Saturday, May 10, 2025

Day 2 - A Bit of Copenhagen + Tivoli Gardens

come along little darling, it's a moment we can't forget
I just want to stop and breathe it all in
Booker T Rendezvous - Soultown Revivalists

My day 2 plan didn't go as I planned it. For the morning, I planned to take a tour to see the trolls of Copenhagen. Then I was told they had to cancel it because there's not enough people signing up for it - I most probably the only one who signed up :( The tour operator tried to provide alternative but it just didn't work with the rest of my plan for the day where I had booked ticket for Tivoli Gardens or the next day. The trolls are these wooden sculptures made by the Danish artist, Thomas Dambo, and they're made from recycled materials. They're big and from the pictures that I saw, they look really interesting. My googling also pointed out that these exist too in Singapore, in Sentosa. So I could just go to Sentosa and hunt for them and yet I am lazy to do so; okay maybe one day when I'm not that lazy I'll go look for them.

So for the morning, I decided to go explore a bit of Copenhagen and see the little mermaid. First thing first I needed to get the ticket for public transport, so off I went to the train station which was very near to my hotel - I could see its clock from my room. Found the machine, but couldn't find a way to buy just a single ticket, the option was not there. I was stumped :( Like the amount of studying didn't prepare me for this. I tried another machine and it's the same thing. I walked around a bit and saw a staff (an actual staff!!!) helping I suppose tourists like me with their transport questions. I told him what my problem was and he took me to a machine and showed me how to get it. The thing is, I was a train station and though the machine said it's also for the metro, the process of buying a single ticket is a bit different using these machines. He showed me that to do so, I needed to key in a station and an example of a station that fits the minimum two zones (which cover central Copenhagen) for a single ticket is Carlsberg - he said he liked that example :D Side note: there's a Carlsberg museum in Copenhagen and you can visit it and get a tour to see its brewery and I was darn interested but then ruled against it because I was alone (there are still things I'm shy to do alone) and also as a person who doesn't really drink, I don't know if drinking the free beer is a good idea precisely because I was alone and no, refusing it was not in my plan. So anyways, got the ticket and he asked me if I knew where the metro was and I said I did because I saw the sign and so I thanked him and went about my way.

I indeed saw the sign to the metro, but then got confused on getting there. I thought the metro would be connected to the train station but after walking here and there, I realized it's not. I needed to go outside and go to the M sign and take the stairs down. Only later did I find out, they're indeed connected to the train station, but connected below from each of the platforms not from the main hall. Anyways, with time wasted just by trying to get the ticket and finding the metro entrance, I stupidly just quickly took the first metro that was arriving. Once inside I was like, is this the right direction? It's wrong of course, stupid me, and so I got off at the immediate stop and went to the other side to take the correct direction. At least this part wasn't hard to understand. By the way, can I just talk a bit about things that may not interest you, but I'm gonna do anyways. I noticed in the metro stations Copenhagen has a weird arrangement of their escalator. Okay weird for me but perhaps it makes sense for them. Normally here or in many places I've been if there's enough space to put two escalators side by side, one can expect to see that one escalator will be going down and the other will be going up, but no, not in Copenhagen. Somehow if they have space to do so, both escalators will be going to the same direction, either up or down. So if you happen to be taking the wrong escalator, you would need to walk some distance away to find the other direction of escalator. I don't know why they would do this. The only thing I could think of is that this would be beneficial for crowd control? But Copenhagen doesn't seem to be very crowded with people. Then their metro lines, interestingly some of them cover the same stations; the lines may have more than one overlapping station. We have none of those in Singapore; different lines here may meet at a single station only, they will never overlap more than one station. In fact each line in Singapore if they meet at all, they're not running on the same track. So you get off at the station, then walk some distance away to catch the other line. In Copenhagen, it's possible that these different lines are running on the same track at the stations they overlap in. I don't know if I'm explaining this well. It does give you more options, I suppose. Then when I was inside, I realized the metro doesn't have many cars, so even if you enter from the middle you could see the end easily. They're all driver-less as well. Can I talk about another observation that may not interest you and not related to the metro? I actually realized this during my trip last year, but didn't write about it. If you buy a drink that comes in a plastic bottle, for example water, somehow the cap is always connected to the bottle. It drives me crazy that I couldn't completely disconnect them. I know the purpose for this though. Can I also add somehow their cap is always tinier than over here? Anyway, the purpose to have that little connected plastic that you cannot (with all my might at least) disconnect is well simply not to disconnect them, so you would never accidentally remove the cap and then not know where it is. I understand the purpose but somehow it still annoys me that when I open a bottle I cannot completely remove the cap :(

