With only a few days left before we head back for Bangkok, we had the rare opportunity to take another day off for ourselves and leave the kids with their grandparents. Having been almost truly bored with Amsterdam, it was recommended that we gave Harlem a shot.

We did just that.

Harlem is a nice city. Its city center is relatively smaller than Amsterdam and on a working weekday, the crowd was not as insane as one would have encountered in Amsterdam. One thing that amazed me to no end was the sheer number of shoe stores available as every other store happens to be a….well, shoe store!

The problem was I wasn’t in need of any shoes at that point in time and so resisted in going into every shoe shops there was. I probably walked into 3 and left it at that. The good thing was, now I know where to go if I ever need an urgent pair of shoes when I’m back in Holland!

Harlem’s a pretty neat little town, though. It has got some character in there, with some quirky architecture to boot.

We saw a couple of Indonesian Restaurants in the area and decided to give one of them a go for dinner. At 24 Euros per head, if we were compare to the prices we could be getting in Indonesia, the rijstafel we ordered seemed almost extravagant just for two. The consolation was that the restaurant we went to in Harlem did serve a rather decent tasting set of dishes, and I would not think twice about going back there next time (if ever).

The two of us had a rather heavy day in Harlem, and I thought that it was almost pretty ironic that we caught a faint, but full band of rainbows while we were on the train bound for home. It was a pretty sight, as if to reassure us mere mortals that there could be a rainbow after the rain.

If you do have a day to spare whilst in Holland, I’d say Harlem is a place worth visiting for a quick day-shopping trip. It’s like a mini-Amsterdam with half the crowd, twice as relaxing and 10x as many shoes!

Here’s our one and last selfie of the trip to remind us of our exceptionally memorable time in homey Harlem.