About a trip to the far side of the world

It didn't take us long to decide where we wanted to travel, when we were planning on where to head to for the June holidays.

Of course, exotic places like Barcelona and Moscow came to mind, but when we checked the availability of the flights, they were already fully booked, and that gave us no chance.

Looking at the world map, we figured that travelling half a world away, to Scandinavia, should be just as good. After all, Singapore Airlines flies to Denmark's capital city, Copenhagen, thrice weekly. And thank God, we managed to secure 2 seats for ourselves on the plane.

But the real reason was that Copenhagen is but a launching pad for our foray into the majestic fjords of neighbouring Norway. We'd read about it and seen pictures in books, but nothing beats seeing them with your own eyes.




The plane trip took a tiring 11.5 hours. We were glad to set our feet on firm ground, here at Copenhagen's Kastrup International Airport.






Here's a main town square, right in the city centre.








We stayed at a youth hostel, called Danhostel Copenhagen Amager. It's very simple to book your accomodation abroad. Any good travel guides will recommend a few decent hostels, so just pick one, and make the booking on its website with a credit card.





Breakfast cost us 45 Danish kroner, which is equivalent to about 15 dollars. And what do you get for that amount of money?



Very exciting, isn't it. I think we've never eaten so much bread in our lives, just to fill our gnawing hunger.

We knew how expensive Denmark and Norway would be, and spending a week there has reminded me soberly that prices in Singapore for almost all products and services are definitely much more affordable than Europe.




At the same time, there was a group of students who stayed at the hostel as well, and here's some of them having breakfast with us.






Anyway, the summer weather was blisteringly hot. This is the picture of the Copenhagen sky - complete sunshine, without any clouds at all.




Here's a picture of our room in the youth hostel. It's a double room, meant for 2 persons. Of course, they have 4-bed rooms, 6-bed rooms and even 8-bed ones, which are of course much cheaper. This room is very comfortable and is good enough for us. All we needed was a roof over our head with a decent shower!



As we roamed along the streets of Copenhagen, we managed to speak to a few people and we were delighted to know that the Danish people speak very clear English.




This is Monica and her son, Elmo. She had just returned from the market and was busy arranging some of her newly bought plants to decorate her new home that you see in the picture.

We stopped for lunch at a Danish eatery. A trip to another country would be incomplete without tasting some local delicacy, correct. We looked at the menu and all we saw were sandwiches and more bread!




By then we were pining for some proper Singapore food, and we missed chilli! We ordered a sandwich and a fish, and that cost us 180 DKK (Danish kroner), which is about 50 Singapore dollars. Uh huh. That's why we didn't bother to order any drinks!



Before we left we took a picture with the waitresses.



The next day, we were due to leave for Oslo, the capital city of Norway. Instead of taking the plane, I actually booked an overnight cruise ship.




Before we checked in at the cruise centre, we had to pay a visit to the beautiful mermaid. Some say that this is the symbol of Copenhagen.

Hundreds of years ago, sailors passing by would confess their sins to this mermaid and it would make them feel better.

You might have read a really good book called the Mermaid. I've read it before, and it's quite tragic.





Here's a picture of a boy we met at the youth hostel. He's absolutely adorable.



After spending a day in Copenhagen, we moved on to Oslo. That's where the journey really began. But I'll save that for the next post.