Okay I digressed enough. First stop of the day was to see Nyhavn because this is the touristy thing to do :D It was drizzling and still early that morning I suppose that it wasn't that crowded. I was still full from breakfast that though some people had started selling snack and they were tempting, I couldn't buy any. Took some photos and walked both directions of the canal.

Then I walked towards the end where I know there's the stop to take the ferry bus. I had time until the ferry came so I walked the waterfront a bit and just waited nearby. The ferry bus didn't come when I thought it would come and the schedule on the pier didn't make sense to me, but I waited anyway because there's a Korean ajusshi and ajumma waiting as well and then more people came. I guess they knew the schedule better than me. The ferry indeed came and I went on board, tried to get in the deck, I couldn't. This is another thing, stupid me at the time did know but didn't internalize, you wave your hand on the top of the door to get it open if the door does not open automatically, but at the time I didn't remember so I had to embarassingly go to the other door which had managed to open. I suppose you could stand outside on the ferry and take in the view, but at the time noone did so, so I didn't. Again, there are things that I'm shy to do alone. The weather wasn't cooperating as well that day, so I guess noone did this, but I think this could be a cheap alternative to enjoy Copenhagen. The unfortunate thing is that I don't think it runs frequently enough. It first stopped at the stop for the Opera and then to the stop where I needed to get off for the little mermaid. I do recommend doing it this way because getting to the little mermaid requires some walking and if you go to Nyhavn and take the ferry bus, you end up not walking as much as the other options, at least the options that I researched. Anyways, one could see CopenHill in the distance. I have heard about this place and known it produces clean energy so I guess it's fine seeing so much smoke coming out of it.

As I made my way to the little mermaid, there's a lot of blooming cherry trees. They were great. It's just the gloomy sky you know, but there were still quite a number of people having fun taking pictures with the trees.

There's definitely a lot of people by the little mermaid. I didn't go down to get closer, I don't think it's necessary. I saw one guy slipped and fell, luckily he's okay. I don't want to be one of those people who got hurt just for a photo, especially a photo for social media. Anyways, our girl is small and she also looks sad :( The weird part of me think if she's annoyed with all these people taking pictures of her :D

After that I decided to get back. Passed through Kastellet for this which Wikipedia told me is a citadel and it's one of the best preserved fortresses in northern Europe. Unfortunately, I didn't explore much of it. I don't know, I was lazy and tired. Apparently there's a windmill and I didn't see it, arrrghh. Sometime you googled way too much for a trip and sometime you don't. The area is still used for something I think, they have guards at one of the gate and they would check cars that passed through and lift the barrier for the car to pass, although I think not just any car can pass through here. I only saw one car.

I used the Østerport metro station to get back. Now that I was in the metro station, the machine was more straightforward and the option to buy a single ticket was available on screen. It was pass noon and I contemplated if I should then go to the Glyptotek museum which was near my hotel but again laziness won and I decided to just go back to my room. I was shocked at how lazy I was. I was never this lazy in all my trips. Is this old age? On the way back, I got a Danish pastry at a shop at the central train station. I didn't know what I bought, I just saw there's black sesame on top of it and when I ate it, they had almond paste filling and it was really really good that I was more intrigued. Like croissant, Danish pastry was never something that interested me much but now since all I had in Denmark had been good, I'm curious to try everything. The shop I bought it from was Lagkagehuset and they're everywhere and so I kept on coming back buying different things and they all had been good. Back in my room, I even managed to lie down and tried to take a nap but I couldn't sleep so at around 2 PM something I thought let's just go to Tivoli. Now, the reason that I didn't just go to Tivoli earlier and had really planned to go in the afternoon is because I was planning to stay until its illumination light show at 09:30 PM so I didn't want to tire myself way too much by spending too long there.

