Journey to a northern country...
Trip Start
Jun 01, 2007
1
Trip End
Jun 03, 2007
Helsinki,
Finland
Friday, June 1, 2007
Two days ago I felt excited when I bought my Viking Line tickets. I am going to Finland! I did complain a little about the fare. It was more expensive than I thought for a ferry ride. But what I did not realize was that it is a cruise ship too. How stupid of me.
I came to work ready with my small luggage so that I can go straight to the terminal after work. Several people have commented to me that I was going on a party cruise. Whatever that means...
I soon found out what they meant by party ship. I will tell you all about it later. Right now, let me comment on the cool cabin that I had all to myself. The nice view from my cabin room. The rather comfortable bed and sofa. My nice meal--a steak that I bought to go because I could not wait to enjoy my cabin. The cute little bathroom. But its shower room is larger than the one I have in my hotel apartment. How odd is that?
OK now to the party part of the adventure. Well if you know me, party means a whole lot different to me than to most people. My kind of party do not involve drinking, smoking or super loud music (ok maybe the loud music is debatable). So it was only about 7pm and I was getting dinner when I was hit on by a throng of loud drunk men. Hhhmmm... they were convincing me that hanging out with them would be much more fun than hanging out in my room alone. I did detect a slight jealousy when I told them I had the whole room to myself with a great view. I politely declined. Then later some drunk old man came and grabbed me. I quickly glared at him. He got the message and left me alone.
I got my hot steak (recommended by the waiter) and quickly retreated back to the sanctity of my room. Whoa, that was interesting! But I was determined to not let anything spoil my first cruise ship experience. I took my time to eat up my dinner while watching tiny islands disappear and reappear from my sight. I felt a little hyper active and decided to get myself some wine to put me to bed. I felt bad for ignoring the no drinking sign in my room but figured that meant excessive alcohol. All I got myself was this super tiny bottle of wine. After drinking up some aweful tasting wine I quickly fell asleep.
Day 2:
I woke up and found that I have a roommate. I forgot that I did buy a shared cabin. The sofa turns into a bed. How cool is that? Anyway, Lisa is Finnish and speaks good English. She is a pharmacist and lives in another Finnish island. Regardless I am glad to have such a cool roommate. We ended up having breakfast together. I learned a couple of things from her:
1. It is true that Finnish people drinks the most coffee in the world. She herself drinks about 5 cups.
2. She explained that Finnish dating culture is like the Swedish one. It is not like the US where it is more a dating culture. I seriously do not know how come I ended up talking about this topic with so many people. People seem to always convince me that I should marry someone here. Hhmmm...
3. Every Finnish students are required to learn Swedish. Even though it is so, they can't speak it very well because they don't use it on a daily basis.
4. Every pharmacist in Finland has to be educated in Finland. It only takes 3 years (I think) of education. You can opt to choose to study more and be certified to do more. Sort of like nurses and doctors in the States.
Needless to say, I was sad to see Lisa leave. She was very nice and funny. Her husband works for the Viking Line so she knows the boat inside out.
The ship embarked and I was suddenly anxious to get off the ship. Perhaps the sight of the pretty archipelago as the ship cruised into Helsinki triggered it. It took me a while to find my way to the hostel. The hostel was just a 5 mins walk from the terminal had I gotten my directions right. Oh well. But everyone that I have talked to told me that the hostel is famous and is very good. I am looking forward to that.
I got to the hostel before check in time. I decided to store away my luggage and begin my tour of the city. After all I should not waste precious time there. The truth is this trip was more of a spur of the moment for me. I had originally planned to visit Oslo this weekend but the weather forecast convinced me otherwise. So I don't know a thing about Helsinki. Lucky for me, Frommer has outlined a detailed walking tour in his travel guide. Following his map and directions, I was able to visit all the important buildings in the city. My top fav is the church. I love it. It is so white and pretty.
I am feeling old. It is only 3pm and I am tired. I have only been walking for about 4 hours. Geez... I took the tram to get back to the Market Square and bought me some good Finnish food. I probably won't recommend most Americans to eat at street food stalls but I grew up with such food. So I know that my tummy can take it. I bought myself some fried fish from Lappland. It came with rice and all sorts of fishes. :) It was a little more expensive than I had expected for some food at the market though. (10 euros)
I went back to my room content with my lunch and ready for a nap. I needed to get some rest anyway. Since the sun does not set till way past 11pm here, I have plenty of time to explore later when I wake up. Sure enough, the sun met me at 8pm and we went on another journey. This time on a tram. Since I bought an all day pass I figure I should use it.
I looked at the map and decided to take a tram from my hostel. My room was great by the way. Sparkling clean and the bed was comfy. Nice. For what I paid, this is much better than I thought. Most importantly, I had the whole room to myself.
The tram took me across the city. The tram is like the subway but travels on normal roads so I get the view of the city without having to walk everywhere. How nice. I think my feet is enjoying it too. :) I changed tram at the Opera House station and it loopped back to the city center. A little over an hour later, I got back to the Market Square. I was still full from the lunch I had. I took a nice stroll in the park in front of the Market Square and walked around the area. Then I noticed that the crowd on the streets have changed--they were mostly drunk. I was told by the girl I met at the train station an hour ago that it was graduation day. Now that explains all the drunks and people wearing sailor hats (graduation caps in Finland). I quickly headed home.
Day 3:
The girl at the train station was very friendly too. Very much like Lisa. She suggested that I visit Suomenlinna island. She was certain that I would like it there. Since I am convinced that I have looked under every rock in the city and painted the city red, I decided to try the island out.
