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About PushyPandaI managed to go a whole month without a single post to this blog! Now that I've proven that I can do that, I'll get back to posting regularly. I hope. It was a crazy month, and June doesn't look promising either. But half of May was crazy in a good way.
Well when I say crazy I don't mean craaaaaaazy. I just mean that it was different from normal. That's because Kooty and I went to Scandinavia for a very last-minute hastily planned holiday, just like all our other holidays.
The plan was to land in Copenhagen, go straight to Legoland in Billund and spend a couple of days there, then head out to nearby Arhus and spend a couple of days there, then fly to Oslo in Norway and spend a few days there, then overnight-bus to Stockholm in Sweden and spend several days there, and finally back to Copenhagen to spend even more days there before flying home. And we did just that, everything went according to plan.
Denmark
If you want to know about Denmark, you have the entire internet at your disposal to read up about it. What is said online is generally correct, though I'd like to dispel a few misconceptions that Danes are unfriendly, stuck up, or whatever. We were treated by the locals very warmly as if we were familiar to them, much like how pigeons in Trafalgar Square are not spooked by humans. Oh that is a very bad analogy, I'm not saying that Danes are like pigeons. Maybe I should say "much like how the geese near Churchill Park in Copenhagen are not spooked by humans". That's not good either, if I want to refer to them as birds, I should refer to ourselves as an animal too. Oh what a hole I have dug myself into.
Legoland, Billund
As I was saying, so we went first to Legoland, a land where everything is made of Lego except the trees and plants and real buildings for humans and real food for humans and real humans. Legoland is a place that is not like any other place, except maybe the Legolands in California, Germany, England, and soon in Florida and Malaysia as well. The exhibits are statues, vehicles, buildings, villages, cities, towns, castles, Star Wars scenes, world landmarks, life-sized animals, and weird offbeat scenes like three Lego people staring at a Lego ice-cream that has fallen on the floor. These are sights to behold and when you're hungry, head on down to the Old West section called Legoredo where you can have steaks, hot dogs, coffee, and The Big Chicken Menu.
Århus
Århus (pronounced like or-oos I think) is a very big small town with lots of shopping and lots of sightseeing. It's also where we had our first and second Chinese meals in Europe and I must say, we should have learned our lesson and stopped at the first. Thing is, we didn't want to keep eating bread and hot dogs but we also didn't want to spend a fortune at proper restaurants. At least the two Chinese meals were buffets, or should I say "to make things worse" instead of "at least". We are a business-friendly blog so I shall not name and shame. You know who you are, Long.
Then we took a Ryanair flight out from Arhus airport. I've only ever flown SIA all my life, and I think once on American Airlines and once on Thai Airways. Point is, I've never gone budget. Now you're thinking I'm gonna open a can of shit on Ryanair but you're wrong, it was actually a pleasant experience. Maybe we were lucky to escape without incident, seeing as how there are so many unfavourable horror stories on the net and even a few controversial news reports.
The most complained-about practice of Ryanair's is the charges for check-in baggage and the supposedly strict enforcement of carry-on baggage limits, that if you exceed the carry-on baggage weight or size limit, they will force you to check your bag and impose a hefty fine. Well, we had one grotesquely shaped bag that wouldn't fit the size limit but it was allowed onto the plane.
The flight itself was amusing. We were greeted by Gloria Estefan's Rhythm is Gonna Get You when boarding, and after take-off the pilot forgot to turn off the seatbelt sign. Then when there was turbulence, the pilot announced that he was going to turn on the seatbelt sign and then he proceeded to turn it off. And being by far the shortest flight I have ever taken, before I could finish laughing, we were landed in Oslo, the "most expensive city in the world" as described by the pilot.
Oslo, Norway
Oslo is expensive. Most things are so so expensive. A sandwich typically costs S$10, and a 500ml bottle of water S$5. Water and soft drinks are almost the same price, but beer is sometimes cheaper! But if you shop at the supermarket you can get most things cheaper than convenience stores. For our trip, Oslo had two main things going for it - food and a really happy city.
Food
Remembering some TV programs I saw on Asian Food Channel, I recalled that monkfish is really really good and you can get it in Norway, and you can also get whale meat in Norway. Let me tell you, monkfish is the meat that they eat in heaven, and whale... not quite.
