some were just interesting to see. This group of mushrooms is one. There were some structures that were not made of sewn cloth...this one is made of ceramic pieces: I am assuming that these images are known to Chinese folks as they depict a scene from childhood lessons. This floating beauty is a calabas (a gourd sort, I guess that it would translate to). There were a couple of western images to see. I suppose that Nederland being the host country they felt like honouring the host by creating a beautiful and "typical" Dutch display. Here one cannot see the display for the tulips: From a distance, you can better see what I am talking about. Yes, windmill and all! There was also a Valentine scene with music and singing. Romance in any culture is a nice thing. An overview that we looked out at while we paused to have some food and something to drink. Anyone who knows anything about China (and those that do not) probably recognize this famous structure in Beijing. After making the final rounds it was time to leave and as we headed for the exit, we stopped at one place to look back and this what we sat. Perhaps the foto does not do it justice, but there at that spot at that moment--it was a magical scene. Would you like to see how it was put together? Here is a link to see that as well as some displays. LINK: http://youtu.be/bvELVLKqJUA Well....after making it back to the auto, we talked about going home and...well....we were so far south, that we COULD go back via Amsterdam, where they also had some sort of light festival. Right!--Let's do it!! We drove through the streets of Amsterdam and saw a few of the displays.They were nice, but some were pretty spectacular. There was a statue of an egg and it constantly changed colours and now and again released some steam which created quite an interesting impression. One could look down the canals and see other displays and they all used the mirror surface of the canals to reflect the displays, adding to the impression. I do not have any pics of the street displays, but I do have a link for you if you want to see a time-lapse vid of how it was set-up and how some of the displays look. It is speeded-up, but if you want to skip the the first part, just drag the little bar at the bottom of the video. LINK: http://youtu.be/PTdGrsrF-sE Well, we all got a bit of a late start on the shopping, after listening to the Light stories, I hope that it was enlightening for you as well.
Wow S, That is very colorful. How far away can you see this? I assume this is all out doors? It looks massive, but that could be an illusion, though as I see nothing to compare them to. Is it life size or huger(is this a word?) than life? Ahh, I have seen for myself. I was a little too impatient as it is taking a long time for the link to load , but I am seeing just how big they are........ s l o w l y as the video keeps loading.
OH MY WHAT A SPECTACLE!! How I wish I could have been there with you to see it all. Thankyou for taking those photographs for us as they are so beautiful. I love the fish, the tulips, the dragon .... oh heck of of them. It must have taken so many people so much time to build all the scenes but they were very, very worth the effort.
Hi CAROLYN-- Glad that you liked the piece this time. You cannot see it from very far away because of the lay of the land there. Many of the structures are indeed quite large--Larger than life. Those two vids were pretty good, weren't they? EILEEN--What a spectacle it was, indeed. Oh how nice it would have been to have you and your man with us that evening. Having you guys to talk with would have been a great diversion from the cold. hahaha.....uhmmmmm--and it would have been great to see you as well. Hahahaha I am so pleased that you liked the posting. Those vids were pretty good as well, but i do not know if your compi will let you view them. I think that these light shows may be back next year.
I loved the lights! Thank you for posting them. I haven't seen any lights like that but there are places that have giant light displays around Christmas. Some streets have all the houses and yards decorated and Santa and his sleigh and reindeer on the roof tops. They can get quite spectacular. But, it is all just lights, nothing like you posted. Those are just beautiful. dooley
Sjoerd... there are not enough "seeds" and "patches" to tell you how much I enjoyed this posting! You are an extraordinary story teller and the photos almost made me jump and down with glee. I didn't look at the links (yet) because I was just couldn't stop reading and looking. I'm going back to reread and check out the links now.
That is something that I really missed seeing, they are so beautiful. We used to have what we call floats in Malacca during the Chinese Moon Cake festival or Mid-Autumn Festival and they had almost all those figures in the photos you posted except for the windmills. These things were built onto lorries/truck and is paraded around town at night during the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration. Every year when I was little, we would have a early dinner and get a strategic spot along the route of the parade to watch the floats as they pass by. After the parade was over, our parents would bring us to have ice-cream at this coffee shop call Saturday Ice Cafe which is still in operation but is very very different. Thanks Sojerd for trigerring my memory to this wonderful part of my childhood life. Thank You!!! :-D
Glad that you liked the posting with the light, DOOLEY-- CHERYL--You just say the nicest things. I am thrilled that you liked this posting so much. It really was something to see. Hope you were able to view the vids. Thanks again, miss. Hello KK--You are welcome. You know, KK--the whole time I was there I was thinking how much you would enjoy seeing these displays. I enjoyed reading about your experiences when you were younger...and going to the ice cream place after the show was super! That must have been great!
Just beautiful Sjoerd! It's like a wonderland! I wish I had something this spectacular to visit! Thanks for sharing! I will be returning to this post to see it again.
They look better than most lanterns I saw while back in China Or maybe it's the...camera? Or maybe techniques got better in the past 10 years?
wow sjoerd! that's all i can say! WOW!!! such beautiful lights and material...great idea! aand the ceramics. awesome!
Hiya KAY--Thanks for your remarks on the posting. It really was like a fairy tale evening. A stunning display. hahaha...Thanks, CALIN. I was quite surprised how interesting that display was. Seeing it at night made them even more impressive. I have to say, that displays that were situated on the water were spectacular to see...much more impressive than the camera could capture. What a nice comment, BUNKIE--Those ceramic displays were indeed awesome. They were put together and illuminated so cleverly.
