Copenhagen Day 2-21st March 2008

Woke up rather early at 730 am to get ready to check-out. It was a long and tiring day for us. The reception didn't allow us to store our luggage with them so we had to carry it with us or store it at the train station for a sum of money. Kim wanted to store it but I felt it wasn't worth the penny. Eventually, we didn't store it because we didn't have enough time. We continued on that "incomplete" walking tour of ours the day before. Apparently, we had missed out a few sights. We walked along the largest shopping street in Europe, Storget (they claim it, we don't know.) but there wasn't any shopping for us AT ALL. Like I said, it was a dead city due to the easter break.

Storget-Largest Shopping Street

National theatre-All these European countries have nice national theatres. That explains why Singapore had to build Esplanade! haha.. Instead, we headed for the canal boat tours. The weather wasn't too good and the weather forecast stated-probability of a snowstorm. Fortunately, it was just heavy rain.

We were pretty lucky because we went on the 1st tour for the day so we kind of like had a private and exclusive guide to the 2 of us since we were the only people on the boat. hahaa... The guide went a great extent into the history of Denmark and the war with Sweden, control of Norway etc. It provided a lot of insights and furthered my knowledge on Scandinavia history. hahaha.. We passed by all major attractions including the Little Mermaid once again. Btw, the tour started at the Nyhavn Harbour and it was through the guide that I got the story in my previous post.

Nyhavn harbour-The symbol

Some interesting facts- The Dutch were a rather prominent force in Europe back in the 17th-18th Century with the East India Company controlling major trade routes. Apparently, housing was so expensive that the government actually charged taxes per house according to the no. of windows that face the streets. Apparently, it was the fashion to have a lot of windows facing the streets as a symbol f beauty. So because of this rule, people started to build long houses with as few windows facing the streets as possible. *Hilarious* Headed next to Rosemborg Palace next to view the jewels and treasury and also the change of guards. We had 45 minutes to do the gallery of the Palace and it was really a quick one. Anyway, it's just 3 state rooms and a treasury. What I like most OF COURSE is the treasury! Millions of jewels, crowns, jewellery... I am contented to have just one piece honestly.. Sadly, no photography so can't tell you guys which piece is my dream one... haha..However, I secretly took a few photos in other state rooms when the guard was "sleeping".. hehe..

Can I have one of those swords?Bits-There was this guard on duty. He's rather cute so I suggested to take a picture with him and he agreed. But when Kim moved towards him and wanted to pose, he was super stern and told her,"Stand 1.5 metres away from me." Kim was so shocked so she quietly moved away then he softened and suggested 1m will do. Both of us were like "OMG" what's up with these guards? Further, you can't be outside his vision. A lady who tried to walk behind him to take a shortcut was stopped by him and ORDERED to stay within his sight. INSANE?

One-metre apart

Next comes the highlight and the most hilarious story ever! The change of guards starts from Rosenborg Palace and ends at the Amalienborg Palace and the approximate distance is probably a 20-minute walk. The boat tour guide told us that the change of guards is grand and he sounded as though it was measurable to that at the Buckingham Palace with the music and band playing, tourists following behind the guards and policeman opening the way for them. He told stories of his friend being a royal guard and the height limit being 190cm so Kim & I were totally excited about seeing those tall, cute MAN-IN-UNIFORM.

The leading guard is CUTE..(",)Watch the video on change of guards..

When we left the treasury, it was 11:27 on my watch. We saw the guards getting ready so we thought "why not pee first since toilet's free and you need to pay almost everywhere else." But when we were out from the toilet at 11:30 sharp, those guards had left! We panicked because we were supposed to follow them to the other palace and our plans had been thwarted. Unfortunately I would say, we saw them from another end of the castle and realised if we take a short-cut by cutting through the garden, we would be able to catch up with them so we started to WALK real fast and eventually started running after them with our backpacks. HILARIOUS. When we FINALLY caught up with them, it was the biggest disappointment. No 190cm tall hunks or big band playing. It was just a contingent of probably 12 guards marching through the city centre with the cars and pedestrians whizzing past them. We even caught sight of one or two short and with a belly guards. So much so for 190cm! To make things worst, there was just ONE policeman following them and a bunch of tourists like us trying to keep up with their pace. What a disappointment...... Moral of the STORY: Never trust a TOUR GUIDE! Next destination-Kronborg Castle. If you are a Shakespeare Fanatic, you should know the castle. Yup, indeed it's the castle where the play, Hamlet is based upon. According to sources, Shakespeare got his inspiration for the play from the castle and that Hamlet could have really existed in Danish history. But I don't know how true is that.

