Our second last Sunday

Jonathan came back from his trip last night, so today we definitely wanted to go out and do something fun. And it was a beautiful day, too. First thing out of Mio's mouth was "let's go to the park!". Since it's been raining day after day, and we haven't been able to go to the park in a while, we incorporated her request into our plan.

We decided to explore the Christianhavn area today. Took the bus there, had a hotdog, and then headed to the park (playground). This was the first time going to this park, and it was like any other nice playground, but they had this wooden house with a rotating wheel in it, and you can walk/run on it just like a hamster! It took a while for Mio to get a hang of it, but she loved it.

Then we had lunch and we decided to go back to the Design Museum we went a couple of weeks ago, to look at something at the shop again. On our way, we had ice cream, and stopped by Frederikskirken (or the Marble Church), located right across the street from the Amalienborg palace where the royal family lives. It is a beautiful church with a symbolic big dome, but right now they are doing some restoration on the outside, and I couldn't get a good picture of it. We finally got to the museum and went straight to the shop. We didn't get anything after all, but we went to the garden and let the kids play. Just like everywhere else in Copenhagen, there were beautiful roses in full bloom. It's almost August and roses are blooming - definitely a different climate here.

We walked a lot today, and it was quite exhausting, but it was a fun day.

Happy girl with a chocolate mustache

Inside the church

In the garden at the Design Museum

Post & Tele Museum

My mom left for Japan yesterday, and Jonathan also left yesterday for his second trip (this time to see western Denmark), so I am back to being a single mom in Copenhagen again.

I had a pretty fun day today though. I met up with a new American friend I made here, who has a little boy, and since it was a little bit rainy today (AGAIN), we went to the Post and Tele Museum. It is a national museum of Denmark's post and telecommunications. They have one floor dedicated for kids, and that's where we went.

They had a place where kids can play "postman". I couldn't get a good picture of it (I only had my iphone again), buy there was a little "town" built inside with kids size houses and street names, and kids get to deliver letters. They even had postman uniforms (Mio refused to wear it). It was very cute.

The kids loved it, and the museum is free! Besides there is a nice cafe on the top floor, where you have a very nice view of the city. I think I will definitely go back there especially on a rainy day - which means any day these days...

Licorice Nation

Do you like licorice （リコリス）? I don't! I've seen them in the US, but I have never had one before until I came here. Licorice is quite popular in Europe and the US, but it is probably almost unknown in Japan, and if they ever get to try it, its taste is very foreign for us. For those who don't know what licorice is, it is kind of a candy flavored with the extract of the roots of the licorice plant, and it's usually black.

Well, licorice is HUGELY popular here in Denmark. Whether you are at a supermarket, Seven-Eleven or even at the food floor of an upscale department store, if you go to the candies section, licorice is the predominant kind of sweets they'll have. There are so many brands and varieties, and they are all licorice!

A lot of licorice here are coated with salt, and ammonium chloride is used for flavoring in the salted licorice (sound yummy??). And because they are everywhere, I had to try them. I wanted to buy a bunch and compare, but I knew I was not going to like it, so I only got one package, sorry. Here I had my little Guinea pig try the fish shaped salted licorice.

It looks like this...

Pop one in my mouth...

Mmm, tastes funny....

Blehhh!! Spit it out!

I had Jonathan who grew up on licorice try this Danish kind, and this is the expression he made.

Mmm, this is a Very good licorice!!

It is definitely an acquiring taste. I have been trying, though. I pop one in my mouth once in a while, and try to appreciate it. Then I found myself reaching for one more, and then one more, just to experience that unfamiliar taste that creates a sensation on my tongue. Am I falling for licorice?? No... (not yet anyway). I've just had four in a row, and I feel a bit sick... I'm going to go brush my teeth now.

A fun day in Klampenborg

Today was the last full day with my mom, and Jonathan was able to take the afternoon off, so we decided to have a nice lunch at the restaurant we have all been wanting to go - Jacobsen Restaurant. The restaurant is located in Klampenborg, just a little north of Copenhagen. The restaurant and everything in the restaurant - from chairs to silverware to clocks - is designed by Arne Jacobsen, one of the most famous architect/designer of Denmark. We were quite surprised that we were the only ones there when we got there (a few more people came later), but I guess they get much busier at dinner time. The restaurant overlooks Bellevue Beach, which he also designed.

The food was excellent, too - beautiful presentation and execution. And this was just for the "3 light courses" for lunch. Dinner must be pretty fantastic. Oh, and the dessert was amazing, too! It was frozen yogurt with rhubarb sauce on the bottom. Isn't it pretty? The sweetness of the yogurt and the tartness of the rhubarb mixed together tasted so good. I could have eaten five of these!

After lunch, we walked to the beach right across the street and got our feet wet in the water. The water was still very cold. Then we went to Jaegersborg Deer Park, which is on the other side of the station. It is a beautiful national park, and there were a lot of people there for a walk, hiking, picnic, or to visit the little amusement park located within the park. We took a horse carriage ride through the park. The weather was perfect today, and the ride was so relaxing we all felt like taking a nap on the carriage. Our driver was an enormous guy (a rarity in Denmark...), so he was totally blocking our front view, but from the sides, we actually got to see quite a few deer, so that was pretty exciting and the kids enjoyed it, too.

