Countdown - One Month Left

Ok, technically less than one month. One month til I leave Århus forever.

Oh how I wish I could go back to August, when the weather was warmer, and I was bubbly, content, euphoric all day, every day. I remember walking home at 9pm when the sky was still bright feeling so happy nothing could bring me down.

Winter Wonderland

The morning I left for Copenhagen, I woke up to find the ground covered in a thick white blanket of snow. It was 5am. When I looked out the window at 1am it was raining. It must have snowed very hard in the intervening 4 hour. I was going to take the bus to Copenhagen (I really want to write København), so I was very worried whether the buses will operate due to the snow. But to the credit of the prompt Danes, not only did the buses operate, it was also on time.

To be honest I was a bit disappointed I was going to leave Århus at the first heavy snow (and the disappointment wasn't completely unreasonable, as I later found out my friends had a snow fight whilst I was gone), particularly since it was raining when I got to CPH. It was raining and windy, until happily, when we were at Tivoli, it started to snow. By the time we were getting ready to sleep, there was already a collection of fluffy snow on the ground.

The day after I got back to Århus, it snowed hard. Giant flakes of snow, composed of smaller pieces of snowflakes congealed together, looked like cotton falling out of the sky, falling so heavily that the view looked greyish and white...

As it snowed...

A thick deposit of snow just waiting to be thrown at someone

Lagkaghuset - the only thing I need to remember from Copenhagen

I spent the whole of Wednesday 24th November 2010 eating bakery goods, mostly from Lagkaghuset. Yang was right, there IS a bakery at every corner in Copenhagen. It is kind of hard to find bakeries in Århus, I think, and most of them don't sell such a deletable range of snacks, at least they don't look this enticing. Anyhoos...I know of this place because of Yang too.

Berry tarts, eaten with JJ - really lovely. They fill their tart with a dense, almond tasting biscuit base thing, so it is like the tart crust is 1.5cm thick!


Morning tea of raisin bun with coffee while I waited for my visa. I enjoyed the spices and fruits in here. My actual breakfast was a chocolate croissant from a local bakery


Nut tart - this was really awesome, I think they put in orange zest which infused it with a fresh citrussy taste.


Cream pancake - I thought this looked really enticing, but it was filled with cream, too heavy, and a bit disgusting given this came after a big sandwich


Pastry display. I had a rhubarb croissant, it was too sweet >.<>


I had the blueberry muffin for dinner. I remember when Yang first came to Denmark, she remarked how the muffins here in Denmark are like...the entire muffin has the texture of muffin tops. This was indeed true of the muffin here, although I don't think the muffin she had at the time was from Lagkaghuset.

First Snow

Note how, strangely, there is a pair of boots sitting in the snow. They are still there. Different car parked in front though...

Had a rather big night on Thursday. Only slept 5 hours. Stay indoors the whole day on Friday. Slept 14 hours. Woke up with the ground covered in snow. Looking forward to the month to come.

The Woohoo Rollercoaster

This exchange has been much more of an emotional rollercoaster than I expected. All contributing to personal growth....I hope

Hopping Around

We went ice-skating yesterday. This was only my third time ever. At the beginning I held onto my friend's hands, but I felt a bit bad after doing a few laps with them., because I felt like I was keeping them from having fun, so I grabbed a hold of a penguin (see below) when I saw a free one so they can play piggy in the middle/tip.

Me leaning on a penguin for support. I'm unnaturally positioned for skating because the penguin is meant for kids. Still, I thought it was cute

After about an hour of holding onto the penguin, my friends were rather insistent I let go of it and upgrade to a more advanced mode of skating. So I held onto Gaby's hands as she skated backwards. She use to do figure skating, so she's very stable, and numerous times saved me from falling over. But at one pertinent time, when I started to slip and fall backwards, she hugged me to prevent me from falling backwards, as she usually does, but I was falling too fast that I also brought her down with me. She fell on my leg when it was at a rather awkward angle. The first thought that ran through my head when the gravity of the pain hit was, "OMG is it broken??"

