Stockholm Day-2 : Gamla Stan during day time

It is surprisingly not so cold at all in Stockholm in the early month of September! Sun seemed rise at normal hours of, hmm, 7am or so. Last night sunset was like 7pm also!

Was dead tire last night ended up sleeping like 9pm or so, then found everyone to have woke up at 6am with me. Mom and Aunt tip-toed outside trying to cook up some maggie mee for breakfast, only ended up making too much noise and be told off by one Gothic looking girl (what, wearing dark eyeliner to sleep?! Only on European countries).

It is hard for first timer like my mom, my dad and my aunt to stay in a backpacker place. They are finding it very amusing that we must rent our bedsheets and tower apart from paying for the room. We ended up bringing our own.

So from now on, daily duty rooster goes like : my dad and I in charge with bedsheet, route planning and driving. Mom and Aunt do the cooking, grocery shopping (of course, I shop for myself when comes to tidbits).

Regular quotes heard during stay in hotel from these uncle and aunties includes : why here don't have can opener one ah? Why at night no one "jaga" (take care)? Wah, our food looks better than the table next door, like they only eat pizza and wine only. Must put our own bedsheets again issit? etc etc

Finally after having breakfast and packed for lunch, then we decided to head outside and see the Gamla Stan during day time. Ended up taking photo shots non stop!

Everywhere is a postcard perfect location. Hehe.

Noble Museum

Not sure why but for a while dad was very obsessed about phone card, wanting to call back office for some work related stuffs. Mom and I ended up wandering off to the nearby Stockholm Cathedral that is right next to the Swedish Royal Palace.

To our delightful surprise, there was a beautiful choir practice going on with a full orchestra playing side by side. I think they were practicing for the 11am session seeing that today is Sunday.

The inside of the Stockholm Cathedral look fantastic too, all ornamented with gold trimmings everywhere. Beautiful sculptures half hidden all over peeking from the top and I am all taken away looking at this.

Old pipe organ from the second floor. Wonder if it sound eerie if played on stormy nights?

Da Vinci Code?

Since we are already at the Royal Palace, we've decided to buy tickets and go for it.

Was on luck as managed to squeezed into the only English guided tour for the day. Things seemed so much clearer after being taken around and show stuffs with, while being explained on stories behind all these old relics in the palace.

I mean, I didn't agree at first to go for it as it was like USD50 or so just to get in and must pay another USD7 to snap pictures. Anyways, was glad to go for it because the interior of the palace looks great with loads and loads of ceiling painting (albeit some were political incorrect at current times), sophisticated mechanical clocks with delicate dragon slaying sculptures on them (wish I take some pictures!), hundreds of artwork like paintings, woven tapestries, sculptures, and mirrors!

One of the Swedish king decided that he fancy the French king Louie's decoration at the Versailles palace, so much so that he decided that he will have the same fancy corridors with loads of mirror decors, which eventually now it is the regular place where the yearly Noble price dinner are held.

Outside the Palace was a nice little slope, with nice view. We found ourselves a nice little bench to eat our packed sandwiches. Weather is nice, not too hot so everything is really good.

Skeppsbron, a pompous quay passing along the eastern waterfront of the old town

Skeppsbron and the statue of Gustav III

We then walk down to the canal side and take more pictures of course. September is like the end of travel season before the harsh winter comes, but to me the numbers of tourists here are still quite a lot.



While walking then saw our cruise to Helsinki already arrived with smokes flying all around. Yeah, we are planning to go Helsinki tomorrow and this evening we shall board the Viking cruise line for an overnight cruise, through the beautiful archipelago. And that, we decided to quickly head back to get our stuffs from Castenea and get to the ferry terminal.

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Welcome to Gamla Stan, Stockholm Sweden

Took a morning 8.50am flight this morning with MAS Airline. Was at the airport as early as 6am. you've got to give it to my dad for saying "It is never bad to be earlier and more careful". Since there were sometime before boarding, the dad decided to give us a treat at the Eden Restaurant for nice dim sum breakfast. Somehow halal dim sum just don't taste right after all.

But you know what, after this meal, it then turned up to be that we have not eaten a long long time out in a nice restaurant during our trip here. I was foreseeing that coming, where by loads and loads of "homecooked" food in the hostel every night you know.

And then yada yada yada for 12 hours flight, mostly just past with me sleeping like a log in the plane, waking up occassionally for in flight food that I no longer able to recall, then we finally see something interesting through the plane window outside!

Aww... Good morning Stockholm!

For this trip, my father and I was like preparing almost every details, up till practicing Swedish language on a CD and printing regularly used phrases. I was quite afraid that we might eventually get into trouble since we cannot understand the language here.

I guess that was just us worrying too much, as the moment we touched down at Arlanda airport we found everyone speak fluent American English almost everywhere! We never had to worry for once how to ask for direction, information since our first encounter with the helpful staffs at the information counter.

Before we came here, I did an extensive search around on the net where to stay around in Stockholm. Eventually we managed to check ourselves into this nice cozy little hostel right smack in the middle of Gamla Stan (Old Town), known as Castenea Old Town Hostel. What's better than this when the Swedish Royal Palace is your neighbour? Har har har!

Everything is too small in European countries, eventhough their people seemed to be so big size with loads of cheese feeding. That is why it becomes a headache when we to travel with so many bags and be squeezed into small lifts (since the 1900 era), tiny staircase, rooms.

But it is all fine, because for the beautiful Gamla Stan, I am willing to put up with all sort of inconviniences for now.

