Ahhh, Copenhagen! A city I've grown to love more after each visit. The trip that happened last month was my second time to the capital of Denmark. My first visit happened in December 2014, a week before Christmas so I got to experience the (in)famous Scandinavian winter and explored Christmas markets with a warm cuppa in hand.

It was a refreshing change to be in CPH this time round and in summer. The buildings look a little brighter, the laughters a little chirpier, I was overjoyed to be exploring the happiest nation in the world again, and this time round with local guides. There's no way you could learn about a city without local companions so I was glad to be fed little nuggets of information along the trip which was all very interesting to me. I love learning about cultures.

The first few search results for things to do in CPH are normally Nyhavn, Tivoli Gardens, Stroget and Christiania, so I thought I'll share a little more about other activities/places of interest you can explore in CPH :)


Tour the harbours and canals in CPH with GoBoat
We got a unique perspective of the city on the GoBoat which proved to be so much fun! These Danish designed boats are made of recycled materials, run on reusable batteries and the batteries are charged by solar power. Talk about sustainable business! There's a table in the centre of the boat so enjoy your picnic and be your own captain for a day! No licence or experience is needed to operate the boat.

Get a bird's eye view of the city from Christiansborg Palace

At 106 metres, The Tower at Christiansborg Palace is the tallest building in Copenhagen and it offers a magnificent bird's eye view of the city. There was a queue when we got there in the late afternoon but it moved relatively quick.

Opens Tuesday-Sunday, 11am to 9pm

Live like a local with Cycling Copenhagen

At a city where it is all about the cyclists, one of the best experiences you can gain for yourself is to live like a local by going about your day on a bicycle. You will realise that Copenhagen is made for cycling with its wide, spacious bicycle lanes and drivers who actually keep an eye out for cyclists (experienced it personally)! Christian, the founder of Cycling Copenhagen, brought us off the beaten track and we had such a fun and enjoyable 2-hour learning about each individual location he brought us to ;)

Celebrate diversity at Superkilen Park

Superkilen is a public park that is like a world exhibition filled with interesting things from around the world. It is intended to celebrate diversity so you can expect to see litter bins from England, a fountain from Morocco, swings from Iraq, etc.

Shop local designers at Jægersborggade

Only 150 metres long but Jægersborggade is packed with cool specialty stores, ranging from food to clothes to pottery. Some of the best restaurants in CPH can be found here - GROD, Manfreds, Relae and The Coffee Collective. You should also check out the only caramel cookery in CPH - Karamelleriet (that was some rich, creamy goodness!).

Take a stroll down the Latin Quarter

Our hotel, Hotel SP34 is located at the Latin Quarter so I've walked around that area umpteen times during our stay there. It is one of the most entertaining neighbourhoods in CPH and it is well-known for its hangout spots. Do check out Church of Our Lady and Sankt Peders Straede Bakery (best in town I've heard!) if you are in the area.

I hope this post has given you some ideas to explore Copenhagen in a different way. I'll be back to share more experiences, activities and food! xx

Hello, Copenhagen!

Hello hello! It seems like I took a longer than usual absence from Dayre 😅 Life was busy after I got back from Copenhagen. And when I'm not busy, it's just slow-moving, which is actually the norm for me and I like that so I just lazed around and refused to get out of my post-holiday blues.

My jetlag was soooo bad after I got back, I remember I slept at 8AM on one of the days. It was pure madness. But I've always known my body clock is living in the Europe timezone.

It's like, I've been jet lagged for 3 years now. If you include the flying years, I've been jet lagged for 8 over years lol. A little crazy and I don't expect you to understand haha.

Anyway, I really love travelling on SQ. 'Cause always got special treatment when people I know are working on my flight!! On my flight back from Osaka in May, I saw my batch girl at the check-in counter and she was working at the zone I was seated in!!! In fact, she was serving my aisle haha.

Moreover, the inflight supervisor was super nice as well so she told my batch girl to take extremely good care of H and I and to feel free to request for anything.

I'm actually the most quiet and least troublesome passenger you'll meet on board. I sleep through the flight, never press the call bell, eat whatever you serve me and I only drink water. So I actually don't have many (or any) requests. But it's still nice to be taken care of.

