Wonderful wonderful Copenhagen

A beautiful day today. We enjoyed walking around the city and we certainly got our exercise in.  

We started by strolling over to Nyhaven Harbour for breakfast by the waterside.  

After that, we walked along the waterfront for a couple of km to the statue of the Little Mermaid.  It's much more accessible than I expected. I thought it would be way out in the middle of the harbour, but it's actually very close to the shoreline.

We continued walking along the waterfront back towards the Christiansborg Palace. There seem to be fountains all over the place. I'll probably be thinking "not another xxxx fountain" by tomorrow.

At this point we decided to stop at the Admiral Hotel on the Harbourfront for a drink. The weather was glorious and the view was lovely.

Then we walked on to the Palace and went up the tower to see the views of the city from the top. There was a lift that went partway, but we still had to walk up a spiral staircase to get right to the top.

Back to our hotel for a quick break and then it was back to Nyhavn for a fish supper at the Fisken Pub.

Then we walked past Tivoli Gardens on the way to the Villa Copenhagen, which is one of the most expensive hotels in the city. We can't afford to stay there but we thought we'd pop in for a drink to see what it was like.

Arrived in Copenhagen

 After a long journey: overnight flight to Heathrow from Ottawa and a day in a hotel at Heathrow, i finally met up with Denise in terminal 5.  Out flight to Copenhagen was delayed due to a failure of the AC on the plane, but we eventually made it. It's still light at 9.30pm as we're a bit further North.

And here we are having a singapore sling in the bar at our hotel, to celebrate the fact that we finally made it.

Baltic cruise

 

Heading out tomorrow for my next excursion. Six previously unvisited countries to add to my list: Poland,  Denmark,  Sweden,  Latvia,  Finland and Estonia.  Stay tuned for updates.

Final day in Seoul

This will be my final blog entry for this trip.  Tomorrow morning we'll be heading for the airport to begin the long journey home.  

We planned a low impact day today, initially intending just to go down to the river and take a river cruise for an hour or 2 and that was it.  Becky booked us an Uber to get us to the river bus terminal, but it's not directly accessible by car, so she booked it to take us to the Lotte World Mall, thinking this was nearby.   We were dropped off at Lotte World, which is a theme park!  I knew there was a theme park in Seoul, but I didn't expect it to be in the middle of  a built up area of the city. 

Right next to the theme park was a mall, that seemed to rival COEX mall for size.  Then, in the middle of all this was the Lotte World Tower,  at 1821 ft this is the world's 6th tallest building.  I'd honestly no idea that there was a building this tall in Korea. It is the tallest building I've ever seen.  I declined going up it though. The cable car trip to Namsan Korea Tower the other day was enough heights for me for one holiday. 

We walked from Lotte World to the ferry terminal, which was further than we thought, so we stopped at seating areas along the way. 

At one point I got a fairly good view of the 1988 Olympic stadium 

We got on the river bus at Jamsil ferry terminal and enjoyed a pleasant journey of just under an hour, before getting off at Yeuoido.

In Yeuoido we had a very nice late lunch/early dinner at the Fairmont hotel, as a treat  on our last day in town.  We're now back at the hotel trying to fit everything in our suitcases, ready for tomorrow morning.

Seoul City Bus

After a lot of walking yesterday, we decided on a less hectic day today.  We started with an early morning stroll near the hotel to admire the statues at Gwanghwamun square and then visited the Cheonggyecheon stream.

When we got back to the hotel we had a  breakfast of Japanese pancakes in the hotel brunch restaurant. These were nicer than the ones we tried in Barcelona last year.

To avoid walking so much today, we took the hop on hop off city bus around Seoul and hopped off at 3 places. Our first stop was at Namsan Park and Botanical Garden, where we had a very pleasant walk.  An interesting thing about Korean parks is that they provide areas with free exercise equipment. This explains why I've yet to see any adverts about gym membership here.

Next we stopped at another of the 5 Royal Palaces. This one was quieter than the one we went to yesterday, so we were able to enjoy walking around the gardens.

After this, we went to lunch. All around Korea we've been seeing places advertising fried chicken and beer,  so we decided to give it a go. The Korean beer I had wasn't bad.

Our final stop of the day was in Insadong, where we did more shopping and Becky bought me my birthday present.   Then it was back to the hotel for some ice-cream and an early night.  

Full Day Tour of Seoul

We haven't done a lot in the last 2 days because of the heat and Becky being under the weather.  But we made up for it today with a full day tour of the city where we saw so much.

We started with a trip to a Buddhist temple.  Very pretty, with lots of lanterns. You can actually stay overnight in this place and learn to meditate.  It was full of inflatable decorations, but instead of them being Halloween or Christmas themed, they were all Buddhas or elephants or lotus flowers.

Next we went to one of the 5 Royal palaces in Seoul and learned about Koreas history. The palace we visited was the largest palace and had a ceremony for the changing of the guard.  Two of the girls in our tour group hired Hanboks (traditional Korean dresses). If you're wearing a Hanbok then entry to the Royal palaces is free, so lots of people dress up.

Then we went to the N Korea Tower. The trip up the mountain to the tower is by cable car. Needless to say I don't have any photos of that as I kept my eyes closed the whole way.  The tower is 236 metres tall. Combined with the hill it sits on, you get a view 480 metres (1574ft) above sea level.

We were dropped off at a street food market for lunch, but with Becky still being careful about what she eats and me not being adventurous enough to try weird stuff like blood sausage or baby octopuses still wriggling on a stick, we ended up in a Starbucks having a cheese, ham and egg melt. Even that was a bit weird as the bread was very sweet. It felt like having a toastie made with 2 slices of madeira cake.

Then it was off to Insadong, one of the premier shopping districts of Seoul, where some of the group, including us, went to a teahouse and performed the tea ceremony.

Our final stop of the day was Buchon village, an area with old style housing, before everyone started living in condos.

By the time we were dropped back at our hotel we were knackered,  but nobody could say we hadn't seen a lot of Seoul.