Castle from afar!

Does it look eerie enough?Castle RiverThe Surroundings

The castle wasn't exactly in Copenhagen. It's in Helsingorg, the border between Sweden and Denmark. It's confusing. Helsingorg is in Denmark but Helsingborg is in Sweden. It's in fact very near to Lund & Malmo too. :)

Anyway, we took the train there by ourselves, took us around 45 minutes and we had to walk through some construction ground before we finally reached the castle's footsteps. Beautiful castle from afar but as you near it, the spooky feeling all castles have start to run through your body. haha... There it was, the 3rd unfortunate thing happened. We were doing a guided tour at the basement of the castle and it was pretty DARK. As I proceeded through one of the walkways, I actually miss this huge wall in front of me and knocked straight into it. I guess the impact was rather huge and my contact lens actually flew out from my eyes. GOSH! Imagine me kneeling in a half pitch-dark underground looking for my contact lens with half an eye blind. I didn't even have any torch light so I started to use my camera light, my handphone and anything that provided me light to search for it. Thank god I found it otherwise I won't be happily blogging here right now because I would be fretting over how to get my lens done and shipped over. :) The knock ruined my tour because though I managed to find my lens back, I couldn't concentrate. I had to keep the lens in between my thumb and index finger and make sure I don't drop it because the underground was really dry and the stubborn lens refuse to sit onto my eyeballs.

The Royal Guard of Kronborg castle-It was legend that he was the symbol of the Castle. He had fought hard to protect the castle.

Inside the State Apartments

The Grand Hall!

A small room in the Castle where kids could stay and play with LEGO and draw their image of what they think the Princes, Princesses or Queens should look like.

Honestly, if you ain't a huge fan of Hamlet or Shakespeare, I won't encourage you to travel to Kronborg. It isn't that worth it. Anyway, we left shortly after I sorted out my lenses and visited the state apartments and chapel. Guess the next destination? PIZZA BUFFET! We saw this restaurant serving pizza buffet for 55 Danish Kroners (approx. S$17/-) so we couldn't resist it. I've to say this-try not to eat too full when you travel because you get tired and you don't feel like moving. We were supposed to head to the western part of the city but I guess we were too tired plus it was raining so it was UNEXCEPTIONALLY COLD! By nightfall, we went to the former red light district for a quick glance before we got ready for our bus trip to Amsterdam. Well, disaster stroke ONCE AGAIN because there wasn't a proper bus station in Copenhagen. Instead, it was just some temporary bus terminal with no shelters and proper signs. Several Eurolines buses started gathering at the station but we completely have no idea which was ours? We started pacing up and down in the rain inquiring on the bus to take. When we finally found the right one, the bus driver (most prob. a German) told us we only had the pass and not the tickets so we weren't allowed to board. WTH! We completely had no idea and clue how to get the tickets because that was our first journey and there wasn't precise instructions on how to get the tickets when we booked the pass online... But quoting Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well, another KIND bus driver let us on and said he will settle our tickets when we reach Hamburg to transit to Amsterdam..

Goodbye Copenhagen, Hello Amsterdam!

Copenhagen Day 1-20th March 2008

Departure: 09:10 am Stockholm Arlanda Airport
Destination: Copenhagen, Denmark

It was a bad start to the trip. First, we forgot to check which terminal we are flying from because we were so used to flying out from Skavasta, which apparently only has one terminal. We were already behind time and we went to the wrong terminal. Eventually we had to walk all the way to the right terminal. Second, our flight was delayed by half an hour due to some snow storm in Copenhagen the previous night and the snow on the ground could not be cleared in time. Third, because of the freaking delay, we had to wait and I lost my GLOVES. I guess I left it at the seats and forgot about it when I left. Now, you must be thinking-what's the link between the flight delay and losing my gloves? If the flight hadn't been delayed, we wouldn't have sat at those benches and I wouldn't have taken out my gloves to play with them. hahaha...

Upon arrival at the Copenhagen airport, everything was CHOP! There isn't any security or immigration to clear at all. That's the best thing about the EU. Travel within the EU countries is free of immigration checks :) We quickly checked out the tickets to the city and *phew off we were in the City in 20 minutes.