For 5.50 euros, I had the bargain of my life. It was great! If you visit Helsinki, never leave without visiting this island. Of course, I will always have a different story to tell compared to most tourists because I usually get lost a lot and accidently visit places that I am not supposed to. Take for example, I saw this crack in the fence on the island. It had no sign and the beautiful ocean was calling out to me. So I decided to climb through the fence not knowing that the other end of the fence had a sign saying "Private property." About an hour later, I found out. I did take some beautiful pictures though. But I suddenly had to walk pass a bunch of men sunbathing. They were sprawled everywhere and they were all watching me. At first I thought that they were looking at me because I look Asian and foreign. Then I noticed that no other tourists were in this part of the island. After seeing trailer homes later, I soon realized that this is private property. I am so glad that I am in Sweden where they care about world peace and won't shoot a trespasser like me. Phew! I quickly crossed the fence and went on my way.
I ended up spending almost the entire day there. I did not get back till after 1pm and I left for the island at 10am. When I got back to the Market Square (this is where the ferry arrives and departs), I got myself some of that yummy fish food again. This time they gave me a smaller portion but I paid less. I got what I paid for I guess.
I boarded on my ferry about 45 mins early. This time I did not get the whole cabin to myself and the room was sort of depressing. I spent most of my time outside of the cabin. I decided spur of the moment to treat myself to the dinner buffet on the ship. A little more expensive than I was willing to pay for but rather tasty. They had a whole range of food from smogasboard (all kinds of fish) to free wine and drinks. To spice up my dinner, I had interesting company--a older Finnish man sitting across the table from me, a Finnish couple to my right and an American couple sitting across of the Finnish couple.
The Finnish man across from me did not give me a good vibe. I think he was sort of hitting on me. We talked a little and he was nice. But then he was very excited that I am from Malaysia and asked if I am a Buddhist. He was disappointed when I replied no. We then moved on to talk about religion. He explained that he gave up on the Christian God when his wife died of breast cancer a few years ago. He could not understand why a God would take away lives. I sort of frowned at him and explained what the Bible had to say about that--how sin and death entered the world. He was surprised that I read the Bible. He tried to tell me about Sodom and Gomorrah and asked me an odd question about whether we will all burn in hell now. My reply was please read the book of Revelations. He told me that he is like most Christians in Europe. No one believes in Christianity. It is all tradition to them, which made me feel even more sad. European countries house the most beautiful churches in the world. It made me recall a Bible verse regarding the temple of God. God's temple is not really the church building but the holy spirit that inhibits Christians. So basically, these buildings are like any normal buildings without the spirit. I asked him why he was so interested in Buddhism and he told me that Buddhists seem so happy. Whatever they needed they could ask Buddha for. Hhmmm... I have never heard of any kind of Buddhism that preached happiness always! I bet he does not know many Buddhists. Ironically, most Buddhist countries are poor and poverty-stricken--people die of hunger every day--and he is complaining about his situation. He is eating at a fancy buffet and drinking wine. After dinner he invited me to join him and continue talking. I of course declined. I was more interested in joining the conversation between the Finnish and American couples.
In over an hour, I learned so much about the Finnish government, business, technology, etc. The man sitting next to me is a mechanical engineer from Finland and knows a lot about a lot of things. The American man sitting across the table from him is in real estate from the Bay area. I think he was getting a little drunk--I could sense it from his voice. But here is what I learned that night.
1. Finland does not have a market place that is pure competition--the government owns a lot of entities and tries to protect Finnish businesses. That is why businesses suffered so badly when the country faced an economic crisis a few years ago.
2. Fayed, the owner of the famous shopping store in England, married a Finnish woman and wanted to build an extravagant mansion with a private port for her. It took years and years and the project ended in a disaster. The Finnish developing company went bankrupt and the owner lost everything he owned.
3. Finland does not have the same kind of bankruptcy laws as in the US. Private companies' owners will lose everything they own--home, etc--if their companies went bankrupt.
4. Technology is moving slower in Finland due to governmental intervention, especially television broadcasting. HD televisions have yet to get popular in Finland. I also noticed that cell phones in Finland are not as high tech as the ones in Sweden. Actually, most of them look rather old fashioned compared to mine.
5. The Finnish interior design is still based on designs from the 17th century.
6. Due to inclement weather, homes have to be triple layered. Two vacuum sealed panels and one panel with ventilated air to allow for the extreme temperatures. Some walls have four layers now.
7. Flat roof tops are bad in Finland because of the extreme weathers.
8. Most Finnish people seem to prefer the old fashion--wooden houses, etc.--with the exception of the younger generation who is greatly influenced by American culture.
From my own observation...
1. Finnish people seem to look up to Swedish people. I asked a Finnish girl how can you tell Finnish and Swedish people apart and she said that Swedish women look like models whereas Finnish girls don't. I may have to agree with her though. But I do think Finnish people are friendlier.
2. Finland seems to be a step behind Sweden when it comes to fashion, etc. The fashion in Finland is not as fancy or as high fashion as Swedish fashion designs.
3. I see Russian influence. People here seem to Russian features.
4. I don't think Finnish people like Russians very much. Perhaps it is because Russia used to conquer Finland.
5. The sun shines brighter in Helsinki than in Stockholm. I am so glad that I bought some super shades. But I got darker quickly.
6. The days are longer than Stockholm too.
