Saturday, Sept 7,
2013 – Stockholm
After missing out on a Jie-Mei Scandinavia trip last year
due to Mei’s temporary relocation to Beijing, the two sisters were finally
reunited in the Northern European land of Vikings, cured fish and “the Little
Mermaid”….
Mei: I arrived in
Stockholm on Saturday morning after sitting through a 12-hour flight with a
broken entertainment system. I was
bedraggled, bleary-eyed and cursed with inflated ankles – nonetheless, I could
barely contain my excitement as soon as the plane landed. Upon taking the airport
express train to T-Central, followed by a few stops on the Tunnelbana (Swedish
subway system), it was a straightforward walk to the McDonald’s outside the
Fridhemsplan T-banna station, where I met Jie, who had been in Stockholm all
week for a conference.
A city built on water
After taking a shower at Jie’s hostel, STF Fridhemsplan, we
hurried over to City Hall to catch the canal tour, which departs daily at 10:30
a.m. The ‘canal’ tour was more like a tour on a huge lake – whereas I was
expecting small waterways similar to what you’d see in Venice, Stockholm’s
canals are actually huge bodies of water. We got a chance to see several
beautiful yachts (apparently 1/3 of the population owns a boat!) and had a
relaxing boat ride, basking in the gorgeous fall sunshine. Stockholm is definitely
a city built on water! We then proceeded to Stockholm’s T-Central station to
pick up Tien’s Stockholm card and had a really expensive (but delicious)
sandwich at Espresso House (http://www.espressohouse.se/), a café that is as
ubiquitous in Sweden as Starbucks is in the U.S. I quickly realized that
everything in Scandinavia is almost shockingly expensive, even compared to
Singapore!
Our next stop was the Vasa museum, which houses a fully
salvaged Viking ship that tragically sank on its maiden voyage. The only
impressive part about this story was that the ship was lifted up from the water
and restored to its original state.
Vasa museum
After the brief tour of the museum (which
essentially consisted of admiring the big, old sunken ship), we made our way
over to where the biking tour was taking place, but realized when we arrived,
that the bike rental shop had moved, so we had to take a very expensive taxi to
get to the correct location in time. The biking tour turned out to be awesome,
though!! We biked through Djurgården, one of the islands in Stockholm which
houses the most number of museums. Sights we passed by on the island included
the Vasa museum, Junibacken (children’s museum inspired by Astrid Lindgren’s
work) and Rosendals Trädgård café. Along the way, Jie acquired a flat bike tire
(what is a biking trip with Jie without a biking fiascos?!) but luckily, our
adorable Swedish bike guide was prepared and changed her tire with the help of
a few energetic male tour participants.
Jie and her faulty bike
During our biking tour, we also saw the
10 km women’s run (Tjejmilen) which is an annual tradition in Sweden. After the
tour, we had dinner at Gamla Stan, the old town, where we had a delicious meal
of Swedish meatballs and thick cut French fries.
Swedish meatballs (not only in Ikea!)
Sunday, Sept 8, 2013
– Stockholm – Birka Viking tour
The next day, we headed down to the hotel lobby, where we
had a free breakfast, thanks to Tien’s abundant supply of breakfast vouchers. I
had heard endless things about a bakery called Xoko, where the chef is known to
make desserts for Nobel prize winners at their annual dinner, so I was adamant
to visit and try some of their pastries. We walked over to Xoko to pick up a
pastry and sandwiches for the Viking tour.
Xoko bakery
We then boarded the ship to Birka
(pronounced “Beer-ka), a UNESCO world heritage site and where many Vikings are
buried. The boat trip to the island took almost 2 hours, and passed by endless
stretches of gorgeous blue water. The best part of the tour was our towering
guide with flowing blond hair, who was was dressed as a Viking, apart from his
black Nikes because “his Viking shoes were under repair.” During his
introduction on the boat, he “highly,
highly, highly recommended the English tour on the island” – we realized
later that he was the one who was actually giving the tour!! On the island, our
Viking guide began by asking us what we pictured when we thought of Vikings. A
hat with horns immediately came to our minds, but he vehemently corrected us
and said that Hollywood completely misrepresented the Vikings, who were in
essence just men with sea-faring occupations in Scandinavia. He then proceeded
to pull out a horn and admitted that although they did in fact drink water from
these horns, in no way would they mount them on their hats. We then walked
through Birka, which was quite beautiful but had not much else except for
rolling hills and a few stray sheep. We found a spot on a mountain which
overlooked the waterfront and munched on our sandwiches while admiring the
ocean view.
