Tour around Oslo

Today we went on a tour around Oslo
Oslo is really a beautiful place

Although not as beautiful as Bergen, it is a nice place...
It is actually quite small with a population of around 540,000 ppl(dunno accurate or not)

Anyway the first stop we went to the mountain top to see the ski jump
It is called Holmenkollen
It is going to be torn down next year
The place is used for competition for ski jump in winter
We saw the traditional Norwegian house(where there are grasses on the roof)
The grasses is supposed to be good ..
During summer, it will keep the house cooling
while winter, it will keep the house warm
The guide also told us about trolls and stuff

Here's the Holmenkollen



Next, We went to Vigelandsparken(the Vigeland park)
It is the sculpture park with more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite and cast iron
Many of the statutes have meaning behind them
The most important theme I think is the Circle of Life

Here's one of the many sculptures


According to the guide, Gustav Vigeland will sculp the things in clay
There will be teams in charged to sculp this into granite
This particular one took 14 yrs to sculp
A houe was build over the stone and sculptors were staying in the house to complete it

Next stop is the Viking Ship Museum
I think the Vikings were really quite impressive
The ships was made 1000 years ago and they are still in a good condition
According to the guide, they made a replica and it managed to sail to US in 5 weeks
I was like WOW

Here's one of the very well preserved Ship

The ship is actually made from very thin planks
I really wonder how they made it and travel so far
AND an interesting fact
What do you associate the Vikings with?
The horn headwear?
WRONG...
From the ships unearthed and stuff, there are no headwear with any horns AT ALL
It actually looks like helmet!!!
That is something to keep in mind
The horn headwear is actually smthg they came up with for a play!

After the museum, we went back to the bus and we pass by many museums
There was folk museum, and we also the traditional state church
AND we saw the royal summer house
Too bad it is under renovation so we didn't get to see the royal family
haha
Also we saw the summer palace but now it is a museum

The city was our next destination
It was nothing like I imagined
I think after Beijing, an empty quiet street is not what I expected
Many shops were not opened on a Sunday here
The whole atmosphere is very relaxed...
In the end, we end up eating MacDonalds and I pay like 72 NOK!!!
That is like 18SGD!!! The things here are really expensive

Anyway we managed to walk around the city until it started RAINING!!
Well it has been raining here but we actually had good weather today for the tour!!
In the end, we went back home
sianz....