For Tivoli garden, I had booked the ticket online. You could buy just the entrance ticket and then in the garden if you feel like it, you could buy the the ticket for the rides individually. I however chose to buy the ticket for the entrance + all the rides included. Now I need to give a shout out to my sensei (who's younger than me) - you never really know how or when you could inspire people. Some years ago one day our sensei told us she went to the Singapore universal studio alone; something about she had a ticket and then a friend couldn't make it or whatnot and she ended up going alone. At the time I was like gosh, is that fun? But she did it and she said it's fine, so it really inspired me to just do this, get on these rides on my own. So this Tivoli section is really dedicated for my sensei who did it and showed me the possibility and spurred me to do an amusement park on my own for the first time. By the way, I calculated the combo ticket (entrance + rides) will be worth it if you plan / can take at least 6 rides. Now I'm not the person who do rollercoaster and things like that so I googled all the rides and yeah I can take at least 6 rides - Tivoli has 2 different carousels, so that's like 4 more other rides for me to complete, also you can take the rides as many times as you like. It was Easter Sunday when I went and the pricing is a bit more. Weekend tends to cost more and there are more things happening in the garden during the weekend. Tivoli garden also closes later on Fridays and Saturdays which I thought is quite sensible of them to do, because many people don't have to work or go to school the next day. When the daylight is getting longer, one can just pop to Tivoli after work to unwind and enjoy a great time there.

So anyways, there isn't much of a queue to get in. I got my ticket scanned and it was quick. Then once inside I also easily found the machine that would dispense the bracelet for the rides. I put that on and started exploring the garden and then I was stopped on my way with people waiting on the side and then I remembered oh yes, there's the Tivoli Youth Guard's Parade that's happening on the weekend, so the first one was gonna happen soon at 02:30 pm and they started to clear a path for the guards. It was quite interesting; as they started walking many of us followed along and walked behind them. They're all boys and some of the smaller kids were cute when they have big drums.

I didn't follow them throughout though. They also went again at 04:30 PM and I saw them then too. Anyways, at one point in the parade I decided to walk elsewhere and saw that there's a peacock and it was spreading its feathers. It was very cute and quite calm and people were trying to take picture with it and they had to navigate it turning here and there.

Closer to 3 pm, I made my way to the Pantomime Theatre with its peacock curtain. People were already filling the seats in front of the stage and I didn't feel like sitting on the grass so I took a seat at an empty bench some distance away. I knew there's a performance, but I didn't know what to expect and it turned out to be this funny ballet which was quite fun. It lasted around 30 minutes and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

After that I thought it's time for the rides, so I started walking to find them. I found The Camel Trail and it was on my list, so I queued up for that. The queues that day for the rides weren't very long at all. I have heard many people describing that while there's a queue for rides, it was never really annoyingly long and that was my experience too. The Camel Trail is described as a gentle rollercoaster, little kids ride this. It doesn't flip you upside down but there's a slight tilt and it's going up and down and quite fast at times and embarrassingly I gotta tell you, I was like noooo, I don't like it. I survived it though and was quite okay after. Next to The Camel Trail, there was this, The Monsoon. It wasn't on my list, but somehow seeing this I thought I could do this. It's not gonna flip you upside down, you can do this!

So I queued up for it, feeling all positive. Got to my seat and in front of me was a couple. The girlfriend was all excited, but the boyfriend was like apprehensive, more quiet, and I thought you and me dude, we're feeling the same thing. As the ride went on, I have to say I didn't like it!!! At all! I wanted it to stop. Watching it beforehand, I knew what to expect, so I was like counting, after this it's that and a bit more and we're done. Again I survived it, but I was very very dizzy after :( I actually took a motion sickness pill before going to Tivoli and I was really disappointed it didn't help and this darn Monsoon ride really ruined the day for me. I was so dizzy that I couldn't just get on the next ride, I needed to walk this off. So I went around taking pictures, hoping it would pass but it really took awhile.