Viking guide
After we came back to the city, we stopped by City Hall to
admire where Nobel peace prize winners go after they win their awards and also
to see the beautiful water view from the building. For dinner, we went to eat
at Herman’s (http://gastrogate.com/restaurang/hermans/), a cute vegetarian
buffet restaurant that Mei found online. The view was spectacular and the
buffet selection was delicious, filled with fresh veggies and
Mediterranean-inspired food.
Monday, Sept 9 2013:
Exploring Old Town, Copenhagen
Today was the day we were leaving Stockholm for Copenhagen!!
We got up bright and early to go to the Arlanda airport to catch our 8 am
flight to Copenhagen. However, we ended up sitting on the tarmac for an extra
hour, because apparently a passenger was searching for a dog, which could not
be found. We didn’t need to use our passports, as we were traveling within the
Schengen countries. This was great! Another great thing about Norwegian
airlines was that we had free wifi on board! After we arrived in Copenhagen, we
took a regional train to our hotel, which was only 2 stops away. Our hotel was
called the Cabinn Metro (www.cabinn.com/kbh/metro/metro.html), a budget hotel
that was located in Orestad, next to Field’s, an American style mall. Our room
was EXTREMELY small and reminded us of rooms on a ship. We even had bunk beds
and a tiny toilet, which doubled as a shower room. The Danish are ingenious
about working with small spaces! The faucet in the sink could even control
whether the water came out into the sink or from the shower. There was a
curtain that could wrap around the shower head and prevent pretty much
everything from getting wet (except for the toilet paper).
Our first stop in Copenhagen was to see the Church of our
Savoir (http://www.vorfrelserskirke.dk/), but we got there too late after
eating our lunch at Lagkagehuset bakery, so we wandered into the old town
instead and walked around Kongens Nytorv, an area with cute shops and cafes,
which Tien’s co-worker’s friend recommended we visit. For dinner, we ate at
Mother’s (http://mother.dk/), a pizza place in the meatpacking district. It was
really cozy inside, and the warmth was particularly welcome on a cold and
drizzly evening. Our favorite dish was the special salad of the day, which had
juicy marinated peppers and fried goat cheese. Copenhagen is all about design –
many stores were filled with household design pieces. I became obsessed with
wine goblets I saw from Normann (http://www.normann-copenhagen.com/Products/Liqueur-Glass?v=120950)
and decided I had to buy one to bring home.
Strawberry cupcake from Lagkagehuset bakery
Mother's pizza
Norman's cups
Teatime at Perch's tea room
After getting breakfast pastries at Bilka One-stop (the
Walmart-equivalent in the mall next to our hotel), we got on the train to go to
the birthplace of HC Andersen in a town called Odense. We couldn’t figure out
how to purchase the train tickets in advance, so we ended up having to buy a
ticket on board from the station agent. Luckily, the station agent was quite
understanding and didn’t charge us a fine. Once we got to Odense, there was
very little signage to tell where the attractions were, but the town was small
and quaint, so we walked around and stumbled across a cute park/garden which
housed the H.C. Andersen statue. After walking around town, we finally found
the H.C. Andersen museum and spent some time learning about the author. He was
very tall, a bit socially awkward and felt he was unattractive – as a result,
the Ugly Duckling is likely to be his own self depiction. Other stories written
by him include Thumbelina, the Little Mermaid, the Little Match Girl and the
Emperor’s New Clothes. We had lunch at the Ugly Duckling, a buffet restaurant
with amazing Scandinavian food. I had my quota of pickled herring for the next
few years.
Ugly Duckling restaurant
Hans Christian Andersen Park
Hans Christian Andersen Museum
After lunch, we stumbled across the “walking street” which was
filled with hundreds of stores. We realized we had been walking on one of the
more deserted streets before, making us think that the town was quite empty
when in fact it was hustling and bustling! We finally made it back to
Copenhagen and decided to find the Little Mermaid on foot.. not sure if this
was a good idea..We walked from T-Central to find the statue, which ended up
being farther than we thought. About an hour later, cold and hungry, we finally
came across a small crowd near the water at the edge of a park, with Chinese
tourists waiting to take pictures with the statute. The little mermaid was a
huge anti-climax, as it was very small, and looked kind of like a slug with
saggy boobs. We were not impressed.
The Little Mermaid
Nyhavn
Wednesday, Sept 11,
2013: Louisiana Museum
We switched it up this morning and had breakfast at Baresso
Coffee, Copenhagen’s version of Starbucks and ate pastries we bought the day
before from Andersen’s bakery. We then took the train toward Helsingor to see
the Louisiana Art Museum, one of the most famous modern art museums in Denmark.
