June 25 Thursday, temp 26C

Hello Folks! It has been a while since I last blogged!

A heat wave is currently over Finland. Temperatures are well over 20C but below 30s. Wow... 23C and people here say its too hot... WHAT ABOUT SINGAPORE, where people wear hoodies and jackets when the temperatures falls below 28 LOL?

Im pretty much getting back to my normal life here in Finland... When my brother came, suddenly everything about Singapore re-entered my mind: Char Kway Teow, violent thunderstorms, friends (04!!!) and family, Hokkien Mee etc etc. but it seems pretty weird that I never thought of going back! And then when he left, it felt as though I was rudely smacked back into loneliness:( I didnt want to see anyone and nearly fell into the realm of becoming an introvert! Fortunately divine intervention (God) help me get back on my feet in just under a day!!!

Well just a few good news... After having to wait for so long, Sokos finally hired me for the summer job!! I dont have to worry about stinging on food and can finally buy some stuff for myself!:D Money is really good... therefore I hope to bring some back when I return to Singapore!

just for your information... I am currently working at Fransmanni Ravintola Kitchen!! Its really really fun and exciting.... cutting all sorts of weird vegetables, fingers, making salads and if im lucky... I can even help do some cooking! Everyone seems so nice and leaving work is always the most difficult part of each day!!:)

I believe the die hard Kiasuism in me is taking its too... 0.50€ discount for a packet of Sausages, I ended up buying 5 + a whole box of chicken fillet!!:D Looks like im not going to starve anytime soon!!

And the link to my Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga photos are up! Do comment and enjoy the pics! To start, go to page 11 and see them backwards!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39725947@N08/

kovski

alone in the snow...1:44 PM

Hello Fellow readers!!

Im finally back from what I term as "THE BEST HOLIDAY OF MY LIFE!" For most who are wondering where we (My brother and I) went, they were Helsinki, Tallinn (Estonia) and Riga (Latvija). We spent two nights in each city, soaking up the sights and buying lots of local produce and souvenirs! I shan't elaborate further as I will write out every single bit of this exciting exotic adventure to these three places, in the form of the timeline. Hopefully, you can feel the excitement we both felt during the whole journey!

May 31st Sunday
I woke up early in the morning to get my bags packed for the Express train to Helsinki, where I will meet Joshua at Helsingin Rautatieasema (Railway), who will take a bus from Vantaa Airport upon his arrival. I hurriedly packed my stuff and rushed out of my apartment, not realising that I have left my door keys inside. This literally placed me in a situation where I was "LOCKED OUT OF MY APARTMENT!" I was pissed that this had to happen on my holiday... I left for the railway station anyway as I didn't want to miss my train.

I met Martine, an Argentinian guy living in the neighbourhood. He happened to be going to Helsinki too, to do some UNICEF work. Hopped on the pretty crappy but cheap train to Tampere. Unexpectedly, the train arrived late and I only had one minute to make the dash for the next train to Helsinki. I made it fortunately and arrived Helsinki before two in the afternoon.

The Finnish summer scene is a world away from what Winter had to offer: Green trees, wild flowers springing up everywhere, sapphire blue lakes, the warm sun. The heatwave apparently pushed temperatures up all the way to near 30s! Seems like "takatalvi" isn´t coming anytime soon:D

As mentioned previously, I visited Pasila (a suburb located less than 5km from Helsingin Keskusta) a few months back for a short presentation, and therefore didn´t get the opportunity to visit Helsinki Centre. This explains why I am so excited for this trip!

