It's 2:42 am on 7/14 in Tilburg now. I had slept since 10:00 pm from last night till several minutes ago. I can't wait for the time of catching up my diary for 7/13 to express how great the Chef's 4-course formal dinner I had at our hotel. I recommended my son to take 6-course. We spent 3 hours and a half to have this classic French. The waitress and waiters were very warm-hearted and professional. When reading the check, I was a little bit surprised that the price was very reasonable, which could be easily doubled in Paris or Amsterdam, I am sure, and they didn't give me a chance to write a tip. I don't know if I should have left something on the table or not. I generally don't regret that I lost so many opportunities to make much more money either through my family's businesses or myself when I was in 20s because of my personalities and priorities. But every time when I enjoy the upscale services, I blame myself not caring about money in the past, otherwise I could do it everyday rather than only on vacation.
A train station is very close to Park Inn we stayed in Kastrup near Copenhagen Airport, but since we had car, we drove out to Little Mermaid after I had buffet breakfast in the lobby, my son doesn't eat breakfast regularly and he didn't get up in time either.
Driving along the beach, we took a series of curved roads to arrive at the compound with Little Mermaid as the most appreciated attraction. Learning how to pay for parking in front of the meter for a minute, we walked into the area of the harbour though it isn't the most famous Nyhavn. However we had driven through it earlier and did see many tourists there.
Passing by the Statue of Little Mermaid, we saw too many tourists taking photos with her to have us doing it. So, we decided to walk over and would come back to do it later. I also noticed a lady selling the different sizes of Souvenir Little Mermaid by the path and would buy the largest one before we were to leave. See, I took this for my son far away from the statue.
Wandering around Churchillparken, we first took several pictures and video clips of St. Alban's Anglican Church and nearby statues.
Then, we walked through Kastellet to appreciate the 17-Century fortress. They are all maintained as classic as in the old years, I presume.
Back to the square in front of the harbour, we could see 3 big ships parking on the water leaning to the dock. They seemed cruise ships.
Going back to the Little Mermaid, we found a much better position to snap the photos. I bought the largest size of the Little Mermaid the lady sold. My mom likes artworks, this is for her. By the way, I had been talking to my parents once in another day, either they called me or I called them. The roaming functions under my new plan with T-mobile worked very well.
Driving through the crowded streets in the city of Copenhagen, we arrived at our next destination - Tivoli Garden. Parking in a nearby closed parking garbage, we walked to Tivoli.
My son was very hungry at the time because he hadn't eaten anything and it's already 2 or 3 pm then. Walking to the corner of one of the most crowded intersections in Copenhagen, I saw the big sign of "Thai" hung on the top of the building. We hadn't had any Asian foods in this trip, so I asked my son who loves Asian foods as much as Western ones if he wanted to eat Thai food. As I shared, we generally don't eat Chinese food when travelling because we are always concerned if those restaurants are authentic or not, we may need to change our biased perceptions. However, when approaching that building, I just realized it is the logo of Thai Airways. It reminded me its Beijing office located on 2nd floor along with United, British Airways in Noble Tower back in 80s.
Turning left on the corner of the intersection, we saw a pretty upscale Italian restaurant. Going upstairs, we only saw a group of 5 young people eating by the window, oh, it's not the meal time.
The waitress was very lovely and we ordered the beers, my son had Pasta with meatball and I ordered fish fillet. It was a very nice view of looking down to the streets. We saw so many people riding bikes, some of them were tourists and some were locals to utilize bikes as transportations. In addition to Thai, I sought the logo of Air China as well.
The meal was very authentic Italian, I could tell. When the check was brought up, the waitress assumed my credit card without chip and pin, so had pushed a key on hand held machine to override. However, I started using my debit card with the pin to accommodate European needs, so she cancelled the previous transaction while telling us several American tourists having issue to pay by their credit cards yesterday. Yes/No option was popped on the panel, she said if I didn't want to pay tips, I could decline. I asked her to click "Ja".
After late lunch, we walked along the main street in Centrum to appreciate classic architectures by both sides. Walking over a bridge above the river, I saw a cop on his motorcycle at a corner of the intersection to watch the coming traffic. While still crossing the street, we heard a big sound of collision at the stop on main street: a car hit the bumper of another car, which was pushed onto the pedestrian crosswalk, fortunately, no one was walking through it then. A bunch of cops immediately ran over to check out. It looked like a setup of movie scene to me. Later on, when we walked back, we saw a cop using the camera to detect the speeds of the coming cars at the same intersection and the two cars in accident were still parked along the street.
It's still pretty early, so we decided to enter Tivoli, earlier my son didn't want to get in because he saw many rides in it and he thought it would be a waste for us if he wouldn't take those rides as he hadn't at Liesberg. After we entered, he changed his mind and wished that we could stay until late night to have a late dinner because there were so many restaurants in it.
By the way, while driving on the street earlier, I saw Chinese National Flags from time to time, either hung on the buildings or painted on the tour buses with other EU flags. In the park, we caught a ride with the image of Great Wall with the Chinese Word of "First Emperor" on it, which was referred to the Emperor in Qin Dynasty who had Great Wall built initially. However, from the surface, you might see Chinese influences gradually increased in Europe due to their economic powers but American culture still deeply roots into the societies. For instance, you could see American franchises everywhere.
Walking back to the parking garage, we got the issue to get into it. It's all locked up. A senior gentleman seemed having the same problem. We walked around the entire building to look for the entry and eventually I saw a door at the other end of the garage door. I left the ticket in the car but fortunately, the gentleman had his in hand because the number on the ticket needed punched at that door. Though I had learned how to pay at the machine in Denmark, I still confirmed with a young guy who was behind me. He kindly walked me through and it worked very well.
Following GPS, we drove back through the beautiful narrow streets instead of getting onto freeway to Kastrup.
Taking a nap in the room for 2 hours, we went downstairs to have the late dinner at Salt & Pepper in the lobby. The same waitress who served us last night took care of our orders. My son initially wanted to eat buffet but he figured not much left on the tables. We ended up with one Pasta, a club sandwich and a big burger, in addition to a starter. My son loved the cocktail he had had last night, so redid it again and I had two big glasses of Carlsberg. We were definitely full.
Earlier, I had booked a room at a boutique hotel in Tilburg through Expedia and we would drive there the morning after, which would be the longest drive in this trip. However, we wouldn't make it due to traffic collapse on Autobahn A1. You will learn it in my diary for 7/12.
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