Day 3 in Tromso, Norway (28 Nov) : Mount Storsteinen, Lunch at Fiskekompiat, Journey to Harstad, First Viewing of Aurora Borealis

The cable car was open to the public today. I decided to forgo the heavy tripod and flashlight since we only have an hour on the mountain.

The top of the mountain offers a bird's eye view of Tromso 

The pink- and blue-light hour at about 3pm was supposed to be one of the most beautiful moments of the mountain. Unfortunately, as we were on a group tour, we did not have the luxury of time to wait for those hours. We reached the top of the mountain at 9.40am and we had to leave at 11am.

Instead of wearing two tops and bringing two sets of hats, gloves and scarves which I had originally planned, I brought along just an extra hat to reduce the bulk of the bag. Instead, I brought two cute lamps along for photography purposes.

Taking the cable car down the mountain

I was glad that I did that. It sounded like a lot of time but with an elderly folk, one hour was quite tight for photography - by that, I meant her photography of me.

A 68-year-old tour group member saw that my mother was struggling to take pictures of me so she offered to help me do it. I doubted she could do it but the few pictures she took turned out to be Facebook profile-picture worthy. 

When we returned to the city area at 11.50am, my mother and I headed for Fiskekompiat, a seafood restaurant that came strongly recommended by the netizens. I had made the reservation that morning. 

I am not a big fan of seafood but as you know, FOMO is hard to resist. I didn’t want to wonder for the rest of my life what was so fantastic about the place.

Turned out that the service was top-notched. We had fish soup, sweet shrimps and 100g of king crab. 

‘Fresh’ was the word.

The restaurant redefined freshness. I think it would make a seafood lover a happy person. 

I also realised that we were taking tonnes of pictures in front of the restaurant just the previous day. It had a lovely harbour view with the colourful yachts.

The window view on our left

Three dishes cost 1049 kr, which came up to be S$139.

We ate non-stop in order to finish everything by 12.30pm so that we could rush back to the hotel to check out by 12.45pm.

Leaving the hotel. Getting to the coach on the slippery icy or snowy street and road.

It was to be a five-hour drive to our next destination: Harstad. 

Almost always dark and gloomy outside all the time in Norway

Tour manager mentioned that the people living in these countries tend to have poor mental health as they see little daylight. It was not hard to see why. I would not want to live in such a place for a month! Two weeks is the maximum I could put up with.

Along the way, someone spotted the Aurora Borealis in the sky. The tour guide decided to stop at a petrol station for a toilet break so that we could see the green light. 

It was a faint white band to the naked eyes. When we raised our camera at it, it turned green.

So it's true when they say Aurora Borealis can only be viewed via a handphone camera

I helped a lady to take a picture with the Aurora Borealis and she did it for me.

My mother had gone to the toilet. By the time she emerged from the toilet, the Aurora had faded away so she did not manage to get a clear picture of the Aurora.

We had rice with chicken drumstick for dinner. My mother seemed to enjoy the food under Chan Brothers, unlike how it was like when we joined the ASA tour last year.

After dinner, the tour guide took those who wanted to wait for the aurora to the harbour opposite the hotel.

Unfortunately, it started to drizzle. Rainy weather means that the sky is cloudy, so we had to beat a retreat after the tour guide took some nice pictures of us against the lights at the harbour..

Our Harstad hotel