Happy City 1
We had just left the monkfish restaurant when we caught sight of a balloon animal flying up into the sky, and then another one, and another one. We discovered that it was a bunch of middle eastern or maybe Mediterranean um youngish men holding onto a huge bunch of these balloons and making a lot of noise. The bahooligans or balloohigans, we called them. But they seemed nice, giving out balloons to young children whenever they walked past one.
Happy City 2
So then we were just walking on our way to this Askershus fortress in Oslo when we came upon some police horses and a police marching band, and there was a sleigh carrying at least three generations of what seemed like just a random family, and there were like a dozen more people gathered around. Soon, the horses and the band formed up and they paraded through the streets of Oslo playing pop music! It was a pretty long march around what must have been at least the entire city centre, gathering more and more people along the way, stopping traffic, and turning heads wherever we went. Finally, we got back to the starting point where we observed the members of the parade and their families starting on a barbecue. On our way out of Askershus fortress, we met an old lady who was associated with the band and she told us that they only did this once during Spring and once during Christmas. The next day, we saw the marching band at it again!
Happy City 3
So we were just walking along in the city centre looking for a toilet. Toilets are a problem in Scandinavia as they're hard to find and most public toilets require payment. Anyway, we were walking when we came to a plaza with another marching band playing but this one wasn't marching. And there was a lady dancing to the music, and it was a very graceful flowing happy dance. Looking at her, it showed me what true happiness probably is, something that comes from within. Something else was also coming from within me, and we had to leave in a hurry to look for the toilet.
From Oslo, we took an overnight bus to go to Stockholm. I stayed up for as long as I could for the 7 hour journey, hoping that the northern lights would grace the skies. But it was not to be, and expectedly so I guess because the season, location, and midnight sun made it virtually impossible to see the northern lights. There wasn't much scenery to look at either. The parts of Scandinavia that we visited this time did not have great scenery, nothing compared to New Zealand. However, the impressive sight of Stockholm soon came into view.
Stockholm, Sweden
We were excited about going to Stockholm because we had been living in virtual squalor thus far. Affordable hotels in Scandinavia are not easy to find if you want decent non-hostel conditions like a private bathroom and clean linens and towels. However, we found this quite affordable (relatively) studio apartment hotel which was very well kept and even had a kitchen, right outside the heart of Stockholm. We spent the least money in Stockholm because we ate almost all our meals in the hotel - buffet breakfast in the morning included with the room, and cheap supermarket food cooked in the comfort of the room. The city of Stockholm is also very beautiful and that is about all I can say. Oh, Stockholm is also home of the World's Largest Ikea but I found nothing much of interest there. Just the same old furniture and mundane objects, though I did like the vegetable soft toys in the kids' section. Oh and we also had a drink in the Icebar.
Copenhagen, Denmark
How time flies for we find ourselves back to where we started, in Denmark, but this time in Copenhagen. It was back to virtual squalor but one good thing was that the hotel was near the metro station, S-train station, and purportedly the largest shopping mall in Denmark. We didn't really do much in Copenhagen. The two main things we did, apart from frantic last-minute shopping for souvenirs for co-workers, was visit the town and castle featured in Shakespeare's Hamlet and have the most expensive dinner of our lives.
Hamlet
To be or not to be. That is the most famous line from the play Hamlet. It is about Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, and is set in the town of Helsingør which is called Elsinore in the play. In the play, the Prince of Denmark lives in Kronborg Castle, the Danish royal castle, in Helsingør. The ghost of Hamlet's dead father, the former King of Denmark, appears to Hamlet and reveals to him that the current King, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered Hamlet's father. And in the end everybody dies. Seriously.
Dinner
This was a six course meal at a Michelin starred restaurant, and every course, from appetizer to dessert, was like Christmas Day for the taste buds. Every aspect of each course, the taste, texture, portion size, temperature, was weighed to perfection, and the ingredients used in every dish, which included chicken hearts, snails, lamb, garfish, oyster leaves, three types of asparagus, and many others, were so varied yet complemented extremely well. I have to say this cos the meal cost 200+ of our best Singapore dollars, but it honestly was a really good food experience. The meal was described as traditional Danish cuisine re-interpreted in a modern way, or something like that. What's more, just in case the six courses are not enough, there is also a free flow of bread and very very very lovely great-tasting zesty cheese dip and butter to accompany the bread.
Soon, we were back to eating airplane food. The standard meals on SIA always come with two choices, and the other choice always seems better after you get your meal.
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Interesting Points of Interest - Photo album on [flickr].
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