The Scandinavian Breakaway, part 1 – Gothenburg 哥德堡

We flew in to Oslo, Norway from ukraine on Friday evening 23rd January, 2009. It was already midnight when we reached the city center of Oslo from the airport, we found the house of our host in Oslo, Alrid, and we slept in. (We will be coming back on the CNY eve on 25th!)
The next day early in the morning, we took off to Gothenburg, Sweden by a bus journey of 4 hours, reaching there in noon. Only then, our trip started!!! :D
Our host, David was already there at the bus terminal waiting for us!!! I couldn't recognise him at first because he looked so much different from his profile picture on couchsurfing (lot more cuter >.<), luckily he recognised me :) .
We didn't waste much time and followed David back to his apartment on foot. Well, Gothenburg, although is the 2nd largest city in Sweden, basically is a small peaceful little city, maybe because generally Sweden has much more land to offer to her small population. Hence, I was told by David that we could get to all places in the city on foot!

We rested for awhile in his apartment, at the same time David was planning where to bring us around in the city. In the end, we decided to pay a visit to the tourist information center since David confessed that he is a 'tourist' himself actually in his hometown >.< haha~ (I think I will be a 'tourist' too back in my hometown, Ipoh :P )
We took 3 umbrellas out because Gothenburg is famous for her rainy days!

Our first stop is to a fish market! While on the way there, we saw many canals running throughout the city, David explained that because back in the history of Gothenburg, there was once a great fire which burnt down almost the whole city, and to rebuild the city, some Netherlands architects were hired and it was the Dutch style to build canals around the city. Hence, similar canals could be seen in Armsterdam too!


Back to the fish market, it was located inside a triangular building. The market itself is ordinary, but it was the building which was special, because it has a very very old historical background. Well, still we were amazed by all the fresh seafood sold inside the building!!!
(P/S: before the fish market, we actually went to a liquor store to stock up! :D In Sweden, any alcohol above 3.5% couldn't be found in normal stores or supermarkets, ONLY in definite liquor stores! Plus, on saturday, the store operates only till 3pm! And CLOSES on sunday!!! Hence, David suggested to get some now for tonight before it closed. You have to show your ID while purchasing >.<)


The next stop!... ... ... David couldn't decide yet, so he called his friend to find out whether a place famous with handicraft shops was opened on a weekend. Luckily, it was opened! There we went~~

It was in an old square, surrounded with little antique shops, selling different cultural handicrafts and products. Mostly were not opened but still we managed to visit a glass handicrafts shop and a chocolate bakery!!! ^.^ We got some yummy chocolates for our taste buds too!


Then, we continued our way to the sea shore where the famous 'lipstick' building and the Opera theater are located!
Next to the theater was a small port, available for private boats to rent a place and anchor their boats here for weeks or months!



Group picture ^.^

OK, teatime! (we decided to have a light lunch because we are planning to have a feast tonight! ^.^)

We had SALADS!!! you can choose chicken, prawn or tuna! Healthy and delicious!
It was getting late after this, and we needed to do some shopping for the dinner tonight! We were abit late and most of the stores were closing, luckily we managed to get what we wanted after visiting 3 supermarkets!!! ---> we got CRABS! >.< swedish crabs...hehe.

They have cute trolleys ^.^


Well, David offered to make us appetizers!!! (the bottom left picture) It was made of bread with on top of it kavia, herrings, and mushroom salad! OMG, was it finger-licking GOOD!!!

The girls were the main chef and cooked the crabs, chickens and broccoli while me stayed to clean up dishes >.< .
We had also Swedish “Semla” (something with marzipan???) as dessert! ( top right picture)

Drama happened half way through the dinner as someone broke the wine glass!!! LoL~ (we had to use a plier instead of a proper clamp for the crabs, haha~ and the drama happened partly due to the plier.)

Cleaning time! Meanwhile, David was busy making us drinks – Swedish vodka with sprite!!!
After a scrumptious meal, we chilled out at the couch, using David's BIG plasma TV screen to go online and chatted with our friends on webcam, since CNY was near! :D

We had a fun time chatting on the cam and chilling out until 11pm plus when David's best friend, Oskar arrived! Then, our last stop of the day--> the club, ParkLane!!! (as David said, every third friday is the pay day in Sweden, thus, on the same Saturday, everyone will be out all night to have fun!!! It is really true, at even 3am I can still see packing crowds along the streets! :O )

We had an AWESOME night! >.<

The next day was a hard day, as most of us were suffering from mild to moderate hang over! LoL~ yet we were strong and determined and carried on with our tour!!! (thanks to David for offering the guide even it was not his best state :P)

We firstly strolled around, walked past the University of Gothenburg, an Asian shop selling different spices and herbs ( take note of the top left picture – Ass in space! How spicy this sauce could be?!?!!? LoL~)




What a post-party day...we even did some morning exercises, climbing up hill to a fort! (which is now used as a function hall) It was worth the sweat as we got the breathtaking panoramic view of Gothenburg :)

We then visited 2 more churches and David's previous apartment (just walked past). We were getting worn out, the post-party syndrome started to kick in. We ended our journey by visiting a supermarket again to grab some stuff for CNY eve dinner in Oslo.

At 3pm, we headed to the bus terminal (w/o David this time, he was knocked out, too tired :) ) and got ready to travel back to Oslo to have a CNY eve dinner with our host and friends.

Overall, a short trip in Gothenburg was really a FUN & AWESOME one, a BIG thank you to David!!! w/o you, Gothenburg won't be as FABULOUS! :D