I didn't break any bones, but it sure as hell hurt when I walk. I asked Oppa to help me home. He piggy-backed me to the bus stop and then from the bus stop to my apartment. There is something not right about the way he holds me or the way I hold onto him because I keep slipping and it is super tiring for him; he had to stop at multiple intervals to catch his breath and regain his strength.

When we finally got to my place, we realised Oppa also became injured as a result of the ordeal. His arms were already tired because he just started doing push-ups that morning, and after carrying the 'heavy load', could no longer lift his arms passed his shoulder. Still I'm very grateful to have a friend like Oppa, or maybe an Oppa like Oppa.

So that's how I injured my leg. It hasn't gotten better since yesterday, as I still can't stand on it without it hurting. So I'm hopping about my place, can't go anywhere! Had to ask Gaby to buy some groceries for me so I won't starve for next few days. I'm also a bit sad as now I won't be able to go to a sushi party that's on tomorrow. I'm worried about how serious this injury is, I really hope I will see better progress tomorrow!!

Update 14 Nov 17:51:
I can LIMP! WOOHOO!! The first step was the hardest because I was so scared it was going to hurt. But it doesn't if i walk a certain way. I can go to class tomorrow, I am so happy.

Culminating with a Very Fine Sunday

A normal day in Århus is grey with showers. It is so rare for the blue sky to be unblemished by clouds, but last Sunday is such a day. But I think the story should start somewhere on Wednesday. Amy wanted to make dumplings that night. Initially it was only going to be a small affair with the girls. But she didn't go downtown on time to buy the ingredients, and then we invited more guys as the day passed. I like how this spontaneous 'party' was borne. We cooked whatever we bought from the supermarket: unfallible Heeyul (hereafter Oppa) cooked some Korean meat with sweet potato noodles, Kengo in his debut performance, cooked meat with lettuce, I cooked brocolli and carrots (gotta hv the vegies!) and Gabrielle made her mother's famous apple crumble.

Our group (L-R): Kengo, me, Amy, Peter, Oppa, Hyeri and Gabrielle. Oppa says this photo captures how we normally behave so acurately (mostly directed at the three kids on the left).

It was a good night, I was drank to a perfect, happy level, scraped the apple crumble clean, danced and sang to 2NE1, wore Kengo's new boots even before him, then stole his other boots forcing him to walk thru gravel and wet grass in his socks (ahhh...teasing him gives such a perverse sense of happiness. He says I'm saddistic).

Friday, was J-Day, for when the Christmas Beer (Juleøl) is released. It's a brew made especially for Xmas, and we were told there will be hot girls handing out free beers on trucks. Actually I did see lots of them in skimpy Santa Claus dresses and a truck near the university prior to going, so I was very excited. But when we got to downtown, we couldn't find any hot girls on trucks handing out free beer as promised by the Danes. We walked everywhere we could think of and all we found were OLD MEN dressed as Santa Clauses playing Xmas carols. Such a disappointment! In the end we just bought some Xmas beer from 7/11 and went to Peter's place for a quieter, more restrained night in. But the night didn't end there, for we missed our last bus home, so we had to walk. home. It was nevertheless a good walk because we sang on the way in French, Korean, Chinese and English.

People dancing with Musical Santas

Hyeri imitating the Santa on the Xmas Beer. I know I will likely be arsewhooped by her if she ever finds out I put such a photo of her in the public domain, but she's such a cutie-pie here I'll take the risk

On Saturday night, we went to Oppa's place for his Bibimbab party. Bibimbab is my favourite Korean food, enough said!

And on Sunday...yes it was a really fine day. In the morning, Peter took Oppa, Naho and I to an chocolate fair [for Christmas chocolate (Julens chokolade)? The Danes have Xmas everything!]near his place. We sample fine chocolate from many makers, so much I felt really quite sick after just the 2nd or 3rd table. Then, we went to deer park, a place I've been wanting to go to for a long time. It looked so different from the photos I had seen because the ground was covered by amber leaves. Afterwards, we walked the chocolates off by the beach.