Saturday - Get inked in Amsterdam!

To all those ink lovers out there, some of them good friends of mine: this is your weekend!

The Amsterdam Tattoo Convention in on today and tomorrow at the RAI and, apart from dozens of tatoo artists' stands, offers a wide range of activities such as a "Letters and tribal competition", burlesque shows, live music and the peculiarly Dutch contest "best tattooed wooden shoe".

http://amsterdam.tattooexpo.eu

Friday - Anime festival Den Haag

Who doesn't like a bit of fancy dressing, (video) gaming and karaoke on TV cartoons' music?

Most Japanese people of all ages certainly love it and their passion has spread all over the world

This weekend cosplay, manga music, gaming and all the cool (and cringeworthy) aspects of this culture will be exhibited at the World Forum in Den Haag.

On Saturday night: live concert from a Japanese band who compose and perform soundtracks for anime, which has become a musical genre in its own rights.


http://www.animecon.nl/home

Thursday - Pimp my Willem

This statue of Willem van Oranje which can be admired outside the Noordeinde palace in Den Haag, has been embellished with some ties lately.

His ruff was so 1565!

http://historie.hdpnet.nl/stb02.htm

Wednesday - Cherish your ugly cucumber

Kromkommer is basically a project to promote pride in growing, eating and buying bizarrely shaped fruit and vegetables that would normally be discarded.

According to recent reports, almost 2 bn tons of food are going to waste every year and in NL alone 2 to 2.4 billion Euro of food end up in the dump.

5 to 10% of veggies are thrown away because of their "looks".

The good people from Kromkommer are working to get more restaurants, supermarket and markets to sell and use not-so-pretty vegetables and avoid useless spillage.

http://kromkommer.wordpress.com

Tuesday - My way or the (bike) highway

I noticed some of these freshly painted signs on the bike paths lately, so I looked it up.

It seems that a system of "highways for bicycles" is being built all over South Holland.

The idea is to encourage even more the use of two wheelers, not just for recreational purposes but especially as a preferred transport mode in every day life, given the progressive clogging up of roads and train connections.

Next step, given the weather, to really make the bike queen of road should be to build a cover on the fietspads or dig them underground maybe...

http://www.zuid-holland.nl/snelfietsroutesdenhaagleiden

Monday - Fifty shades of pink

There may not be a pink Barbie house as they have in Berlin, but at least in the village of Wier in Friesland, there is a pink church!

Apparently a painter chose different shades of pink for the walls and furniture while renovating in the Fifties and the parishioners got to like it so much that they have opposed the change of colour ever since.

http://www.wierfryslan.nl/index%20kerk.htm
(website in Frisian)

Sunday - Kiss and ride

K+R (=Kiss and ride) is not a new shocking game developed by teenagers during a party that went out of hand, but a very short term parking area outside train stations and airport meaning that you can drop your passenger/s, wave them goodbye and walk them to the entrance without risking a fine.