Swedish Thursday Lunch

Thursday, 21 Sep. Stockholm



I went back to Stockholm from Tallinn by ferry. This time I cruised with Tallink. Not many people were on the boat. Still they had a midnight show on the boat, so I went to see. They had Estonian Dance Show at the lounge. About twenty boys and girls danced with 80’s pops. They all were wearing pretty flashy costume and full of smiles, and the choreography looked old-fashioned. Yes, of course, it was 80’s pops dance show. I felt like going back to 20 years ago really.

Then I met my friend for lunch in the center of Stockholm. We went to a cafeteria in the Stockholm cultural center which was located by the center square. So we got a good view of the square and a tall glass-made monument through the glass window. They had a selection of daily specials for lunch. My friend told me that Pea soup and pancakes were standard lunch for Thursday. How come?
‘I don’t really know why. Anyway, they don’t have to think about the menu on Thursday. So it would be good for them’ my friend goes.
Right. So I should try that standard.



It might look so sweet, but actually it was not really. The cream was less sweet so it went good with some jam. Many of the guests were eating this menu indeed. It looked kind of cute to see many middle aged guys were happily eating pancakes with plenty of cream and jam.

I was planning to stay in Sweden for 10 days. I had not planned where I would go before I started this travel. I just made up the plan while staying in Tallinn. I had plenty of time to think about it. I decided to visit Dalarna for 3 days, and Oland for 2 days. Other days, I would visit a couple of towns for a day trip from Stockholm. It was already late September, but still temperature was quite high and weather was also good. It was like summer, even it was supposed to be off season in Sweden.

‘You would be the only traveler if you go to the other area in Sweden’ my friend said.
Really? Youth Hostels in Stockholm are pretty much packed now, and the weather is still so nice. I have seen so many travelers everywhere in Europe even if it was off season. Traveler never stop traveling, so I don’t think so.

My friend was right. People don’t travel in off season in Sweden, regardless the weather. I was almost only traveler outside Stockholm.

Tallinn Signs Gallery

19 Sep. 2006 Tallinn



There were so many pretty signs all over the old city.

Pretty Town Tallinn

18 Sep.　2006 Tallinn



It took about 3 and half hours from Helsinki to Tallinn by ferry. If you take a hydrofoil, it takes about 100 minutes. You will reach the old city from the port in 15 minutes on foot. With pastel colored houses and shops, Old city of Tallinn looks pretty cute. Many signs in the city are even cuter.



You might see witches flying on the broom.

Two hours was enough to walk around the old town. Still I had whole 2 days there. Well, that is OK…I just would stay lazy days here, going nowhere, just wandering around.




So I did like that.

There was a big modern shopping mall just outside of the old city. There were many European brand fashion shops and restaurants. I felt that Tallinn was bigger city than Helsinki, just seeing around here. There were heaps of people around.

I expected that prices here would have been much cheaper than that of Finland. Yes it was, but not quite so cheap. I stayed at Oldhouse Hostel here, for two nights. The dormitory was 19 euro per night. It was actually expensive. You can easily find other cheaper hostels in Tallinn, but I decided to stay there because it looked nice and comfortable. And it was.



When I got back to the old city from the new city, I saw a parade. Trucks went on having people in the box. People were jumping around on the back, so those trucks were really shaking. It looked dangerous but it was fun to watch. I didn’t figure out what that for.

Nuuksio National Park

17 Sep. 2006 Nuuksio National Park



Take a local train to Espoo from Helsinki for about 20 minutes, then get on a local bus to Nuuksiopaa for 30 minutes. From there, you need to walk about 2km to get to the entrance of Nuuksio National Park where you can enjoy 3 hiking courses of 2km, 4km, 8km through the forest and ponds. It was beautiful Sunday, so the parking lot was full of cars. These 3 courses were short and flat, so I would say walking rather than hiking. Families and friends were also BBQing in the park.. It smelled so good!



