Copenhagen Trip (2nd to 4th Mar)

Day 1:

Arrived in Copenhagen in the early hours of the morning after an arduous 7hr overnight bus ride... couldnt really catch much sleep throughout the journey and it certainly didnt help to be feeling cold and hungry upon arrival.. Managed to find our way to the hotel which was thankfully near to where we alighted.. the receptionist was really kind enough to help us source out a room within minutes and even invited us to the hotel breakfast which we gladly accepted.. lol.. the hotel room was quite decent.. with 4 beds for the 3 of us.. although the washroom was a shared one along the corridor..

After settling down, we went down to the hotel restaurant for a breakfast buffet.. the spread consisted of bread, pastries, ham, salami, cereals etc etc... we were quite stuffed by the time we were done.. with the stack of brochures and maps that we've gathered from the hotel lobby, we embarked on foot round the city...

First we came across the Tivoli Gardens which was just a 5 mins walk from our hotel.. This is a famous amusement park which has been opened since 1843.. Unfortunately or rather fortunately, it is closed till April.. Looking at the exterior of the amusement park, one cant help but to worry for his/her safety on board the rides.. No wonder the reviews have deemed this park as being overated...

Tivoli Gardens

Next up was the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek which is essentially an arts museum featuring the collection of works of the son of the Carlsberg Breweries.. Visited the National Museum of Denmark which is stupendously large.. with its huge collections of the various civilisations and cultures dated as early as the 17th century... i was really amazed at the layout of the museum.. its interior was basically a maze... nearly got lost inside a couple of times...

Ny Carlsberb Glyptotek:

National Museum of Denmark:

On our way to the major attractions in the city.. we came across this Danish army troops, together with its military band, marching downtown.. was kinda an eye-opener to us since we havent seen this in sweden before.. even the Ferrari Modena 360 had no choice but to give way and followed behind them.. haha...

Sometimes it's not a matter of how fast one can go...

The rest of the day was spent covering attractions like Rosenborg Castle, Amelienborg Castle, Frederiks Kirke, Rundetårn and the Den lille havfrue.. of which the highlights were the last 3 really.. Frederiks Kirke (Frederik's Church), popularly known as the Marble Church, has the largest church dome in Scandinavia... We each spent 25DKK for a tour to the top of the church.. it took us 276 steps in total to reach the top not mentioning the spiralling stairs that we had to take that made it really tedious... but everything was worth it once we reached the top where we witnessed breath-taking view of the entire city...

Rosenborg Castle with its garden

Absolutely magnificent bird's eye view!~

On our way to Rundetårn, we realised how friendly and helpful the danes were when a lady took her initiative to provide directions to 3 seemingly-lost souls on the streets.. In fact we were astonished to hear from her that there was actually a riot happening in the city at that very moment... Anyway Rundetårn (Round Tower) is essentially a tower with an astronomical observatory but the climb up the tower wasnt as tedious as that of the Frederiks since it was mainly upsloping paths up... but comparatively, the view from the Frederiks was much more magnificent than that of the Round Tower owing to the difference in height. i think..

Inside and at the top of the tower.

The Dan lille havfrue (The Little Mermaid) is sculpted based on a fairy tale about a young mermaid who is willing to give up everything to gain the love of a prince and an eternal soul. By the time we reached there, there was a crowd waiting to take pictures with it.. a pity though that the Little Mermaid had been vandalised by the rioters with pink paint..

Our evening plans were disrupted due to the ongoing riots.. only managed to visit the Planetarium which is similar to our Science Centre back in Singapore.. but the 3D shows were exhorbitant thus we decided to give it a miss and head back to our hotel for an early night rest..

Pizza buffet!!!Night scenes of the city

Day 2:

Our day started early with the hotel breakfast as usual and then proceeding back to the National Museum to cover whatever we were unable to cover the day before.. Managed to temper with our Copenhagen card which entitles us to discounts on visits to places of interest and transportation for 24hours from activation of the card.. Hee... Visited the Christiansborg Palace ruins after it suffered from 2 major fires in the 17th and 18th century... The palace now houses the Royal Reception Rooms, the Queen's Library, the audience chambers, the Sovereign in Council rooms, the Chapel, Parliament, the Supreme Court and the Prime Minister's Office. Sadly, the exterior of the building is currently undergoing refurbishment..

