Danish Day

The Old Opera House is on the left and the building in the middle is Magasine du Nord, a shopping center. That's where I went shopping!


The Little Mermaid. Thought she'd be bigger.....


This sampan is owned by the third guy who co-founded or is a partner of Microsoft. Who ah? Bill Gates is one, Steve Ballmer kah the second one but the third one escapes me entirely....


The New Opera House. It does look like RM 1.4 billion....

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I have blisters on my feet walking around Copenhagen these last two days. I have blisters on my thigh from my passport in my pocket and I realised it only when the skin broke. Ow....

Went around town, past the house that Hans Christian Andersen once stayed. Hey, I realised that over the years I have visited houses or places associated with Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Noah Webster and J. K. Rowling.

Went to take a look see at The Little Mermaid, the offices of Maersk, only the largest industrial concern of Denmark, plus the new Opera House, built by A. P. Moeller, owner of Maersk. It costs him only Euro 350 million, about RM 1.4 billion. And he presented it to the people of Denmark. Neat. Richly neat. Went on a tour of the canals. Kids jumped from the embankment on purpose, to splash water on us on the boat. Cute, very cute. Went to the Tivoli Gardens. I always thought that the theatres and other places back home are named after a place in India. Only later that I learned that the original name of Tivoli was coined here in Copenhagen.

Met reps of the shipowners, people who run the tankers for the shipowners, brokers and Ilya, their boss. You should hear Ilya's story. Emigrated from the former Soviet Union when he was ten. Has degrees in History, Spanish and International Relations and now runs the biggest shipping company in the inland rivers of Russia. And someone like him still yearns to do more studying - philosophy but for being so busy working now, he's put that on hold. Maybe that could be good advice for Nazzim and Sofia. The world does not gravitate around medical, engineering, law or accounting degrees. But lots of luck and hard work wouldn't hurt either.

And to top it up, I got an invitation to visit St. Petersburg, the offices of the owners of the ships. Neat, very neat.

Can't stop about thinking about how perfect it would be if Lina, Nazzim and Sofia could be here with me. That's it, we'll definitely go somewhere once both Nazzim and Sofia are through with SRP and UPSR later this year..... That would be nice. Besides, Lina said that I owe her big time for taking care of my children, my home, my car and my life back home. Payback time, with pleasure.

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