We went on 8km walk. Those 3 courses were indicated by different colored –red, yellow and blue- posts so that you wouldn’t get lost. There was no wind at all so the ponds were just like mirrors. The forest was pretty Finnish with all conifer trees, but some section looked like Japanese forests with pine trees rooted on the rocks, I thought. There should have been mushrooms in the forest too. BBQ with those freshly picked mushroom would be great! Unfortunately it hadn’t happened there, but I eventually did this kind of BBQ in Turkey. It was fun!



Is my friend a tree geek? She took so many pictures of trees, well, I took so many pictures of ponds. Little sunshine trough the leaves were very tender. My friend goes, ‘I wish I happened to see Jyvaskyla guy whom we met in Kiilopaa, here again…’ Hey, it can’t be you know, but it would be super nice! We could go to Kiilopaa next year again to stalk him. Shall we?



It was the last night in Finland. The next day, My friend would go back to Japan, and I would go to Tallinn by ferry. We really had a great time in Finland. It was right choice not to hop around many places. Of course there are still many places I want to go, and also I want to stay in different seasons, like, in summer for the midnight sun or in winter for northern lights. I wish I could live in different countries for at least one year each to experience all seasons.

Back to Helsinki

17 Sep. 2006 Helsinki



The train arrived at Helsinki at 8am. Another beautiful morning for hiking. We were planning to go on hiking at Nuuksio National Park where about 40 km away from Helsinki. Waking again? Yes we will, that is our purpose coming to Finland. Helsinki would be dead on Sunday anyway.

We checked in at a fancy hotel called Hotel Kamp. It was super different from the first place we stayed at Helsinki. Well, we enjoyed staying at Hotel Mekka as it was, but it would be nice to stay at gorgeous hotel for the last night, we thought. The room was wide and beautifully decorated, and what we loved was the bathroom. It was made of marble, there was a huge bathtub with glass standing shower, then more than that we found…


A ducky!!

I loved that! I had never expected that there would be a toy in the bathroom. Imagine that corporate executives who would stay here might play with a ducky in the bathroom! It would be kind of nice. What hospitality, Hotel Kamp. This hotel is one of the top class hotels in Helsinki, though it was not snobbish at all.



Now these excited girls need breakfast. We went down to the restaurant on site. Buffet breakfast looked pretty tempting, but we decided to order English breakfast to get ready to hike. Well, actually it was huge.



That grilled tomato and fried potato were very tasty as well as other stuff. Fresh squeezed orange juice came with the meal. It was a treat for us. Guests around there and waitresses were beautiful people. We had an elegant morning.

Now, it is time to excise!

Santa Clause Village

16 Sep. 2006 Rovaniemi



It was about one hour by car from Visatupa to Rovaniemi. It looked quite a ‘city’ after staying at Kiilopaa and Visatupa. We had a half day till getting on the night train leaving at 9pm. Well, what shall we do? We decided to go to the Santa Clause Village located about 8km north of Rovaniemi. Actually I insisted. I just wanted to see the Arctic Circle line there. My friend had visited there before, but she was willing to visit there again for me. Thanks!

Before going there, we walked around the town center. Rovaniemi is known as the town designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. There are several pieces of his architecture in the town. The public library is one of them. To be honest, I hadn’t known anything about his work till I got there. Anyway, the public library building looked very cool. People in Rovaniemi are lucky to have such a nice library.



Then we headed for the Santa Clause Village. There were few people since it was off season. Frankly, I felt it was cheesy when I got there. Maybe it might have been better if it had snowed, or if there had been more people around. What annoyed me was the cheesy easy-listening type of BGM like you might here somewhere around like in an old shopping mall. Oh please stop that sort of music!

