15 Days in Scandinavia... and I thought that was a fantastic trip! Beautiful sceneries, majestic buildings, lovely animals, cool breezes, slight drizzles, weird tour member, and of course, EXPENSIVE stuff...
HC Andersen's house became a museum, showing his life as a young boy in this house. The house was really small! Hmm... thought 'ang mohs' are generally big-sized, but the house seemed fit for hobbits to live in!
11th July was a fun day for me as we visited Lego Land in Billund, Denmark. We had initially thought that Legoland was for kids, but some of the rides were quite thrilling. I thought the "Power Builder" was quite fun as we became the 'bricks' & the machine just turned and swinged us as if they were building something out of us.
There's also a 'miniature land' where famous buildings were made out of lego bricks. We can also see "Mount Rushmore", "Statue of Liberty", as well as "The White House" & "Amalienborg Palace". However, it was a rainy day today... we were wet even though we had umbrella or ponchos!
After visiting Legoland, we went to a small town in Kolding and there's this cute red house down the road where a posters exhibition was held. Out of curiosity, we stepped in to take a look. OMG! The steps were very steep and again, the house was very small!! This was supposed to be the "Old Burgher's House" and its the oldest house standing in this small town! I "stole" a lot of posters from this exhibition as I thought most of the posters were very interesting. The interior of the house was very interesting too! We took a brochure that had information about the Old Burgher's House. Very amazing....
On 12th July, everyone was dancing "ROCK & ROLL" on board the ColorLine ferry which we had to take to get from Denmark to Norway. The ferry ride was 3 hours and most of the old folks in my tour group couldn't stand the choppy waters and some vomitted, some had to shut their eyes and remain in their seats.
We finally reached Hovden, the town in Norway which we were supposed to spend the night. The hotel was so cosy and the surroundings were beautiful! I realised that the buildings in Norway were very much different from Denmark. The houses in Norway were all made of wood and they had unique 'hairstyles' on their heads! The purpose of having these grass & tress on their roof was to warm up the house during winter, and cool down during summer!
On 13th July, we travelled along the Hardranger Fjord and arrived at Bergen, the 2nd largest town in Norway. This was a UNSECO site. These buildings were built by the Germans. Strangely, Bergen was very susceptible to fires. I nearly contributed to a fire when I was trying to remove the candle on the table in the restaurant at a hotel the next day to place it beside a vase filled with plastic flowers. Luckily the fire was put out in 5 seconds... Or I could contribute to History!
Our first stop on 14th July was to visit the house of Edvard Greig -famous composer (the one who wrote Peer Gynt, as well as Piano Concerto in A Minor). After that, we took Fjord1 to discover the beauty of Sognefjord, the longest and narrowest fjord in the world! The scenery was breathtaking! Waterfalls abound! Seagulls too! I was a bit annoyed by the seagulls as they could look so harmless at one time, and then became pesky another minute by gliding and trying to snatch people's food. At times, they 'transformed' into bomber planes and start throwing 'missles'! ARGH! And every morning (when we stay in hotels near the sea), seagulls became our alarm clocks! The clouds were so low that we could just reach out and touched them! Looked like a place where immortals live (from those period dramas on Channel 8 or TVB)...
15th July marked another day of excitement as we were going to see the Briksdal Glacier!!!!! We thought it would be very cold but it wasn't. We had to take a troll car up & then walk a trail to get to the foot of the glacier. When I heard a rumble, I thought it was the thunder as it was still a rainy day... However, the rumble I heard was actually part of the glacier crumbling!! Yikes! It happened 4 times!!! OMG!! I was wondering how long this glacier will stand in front of our eyes... Global Warming is getting more & more serious... We should really do something to save the earth and protect our environment!
On our way up, there's this very majestic waterfall. The water splashed all over our faces and it was very cooling & refreshing! Think that's better than SKII! It's definitely the "REAL MIRACLE WATER". HAHAHAHA....Trolls were seen everywhere... Trolls were supposed to be kind & lucky creatures... but they were a bit too ugly! Hmmm...
We left for Oslo, the capital of Norway on 16th July. We visited the Stave Church before making our way to Oslo. The Stave Church was a unique architecture. You can only go in and visit the interior of the Stave Church when there's a funeral...
The Stave Church could only be found in the sub-urban cemetries in Norway... Its solemn yet stunning! On reaching Oslo, we had a city tour that included the City Hall of Oslo, the Vigeland Park & the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. The Vigeland Park was interesting as all the sculptures in this park was designed by Gustav Vigeland. Every sculture had to do with the different phases of life, and as Vigeland believed in "Rebirth", hence, everything was round... like "Circle of Life". The majestic piece was the "Monolith".