Christiansborg Palace and its ruins...

Boy, arnt he tall!? @^#&!

Took a train down to Roskilde, which was the formal capital of Denmark and is located on the outskirts of Copenhagen... Roskilde contains attractions like the Roskilde Cathedral, which was under renovation too during our stay, the Viking Ship Museum and the Roskilde Palace... The Roskilde Cathedral is the burial site for Danish monarchs and is a major tourist attraction attracting over 125,000 visitors annually while the Viking Ship Museum is located along the coasts of Roskilde and is the Danish national museum for ships.

Roskilde in the splendid sunset...

Sought "refuge" from the blistering cold at this petrol kiosk while waiting for our bus in the wee hours of the morning...Beautiful sunrise on our way back.

Okie.. that more or less sums up this trip.. time to start mugging for my exam next friday and then on to more travelling thereafter... On a brighter note, spring is approaching.. the snow is melting and the sun is coming out.. i can finally get to exercise and get a tan hopefully...

London Trip Part I Pics (23rd to 27th Feb)

London Cage.

UCL where justin studied. Duan, me and justin.

Convent Garden.

Duan, me, meng, jm and yong. Since when has duan become a West Ham fan?!

Chinatown.

Leicester Square.

Trafalgar Square:

Jm, meng, tiax, me, yong and duan.

Check out the spread!

Managed to catch a glimpse of Borough Market nonetheless.

Buckingham Palace.

Home of the Gunners.

Tower of London.

Tower Bridge.

The sights along River Thames.

St.Paul's Cathedral. Sadly we were not allowed to take pics inside the cathedral.

Apple puree with cinnamon and raisins crepes! ;)

Harrods:

Who can resist having a Krispy Kremes on a beautiful Monday morning? And nest i know i'm losing my tan... Nuff said! Not too bad for a European Chinatown standard.

The London Eye.

The Westminster Abbey.

The majestic Big Ben.London by night.

Belgo.

London Trip I

Day 1:
Arrived in London late on friday night... I guess my friend yz was right.. The first impression London gave me was a very familiar feeling.. perhaps cos I saw so many asians on the streets and also the familiar left-hand-drive traffic... After much navigation and back-tracking, finally managed to meet up with Justin and Duan.. Justin's doing his masters in UCL now and was really kind enough to allow me and duan to put up with him during our stay in London... Anyway the next morning we got up early for cage in London... lol.. the weather in London is really erratic, just like that in Singapore.. one moment it was fine and sunny and the next it was gloomy and rainy.. Anyhow we got to play like 3 hours of soccer under very cold and windy conditions with most of us clad in shorts and sweaters...

Headed down to Leicester Square and Covent Garden in the afternoon.. Leicester Square is a pedestrianed square where you can find a number of theatres and cinemas showing plays and movies respectively.. Many of the movie premieres are hosted here with celebrities like Keira Knightley gracing it and it supposedly contains the cinema with the largest movie screen and most number of seats.. Here you can find many half-priced ticket booths selling tickets for many of the plays such as Phantom, Les Miserables, Mama Mia and the new play Wicked..

Covent Garden, on the other hand, is a shopping district boasting many familiar brands like Zara, Topshop, MNG, FCUK etc etc.. we came across a bakery by the name of "Cornish Bakehouse" which supposedly served pretty good pastries.. me duan and meng decided to try one each while jm stuck strictly to his diet plan... It tasted really good and it cost like 1plus 2gpd each... reminds me of the chicken pies we have in singapore though.. Inside Covent Garden contained another market by the name of "Apple Market" where you can find intrinsic sourvenirs, ornaments, cookie shops, street performances etc..