The main attraction would be Santa Clause Office. Of course Santa Clause is there. You can take a photo with him if you wish. All you have to do is paying a lot of money. You can talk to Santa without a fee, but taking photo with your camera is not allowed. Oh, well, I don’t need a picture. I even didn’t know about what I should talk with Santa Clause. I didn’t want to have a meaningless small talk with Santa Clause. That is ridiculous thing to do. I didn’t want to talk as a child, like asking him a present for Christmas. That would be even more ridiculous. So I ended up peeking into the room from behind the wall. I was too dreamy to meet and greet to a real Santa Clause.

You can order the letters from Santa Clauce at the office as well as at the post office next to the office. Or you can send your own Christmas card to be delivered for Christmas Day. I posted a couple of Christmas cards. I have just recalled about that. I think I sent one to myself…I shouldn’t remember it.



And here is the Arctic Circle Line. Yay!

Now it is time to leave Lapland. The night train to Helsinki was pretty gorgeous, modern clean and comfortable. The compartment was only for two with nice bank beds and a sink. They even provided packets of drinking water and socks. On the corridor there were clean toilets with a shower. We still expected northern lights looking up the dark sky, but soon we ell asleep.

Leaving Visatupa

16 Sep. 2006 Visatupa



Next morning we were going to have breakfast at Janne’s home, so we went out of the room. The lake was misty with evaporated water. Another beautiful day. Pilka found us and ran to us in the back of the house. She was too nice to everybody. Then I saw a white cat. I didn’t know there was also a cat. Actually I am a cat person, so I walked to the cat to play. Then I saw…

What a scary face!!!

That cat got evil eyes sort of, and wild look. Probably it belonged to the hostel, well, it seemed so violent. I even couldn’t take a photo of it, because if I did, it might crash my camera. The cat howled saying like; Get the hell out of my sight, idiots! The good girl Pilka tried to get closer as if she wanted to say hi, then the cat groaned to her,

Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Pilka just ran way startled. Poor girl…



Janne and his family spread out heaps of foods all over the table. Breads, spreads, cheeses, hams, cereals…we were busy with eating, then that guy showed up for breakfast and came up to us. We were still curious about this guy. So we started asking about him. We were getting to used to communicate more easily now.

He was actually German. We had no idea about that because he always spoke Finnish. We were still not be able to figure out what he was doing there, but he said he had stayed at Visatupa by himself many times. That was why he knew people around there well.

We were going to leave for Rovaniemi on that day, to get back to Helsinki by night train from there. Luckily, Jannne was also planning to go to Swedish Lapland via Rovaniemi on vacation, so he gave us a ride sharing a small gas charge. When we were packing our stuff, that German guy knocked on our door. He was holding bunch of Kleenex packets and 2 bars of Snickers for us. Oh, it is very kind of you, but these are too much, I assume that you would need those tissues! We received 2 packets of Kleenex and snickers. Thanks so much, those tissues were very useful after all.

We got on the car. As Janne started the car, Pilka bursted running following us. Bye-bye Pilka, we love you! When the car got into the main road, we saw that guy walking along the road looked like heading for nowhere.. Where are you going today? What are you gonna do? Anyway, it was nice meeting you!

Who is the hell this guy??

15 Sep. 2006 Visatupa



We looked at where he pointed out. There was a skull of a reindeer hanging on the tree. Woo, it is kind of scary! He wanted us to stand there to take a photo with the skull, but we didn’t want that. So we went back to the road together without taking any photos. Sorry, man, we appreciate that you tried to show us a cool stuff, but this is not just right for us. When we walked along the main road, some cars were passing by. That guy always greeted and had a couple of words with them. He seemed to know everyone around there.

We arrived at the hostel. Thank you, it was nice talking to you, we said and we were going back to the house. But he wanted to walk further towards the other side of the main road. I asked him what would be there, but again, I really didn’t understand what he was saying. Anyway, we didn’t have anything to do, so we decided to go with him.