Upon my arrival at the Helsinki Railway Station, it seemed as though I was thrown 200 years back; Italian renaissance styled buildings built along tree-lined cobble-stoned streets. It was BEAUTIFUL... I could live here FOREVER:D

Helsinki is interestingly different from Jyväskylä: Bustling Capital spiced up with a concoction of people from all over the globe, crowded and "happening!" I managed to check into Klaus K Hotelli, a four star stylish boutique hotel located just hundred metres from the famous Stockmann Departmental store and Kamppi (If Harrolds of London is 1st, Stockmann is top 10!!). The reception was nice enough to upgrade us to a bigger room as the housekeeping department didn´t manage to finish cleaning up the standard rooms on time!:D Waited for Joshua to arrive at Helsinki Rautatieasema. I gave him a BIG BIG HUG as I havent seen him for a long time! Helped him with his luggage, which weighed the equivalent of two tank shells, 400 bullets and four Lee Enfield rifles:D

We didn´t have time to waste! Upon settling down, we made our way to Suomenlinna, a UNESCO World heritage site (Sea Fortress) located just 15 minutes boat ride from the Helsinki Market Place. The scenery there was undescribable: Well preserved castles set along the edge of the cliff overlooking the Capital, people picnicing everywhere, birds were singing, flowers blooming... I don´t know LOL! I will let the pictures do the talking;D

Returned to Helsinki where we took a stroll along the many cobble-stoned roads before heading to one of those typical "Lebanese Pizzerias" for dinner!

On day two, we visited Linnanmäki, the Oldest and the "best" theme park in Finland. The entry pass costs us a hefty €35 per person! However, it turned out to be well worth it! We took rides that scared the shit out of us when we were young and it FELT GOOD:D We spent half a day there before visiting Hesburger (Better than Crappy Old Mcdonalds), and then back to the hotel to prepare for our trip to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. i was lucky not to have purchased the ferry tickets in advance as we found out that Linda Line offered high speed catamaran rides to Tallinn at only 70% of the price we would otherwise have to pay on Tallink Silja or the Viking Line!

Day three: Joshua got up very early as usual as he was suffering from a little jetlag (6am). Washed up, changed and packed out luggage for our first ever trip to the Baltic States! Breakfast at Klaus K was fantastic as usual... their cheese cake tasted DIVINE, BUT DEFINITELY NOT AS GOOD AS MY DEAREST SUPERVISOR ANNE PEKKONEN'S SUPER CREAMY CHEESE CAKE! Checked-out of the hotel and made our way to the International ferry terminal for our ride to Tallinn! Fortunately, as Estonia and Latvia are part of the Eurozone, no formal boder checks are required! The ferry was pretty decent, similar to the Bintan Resort ferries of Singapore! Seas were calm and we arrived at Tallinn in under two hours!

Just a short short intro of the Estonian Capital. Tallinn is a city of 400000+ inhabitants, with 40% of them RUSSIANS:D It has existed since Medieval times as was known as Reval. Their lingo are typically Russian and Estonian (Closely related to finnish!) We were greeted by this HUGE Brutalist style Monolith when we arrived. I have no idea what the building is for but it looked freaky:D walked a good 20 minutes before arriving at Sokos Hotell Viru, the tallest hotel in Estonia with stunning views over the Old town! Settled down, changed some Estonian Kroon and headed to the Old town!

Estonians are really interesting. A majority of them spoke only Estonian (A variation of Finnish) and Russian... This therefore made the leg of our journey challenging as we had problems trying to communicate with the locals. My bargaining skills went completely limp as it fell victim to language problems:(

The Estonian Old town is breath taking... Words itself can't do any justice to the description of the town! Again, Il let the tons of pictures do the talking:D Managed to get 10 bottles of Viru Valge (find out what that is!) for Juho.. Alcohol apparently cost half of what you pay for in Finland. Spent two nights visiting interesting places such as the torture museum, Old town square, Viru Keskus shopping mall, a typical ´Soviet style´neighbourhood (Seemed unsafe and dangerous... but it was a great experience nonetheless!), flea markets, museums and many other places!

After Tallinn, we took a 30min walk from our hotel to the Odra, where the international bus station is located. It started raining heavily (And worsened while we were in Riga, where the temperatures dipped to as low as 5C... the coldest June days in 60 YEARS!!) The bus drove through Pärnu, along the gulf of Riga... and on towards Latvija!