Next up was Chinatown where we finally had our lunch at like 5pm... London's Chinatown resembles that in Singapore, albeit a smaller scale one... The red lanterns hung over the streets and the familiar chinese faces brings to it a very asian feeling... Decided to settle for one of the chinese restaurants under tiax recommendation.. the chinese food wasnt fantastic but at least it tasted better than those in sweden...

After our late lunch.. we took a walk down to Trafalgar Square which has become an enormously important symbolic social and political location for visitors and Londoners.. On the square, there are 4 plinths holding statues of important ppl of whom i'm not too sure.. lol... Besides the statues, there is also a huge fountain in the middle of the square...

Dinner was at Bayswater where we had authentic chinese food at a chinese restaurant.. But instead of the famous four seasons restaurant, we decided to try out another one by the name of "Magic Wok"... the food was absolutely FABULOUS! had peking duck, roasted duck, ma po tou fu etc etc... it came up to around 12gdp per pax but it was definitely worth it since it's the best chinese food i've tried in europe so far.....

Day 2:
Woke up early.. wanted to visit borough market which is a wholesale and retail food market in London.. it is one of the biggest food markets in the world selling a huge variety of food from all over the world.. But to our astonishment, we found the market CLOSED! checked with one of the policemen patrolling the area and realised that the market's not opened on Sundays... DARN! Disappointed, me, yong and jm decided to head to Buckingham Palace to witness the changing of guards whilst meng decided to go to the museum to view some WWII relics..

Buckingham Palace's the official residence of the British Monarch in London.. the change of sentry duties is supposedly a very grand ceremony which takes place daily... hundreds of visitors flock to witness this ceremony everyday.. so it was no surprise by the time we arrived there, we were surrounded by lotsa ppl.. After the ceremony, justin took us down to the Emirates Stadium.. Home of the Gunners.. even though none of us is an Arsenal fan, we were still overwhelmed by the landmark.. a pity though that there wasnt any on-going match that day if not we would have definitely headed for it..

The next stop was the Tower of London which was previously used as a fortress, royal palace and prison.. Justin should really consider moonlighting as a tour guide cos he gave us a really good background knowledge of the monuments.. we also took a walk down the River Thames where we came across the Tower Bridge, London Bridge and the Millennium Bridge leading to St Paul's Cathedral, an Anglican Cathedral dated back to the 17th century...

After heading to Harrods and found it closed (DAMN! :( ), we dropped by South Kensington for some Crepes that was highly recommended by duan, jm and meng.. Indeed, this french eatery served really sumptuous crepes, both savoury and sweet... although it was abit pricey but wth.. Photo-taking at the Big Ben, London Eye and Westminster Abbey turned out to be disastrous with the street lamps marring our pictures..

Day 3:
Day 3 morning was spent at the Harrods, marvelling at the astonishingly grand interior of the building with the disgustingly expensive merchandise.. we kinda felt that we were the most penniless threesome in the store that morning... Had a extremely hard time locating the chinese dim sum restaurant recommended by Jing.. but when we finally found it, we were contented with the quality of the food served only to be informed by tiax that it's actually the lousiest among the chinese restaurants around Chinatown @(^#&! Nonetheless we had our fill and me and jm headed down to Bond Street which contains all the upmarket merchandise like LV, Zegna, Burberry etc.. Only went there cos we needed to check out the prices of LV for Sia.. So you better be thankful dude!

Next me and jm went back to Covent Garden to do some window shopping before meeting Justin for an early dinner at a belgium restaurant.. It's called Belgo and it contains this section called 'beat the clock' in its menu from 5-630pm where we get to pay for a main course and a beer at a price corresponding to the time of our order.. cool stuff! We all had mussels and the servings were huge too.. 500g of mussels.. hahaha. Met Tiax after his class for a final round of chinese cuisine before we returned to Sweden.. As usual, the servings were humongous.. kinda value for money..

Yup.. that rounds up my London Trip Part I... there are still pretty much many places in London i have not visited so i guess i'll be back in the summer again to continue with the adventure..Anyway a big thank you to just, tiax and jing! Now on to Copenhagen in less than 5 hours time! Cya guys...