We went on the main road further and further. We really didn’t see anything and we had no idea where we were heading. Visatupa is in arctic circle, so it was quite chilly at that time. What is going on? Why we are still going?? I kind of wanted to go back, but I was not able to stop for some reason. I didn’t know why. That guy also looked feeling cold. He blew his nose with a Kleenex. My friend had running nose too, so she asked him if she could have a piece.
‘Paipar?’
‘No, paper!’
‘perper??’
‘pa-perrrr!’
I don’t remember how it went, but our verbal communication was still in disaster.
‘oh, paper!’
Somehow he got us. He gave her a bunch of tissues.
‘ Thank you, I only need a piece’ my friend goes,
He just let her grab the bunch.

We came quite a distance and still kept on going. I felt like going back thinking about the distance we had to take on the way back. Then, we came to a little pond.
That guy stopped us finally. A pond? This is what you wanted to show us?
‘janne’
I see now. This is the owner, Janne’s pond where they grow fish. Yes, this is what he wanted to show us. Shortly after, Janne and his father showed up by car. It was time for fishing.


We saw them fishing for a while, then headed back for the hostel. It was too cold to stay longer. The guy seemed a bit tired, he walked slower than before. We tried to have a chat while walking. Sometimes we understood him but most of time, the conversations went funny. He showed us around including a little path in the forest to the weird reindeer skull, he talked to Janne and also to neighbors in Finnish and they seemed to knew each other well, so we assumed that he lived around there. But when we arrived at the hostel, we entered to one of the guest rooms. Are you one of the guests? You didn’t look a guest here, at all!

Loyal Dog Pilka

15 Sep. 2006 Visatupa



Here we are at Visatupa. Oh well, there is nothing around. Forests, lakes, that is it. Only a few houses, no shops. This is a family owned youth hostel and they also have a dairy farm where you can try some farming work such as milking.

Visatupa is located about 80 km north of Rovaniemi. The nearest bus stop is 4 km away. If you ask them beforehand, they can pick you up at the bus stop, so you can get there even you don’t travel by car. The owner is living next to the hostel and they offer breakfast and dinner upon request at their house.



This is what we wanted, just to enjoy a lazy day in the beautiful Finnish nature. We asked Janne, the owner, about a nice walking course around.
‘Well, there aren’t really “trekking courses”…’ he goes.
‘but you can walk to the river through the forest. There, you can see nice autumn colors’
‘Sounds good. So You don’t walk around here often?’
‘No, no. I am not so interested in walking, because you know, I am here everyday’
True. This scenery is exceptional for us, but not for him.

So we went. Their dog, Pilka – I actually don’t know how to spell her name, but probably Pilka- followed us. She was a very friendly dog and seemed as if she should have been our guide. Sometimes she had gone too far, then waited for us saying like; ‘are you with me? I’ll be here for you’ . You are so lovely.



Picking up some berries, we were walking to the river. In winter, snow mobiles can go on this route.
‘I love these trees…I could find Moomin somewhere’
My friend took many pictures of trees. She was really fond of Tove Jansson’s The Moomins, which is very popular in Japan, because it was made into an anime television series. After about one our walk, we arrived at the riverside. The autumn colors over the river were so beautiful.




We didn’t see anybody while walking. The forest refreshed us a lot. When we were about to arrive at the hostel, a middle aged guy spoke to us on the main road. He didn’t speak English well, and we didn’t understood Finnish at all, but somehow we communicated. He tried to say that he was willing to take a picture of us, but not there. He seemed to know a nice place to take a photo, so he wanted to take us there. Well, we had plenty of time, he didn’t look weird and we were two of us, so we thought following him would be OK. He led us to the small path in the forest, and after a short walk, he said we were there. He pointed out something, it was….

To be continued.

Sugar Candies and the Arctic Art

15 Sep. 2006 Urho Kekkonen National Park to Sodankyla

The next morning was beautiful and freezing. We had some time until the time we were supposed to leave, so we again went out for a short hiking for an hour. Well, actually it was frozen. Leaves were covered with frost. They looked like sugar candies.