At first sight, Riga seemed really frightening; badly deteriorating buildings, rugged landscape, giant brutlalist styled apartments and buildings. I was thinking to myself, ´Why on earth are we here?!?!?!

Upon arrival at the Riga bus station, it seemed as though we were in Moscow! Everyone spoke Russian and looked like murderers (joking):D As Latvija, let alone Riga has a tiny asian population, it is of no surprise that everyone kept staring at us while we were walking to our hotel... I can´t blame them: I can almost safetly say that Riga has got not more than 20 Asians? lol! It certainly felt good to be getting all the attention!! We walked through the massive Central Market, and realised that our hotel was located in a badly declining neighbourhood, right in front of a church! It was nice and quiet though, and the reception was kind enough to upgrade us to a much bigger room! The view directly faced the church and it was so tranquil and amazing!

As today happened to be our birthday, we decided to treat ourselves to Japanese food... YES JAPANESE FOOD IN WHO KNOWS WHERE LOL! We ended up in a high end japanese restaurant in the middle of the old town. Interestingly, the head chef himself was japanese! The food tasted great and costs us only 4 Lats per person ( 4 x 1.5 x 2 = 12 SGD!). As it was raining and the temperatures seemed reluctant to rise, we went indoors to the Central market! Lucky for us, this period happens to be a the first harvest of the berry season after winter. Therefore 8 out of 10 stalls were selling TONS of STRAWBERRIES, BLUE BERRIES, RASPBERRIES, APRICOTS, CHERRIES ETC ETC LOL! And believe me, the air smelt sweet of all the delicious fruits! People bought them in huge baskets and sacks! We managed to get out hands on some of course...from this Russian Lady who understood my singaporean version of Russian :D

Bought some Vanilla cream before heading back to our hotel! The fruits tasted SO SWEET! There wasn´t even a sour hint! On our next day, we visited the Old town, which wasn´t as well preserved as the one in Tallinn, but still beautiful and picturesque:D Visited the gunpowder tower, where the city museum is located, ate Russian Food for Lunch (ABSOLUTELY
DELICIOUS!) It was here where I met my FIRST Russian love: Kvass! Made using roasted Rye bread, fermented with yeast, sugar, raisins, Kvass taste really interesting, with it´s own unique character and texture (Milky). I will definitely learn how to make them!

Woke up the next morning and headed to Lagalite Flea Market (Latvia's black market). We didnt manage to find as many war antique shops as we had anticipated. The flea market sold almost everything under the sun: telephone cables, computer parts, war stuff, guns, items blacksmiths use, spolit machines, bicycles etc. It was pretty interesting! After spending an hour there, we headed back to our hotel to grab our luggage and take the public bus to Lidoste Airport (16km away) We dragged our luggage for about 400m and took the public bus, which costs us 50santimus each! Soaked up some sights along the way and before we knew it, we were already at the airport waiting for our flight! It was most unfortunate that Ryanair check-in counter staff did not accept out boarding passes as they said that we had printed them wrongly. SO we had to fork out 58Lats (70€) for the new passes... Cheap rip off airlines!

But I was glad that we purchased the priority boarding passes, which allowed us to choose our own seats! Flew over Estonia, Gulf of Finland and after 55minutes, we landed safetly at Pirkkala Lentoasema (Tampere). Spent over 40min trying to look for our hotel. Got knocked out once we arrrived at our rooms!

Woke up the next morning to catch our pendolino train to Jyväskylä and that ended our exciting unforgettable trip to the Baltics! We didnt let fear get in our way ( like most traditional Singaporeans: Kiasu and Kiasi), experienced new and exotic cultures and of course, lived like the locals, learnt to take care of ourselves and be independent! I will definitely go back to Estonia as there were many things we didnt buy while we were there. Also, I plan to move further South, towards Lietuva (Lithuania) and maybe Poland etc! I really hope I can make it... but first, time to get the Hotel job! Pictures will be out soon so hang in there folks!

Kovski

alone in the snow...10:53 AM