The town was quite touristy and had two bars near the harbor which each exclusively served one of the two main competing beers in Copenhagen. We dined at the one that served Carlsberg.

Still the town clearly had a lively amount of fisherman, which thanks to their tans, were easily to tell apart from the tourists.

For more pictures from my trip to Copenhagen visit my flickr gallery.

The tour began just as the sun began to set, so we had some great lighting, but for the first time since we arrived we also got to experience cool weather here.

The new opera house.

The opera house from another angle.

An old sub-yard turned into an upscale apartment complex.

A view of the Marble Church and the Palace fountain.

According to the guide this is the most photographed tree in Copenhagen as everyone takes a picture of it while trying to get a shot of the church as it comes into view.

Over all the tour was a fantastic way to experience Copenhagen. I hope you enjoyed the pictures, please feel free to visit my flickr for more shots of my trip to Copenhagen!

As far as castles go, it is actually quite small and the real highlight is that the crown jewels reside here.

Chi took us on a tour of this castle to give us a taste of Danish history. I purchased an additional pass that let me take pictures inside.

The castle is filled with tapestries, intricate clocks, detailed ceilings, busts of royalty and paintings galore.

This was actually the King’s toilet and was located quite a bit aways from the throne room.

One of the highlights was when a guy who looked like Peter Griffen got all huffy when I accidentally fell on a chair while trying to frame a shot around him.

The guy in this tapestry seemed to contrast with the rest of the imagery.

After throne room we headed down to the real gem of the tour – the royal treasure vault.

Thanks for viewing and reading! A full collection of the pictures I took here can be found on my flickr!

A collection of panoramas that I have taken around Copenhagen.

After meeting with Seyoung for the first time in person, Chyi then proceeded to treat us both to dinner and a long tour of East Copenhagen otherwise known as Frederiksstaden.

The tour began with a walk through some yellow housing known as Nyboder.

My first view of the Marble Church:

For dinner we were treated to traditional Danish food at Restaurant Vita which was in a building over 300 years old. I had the fried pork with parsley sauce.

After dinner Chyi took us through downtown to the opera house:

We then walked past a canal where tons of people were enjoying a Jazz festival.

As the sun began to set we approached the Royal Danish PlayHouse:

The tour then headed towards the Amalienborg Palace” where the Danish royal family lives. Before that we past by some gardens and a fountain.

After the fountain we got our first glimpse of the palace square:

After the palace we made our way to St Alban’s Church

Next to it was the Gefion Fountain




Eventually we got to the spot where there is usually a statue of the Little Mermaid that was made famous by Hans Christian Andersen. The statue is currently on display in China, so instead we were treated to a big screen in the water.

The tour ended with a walk through the The Genetically Modified Paradise which included variations of the little mermaid statue.

Copenhagen is a compact and beautiful city and it was a pleasure to have such a fantastic tour of this part of it. Thanks again Chyi! For more of the pictures I have taken during my stay in Copenhagen – feel free to visit my Copenhagen set on flickr.

My flight took me from Portland -> Seattle -> Reykjavik -> Copenhagen.

I have always wanted to go to Iceland, unfortunately for this trip I could only stay there for an hour. With customs, my stay there felt even shorter.

Landing in Denmark provided a much better view.

Navigating through the Copenhagen airport was a painless experience. They didn’t even bother to check our passports upon arriving. This is truly the land of freakishly tall vikings.

From the airport we rode a train to get to our apartment.

My initial impression of Copenhagen is just how clean and impressive the city is. The streets were filled with people on bicycles – way more than were ever in Portland.

If there was ever any need for further proof of what a simple creature I am then just look at the beer that my girlfriend picked out for me without asking. Despite not being able to read a word, she was able to pick out what is now my favorite beer. Apparently juice + beer is delicious.

We didn’t fall asleep until well past midnight local time which is about a 9 hour time difference from Portland. It didn’t get dark till around 10:30. At 4:30 in the morning I was woken up by light pouring into our windows.

I am now exhausted after spending the day in the office and surviving off of around 5 cups of coffee.

Stay tuned for more!

New Job

In May I was hired on by a very hot company called Unity Technologies as a web developer. I had been contracting with them for about a month prior to being hired. They also flew me down to San Francisco in April to be their official photographer and to document their time at the Game Developers Conference. Unity has long been a competitor in the middleware game engine space with a company I used to work for – GarageGames. While GG shifted their focus over the last few years to other things, Unity focused on improving their core products and have steadily gotten better, and more profitable over the years.

One of my requirements for working with them was that I have the freedom to continue living in Portland, rather than move to San Francisco where their North American office is based. We agreed that I would occasionally (about once a month) work at the office, but the rest of the time I would be free to work anywhere else. It has worked out for the most part except that their primary office (and where the rest of the developers work) are actually in Copenhagen, which is about a 9 hour time difference to Portland.

Going to Copenhagen

My project(s) are for the most part independent of what the rest of the developers at Unity are working on. I focus primarily on web related projects (store, site, etc), while the rest of the Unity is focusing on engine and tool development. Still our paths do occasionally cross so it makes perfect sense for me to become better acquainted with them. The solution then is to fly my girlfriend and I over for at least a month, set us up in a hotel, and force us to enjoy Copenhagen during the summer.

A co-worker has a vacation coming up at the end of July so they wanted to make getting me out there a top priority so that we would have plenty of time to work together. This gave me just the excuse I needed to get my passport, and also gets me half way through another goal of working abroad for 2 months.

On July 6th I will be taking my first international flight to Copenhagen where I will be working on-site for at least 3-4 weeks.

Passport Acquired

I had always entertained the idea of getting a passport whenever I went to the post office. When I finally did go that purpose though the place was packed with people had the same idea. Thankfully I was 2nd in the line, because it took the guy almost an hour to process me alone. We got the fastest processing time possible and my passport arrived in just under 2 weeks.

Beyond Copenhagen

I ended up getting us one way tickets to avoid having to commit to a departure city and to keep our travels open ended. There is just way to much of Europe that I would like to explore but I have neither the time or the money to do it right now. We would like to see some of the near by countries like Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. I also wouldn’t mind being able to stay in a single awesome city for a week and just explore the heck out of it. Either way we have the month in Copenhagen to figure it out.

Plans for this Site

My plans are to be more active on this site in terms of documenting my experiences with traveling – beyond my photography, though I promise there will be plenty more of that. In preparation for my trip I finally graduated from my flimsy $35 aluminum tripod that I got years ago to a nice, light, travel-friendly carbon fiber Manfrotto tripod.

Expect lots of panoramas and HDR like shots in the future as we tour around Copenhagen and beyond.

It isn’t very often that I get shots of myself, thankfully my girlfriend was willing to help me out. Her parents are visiting from Korea and love to hike as much as I do so we decided to give Dog Mountain a chance despite the promise of wet weather.

Dog Mountain is 3.8 mile trip to the top, and it is all up hill. When we got to the top it was enveloped in a cloud so there wasn’t much to look at. Eventually there was a break in the clouds which revealed a spectacular view of the gorge covered in wild flowers.

Located about 2 miles into the Eagle Creek trail in the Columbia River Gorge.

The water level is so high this time of year that you can’t view these falls from the lower level without getting really wet and I didn’t want to risk my gear. This is unfortunate because the falls looked amazing. The last time I had a chance to get out here it was right before winter, so the water level was much lower.

Eagle Creek in general is fantastic right now and is a Waterfall Wonderland with tons of beautiful tiny waterfalls pouring out along the trail.