Helsinki, Finland, Day 3 - Tennispalatsi

9am Woke up, had breakfast which was pretty much the same as the day before.  Today we were going to watch the final Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises" at Tennispalatsi.  And have some good food as well.  That was pretty much the plan.  I didn't take many photos today.

11:30am or so, we checked out and placed our luggage in the holding area.  Then we walked to the forum shopping building which has the Moomin shop on the second floor.  Here's the entrance to the building.


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The Moomins are characters created by a Swedish-Finn named Tove Jansson.  They are a family of trolls but look like hippopotamuses.  They're a famous export of the country, and even have a theme park called Moomin world in Finland.

At 12pm or so we walked to Tennispalatsi and picked up the tickets, I had reserved them earlier.

There's several of these located around the city, form and function, celebrating 200 years of Helsinki as a design capital.

Tennispalatsi building

After picking up the tickets we had lunch at a stall named Picnic which is next to Singapore Hot Wok, we were there the day before as well.  Lunch was salad and some bread.  And juice, I had the juice the same as the day before as well.

Ham slices, olives, what's the name of this salad, I have to find out..

Chicken salad with soy sauce, lettuce, beans, rock melon and sesame seed dressing

2pm Walked to the cinema.  The movie's start time was at 2:15pm.  Of course we had a toilet break before, and here's when something silly happened.  The toilet doors were locked with a pin code, and the pin code was on the ticket which I didn't have with me, so I had to get them.  That's just ridiculous.  Also the men and women's signs for the toilet were almost similar!  Except the women sign for the toilet had a "smaller waist".  No kidding.  A common design principle.  Don't change toilet signs that everyone understands, a female toilet sign usually has a triangle around the waist denoting a skirt!  But nope, this one had a smaller waist, with no skirt!!  So I entered the toilet and when I came out I saw some women and thought, oh this must be a unisex toilet, but then after observing a while I realised I had entered the incorrect one, and it wasn't just me who thought the same thing.  My girlfriend thinks the same as well.  And it's just simply ridiculous to have a pin code on the ticket just for the toilet!

Here's my cinema ticket, with toilet pin code (4362).

5pm Movie ended, and that brings an end to the Christopher Nolan line of Batman movies.  Was it a good movie?  Yes I guess.  Were there hidden meanings in the movie?  Of course there were but that's a different topic of discussion altogether.  Dinner was at a restaurant close to Kamppi called "Tang Dynasty Kamppi" which served Thai, Chinese and Japanese food.  We picked the buffett option which was 15 Euros per person.  It was alright, I mainly had sushi and plenty of vegetables.

At 6pm we headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and then we caught the 6:30pm bus to the airport.  There was a real fiasko going on the bus, a passenger tried to bring his bike onto the bus and this was not allowed.  The passenger, and old man with the bike, eventually got off but not before having a real go at the bus driver, plenty of yelling and shouting going on and causing a real scene.  We arrived at the airport about 7pm.  There weren't many people at the Terminal that was I was, Terminal 1.

Terminal 1 airport check in.

My flight to Copenhagen was at 9:15pm, and I went through customs at 8pm or so.  Took a walk to Terminal 2, bought these Karl Fazer chocolates and 2 packs angry birds.

Lingonberry chocolates, nom nom.  Also got some blueberry ones.

The cheapest angry birds are at the Stockmann store.  To anyone who wants to buy them.  And the chocolates as well.  There's an angry birds store in terminal 2 selling just angry birds merchandise but almost none of the stuff is made in Finland.  They had a really cool woollen iPad cover which I've never seen elsewhere that's supposedly made in Finland, and that was my only source of temptation from the shop.  Who knows I might pay it a visit again the next time I'm there.

I didn't get called over the speaker system this time and made it to my flight on time.  In Copenhagen nothing much really happened, I had to wait an hour after landing and then caught the flight at 10:45pm which took me into Oslo at 11:45pm.  Of course the trains weren't running tonight either because of construction works so I had to catch the bus and didn't get home till 1:30am Monday morning.  All in all it was a very packed weekend.

Helsinki, Finland, Day 2 - Sibelius Park, St John's Church, Gaijin Restaurant

9am Woke up and had breakfast.  I had forgotten to turn on the air conditioning during the night.  Not even sure if I slept much if at all.  The music stopped last night but it was still pretty warm.  It was at least 20 degrees outside.  Helsinki looks more like Helsinki and less of a apocalypse town compared to the last time I was here.

Here's the view outside my window.

