Anyway in this entry, I'll be introducting some of the activities that I had been up to the past 1 month in my weekends here.
Sometime early Feb (in fact it was the 1st or 2nd sat of Feb) was the Chinese New Year (CNY). But there was some kind of mini CNY celebration here in the CPH city hall building. So i went there with my French friend, Solène. It was a pretty new experience for me & Solène. Hmmm.... i think more so for Solène coz everything was new for her. Hmmmm I think i'm her 1st Chinese friend.....
Anyway the entire event was organised by the Danish Chinese society or embassy and some Danish govt group. they had quite a number of performances and also had some free food. like 饺子(jiao zi) and beer and some chinese sweets. So it was pretty gd. there was also dragon dance performance. I mean it was interesting... coz the chinese perform in the cold wintery weather in front of the city hall building. by the way, that day was snowing pretty heavily too!
Dragon dance in the cold winter. Right in front of the city hall building
Lots of people in the city hall. Waiting to watch the performance
One of the dance performance that was being put up
We thought we may probably be there for a short while. But in the end we were there for the whole celebration. hahaha..... after that we headed to Solene's place for some cake and tea. She stays in Nørrebro, so it was a short walk from the city centre to her place.
The lake that you must cross to get from Nørreport to Nørrebro
Then after that, i could not bike as freely as I wanted. Coz after that the next couple of weekends were snowing or the winds were just too strong. But i remebered that 2 wkends after the CNY celebration, i biked to Nørdhavn, where the kaikan was. I know... it was crazy of me...but i wanted to try out how far it was.... and i must say... its far for a 1st timer like me. 11.6km was indeed far... it took me about 1hr 15min to get there for the 1st time. but getting back was a little faster, it took me 1hr.
following weekend, I biked to Charlottenlund. Hmm.... i had wanted to visit Charlottenlund, coz looking at the photos on the internet, it looked like a pretty picturesque place. It started out with sun in the skies, but by the time i reached Charlottenlund, the clouds came in and wind struck! hiaz... u can never figure out the weather change in Denmark!
But I must say, Charlottenlund is a nice place. Its about 6km from my place.... and its near to the sea. Although it was a windy and cloudy day, there were quite a number of danes out walking along the beach. parents with strollers, people running, walking their dogs etc. and one thing of notice in Charlottenlund is the Charlottenlund Slot (the castle). hmmm.... not as majestic as Fredericksborg slot or Kronbog, but its still nice... I mean it standing in the center of the park.....
Charlottenlund slot
Path from the castle to the beach
From there, u can walk on the path that leads to the beach. I even climbed up the tiny hill that was previously the Charlottenlund fort. After strolling a little on the beach, i decided to head to Ikea. It was about 5km from Charlottenlund. By now, I've gotten use to biking in the cold now. Hmmm... just when I left Charlottenlund, the skies opened up, and down came hailstones and snow and rain! I just can't wait to get to Ikea quickly.
Some colourful houses at the beach
A mini moat that separated the fort from the beach. its all frozen up!
Nice view from the fort
Beach and the factories + port in the far north
Another place that I visited and biked around was the Lyngby Sø (Lyngby Lake). Hmmm... from my place to Lyngby central, there are roads that I take often... but there was also another longer route to the town center. And I tried it... and i must say.... i was treated to pretty nice sceneries! Its a pity that the quite a bit of the lake was still frozen.... I think it must be really nice in spring, summer and autumn. I'll probably go there again when the weather becomes warmer. =D
Catails waving in the winds and part of the lake was frozen up
Swans and ducks in the lake! amazing that they don't feel the cold! Brrrr.....
Lyngby Sø
Boats docked in the lake. Guess the Danes will use them more in summer
For several weekends, I had not meet up my friends for dinner. So just 2 weekends ago, I had dinner with Haseena, Ritika & Solene at the Persian restaurant, Zafran. Its my second time there... same for Ritika & Haseena. But the 1st for Solene. According to Haseena, they serve pretty authentic Persian food. And its good and the portion is big, so i guess its worth eating there... but seriously, the food is good.
If u want u can visit Zafran restaurant that is in Nørrebro.
The address:
Blågårdsgade 9B, 220 København N
That's Solene & Ritika in the restaurant. We were waiting for our food to arrive!
Me & Haseena. Trust me, we were smiling but our stomaches were growling... hahaha
Group photo with our dinner
After that Haseena had wanted to try out the 'Sheeshama'...hmmm... its the long turkish pipes u know? so we were walking around and couldn'y find it. Even headed to Solene's apartment to check it and finally we went into a eatry and ask. then realised that there were none there... they were in Nørreport! hahaha... so in the end, we made our way to a restaurant + bar to have cocktails. I had a brazilan cocktail. It was really good, very fruity.
Then on Sunday, Solene came to my place. I made 'Mee Hoon kuey'. Goodness! It taste like home! hahaha.... think i was subconciously craving for it... it was Solene's 1st time eating it. She liked it too! hahaha... so its gd. (goodness self praising!) After our lunch, we biked to Dyrehaven. It is on the east side of my place. This is where the Klampenborg Deer park is!
My goodness! it was a really windy day despite the strong sun! and we really biked around quite a bit. Initially the both of us thought we'll just biked to the castle that was standing in the center of the park... we never thought that the distance was so short. So after viewing the castle from outside, we biked to Rådvad! its my 2nd time there.... we headed to the sea also... by the time we reached the sea, our fingers and toes were pratically frozen despite the numerous layers of protection we had put on. It was just too windy a day!
Eremitage Slot. It was undergoing some reconstruction
Road leading to 'somewhere' but definitely not to Windsor. hahaha
The sea! the waves were rolling in under the ministrations of the strong winds!
Danish flag flapping wildly in the strong winds
Deers in Dyrehaven
A 'scary' looking tree that reminds me of Sleepy Hollow.
Road that leads home from Dyrehaven
After that we circled the park before heading to my place where Solene can put on her biking gear to head back to Copenhagen.
And the recent weekend, I was busy again! hahaha... so many activities keeping me occupied huh.... coz on sat there was a commemorative meeting for 3.16! yup! SGI-Denmark had a pretty big meeting in the kaikan! I was there and met my gakkai friends. In fact I also wrote a letter to Sensei and another letter together with Renna for the upcoming SD kenshu in Singapore. So yeah... late last weekend i was a trifle occupied. But its good.
This time I also biked to the kaikan! it took me about 55min to reach there! I'm really improving! hahaha.... and when i biked home, it was even shorter, took me about 45min! coz my friend, Keito is coming down from Sweden to visit me! I was not sure what time she would reach, so it was better that i get home as soon as possible after the meeting. But in the end, she arrived around 8pm. But she was a little sick... and it was only 3 days later that we got to know she was suffering from food posioning. she kept thinking she was suffering from hang over. hahaha.... and amazing thing was we even went to Hillerød the next day to visit Fredericksborg slot. We only walked a little coz Keito told me that her stomach was not feeling good. After that we headed to CPH central where she took the train back to Sweden. I felt sorry for her. Coz the 2 times she was in CPH, she did not have any good experiences at all. I told her, CPH is not that exciting a city.... so maybe for the next 6 months, she don't need to visit CPH anymore. hahaha....
Fredericksborg slot
The garden covered with snow. Looks different in winter huh....
anyway these are so much for now! guess the next time i write will be after Easter. Coz i'm heading to Stockholm during the easter break! i'm now counting down the days! hahhaa =D
