Copenhagen one night layover
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However short time I have in a city, I still enjoy taking public transportation not to save money, but to experience subways and buses in different countries as much as possible. So I took M2 metro line from airport to downtown Copenhagen. It was a 20 min short ride, but cost as many as 30 DKK ($4.5). Scandinavian price is no joke even to a Bay Area resident like me.
Copenhagen metro: not the best I’ve taken, but pretty comfortable and clean, definitely a far cry from the US ones.
I planned to start from the City Hall at the western end of downtown area, and made my way to the famous Little Mermaid statue in the east, which would cover most of Copenhagen’s central area. That is from the statue of Anderson to the statue to one of the most famous characters he created. As I walked out the metro station, to my surprise, I saw a sea of flags of not Denmark, but Palestine. It was in the midst of the Hamas-Israeli war, shortly after the Israeli army entered the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been one that’s close to my heart. Personally having been to both Israel and Palestine, I’ve heard stories from both sides, and attended events of various sorts from both sides as well. So I stayed here to observe for a while, seeing the impassioned crowds waving the flags and chanting the political slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
In the middle of chaos, I took some time to walk toward the other end of the plaza to see Mr Hans Christian Anderson, arguably the most famous person every tourist to Copenhagen would come to visit. Anderson sit on his chair with a top hat, looking at the other side, seemingly not paying attention to the ongoing protests on the plaza at all. He seemed to see these quite often and just wanted to chill.
As I decided to leave the plaza and began my walking tour, the rally also ended. So I followed the crowds to the Strøget, the famous pedestrian, car-free street in Copenhagen. The street seemed to be a touristy area with many souvenir stores, many of which were named “Viking” conveniently, and “exotic” restaurants. In retrospect, I really should have had dinner here.
Flyers on the wall were about the Palestine rally I saw earlier.
With crowds still chanting Palestinian slogans, I continued walking down the Strøget, while occastionally left the crowds to explore some stores briefly. A huge pulpit was seen placed next to this fountain, where Quran was played loudly admist the Scandinavian night. Seeing a group of mid-age Danish people sitting on the other side of the plaza hanging out and drinking, I wondered how they thought about the scene. Did they embrace such diversity or else?
Continuing walking eastward, architectures looked more and more modern. Fountains and statues could be seen once in a while. Then a market full of crowds came to my sight. Even thought it was still early November, the Christmas market had already taken place.
I personally can’t stand sitting outside in such a cold weather, but it seemed fitting to the Danish. People dressing in heavy jackets came together to chill, drink beers ,and share sausages and desserts on this Saturday night. The price for everything looked insanely high though. As a sausage cost nearly $20, I just observed the crowds.
I also visited a department store that fortunately was still open. Such stores are good places to observe local lives, so I always make them top on my list when I travel. Everything in the supermarket, from vegetables to seafood, seemed very pricey. Even though I later found my conversion rate was a little bit off, these prices were still way higher than in the Bay Area, which was already one of the most expensive places in the world.
As I walked pass the seafood counter and saw a lady sorting out seafood, a surreal feeling occurred to me. Travel brought me to this random place to encounter this random person, which wouldn’t have had anything to do with my life otherwise.
This is exactly what I travel for.
I planned to have dinner in the department store, but it didn’t really have a food court (only one serving desserts and wine). So I continued walking. Finally seeing Danish flags outside souvenir stores after a while.
This iconic building with all the dazzling lights was also a department store (for some reason I forgot to take any photo inside). I have arrived at the Kongens Nytorv (lit king’s new market) and Nyhavn (lit New harbor) area. This is also where the postcard-worthy photos of the colorful facades and old ships were taken (something along these lines). There was a McDonald right outside the department store, but I didn’t feel like having it as my only meal in Denmark. Big mistake, but we’ll come back to this.
To my disappointment, the facades were not very well-lit, which made them not very colorful. Both sides of Nyhavn were full of fancy restaurants that would probably cost me an arm to eat and a leg to dine inside (seriously $60 for a simple meal?) I was unsure whether these were tourist traps, or just typical Scandinavian prices.
Walking to the end of the harbor, I took a photo of the iconic new opera building across the harbor, under chilling winds. I thought the Little Mermaid, as popular as it is, has to be located in somewhere full of crowds. However the lively vibe I had experienced so far suddenly faded away. I realized it was really just the walkable Strøget area that was lively, and now I had encountered another side of Copenhagen.