Straight ahead is Esplanadparken.

Zoomed in view.

Breakfast was the usual scandinavian style of breakfast.  I had smoked herring, sausages, baked beans, some rice pie, cinnamon roll, watermelon, grapefruit, coffee, blueberry soup, strawberry soup.  I have to say, I prefer juice over soup, especially when it comes to fruits.  At least in this case.  And coffee.  Coffee was badly needed.

12pm Time to explore.  And today's weather was good for it.  Took a walk to Kampi where they were having a hockey tournament in the square just outside the centre.  We could've sat down in the audience and watched the game, as there was a parade stand with seats but we went inside Kampi for sushi instead.  Or rather, I did as I was hungaaary!!  There was a stall selling sushi, so I opted for that.  On the lowest level there's a mini food court area of sorts that has various stalls selling different food.

Lunch.

And guess what I spotted right opposide the sushi stall?  Why, it's Singapore Hot Wok.  Everything on the menu was 9.90 euros.  There was no Laksa, but there's Beef Kuay Teow, Singapore Kuay Teow Goreng, Nasi Goreng, and a few others.  I can't vouch for its authenticity but it seems like some people like the food there.  I had to go to the bathroom shortly afterwards but there didn't have a 1 euro coin, thankfully the nice cashier girl working in a pizza stall gave me a token and I was able to enter the toilet fortress without paying.

If there was laksa I would have ordered!

After lunch we took a walk to Sibelius Park.  My GPS on my camera was acting up for some reason, so there were points where I had no GPS but then it started to work and all was good.

Interesting looking collage, wonder what story it tells?

Ad for exhibition centree weegee.

Along Runeberginkatu

Park along Södra Hesperiagatan.

Park along Södra Hesperiagatan.

Along Merikantovägen

Along Merikantovägen

Swans having a break from eating.

Along Merikantovägen

Duckie taking a well deserved break.

2pm Arrived at Sibelius Park.  There were all these tour groups that had arrived so we sought shelter on a nearby bench until they fled.

Sibelius Park is famous for a steel monument comprising mainly of pipes which is supposed to represent a forest.  Apparently the steel pipes echo with the movement of the wind, how cool is that?  It was built in 1967 by an artist named Ella Hiltunen to honour Finland's most famous composer who is Jean Sibelius.

Jean sure had a much bigger head compared to mine.

The interior

Part of the steel structure

The steel monument in all its glory.

We took a walk back to Kampi afterwards to get a salad and some drinks.  I got a goji berry with banana drink, and that tasted pretty good.  We also had a look at the shops afterwards on the 2nd floor. Some items were really cool, like a rubber duck toothbrush holder, solar powered toy cars and superman comic stained glasses, and just lots of nifty well designed trinkets.  Just a pity many products are made in China!  If they weren't made in China I could have perhaps considered purchasing them.  After window shopping we went to get a yoghurt from the ground floor, I had a blackberry yoghurt with pieces of strawberry and kiwi fruit, nom.  Then it was time to get some rest in the hotel and prepare for dinner!

6pm Dinner was at Gaijin, which features Asian cuisine.  Only a 3 minute walk away from where we were.  I originally intended to have dinner at Farang but they're closed during the summer.  The restaurant was quite packed, and extremely noisy.  It was hard to have a conversation.  But the food is pretty good, even though it's insanely pricey.

That's 3 euros for one cod dumpling!  Also had a duck dumpling and that was similarly priced.

Grilled XO beef, with rice, kimchi and cucumber.

Drunken chicken cooked in masterstock

The restaurant, after some people have left :)

They also have tasting menus, but some of the items have pork in them and since I'm not a huge fan of pork I skipped them.  I think what we picked was pretty good so I'm happy with that.

8:20pm Done with dinner, and took a walk and exercise the food baby.

Diana park also known as Kolmikulma Park.  The sculpture is Diana or Tellervo.

Strange looking artifact.

Flowers along the window sill.

Mega pebbles!

A short walk after and we reached St John's Church, designed by a Swedish architect built in the Gothic Revival style.

One of the entrances to the church.

Taken from the soccer field (has no grass!) next to the church.

Located next to the church is the design museum along Högbergsgatan.

Design Museum

Me in front of the design museum

Large chopsticks?

Tree before processing, and after processing.

What do you do with a 13m pylon?  Use it as a design structure of course.  This sign's located at the base of the pylon.