We wanted to see other part of Lapland, so we went down south. We booked a youth hostel with the dairy farm called Visatupa. We traveled by bus, so we needed to find a place accessible without a car. We happened to find this place on the Net. The pictures on the site looked nice.

Going through the forests and lakes, we reached a town called Sodankyla.
The owner of the YH said, he could pick us up at the souvenir shop on the main road. So we asked the driver to stop at the souvenir shop shortly after passing Sodankyla. Where is the souvenir shop? Is it easy to find? I was wondering. Well, it must be…that one!



This is what so called… arctic art. Impressive!

Hiking to Tunturi Kiilopaa

14 Sep. 2006 Urho Kekkonen National Park


Is it a kind of crop circle??

It was raining. We spent lazy morning on the second day. The sun came in the afternoon, so we went out for a short hiking. The clouds were moving pretty fast by the strong wind. The weather wouldn’t be steady.

We went up to Mt. Kiilopaa. I don’t know if I could say it as mountain. It is actually a hill, as you can see the in the photo below. The path is straight up to the top of the hill. ‘Mountain’ is called ‘Tunturi’ in Finnish. Sounds cute.


As we expected, it started raining as soon as we departed. The weather was very changeable. Raining, shining, here, over there, then a rainbow showed up, raining again, so we could see all weather in the view.


At the top of the hill, we asked a lady to take a picture of us. She had been taking many pictures there, so I assumed that she would be a good photographer. You need to choose the right person to ask to take a photo, you know.

She was willing to take a photo, then she started talking to us. Where do you come from? From Japan? I thought so, I am pretty interested in Japan! I am from Ivalo, coming here some time. I am glad to talk to you, because I didn’t have opportunities to speak with Japanese people…

So we went down the hill chatting. Rained again, and we saw beautiful rainbow. ‘Hey, stand there together so that I can take your picture!’ she took several pictures of us with her camera.
‘You should come to Ivaro next time. We could take you to Norwegian mountains by car. We have just been there. It was beautiful and fun driving. Give me your mail address so that I can send you these pictures.’ That lady was very friendly and nice to talk to. I love to talk with local people.


‘ Hey ladies!’
When we got back to the accommodation, a cute guy spoke to us. Who is he?
‘Did you go up to the mountain?’
Oh, he is the guy whom we met yesterday. His face had been covered with sunglasses and a knit cap the day before, so we didn’t recognize him. Oh boy, I didn’t know he is so good looking!
‘Yes, we have just been there. The weather was a bit rough, but it was beautiful. We saw the rainbow too.’
‘Good for you! Well, I am having dinner now. See you later!’
He headed for the restaurant; we headed for the dry sauna. Well, actually we should have gone to the restaurant too. Because we regret a lot that we didn’t ask neither his name nor contact. We didn’t see him since then. Oh well.

In early September, the day was still long. It was not completely dark around 10pm. The weather got better in the evening. The sky looked beautiful with clear air. We heard that you might be able to see northern lights even in summer sometimes. In fact, they said that they had seen northern lights about 2 weeks before. So we sometimes came out to look up the sky at night. We were not so lucky to see one, but at least we saw beautiful stars all over the sky.

Smoke Sauna

13, Sep. 2006 Fell Centre Kiilopaa




The reason you can see autumn colors there in early September is that it is actually chilly. So why don’t you enjoy smoke sauna? Wearing the bathing suits, then we went out of the door. A small pond was in front of us against the sunset. This kind of situation was familiar, because in Japan, there are lots of outdoor hot springs in nature just like this.

Entering the sauna shack, we had to wait some time to make our eyes accustomed to the dark. That was called smoke sauna, but there was no smoke in the shack. Just you could feel smoky and woody smell inside, which was relaxing. A wooden ladder would take you up to the loft where you can sit back and relax.