First destination: Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. It's the most famous amusement park in Denmark but sadly, we didn't manage to get in because it's closed for winter. If we had been there in Summer, it would be bubbling with tourists and Danish alike! There's the famous G-Fall there which I am really tempted to try! But all I could do was to watch it from afar. :(

Tivoli Gardens

Another Artistic Shot which we never fail to attempt

Settled into the hostel asap and off we go to get our lunch!! We had typical Danish lunch-they call it Smod-Bread. It's a special type of brown wheat bread and you can choose the filling you want-chicken, pork, fish, beef etc.. The food all these Europeans eat are always cold and I think Asians will never like it but fortunately, Kim & me are westernized already so we both gave THUMBS up for the food.... However, the cafe we went to didn't have proper seats for its patrons so ended up both of us sit along benches on the road to have our meal. The ironic thing is we were sitting in front of their Tower of Freedom yet we didn't realise it until the very next day.!

Tower of Freedom

As it was Good Friday the next day, the city was rather dead. Most of the shops were closed except for the supermarkets and tourist attractions. We couldn't shop much either but anyway, I doubt we will buy much stuff from Copenhagen. The items sold are more or less similar to Stockholm but much more pricey..

Initially, we wanted to rent a bicycle and cycle round the city because it was pretty flat on the whole but all the rental shops were CLOSED! So we ended up doing a designated walking tour proposed by the tourist office... It wasn't too bad... We completed the tour in 5 hours instead of the stipulated 3 hours. hahaha.. I have to explain why. It wasn't because we lost our way but both of us are addicted to taking photos and we wasted a lot of time on that. Plus, Kim's fav is to do jumpshots which apparently requires more than one attempt to capture a good one. :)

Major sights on our tour included the Carlsberg Brewery Museum, Round Tower, Amalienborg Palace, Rosemborg Palace & Gardens, Little Mermaid, City Hall, National Theatre, their university, Nyhavn Harbour, Stroget Shopping Street.

I won't go into every single detail of the places because that will take me a long time but just share some funny stories here and there.

The round tower is seriously much lower compared to the Stockholm one. But it's cool in the sense it's spiral walkway up the tower all the way. haha.. Along the way, Kim and i started making spastic shots like pretending to dance, hiding in the holes between the walls, doing emo photo shots... All just for fun.... The view wasn't too bad but I have to say Stockholm has a more scenic view... Catch the photos...

The Dead City

Kim says I look like an Eskimo?

Spastic "refuse to take photo" shot

Dancing ?

Let the photos do the talking.....View of the City...

I like this photo! Finally we had the inspiration for a different pose!!

In the Round tower, we came across an exhibition about Christianity and some of the art pieces were apparently done by physically challenged kids... Amazing... I don't know the term coined for such art works. Anyone can suggest?

I like the words a lot... Meaningful..
It reads-Love your neighbour as you love yourself :)

In Rosemborg Gardens....

Nyhavn Harbour

The story of the Nyhavn Harbour is as follow... The Danish were a powerful force in Europe in the 16th century, often engaged in wars with the Swedes. The Nyhavn harbour was the busiest port in Denmark and it used to be a red-light district since sailors dominated the harbour and if you ain't a sailor, you don't have much of a say at the place. It was populated with cafes, night-clubs and the famous fairytale author, Hans Christian Anderson used to have an apartment there. If you guys don't know who's H.C Anderson, FYI, he's the author of the little matchstick girl.... I don't know what's the exact title of that book either... whaahhaa... The harbour was dug out by Swedish POWs to be operated as a trading port but today, its function has ceased.

Little Mermaid!

Candid shot.. the person who took this photo wasn't very impressed by our pose.. haha

I associate this shot as happiness....

We didn't do much on the first day of the trip, basically just spend our time exploring the city, fish out the best eateries and familiarise ourselves with the surroundings.... Plus, it was rainy by evening and it even started snowing at night.... Despite the snow, both of us went for the famous ice-cream in Copenhagen. We walked 20 minutes to get to this highly recommended ice-cream place called Paradis. Actually there are other outlets nearby but apparently, the one that we went was voted the BEST! We each ZAM 3 BIG SCOOPS of the ice-cream as our dinner.... It started snowing heavily and ended up we seek refuge at a nearby mcdonalds... End of our first day as we get back to our hostel, bathe and prepare for a activity-filled tomorrow...