9pm We headed back to the hotel to rest.  At vanha kirkkopuisto (Old Church Park), there were still many people just sitting around and chatting.  Mostly kids.

Vanha kirkkopuisto, or Old Church Park

Vanha kirkkopuisto, or Old Church Park

9:36pm Back to the hotel.  Unfortunately the air conditioning in the room broke, and we could not switch rooms because it was fully booked.  So we had to make do with a fan.

Helsinki at night from the window.

Before I finish this blog entry, I have to say, seems like almost every Finnish person here has a tattoo.  Even teenagers.  Also, plenty of Russians here.  Makes sense since Helsinki is close to the border of Russia I guess.  But the tattoos, it almost seems like it's a cultural thing.  My mum would kill me if I had a tattoo.  She almost killed me for even having a fake one a long time ago.  All in all it's been an interesting day.

Helsinki, Finland, Day 1 (again)

Yes, I am in Helsinki again.  And no it's not groundhog day.

Tonight was the night of close shaves.  And what a long night it has been.

I've been meaning to catch the express train to the airport which normally takes about 40 minutes.  Of course I checked at the last minute and found out there's railworks going on, so the journey took over an hour instead!!  I had to catch a bus to Lillestrom and then the express train from Lillestrom to the airport. I arrived just in the nick of time, 7:50pm with just under an hour to spare.  My flight to Copenhagen was at 8:45pm so I really cut it close.

Copenhagen to Helsinki was relatively smooth, I had time to spare.  Arrived into Helsinki at 1:10am, and I picked up my luggage at 1:20am.  So I just manage to catch the 1:25am 620 bus from the airport! If my luggage had come any later I would've missed it and would have had to wait another half hour.

To to show you how close it was, the moment I stepped foot on the bus platform, the bus arrived right there and then!

Arrived into the city at Friday night / Saturday morning 2:20am and it was full of drunks.  I saw one guy piss in the bushes close to the bus station.  And a few metres later, another guy was holding his penis next to a statue, but his penis was in full view, and he was just standing there looking completely wasted.  Well I'm not going to forget that for sure.  A lot of kids were on the bus too.  Kids as in anyone who is younger than me. :)

Now I'm in the hotel and it's rather noisy, staying right in the city and there's like a nightclub playing really loud music.

Lots of fruits, fruits galore!

Now that it's summer, you can see lots of fruit everywhere, but only if you start to look.  To the untrained urbanite, everything looks the same.  There's a surprisingly large number of fruit plants/trees where I live.  Both toxic and non toxic.  But you won't notice them unless it's summer, during winter it appears as if there is nothing but snow everywhere.  For example, right outside my door and in my neighbour's yard, is an apple tree.

Count the number of apples if you can.

Also known as Malus domestica.

I never realised it was an apple tree before, but last summer I realised it was the case once the fruit turned red, and so I  plucked one, washed it and ate it straight off.  Free fruit keeps the doctor away, win.  This is of course, when my neighbour was away.  Haha!  There's also plenty of apple trees in other people's gardens!

Here are other plants, which I come across everyday.

Red elderberries (Sambucus racemosa), toxic, do not eat, unless suicidal.

Not sure what these are, although I suspect they are poisonous too.

I see these plants just walking to and from work.  Here's part of my walk.  You might think I live in a forest.

Here's photos of raspberry plants that just hang off people's fences.  Not sure what species this is, but it all tastes good to me.  I say it's the tasty species kind.  I'm not crazy enough to eat something unless I knew what it is.  And raspberries, I recognise them, from years of eating them of course.  I could probably pack a whole bunch of them if I wanted to.  Raspberries are quite expensive in Australia.  They can cost up to 8 Australian dollars for 200 grams or thereabouts, even when in season.

One of these ended up in my digestive system.

And so did one of these.

No cloudberry plants here, at least I haven't noticed them.  Nor blueberries.  But they're supposed to be common in Norway as well.

Why am I blogging about fruit?  Well having lived in Singapore and Brisbane, Australia, this is different.  You don't see these types of plants here.  When I was a kid growing up with my grandfather, he had a chiku tree and two mango trees in his garden.

Chiku tree.

Fruits of the Chiku tree.

Mango tree.

100% tropical trees.  And Brisbane is warm, so raspberries and apple trees only exist in dreams.  The climate of Singapore and Brisbane are actually quite similar.  Tasmania on the other hand, has plenty of fruit trees.  Looking at all these plants reminds me of Tasmania.  If you've never been there and love lots of natural scenery and fresh fruit, you should pay a visit!