Hav En God Dag!
Beautiful Denmark!
… which is what exactly we had today. But, wait! Were you able to understand what it means?
“Hav En God Dag” (Pronounced as “Hay ang goo day” means “Have a good day!” in Danish. Why are we speaking in Danish? It’s because we rode our Petals Airlines airplane again and we went to… Denmark!
“Who’s from Denmark?” Pauline asked.
“A!” Z said.
“ME!” A said excitedly. A’s mommy popped on our Zoom screen and we greeted her “Good morning!” and welcomed her to Petals Class. She introduced herself and said that her name is T.
First, she showed us a red flag with a white cross on it. T asked if we know what it is, and A replied, “Danish flag!” T then asked us if we know when they use the Danish flag, and Pauline correctly guessed “During birthdays.” She asked if anyone in Petals class uses their own flag for their birthday, and S said, ”I had a flag on my birthday– it was the Norway flag.”
T showed us some of their family photos. Then she showed us a beautiful picture of a place in Denmark– so beautiful that everyone went “Woooooow!” and “Whoaaaa!”
“There are boats there!” S excitedly said. “There’s a beautiful lake!” he added.
“Oh, there are cars, too!” A pointed out. Next, Tine showed us another picture of what seemed like colorful houses beside the river with lots of boats.
“Boats!” S exclaimed. Up next was a picture of the countryside– we saw a big house with what seemed like an enormous yard. Unlike Tokyo, Denmark has big houses and wide, open spaces.
T also showed us a picture—
“My garden!” A excitedly said. Yes, it was the garden from their old home before they left for Tokyo. It had flowers and was beside a lake/ river that were frequented by ducks and swans. They now have a new home which they are currently building, and we saw a big machine called a—
“Tractor!” A told us.
“Yes, that’s right! It’s a tractor,” T said. We bet that when their house gets finished, it will be very beautiful! This got us very excited, especially A.
The next picture was a picture of—
“Doctors? Police officers? Teachers?” Pauline asked us, to which we all said no.
“The Queen!” S said. Yes, Denmark has a Queen, her husband is a Prince. There are 2 other princes who are married to princesses. The Queen and the Princesses were all wearing crowns. Tine asked us who wants to wear the same attire as them, and A replied, “I want to dress like a Queen.” We also watched a video of palace soldiers marching– they protect the castle and the Queen.
The next picture was all about food– T mentioned that the Danes love to eat lots of potatoes. Pauline gushed that she loooves potatoes, to which A responded with a funny look. Turns out, he isn’t fond of potatoes! He loves the next food, though, called rugbrød which is rye bread in English. The next food was ice cream– and we were unanimous in saying that we love it! There were also Danish candies, and it looked really good.
In Denmark, they love Christmas, so we saw a picture of A’s house with a pretty Christmas tree. Pauline asked if he brought their Christmas tree to Tokyo, and he said it’s in Denmark. T said that these are real trees, so they always get a new one every year. A told us that the Christmas tree always smells good.
There was also a picture of—
“John- John Santa!” R pointed out, and we all laughed. We remembered that before Christmas last year, Santa came to our classroom, and he sounded oddly like John– John….
T told us that they eat a porridge called risengrød for Christmas. It’s sweet, with cinnamon and butter. Mmm, that sounds so delicious. We also saw a picture of A playing in thick snow with his brother– but if they have winters, they have summers, too! T showed us a picture of their summer house, with Alexander and the rest of the family hanging out at their big yard; A and his two brothers at the beach with the sand and the boat nearby.
They also had a picture having fun in their inflatable pool.
“Let’s go to Denmark so we can go to the pool,” S suggested.
Next was a picture of LEGO… and do you know that it came from Denmark? Everyone’s ears perked up at the mention of Legoland. Tine showed us some of the things that A is building at home with his Lego blocks: Tokyo Skytree and a police train. Cool!
Up next was a picture of A with is brothers in their kindergarten.
“I have two schools!” A happily told us– the one in Denmark, and Ohana here in Japan.
Lastly, we danced to a Danish song called Ikke som de andre piger which was sung by a singer named Emilie, who is the current winner of the popular singing contest called MGP (Melodi Grand Prix). She wrote a beautiful song about her big sister. The song was upbeat and we enjoyed dancing along to it!
We said a big “THANK YOU!” to T and bid her goodbye. We then talked about what we enjoyed the most about Denmark.
“I like the pool, the beach, the snow toys– but mostly the motorcycle snow toys,” S said.
“I like the big pool. I like the beach!” A said.
“I like the duck and the swan and the river. I like the boat, too,” N said.
“I like Alexander’s garden because I like the river,” H said.
“Flowers!” U said.
“I like the beach!” A said.
“I like A’s house,” D said.
“The snow!” H said.
“The beach,” A said.
“I like the candy,” R said.
“I like dance,” R said.
“The song!” L shared.
“I like the song and the flowers in A’s garden,” Z told us.
“I like my house,” A said, as his eyes twinkled.
After that, we just stayed indoors, and we played another game of hide– and– seek! It was a mad rush for hiding places as we dissolved into fits of squeals and giggles. When Kai put out the tent, EVERYONE rushed to hide inside– the teachers were beside themselves, laughing, because ALL OF US managed to fit in there (Imagine 13 people, minus A who was the “It”)! The teachers suggested that we need to choose different hiding places, so some of us hid under the teacher’s table, beside Sayaka, who was shaking her head at us as she chuckled at how excited and frantic we looked at the same time.
So, that’s all for today. We hope you all had a god dag, too!
Love,
All the junior jetsetters in Petals Class