There were a total of 152 'individuals' that made up of this Monolith and it represented "Circle of Life". There were a few other statues surrounding this Monolith, and if we walk in the clockwise direction, it depicts a human's life as a child, to growing up, to being in a relationship & then old life. We can find gay & lesbian statues also since the Norweigians have been very liberal and respected homosexuality since 'nong nong ago'...
During our free time, we visited Hard Rock Cafe Oslo, Norway Royal Palace, The Parliament House, Oslo University, National Theatre and some shopping malls.
We reached Sweden on 17th July. The weather became exceptionally sunny after a gloomy morning in Karlstad whereby we can't make out the biggest lake in Sweden Varnm. That felt like summer man!!!
18th July marked our city tour in Stockholm. Stockholm was an interesting city. The City Hall was majestic! The nobel prize was given out in Sweden at this blue building, and usually, the gala dinner was held in City Hall! OMG!!! We walked on the steps where the royal family once walked on.... (actually, they still have a royal family). We also visited the old town & the Royal Palace... there's the change of guards parade going on and we saw a military band. The band played ABBA's song! Very nice!!!!
We didn't go into the "palace" to take a look as we need to go back onto our coach to go back to downtown where we did some shopping at NK Department Store (which is our Takashimaya equivalent). There's a pastry shop at the basement that sells nice almond tarts.
We had to rush to the harbour to board our cruise to Helsinki tonight! We're taking Mariella Viking Line and dinner was served at 5pm!! The ship left the harbour at 4.45pm... it was drizzling and after the rain, we saw rainbows!! OMG!! We saw the rainbow 5 times and one of them was a 'double rainbow'!!! Oh.... its been so long since I last saw a rainbow....
We reached Helsinki at 9.45am... Upon arrival, we went to visit the Uspenski Orthodox Church. This church was erected when the Russians were ruling Finland. The church was majestic!
We could also catch a glimpse of the Lutheran Cathedral afar... After that, we visited the Fish Market and we bought the "Fried Fish" from one of the stalls as our tour guide as this dish was only found in Finland and only during summer... it was a bit like eating Ikan Bilis, but its bigger and I think its very tasty!
Opposite the Fish Market would be the Parliament Houses, as well as the Royal Palace.
We visited Lutheran Cathedral, also known as Helsinki Church.
The church was very majestic!!! I really loved the colours and the architecture a lot! On top of the church were the statues of the 12 apostles!
The Helsinki University & Library were just beside the Lutheran Cathedral. The Senate Square was in front of the Cathedral and there's a statue of the King. In front of the Senate Square was an ice-cream kiosk that sells very nice ice-cream! Slurppppppp
We also visited the "Church in the Rock", as well as Sibelius Monument. There's this very naughty boy whose head got stuck in one of the 'tubes' of the Sibelius Monument.
After that we're free to roam about but we must make it back to the 'bridge' to the fish market by 4:30pm. We almost couldn't make it back on time because one fellow member went 'missing'... Sigh... that woman could be trouble at times... but we are back anyway!
We reached Stockholm on 20th July around 10am. Our first stop was the VASA Museum. VASA was a huge warship with elaborate carvings, but it sank the moment it went out of the harbour and they are still trying to find out why the warship sank...
After the VASA Museum, we went to the city centre to find food!! Lunch was scrumptious FISH SOUP at a place called ""Kajsas Fish" at the basement of a department store (which is opposite the blue building where the nobel prize were being presented). The Fish Soup was delicious and it costs 80SEK. Very worth it as its one big bowl and the drink (plain water) and bread & salad were free-flow!!!! Yummy!! I don't mind a second helping!
After that, we had some free time so we decided to walk back to the Old Town. We saw the Harry Potter Craze outside a bookstore in the Old Town. All of them were queueing for the Harry Potter book launch on 21st July and they were dressed as characters from the book!
We also visited IKEA but we didn't eat meatballs! haha... We bought shopping bags from IKEA instead.... hahaha.... well... I had to dump all the 'tax refund' in a hand carry luggage so that when they want to check the items, its easier for me to show them than to open my big luggage! The IKEA was huge!! and it was just opposite our hotel.
Of course the fun doesn't just end there... wait till you hear about my tour group! There's an adventure EVERYDAY!
.jpg)