A middle aged guy and 2 ladies were there. There was a heated rock and a bucket of water. Take some water with a dipper and pour it on the rock so that the temperature would instantly go up with water vapor.

With these natural steam and smell, we were so relaxed. Of course it was hot, but it was tender hotness compared to electric heated sauna. The guy told us how great to have smoke sauna. He said that it was kind of meditation.
“Well, but some young generations don’t care about that. The can be noisy everywhere…”
He was complaining a bit. Well, he reminded us Japan, too. Complaining middle aged man in the spa resort…

We went out to cool our bodies down. We were supposed to go into the pond to soak the body in the cold water. The water was actually ice-cold, so I only was able to soak up to my knees. One of the lady also came out, then she jumped into the ice-cold water without hesitation, then started swimming.
“Why don’t you come here? It might be a bit cold at first, but soon you will get used to it. It is better to have cold water rather than sitting there.”
My friend tried to soak her whole body, but she just dipped in, the came out.
“Oh, you are going to be Ok soon…just try once again”
She looked she wanted to have us in the water with her. Sorry, I wish I could, but it is TOO cold!
A beautiful black and white bird flew in, the flying around to find some bugs. It was very pretty, so we speak down a bit not to bother the bird.

Well, I loved that smoke sauna.

Now it is time to eat.
We went to the café, and had Reindeer Sauté with Lingonberry Sauce and Cream Salmon Soup. Yes, we have just seen the reindeer, but we just wanted try some local food. Sorry!

Hiking in Urho Kekkonen National Park

13 Sep. 2006 Urho Kekkonen National Park



Finnish Lapland is pretty flat. There are not many trees in Urho Kekkonen National Park, because it is located beyond the trreeline. So, you might feel like being in the middle of nowhere, standing in yellowish bushes and grass with 360 degrees wide view.

My friend and I took 6km hiking path. The map we got showed that path like a little red circle. It was not detailed. We followed poles along the path. The path was through the woods first, but soon we came out to the plain. It was in the late afternoon, so we didn’t see any other hikers. There was a reindeer fence in the path, so we got over it to go further. Walking for about 1 and half hours, we became unsure if we were in the right direction.

“I feel like we are still going further, rather than getting closer to our accommodation, don’t you think?”
We were on the track, though, we were not sure on WHICH track. There were many courses in this area including overnight courses. If we were following to one of these long courses, we would be completely lost. So we decided to get the path back to the entrance, just in case we had taken the wrong one.

When we walked back on the track, someone came towards us in the fast pace. He looked like as if he was familiar with this area.
“Excuse us, are we on this 6 km course? We are not sure if we came the right way”, I asked him showing the course map.
“Well, I believe so, but actually I am not so sure either.” that guy answered.
Oh well, then, we should take the safer way. He said he would go further to see what happens, so we went on the opposite ways.

When we got back to the fence, we saw something over it. Is it…
A reindeer!

It looked a young boy with growing antlers. He wasn’t scared at all even he saw us. On the contrary, he was staring at us curiously.
Then other reindeer appeared. A flock of them.

My friend expected to see reindeer. Her wish came true. Good for her, and also me!

We kept on walking pretty excited, then we saw somebody coming towards us in the fast pace. Eh? He looks pretty familiar. Is that the same guy we have just seen?
“Hi again! That was the right way. I got back to the hotel sometime after I saw you two. I was wondering if you guys were OK, so I am coming here again”
Do you hear that? He is coming for us! It is so kind of him!
He said he came to Kiilopaa ,from Jyvaskyla, twice every year; in this time to hike, and in winter for cross country skiing. We walked back chatting.
“I haven’t seen any berries here. Is the season finished? I wanted to pick up some berries”
“No, no. They should be here still. Well, let me find them…See, here they are.”
I actually had looked for berries in bushes, but they were on the ground. That was why we didn’t notice.
“Here you are.”
He picked up some eatable berries for us. They were refreshingly sour.