Winter in Denmark

Decided to write this entry after much thought. Coz I've not been visiting new places in the past 2 weekends... but the scenery & weather has changed drastically in Copenhagen. Yup! imagine my surprise when last Sun, i woke up, open the blinds and realised that the scenery outside was white! yeah.... just a short span of about 8hrs, it snowed... and covered everywhere in white. it was a pretty sight to me. Coz i went home around 12 the night before after visiting my colleague. we went to Copenhagen to check out the christmas decorations and also the christmas markets.

white snow everywhere outside my apartment

I must say, copenhagen looked different with all the festive lights. We wanted to go into Tivoli. Coz i checked that Tivoli has a great christmas market... and the deco inside is really wonderful and mesmerizing. but we did not enter.... coz there was a huge queue. by the way, its not cheap to enter Tivoli... every adult has to pay 100 DKK just to enter. If u want to take the rides, u got to pay somemore.

CPH city hall... looks a little scary in the red lightings

Tivoli with the lights

Anyway, Francesca and her son and me just strolled down Støget. and we saw christmas lightings, markets etc. and lots of people doing christmas shopping. 

The start of Støget with the christmas deco

hundreds of candles being lighted up for a cancer awareness event

a christmas market in CPH

And yesterday, I visited Malmö for the 2nd time. I must say, this time i visited Malmö, the town definitely look much nicer. coz there was no fog! and the sun came out... but it was still cold. but the town really looked nice. I went to Malmö with my 3 other friends. Its been sometime since we went out together... it was nice to meet up and go out together and catch up. =D

Malmö

people with their dogs. and some of the dogs are really very unique dogs.

that's me on the bridge leading to the town center of Malmö. My friend captured this while i was going to take a picture of the scenery

that's 4 of us on the bridge

these friends of mine, unlike my Italian friend, do not bring lunch when we go out. So, we ate at a restaurant that was serving pizza. i must say the pizza was good... really good.... italian pizza. =D
After lunch was walking around and checking out the shops on the different things they were selling. most shops were selling christmasy things.... and clothes. some were cheap but most are expensive. I saw numerous nice things... but these days when i want to buy something i will always think properly if i seriously need them. if not i would just place the items back onto the shelves. hmmm.... even clothes... hahaha.... i will always think if i really need them otherwise i wouldn't buy. these days, the only places that i will purchase and have to visit on a weekly basis is the supermarkets! hahaha.... coz i need the supplies to cook my dinner + lunch. =P

group photo in the town square

ice sculpture

the shopping streets decked out with christmas deco

but I must say that Malmö is nice. at the town square, they even have lights strung into the design of reindeer and bears, penguins and igloos. really nice. my friends and i had quite a great time in Malmö. 

me & the huge lighted reindeer

more lightings behind me

Malmö at night

And today? i was holed up in my apartment... i did not get out. coz it was snowing pretty heavily the whole day.... and the winds were really strong. so i cooked korean tofu stew for dinner to keep myself warm. it was my 1st try with korean stew. and it turned out pretty good. i'll be having the same thing for lunch tomorrow!

yup! that's it for the time being. guess the next time i'll be writing will most probably be sometime end of this month or in jan. =D
Merry X'mas everyone & a Happy New Year! =D

Copenhagen the capital

Today i did quite a bit of sight-seeing. In fact I woke up pretty early this morning. Think the rain and thunder woke me up.
Anyway after taking my breakfast and cooking my lunch (fried rice without eggs. Weird that I cannot find eggs at the supermarket. Not too sure if its becoz Danish do not take eggs) I headed to school. Coz I had to meet the Post-doc whom I'll be working closely with for the next 3 years.
Our meet-up was really short.... only about 30min, then I was free... hahaha..... so headed back to my room, took my lunch, check out what are the sights in the capital and i headed out at 11.30am. So i've got about 6 hours to spare before I meet a Soka leader later tonight at 7pm.

It was a 1st for me to purchase the tickets. hahaha... i had some difficulty understanding how the system is like... luckily, its pretty similar to the ticket machine in S'pore and Japan. Just a matter of the pricing though.... hmmm... the train ticket is really not cheap. Coz from Lyngby to København H (that's the danish spelling for the capital) the price is 48 DKK (this is equivalent to SGD 10.40!!!) Really expensive! so which means that for 2 ways, it will cost me SGD 20.80!!!! scary!

My train tickets

The number of stops from Lyngby to København H

Becoz the transportation is expensive i decided to walk from 1 sight to another. So I got off at København H and started walking to Strøget, which is a little similar to the shopping district of Luzern in Switzerland. Along my walk to Strøget, I walked pass Tivoli, the most famous amusement park in Denmark. I've read that there is a huge and fantastic garden there.... hmmm... becoz I need to pay to get in, I just took a couple of pictures of Tivoli outside.

Carlsberg musem (Carlsberg is from Denmark!)

The streets

 Gardens inside Tivoli

Entrance of Tivoli

In Strøget, there are lots of shops and ancient buildings. It gives me a nice feeling. lots of tourists there too! I did not purchase anything... just walk through the streets. 

 City Hall

 1 hotel opposite City Hall

 Inside City Hall

 The Danish Ingina

Streets of Strøget

Finally I reach Nyhavn. Hmmm... Don't ask me how to pronounce it, coz i simply do not know... hahaha.... just like i thought i pronounce the town where I'm staying in (Lyngby) correctly, but apparently the Danish pronounce of the town is 'long-bu' hahaha.... anyway back to Nyhavn. U must be thinking what so great about this place... this is the icon of Copenhagen! When u flip a guide book or look up on Copenhagen, this sight of Nyhavn will greet u! 

Nyhavn

By the way, the red house below is Han Christian Andresen's house! not too sure if u know who he is, if u've read 'the snow white', 'ugly duckling' etc. u'll know who he is. Yup! Denmark is the birth place of Hans Christian Andresen!

Han Christian Andresen's house

The next place i visited was Rosenborg Castle. To visit it, I had to walked through the King's Garden. hahaha.... nothing much... just that the castle was built by the royal family in 1606. To enter the castle premises gotta pay. As i did not want to spend unnecessary money, I just walked around the castle and left. 

 Rosenborg Castle

One of the entrances to Rosenborg Castle

Moat surrounding the castle

Seeing that I still got time, I decided to walk to the Langelinie to pay a visit the the famous Little Mermaid! hahaha.... as I walked there, I passed by some very interesting houses that were painted yellow. Hmmm.... they are interesting to me... but not so sure about u. I think people live in those houses....and the houses even have chimneys on the roofs. 

 Rows of yellow houses

Close up shot of the yellow houses. can u see the chimneys on the roof??

Finally I reached the Little Mermaid! hahaha... nothing much, just a bronze statue. hmmm... maybe because i cannot appreciate it. But looking her up on wiki, its mentioned that Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg, had it commissioned in 1906. and the mermaid was sculpt using 2 models - 1 a ballerina the other the sculptor's wife. The bronze statue was only revealed in 1913. 

The Little mermaid

 Close up view of her

Another angle of her

After snapping a few pictures of the mermaid, i headed back to Lyngby (long-bu). gotta cook my dinner + tomorrow's lunch then after that will be heading out to attend the monthly Danish Zadankai! hahaha... can't wait for it! =D

Hmm... maybe the next entry will not be so soon.. as I'll be shifting to my real apartment on sat. till then! =D