Amalienborg was the official residence of the Danish royal family, where the Queen of Denmark resides today! However, it was only serenity that I could experience at night. A few royal guards wearing huge bearskin hats were patrolling the plaza. They would walk from one end of the building to a specific corner, stand still, turn around, and walk back to the original spot, so disciplined and well trained as if they were programmed robots. But as the palace where the head of state resides, I felt the security level was way lower than expected.
So on the plaza in this tranquil night, there were really only the royal guards wearing bearskin hats, King Frederick V on the horseback (he was actually king of both Denmark and Norway, when these two countries used to be one), and myself. I was observing both of them, while both the king and the guards were just going about their day (or night), ignoring my presence.
I was desperate to have dinner at any time, but few restaurants could be found. I made a small detour to a nearby street, where there were Khmer, Thai, and Vietnamese restaurants, presumably opened by immigrants. My experience told me that these places would offer foods at reasonable price. However, they all turned out to be high-end restaurants that cost $40 a meal.
Other restaurants I went to either was closed, or cost even more. I really wondered how an average person got to survive here.
At least I was glad to see the Danish road signs! Whoever plays Geoguessr would recognize this typical Danish signs, screaming Denmark, at first glance.
So I was approaching my destination, the Little Mermaid, walking in hunger and increasingly brutal winds. I realized the statue was located in a coastal park, with no stores or restaurants around as I imagined before. My final shot to not starve would be this seafood restaurant on the way there.
I almost thought the place was closed too, because I couldn’t even open the door as fierce winds blew onto it. It turned out to be a food court with many restaurants to choose from, ranging from seafood, authentic Mexican food, Argentinian grills……. and even Japanese sushi.
I ended up having this poke bowl as my only meal in Copenhagen. The famous Hawaiian and Californian-inspired dish that came with fish, avocado and random vegetables. Seriously it could not be less Danish than this. After I came out from the much needed restroom, I wondered how funny it would be to write about this journey, sharing about the authentic Danish food that Danish people get to eat in their everyday lives. I really should have eaten McDonalds or Burger King, or even the Chinese restaurant I first saw.
But hey, at least I had walked across nearly all of Copenhagen!
After such an authentic Danish dining experience, I went on to see something truly Danish: the Little Mermaid. The coastal park seemed to be a fun place to visit during the day, with good trails to bike if I hadn’t been carrying a 10kg backpack. Few tourists would visit the Little Mermaid in such a chilly night. In fact, only two local Danish dudes were there chatting. They came to me asking for cigarettes, which was indeed very fitting for this setting. Too bad I didn’t have one.
On my way walking to the metro station, I realized I had drunk too much water when I had the Danish delights, and my bladder couldn’t stand anymore. Unlike my dinner, I had no luck this time — absolutely nowhere was open in 10pm; the public restroom at train station was hopelessly occupied forever; however neat and clean Copenhagen’s metro was, it didn’t have any restroom in the station.
I tried to focus on my brain instead of my bladder. At one point I almost had no options but to take metro all the way to the airport, just for its guaranteed public restrooms. The department store and McDonalds in downtown, only 2 stations away from here, finally occurred to me. As I ran out the metro, the former seemed to be closed, but the latter, fortunately, was open.
I ran all the way to the basement, rushing into the restroom, only to see some ladies waiting in line. As I quickly turned back and about to ran out, a lady said “it’s fine! it’s both genders!”
“I promise I’ll eat McDonald next time Im in this city.” I pondered, As I used the gender-neutral restroom.
Walking out of McDonalds, I took metro to Ørestad. This is where I would stay tonight, somewhere with reasonable price and only two stations from the airport. Since my flight would depart 8am the next day, proximity was the top priority.
I walked through the already closed shopping mall and exited via the confusing parking lot stairs to avoid the ruthless freezing winds.
The hotel was a good deal for what I paid in such an expensive city. But my room turned out to be the final room down the hallway. This is very scary and something I would like to avoid at all cost. Legend has it that, the final room down the hallway always……
had the worst wi-fi signals…….took me forever to upload my Strava activity.
And was I only 5 hours into the trip? Why did I feel it’s already been 5 full days…….