So glad my mom got to enjoy the sunny and beautiful Copenhagen one last time before she leaves for Japan tomorrow.

Magasin

We went to Magasin today, the oldest department store in Scandinavia (in business since 1868!), and by far the biggest department store in Denmark. We went to the flagship store, Magasin du Nord, in the heart of Copenhagen. The department store has moved into its current building, which is an impressive former hotel building.

We went to the house-ware floor, and they had so many beautifully designed everyday items. I definitely knew I was in Denmark! I really wish our department stores back home carried items like this. Then we went to the basement, which is the food (grocery) floor. They had a much nicer selection of food than what you might find at your local supermarket. I also couldn't help noticing how neatly the shelves were organized. Maybe it was the nice design of the bottles and containers of the products they had, but this may be one of the most beautiful shelf organization at a food store I've ever seen. Everything looked so good...

Royal Copenhagen

When is this rain going to stop?? Getting tired of not being able to go out and have some outdoor fun! My new Japanese friend here said "it looks like the summer is ending". Really? Is summer that short here? I hope the weather recovers soon and we get a few more sunny days before we leave!!

This afternoon, we went to the Royal Copenhagen Outlet, which is located in Frederiksberg. We were in Fredericksberg with my mom just over a week ago, but we didn't know at the time that the outlet was right there. The store is not that big, but you enter the store and there were shelves full of Royal Copenhagen tableware. We both got very excited. It was a tough place to be in with small children though. I kept feeding them snacks so Yuto would stay in the stroller quietly and Mio would stay still and eat...

I wish I was in the position to bring a lot of stuff back home. Unfortunately we have a strict weight limit on our luggage we could take with us, so I had to be very careful. Nonetheless, I got some nice souvenir for myself and so did my mom. Now I have to figure out how to bring them back...

Louisiana

Louisiana? No, we are not back in the US yet. Today we went to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, located 35km (22 miles) north of Copenhagen. We took the regional train to go up there. It was a chilly and rainy day again, and the heater was on on the train and it was comfortable. Can you believe it???

The museum is situated directly on the shore, so one can see the shore of Sweden across the ocean on a clear sunny day, but of course with the weather like today, there was no such view - just the rough sea. The museum is often called "the most beautiful museum in the world", and it is also the most visited museum in Denmark. Surely, the museum itself was breathtaking, but there were just too many people today, probably because of the rain, it was a little overwhelming.

We got there around lunch time again, so we went to the cafe and had a really nice buffet lunch. Afterwards, the kids had fun in the "kids room", making some art , again with recycled materials. And we finally got to walk around the museum a little bit, but soon Yuto started to get cranky, and we were tired as well, so we decided to head home. It is a shame we couldn't spend more time there. During the summer, the museum is open until 10pm (when it's just starting to get a little dark), and the cafe serves dinner as well. I would love to come back and enjoy the art and the beautiful setting when it's a little less crowded.

A very sad incident happened today...

Those of you who know Mio well, you may remember her baby doll whom she calls "Baby". She has had Baby for two and a half years now, and she sleeps with her, plays with her, and she takes her everywhere. You've probably figured out what happened today. Yes. Mio LOST her Baby! Almost always, she carries Baby in her hand when we go out, but today she put Baby in her little Anpanman backpack. We took the bus, the metro, and the regional train. It wasn't until we were at the Museum cafe that we (she) noticed she didn't have her backpack! We think she forgot it on the train, so tomorrow, we have to callthe railway company to desperately find Baby... I really hope some nice conductor or someone picked it up and turned it in. Please pray for Baby! Baby, we'll find you!! It will be too sad to lose her just like this...

Ordrupgaard

One of the things my mom wanted to do while in Copenhagen was to go to Ordrupgaard, a state-owned art museum located about 8km north from the center of Copenhagen. There once was a painting by Eugene Delacroix of the lovers Frederic Chopin (the pianist) and his lover (?) George Sand - a kind of a "romance portrait". Why, when and how it happened is still a mystery today, but apparently at some point in history, this painting got split up in half. The Chopin portrait is now housed at the Louvre in Paris, and the other half, George Sand portrait is part of the collection at Ordrupgaard (why/how it ended up in Denmark of all places is also unknown). My mom wanted to see this painting.

Jonathan also had a vested interest in this museum, not so much for the art collection, but for the architecture. The new extension of the museum was designed by the award winning, world famous Iraqi architect, Zaha Hadid, and the building is regarded as one of the best architectures in Copenhagen.

We took the train and a bus to get there. It was lunch time when we arrived at the museum and we were hungry, so we went straight to the cafe, which is located in the new building. What a beautiful space it was!! For lunch, they only had a choice of either tuna or salmon sandwich, but we ordered both and they were both very good. What was nice was that there were not many people there, probably because it's a bit out of the way, and also it was raining, so we got to enjoy the space, at times, just by ourselves.

As for the painting...

Unfortunately, we couldn't see it! It was not on display at the moment. So my mom couldn't accomplish her goal, which was disappointing for sure, but to see the beautiful building and also some other great paintings at the museum still made our trip totally worthwhile.