Our Neighbour, Oslo, Day 1

Even though it was a couple of days before my written Swedish (elementary) exam, I couldn't resist the opportunity to tag along with LQ when she went for a conference in Oslo - capital and largest city of Norway - in early May.

Around Oslo Sentralstasjon (Central Train Station)

Hotel Room, Thon Hotel Astoria (Chain in Norway)
Having breakfast every morning in a hotel is a joy.

Opera House

really reminded me of our Esplanade - highly controversial, out-of-place but slowly winning local hearts (i hope). This newly-built opera house has a beautiful interior as well as a futuristically designed whitish exterior!

On the Way to Akershus Fortress

saw the Børsen, beautiful walls, nice parks but with people peddling drugs - the city shows its shady side.

Akershus Fortress

wonderfully situated castle/fortress on a hill beside the sea leading to the Oslo fjords. The Police (Politi in norwegian) had to patrol on horseback just like I saw in Stockholm (sometimes)!

Stairs to Heaven (or Somewhere...)

The Aker Brygge in the distance as well as the Olso Rådhus (Town Hall).

Back to City Centre

Walked through Øvre Slottsgata, Grønsen, Torrgata, Youngstorget looking for a nice place to have dinner!

Vietnamese Dinner

Really expensive to eat in Oslo - think it was about SGD$20 over (each person) for simple but reminiscient dishes like Pho bo (beef noodles) and stir-fried chicken with rice. But the iced coffee was memorably refreshing!!

For the record, the hours spent inside the hotel room cramming the grammer -nouns, verbs, sentence structure, etc into a brain non-accustomed to learning scandinavian languages was worth it! (while waiting for LQ to finish her conference) I had to constantly remind myself of the 'reward' of seeing another capital city and going out to walk-walk. And this being distracted by the similar norwegian language on the TV and hotel room signages at the same time. I did well for the Swedish exam after all and guess the strategy worked out fine in the end.. HENG AH!