Enjoying Life: Copenhagen, Denmark, August 2014

I made a short trip to Copenhagen in last August with 2 friends. The weather wasn't great during our stay, summer had ended, there was some rains and it was a bit chilly.

We stayed in Skt Petri which is a 5 stars design hotel, the only good thing with the hotel is its central location, not worth the money at all.

We arrived in the evening, quite disappointed with the food fair as there were not enough food stalls, I was expecting something like the night market in Malaysia or Taiwan. Despite that we did have a good evening and night with some local friends.

The next morning after brunch we headed to Nyhavn, the harbour with colourful buildings by the canal is a landmark of Copenhagen. The place was so crowed with tourists from all over the world, we walked into a jewellery shop and there were two or three Chinese staff, guess the spending power of Chinese has extended to Scandinavian countries!

We did a canal cruise for about an hour and it was quite fun, we got to see some famous buildings and landmark including Operaen and The Little Mermaid.

It was even more fun when it started to rain, we regretted for not choosing the boat with cover.

It was still raining when we finished the canal tour, not in a mood to walk around the harbour in the rain, we took a cab to art museum, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The collection is built on the personal collection of Carl Jacobsen, the son of the founder of Carlsberg Breweries. My favourite spot of the museum is the palm garden with glass roof, plants, fountain and sculptures. After looking at endless sculptures and paintings I felt tired and sleepy, guess I am not very artistic!

We were craving for Chinese food and found Royal Garden on the internet, food was surprisingly good.
After dinner we went for English movie at Palads Cinema which is opposite of Tivoli Garden, the famous amusement park. The cinema complex is housed in a colourful palace style building which you wouldn't even think it is a cinema.

Day 3 started with breakfast at a food market, had some delicious Danish pastry and fresh fruit juice, after that we spent the whole afternoon shopping at Stroget which is a pedestrian shopping street full with designer shops, boutiques, souvenir shops, restaurants and cafes.

Dinner for the night was at Kokkeriet, a one Michelin star restaurant. What a tiring meal which took 5 hours and food was’t impressive. We had the tasting menu for 9 or 10 courses, I only like two or three courses, just don't think they were special or innovative.

On day 4 we went to the palace Amelienbourg Slot, it is the home of the current queen, we were not interested to wait for the changing guard session, we took a few pictures and left for Frederiks Kirke, it is a nice little marble church.

After that we visited Design Museum which is not far from the palace, it was a very enjoyable visit, I was amazed to see so many design of chairs.

While strolling back to the centre, we encountered a Smorrebrod, Danish open sandwich restaurant Ida Davidsen which was recommended by the travel book. They had many selections of open sandwiches, all three of us ordered a different one and we were all very impressed.