There was a Yoko Ono exhibit on so we spent some time looking at that and
learning about her life. However, our favorite aspect was the location of the
museum and the outdoor sculpture park since it overlooked the water. We were
starving, so we made a bee-line for the café and ate a spin-off of the
traditional Smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches) for lunch, while enjoying a
beautiful view overlooking the water. We then came back in the afternoon and
went to Torvehallerne food market near Nørrebro that I read about online. We
chose to eat at Paleo (http://xn--palo-xoa.dk/), a healthy organic booth that
sells wraps and salads. We had nothing else to do at night, so we watched a
movie (the Heat) which turned out to be quite hilarious and just what we needed
to see after a long day.
Outdoor sculpture at Louisiana Museum
Smørrebrød
Torvehallerne Food Market
Thursday, Sept. 12,
2013: Exploring Castles
Based on Tien’s co-worker’s friend’s recommendation, we took
the train to Hillerod to see Frederiksborg castle, 25 minutes north of
Copenhagen. Since Scandinavia has always favored peace, many of their old
monuments and buildings are well persevered and intact. There weren’t many
tourists, so it was great to wander around freely (perks of traveling during
low season!) The castle was beautiful inside, but was even more stunning due to
the surrounding moat and the gardens that must be manicured on a daily basis to
keep it looking to clean and sculpted. We had lunch at a cute and cozy creperie
place for lunch. The crepes were slightly thicker, so it reminded me a bit of
roti cinai! After seeing all of the bikers in Copenhagen (1/3 of the population
bike to work and there are significantly more bikes than cars on the road), we
decided to go biking with the locals. This was a truly amazing experience, as
we had never seen so many bikers in a city before. There is a separate bike
path for almost all stretches of the road (including mini traffic lights for
bikers!). Towards the end of our bike ride, we also visited the Church of Our Savior and climbed all the way to the top of the tower. Jie was too tired after
climbing a million steps (seriously, the steps were never-ending) to be scared
and was awarded with amazing view over the city.
Frederiksborg castle
Church of Our Savior
Jie is smiling on the outside, but terrified on the inside!
View from the top
Friday, Sept. 13, 2013:
Back to Stockholm
We took a mid-morning flight back to Stockholm and headed
back to our old hotel from before. This time, we were upgraded to a room on the
third floor with windows. Hooray! We then decided to try our luck by going to
Junibacken but got there 10 mins before it was closing, so we took some
pictures and bought some postcards at the gift store instead. In hindsight, we
were relieved that it was closing, because the price of 145 kroners for
admission (25 USD) was kind of steep! Headed back to T-Central and stopped by
Hotorgshallen, a food hall in the basement in the city center. We originally
wanted some seafood, but got there a bit too late, so bought some Mediterranean
bites to eat and ate near the water outside City Hall.
Last minute pastries at the Copenhagen airport
Fooling around with Halloween costumes at a costume shop
It was a great experience and another memorable Jie-Mei
trip!
Memorable Things /
Take-aways
- Scandinavians have excellent English and can alternate back and forth between languages effortlessly
- Mei couldn’t resist going to all the different bakeries in Stockholm and Copenhagen. She had one (or more often, two) each morning on a daily basis. Her favorite pastries included the vanilla custard –cardamom (Vaniljbulle) from Xoko bakery, the rhubarb-filled Danish heart pastry from Andersen in Copenhagen and the cinnamon twist (kanelgifler) from Laura’s bakery (Copenhagen again)
- Everything is super expensive, but there is very little income inequality. Scandinavia is the equivalent of the “business class” of the world. You pay for living there, but the general quality of life is very high.
- Blond babies everywhere who behave in their little baby carriages
- Biking lanes everywhere makes it very easy to get around by biking
- People are not overly friendly, but they mind their own business
- Very eco-conscious (multiple modes of transportation, having organic food, etc.)
- Design plays a big part of their lives, with many stories dedicated to stocking innovative furniture and household products that are re-imagined in a different way
- In Copenhagen, all the girls wore tights
- There are a huge number of bikers (1/3 of Copenhagen residents bike to work every day). In fact, rush hour does not refer to cars, but is about the huge number of bikes in the bike lanes
- Everybody is extremely well-dressed on the bikes and nobody wears helmets. They are amazing at what they can do while pedaling, including:
- Copenhagen has some of the happiest people in the world, partly due to their cycle-obsessive nature
o Go on a date and hold a conversation with each other while cycling side by side
o Call and text on the phone
o Bike with a little kid in the stroller
o Bring a bag of groceries on the bike