Then on my flight back from London, @soapz was working downstairs (A380) and this ex-colleague of mine was working at the zone I was seated at and he actually blocked out an empty row of seats for me after take-off and I had such a good sleep after lunch service! That was very, very nice of him because we only worked tgt once in the past but he's on my FB so I guess we "kept in contact" lol.

Anyway, back to CPH. This was my second time in the city and can I say that I love it even more after this trip?? 😍

I am in awe with how the Danes are so environmentally conscious. A huge number of the population cycles everywhere. During conversations with one of our hosts, she told me she used to cycle 12km daily from home to work and back!!!

I was already feeling so lethargic after a 2-hour cycle tour of the city. I had trouble functioning for the later half of the day so I went back to the hotel for a power nap. And later that night, I got woken up because my thighs were aching and cramping so badly. Yup, #unfitisme

Anyway, I realised I was paddling harder on the bike than everyone else because shortie here (by Denmark's standard okkkk) couldn't touch the ground on a standard bicycle hahaha.

This bicycle I finally settled on was the third one the store owner brought out I think. The other two designs were too high and the wheels too big and I wasn't confident I wouldn't collide! So yes, wider and smaller wheels travel shorter distance so for every one paddle the rest took, I had to move thrice as fast and ended up feeling more tired than everyone else 😪 Actually @beatricesays took the same bicycle as I did but she wasn't aching at all???!

Ok ok, I'm just very unfit.

But this is an activity I'd definitely do again as I really enjoy cycling. It's probably the only sport I'm good at too so that's a confidence booster hahaha.

Summer is such a nice time to be in CPH. I love the buildings, the colours, blue skies, the aesthetics of the city, and the weather, of course!

Scandinavian designs are #goals. It's like, if you enter a homeware store, you'll probably never go wrong with furnishing your home, you know what I mean? Same goes for Japanese aesthetics though they lack colours.

In SG, we have bright red, royal blue and whatever funky coloured pails but in Scandinavia and Japan, all they have are white or grey or pastel coloured pails. If you've ever tried hunting for one, you'd know a pail in a neutral shade is not easily available in Sg. When H and I saw a pale grey one, we grabbed it lol.

That was totally unrelated to what I'm trying to say about colours and aesthetics....but you get what I mean 😐

The week we were at CPH was Midsummer which means we experienced some of the hottest days when we were there! Temperature was 25-26°C in the day and it was so hot! One of our hosts actually felt unwell by dinner time probably due to the sun and heat which they don't get often. Apparently the temps dropped drastically after that week. I just checked - it's now 18-19°C in the day, omg such perfect weather 😔

The food in CPH was 👌👌👌

I already knew that on my last trip but this trip further proved it. The Danes take a lot of pride in their presentation and the quality of the ingredients they serve. They have organic everything - from meat to vegetables to fruits to drinks and the price difference isn't even that huge from non-organic food. I really appreciate that. It's amazing how the entire nation believes in food sustainability, in eating well and healthy.

Many of the restaurants we went to try to incorporate local produce in their dishes. They have a lot of farm to table practices. One of the restaurants we visited - Manfreds, actually left a deep impression on me. It is a veggie-focused restaurant and we had a lunch tasting menu of mainly vegetables and it was so good!! They did serve beef tartare and lamb, both which I don't take, but still left feeling full. If you love your veggies like I do, you should pop by if you're ever in CPH!

If I remember right, they don't have a fixed menu. They serve whatever vegetables that were freshly delivered on that day. The food was good, affordable and nothing I've ever tried so it was definitely a good experience.

And then I discovered juice pairing! I do drink alcohol but I can't say I'm a big fan or a wine connoisseur so juices were a great alternative for me!

Just like wine pairing, I had a glass of juice for every dish served to me. The one in the middle was pea juice. It tasted very "green" initially but the taste grew on me that's why the glass is almost empty at the end of the course! I also had Bloody Mary without vodka so it was tomato mixed with something juice which was very refreshing.

We also went on a boat ride through the canals of CPH and it provided a unique perspective to see the sights.

Thankful for a patient host and companions because we couldn't stop snapping photos hahaha. At one point we even requested to reverse our boat after the big tourist boat has passed so we can continue taking photos at that magical spot ✨ The other boat eventually decided to wait for us no more and they just sailed on lol.

This is just a summary of my colourful trip. I'll share more in greater details about the city soon! xx

This post is also shared on my Dayre