This small little courtyard right outside our window seemed to be one of those romantic spots, always seeing a lot of lovey durvey couples here.

Dinner was quite pathetic, as we didn't have enough time to prepare. Castenea really look like a IKEA showroom, everything here has clean sleek lines, therefore even the kitchen are all stuffs with pots pans cutlery from IKEA too.

Even the double bed bunkers are from IKEA, which brought the attention that after sleeping too many nights on IKEA beds at various hostels throughout our trip, I have decided that IKEA's furniture is really too flimsy and hideous to my taste. Eventually I started to miss my bed of, hmm... 10 years back in SS2 after many days being away from it.

Coming back to the dinner, we managed to look around at the Coop round the corner for supplies, GOSH! Two bananas for USD2, bags of chips for USD3.50, a can of sardine for USD4. And for that, we decided to buy neccessities like bread and milk while we continue to survey a bit more.

It was nice to walk around the Gamla Stan a night too! Located on a small island, all the old buildings are well perserved here and away from the hectic business district.

Also a lot here are fancy dining restaurant. Consist of cramped tables and stool like chair, with people purposefully dress up to get pushed around at the corner, with warm candelights and wines, then they eat up a fortune (litterally, try USD100 for a piece of steak, wine and appetizer, and GST not included yet)

Phew... I am going to get some rest after this long long day. Forget bad beds, just gonna rest.

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Back from Scandiavia Trip

Gosh, came back like 7am in the morning yesterday. Good thing that I took half day leave so I can sleep through till around 1 before start going to work. If not I would've easily turn up zombie-like. I decided not to sleep throughout the flight but instead immersing myself watching 4 in-flight movies back to back :P

There are lots and lots of pictures to be sorted out. Still not recovering from being awed all over by beautiful Norway Fjordlands. I don't think I can easily forget the scenery in Norway even for the many years to come. The snow, the highlands, turquoise crystal clear water melted from the glacier high on the Jotunheim moutain range...

But I guess nice thing in life always come hard to get. Whatever we used to enjoy back in Malaysia seemed so hard to come by here($$ wise, availability too). I won't dare to even step my foot into the Thai massage parlour that we happened to pass by in Gotebörg after imagining what it would've cost me for a simply aching relieve pressing. Looking at Danes munching happily at a Japanese restaurant next to Tivoli, I tried to convince myself the sandwich we packed for the day taste better but that did take a lot of effort! No coke for 16 days as well, as a bottle of coke of 275ml cost USD4! Crossing a bridge for USD40, but it is not cheaper for crossing with ferries too (think about USD40 or MORE). I can confidently say my diet was much healthier during this 16-days, no eating outside, all home cook, fruits, no sweet drink, no ice cream... haha.

One event that we cannot stop remembering was during one night in Norway fjords, we need to drove quickly from the Briskdal glacier to Lom where we booked to spend a night in a family run farm.

Our GPS, sigh, decided of all the route pointed us high up on the mountain to a scenic drive.

Yeah, it must be very spectacular in the day time with all snow mountain surrounding, but I call it eerie wandering alone in the car with no one around you, what more on an unpaved 40km long road!!! It does take much guessing that my mom was all hysterical on what if our car broke down and wolves come preying on us! Scary it might be, but not that I recall back, I actually find this whole scenario rather hilarious and stupid. SIGH!

Will stop here now. Gonna try blogging about the trip in details bit by bit. Perhaps can start during next 2 days holiday I think!

Scandinavia - Almost Packed

Yeah... I will be away again for two weeks. Gonna head to Scandinavia Europe for two weeks soon. I just took a look at my beg, WOW, it is still a mess. But I guess things will be quite ready when the time comes (I HOPE!)

Our trip...erm...something similar to this, got from Globus Tour

Our trip will span from Sweden, Finland, Norway then to Denmark before heading back to Stockholm to fly home. Along the way, we have planned our trip to see as much as possible within this 16 days. It is of course crucial to do so because being there in Scandinavian countries is nothing but expensive. Therefore, it is impossible we gain maximum sight seeing with little time as possible. :P

Talk about things getting expensive, I am still very skeptical thinking the fact my parents is going to stay in backpacker's inn together with me. That is real first considering they always been lodging at nice hotels on their previous travel. I wonder what will my mom think when she realize the toilet does not come with toilet roll. Already she was nagging about hostel in Stockholm not providing pillow case, bedsheets, etc. Heh...

Anyways, the best highlight in this trip, in my opinion would be the Norway magnificent Fjord (pronounced as Fyord?). I can't wait to go see them soon!

We gonna stay in the Farm stay as well during one of the night when we are here.

Also is the Stockholm Gamla Stan old town.

As we arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, apparently the famous Tivoli Park will be closed by then during Autumn that is. So, I guess that left us with Legoland Theme park as well as Christian Anderson's Museum (the guy that wrote little mermaid)

As you can see, there are too many places to cover in such short time. We've already a car from Hertz in Stockholm. They've promised us a Volvo S40 for around €500 for two weeks (which we thought is okay.) Also ready is a Garmin Nuvi 200 that I asked my sister to bring back from Michigan for us. So things are good so far...

Hopefully I shall be able to write a thing or two during this trip, otherwise you can certainly guess that I must be all stressed up trying to fumble my way around this trip. Will keep you all updated!

林宥嘉 - 那首歌 mv

Lately really like listening to his song. Thanks Chor Wan to introducing him to me. He still so young, but I guess you don't need a reason to like someone that sings to your heart isn't it?