Denmark Diary 2 - Visit to an amusement park

Well I did promise to come up with more beautiful pictures in the previous post here. The pictures have not come as awesome as it should be, thus justice hasn’t been done here (forgive my bad photography skills). 

Again I’m talking about my 30 before 30 lists. One thing I’ve always wanted to do before I hit 30 in life is to visit an amusement park. Lo and behold, God answered my prayers so early on this and here I’m at the famous amusement park and pleasure garden, Tivoli gardens in Copenhagen :). 

Tivoli Gardens is Copenhagen's most popular tourist destination. Millions of people fill the gardens, dine in the 40 restaurants, enjoy the entertainment, ride the amusement rides, play the games, or just sit and eat ice cream and people-watch. It has its own magic. The park opened on August 15, 1843 (can you imagine?) and is the second oldest amusement park in the world.

I wanted to conquer my fears. Actually I want to conquer my fear by trying bungee jumping but I had an early trailer here in the park. I rode the roller coaster and nearly peed in my pants lol. This trailer of conquering my fear was a real dare-devil thing. So I think bungee jumping will have to wait. 

Daemonen roller coaster at the background, the one I rode

The neon arrow shows people on it, just the thought of being on it makes my stomach crunch now and I can feel my heart on the throat. Such brave souls they are.

It’s so sad that we don’t have amusement parks in Bhutan, how lovely it would be to relax and have fun in such parks. I just hope for an amusement park to come up soon here, fingers crossed :).

Happy weekend everyone! 

Weekend getaway- Royal Botanical Park

Ever since I knew about this park from the wonderful Passang from PaSsu Diary, I had wanted to camp at this place. For a thousandth time I have crossed this highway but never had the interest or the time (you may say it) to explore further into the woods, into the park. I have failed miserably in appreciating the best Mother Nature has to offer :(.

  

A 45 minutes drive away from the capital towards Punakha/Wangdue, the Royal Botanical Park in Lamperi spreads over 12,000 acres of protected land. It features a rhododendron garden; children’s play ground, a camping ground and information centre for visitors. It also has a cafeteria, biking trails and a beautiful lake, Baritsho Lake.  

The fateful day was on the last weekend. We had our supplies and tents packed for the night and in a group of six we ventured out into our adventure for the night. Just before closing, i.e at 5 pm we reached the park and after having to go around looking for the park manager, we had the permission to camp there for the night.  

Excited and all joyous we had our tent pitched and went around collecting firewood for the bonfire, leased out the boat and had a joyful ride and played in the children’s park. It was so wonderful to have the 12, 000 acres of park just to ourselves and for a moment I imagined myself being in the Garden of Eden, obviously the serpent must have been somewhere around, Shhhh!!! 

The cool weather and the serene environment was a real feast to the eyes, it had rained the previous night and the earth was still damp from the rain. This did not deter us from the camping mood. It was a perfect getaway after a rough week. 

Daylight soon gave way to nightfall and we had our bonfire ready. In the darkness you could feel the eerie sounds of the night. This must have freaked all of us and soon we were sharing the scary movies stories and stories of bear and the tigers LOL. After that no one wanted to stay back. Making the excuse of “it might rain”, we immediately packed our stuffs and silently sneaked out of the park towards Thimphu promising a mega comeback later in the month of autumn when the weather is warm and the sun is plentiful. Of course with a large group haha.You may start planning yours as well.

Denmark Diary

It has been four days in Copenhagen after the tiring 12 hours (approx.) journey from Bangkok. Since then, I have been Alice in Wonderland. The rickety historic centre, maze of cobbled streets and ancient churches, palaces and government buildings, alongside brave and striking modern interjections such as the ferociously angled extension to the Royal Library (Black Diamond) are gloriously attractive in Denmark.

Its 9:22 pm at night now and the sun hasn't set yet, today's forecast says that it will set at 9:47 tonight, so I still have 25 minutes for the sun to set as I write this. Interestingly, 30 before 30 list to watch sunset for a week will be checked off soon while I'm in Copenhagen this entire week. Yay! 

Since Mr. sun sets weirdly late here, my sleep timing has been affected badly, I've not been able to get proper sleep. 

Danish are bike-maniacs. It’s truly the most bike-friendly city in the world. Every hotel and restaurants you go to encourages the use of bike. Every one of them are seen cycling either to work or I have no idea where they are going, God knows alone. 

Castles and churches are another things that has never failed to amaze me. We went to Kronborg Castle in Helsingor, 45 km north of Copenhagen. Immortalized as Elsinore in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Kronborg is one of the most important Renaissance castles in northern Europe. Every year Hamlet is played here in the castle's courtyard. How amazing would it be to witness that from the castle's courtyard. My imagination turned real after having read all those Shakespeare's plays and the classic stories. And the stories of the warriors, the kings and the paupers were so amazing to hear from the guide. Denmark has a rich history of its kings and the queens and their castles. 

Kronborg Castle

Also Sweden is seen from the Kronborg castle at the other end of the sea (as seen in the last pic). It takes 45 minutes by train and just 20 minutes by ferry to travel to Sweden. 

I haven't come out of the wonderland, sadly I have just two days to be in this wonderland for my time to turn to pumpkin eep.... 

Till then, I will come up with the second part of Denmark Diary with more beautiful pictures.