When I felt like I could, I went to the next ride. I found The Flying Trunk which is a ride going through Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales. Now I was expecting this to be a nice boat ride like the Dufan's Istana Boneka (for those of you Indonesians) or the Disneyland's It's a Small World. It's not. Being alone, I was expecting that at each ride I would be all alone, but suddenly this guy came and asked if we could share the carriage which of course I couldn't say no. Again it's not a boat ride. You move through each scene of the fairytales and the carriage would move up and down the course and might turn a bit so that you would face the scene. It's honestly mild and I would have enjoyed it a lot if I hadn't been so dizzy. The guy was like taking pictures at each scene and I had none. I could have taken this ride again later that evening when I was feeling a bit better and it's a regret I didn't. Other than that ride, I also went into the Fun House where kids could play with the ladders, slides, bounce here and there. I didn't stay long because I'm not a kid. Then I took the two carousels; I wasn't feeling 100% that on the second one, I even chose the carriage and didn't get on one of the animals :( Then I also took the trolley car which is basically just took you from one part of the garden to another, it's cute though. When I felt really ready, I took the Roller Coaster which is their oldest ride. It's a wooden roller coaster first opened in 1914. This is like considered mild because I even had my bag with me on the carriage and the staff also rides on the ride. It doesn't flip you but it moves fast and up and down and this I also didn't like much. Man, I'm such a wuss. I dislike discomfort. One part of the ride was in total darkness because we're entering like a tunnel and this happened again towards the end and the darkness was quite long and I was like please God, don't let it be a sudden drop in this darkness. Thank the Lord, it wasn't :D Again, I survived it. The last ride that I took was The Astronomer. It is a shame that I couldn't go through all the rides in my list, but physically I just didn't think I could. I was just feeling kinda weak after feeling so dizzy and then mentally I guess I ended up feeling shy about trying things like the boat ride on the lake. I do have regrets.

Here are some photos from some of the rides. The rollercoaster wasn't the one I took. This one is called The Demon and it's too scary for me. I had so much time to wander, look at me trying to be artistic when taking the photo of the Tik Tak where they turn you every which way (I really cannot do that) and the Galley ship where you would go round and round and there's loud music and smoke. It's actually on my list but really physically I couldn't do it that day. The last one below is Aquila which is never on the list.

Look at these little kids on The Panda. Look at them, they're so brave. Even I thought it could be scary. I think these are the kind of kids who will grow up loving roller coasters and all and have no fear in them when taking the rides. When I was young, we're just not rich enough to be able to afford going to a theme park so I don't get exposed much on this, even as an adult really. I only remember there's only one time, me, mom, dad, and my brother went to Dufan together and that's because we had some voucher or free tickets for us kids.

Towards the evening I also entered the Aquarium. I'm not sure if it's because it's getting late, but there's not much in it. The level 2 was closed. There were some piranhas though.

For dinner, I chose a cheeseburger. I might have ordered wrongly because it was forgettable. No matter, because I was fixated on getting churros. So after the burger I walked around to find these churros. Found them, chose chocolate sauce, and they were really good but unfortunately they were quite a lot that I barely finished half of them :( Then I basically just walked around and around taking pictures of the garden as it's getting darker.

Found the bridge on the lake where it's the best place to watch the illumination show, but unfortunately I didn't just park myself at the middle of it when I arrived that by the time I wanted to, it's filled with people that I could only stand by the side and my view was not that good. It started at 09:30 PM that Sunday and this light, music, laser, smoke show was 10-minute long and it was kinda interesting.

When it's done, I just made my way towards the exit, ready to end the day. I recall there's still screaming from people taking the scary rollercoaster, The Demon, as well as the ride that takes you up high and suddenly drops you, The Golden Tower. I think for many of these people, kids, this must be one hell of a memory, one they could talk about in later age like, cousin you remember that time in Tivoli we took the rollercoaster and it was already dark out :D I have to say Tivoli Garden is really great. Maybe I was lucky that it was not overly crowded when I was there but again I have heard many people describing that their queues weren't that crazy. It just felt relaxed, fun, so chill, happy :) If you're not taking any of the rides, you can just walk around the garden and find many interesting things. I do want the chance to visit it again. In summer it seems they have more things going on in the garden and during Christmas it seems lovely too. It's just I don't know if I'll ever get to Copenhagen again so this might be my one only experience and if so I'm grateful, truly. As I left the garden that day, I was also grateful that my hotel is so nearby, the block across the street :D It really afforded me to stay up late. From my room window I could see some of the rides actually and after my visit sometimes I spied from the window to see people taking the rides :D It was a long day and this is a long post, for pictures from Tivoli Garden go here.

:) eKa @ 12:38:00 PM •