Arto's Blog

Kamei and Maki, two Japanese friends of mine, came for a 12 day vacation in Europe. We spent a few days in Finland, did a short trip over the bay to Tallinn and then traveled to France together. First time in years I was on a classic holiday trip, including odd things such as hotel reservations and pre-booked transport tickets.

For Kamei and Maki the trip was to experience Europe. For me, the main themes were enjoying food and meeting old friends from the time I spent an exchange year in Lyon. With Kamei I had tried the best food I ever had in Japan, and relaxed meals in atmospheric small bistros are one the best things France has to offer. During the slow dinners I also had the best discussions and felt being on the same frequency with my friends. Perhaps a couple of glasses of wine helped, too.

Sightseeing was naturally part of the trip. I did enjoy it, but it wasn't very important, pretty much as I expected. The best parts were views from hills in the countryside of Eastern France, where one of my friends now lives and hosted us for a couple of days. He and his wife are also building a very interesting ecological house. In Paris, I visited first time the Centre Pompidou and was impressed by some of the modern art pieces there. Still more than that, I liked wandering in the streets of Montmartre and riding around on a city bike (Paris has a city bike network nowadays!) which I did while my friends went shopping.

After Kamei and Maki left, I CouchSurfed for one night in the eastern parts of the 18th district of Paris. I immediately liked the area: a lively mix of different ethnic groups, old buildings which were not too classy but still in good condition, and friendly small bars. As my hosts explained, it remained one of the neighbourhoods where people continue to go out in local hangouts and get to know each other. We even got invited to a flat party after simply chatting for a while with other customers in the table beside us.

The last day and night I spent at another friend's place in Noisy-le-Grand, an Eastern suburb of Paris. That had a quite different feel from the more central areas. Buildings were architecturally interesting and looked quite nice from the distance, but they were too big and rather poorly maintained. There were no small shops in the bottom floors which would contribute to the atmosphere: smell of fresh croissants, fruit salesmen, couples discussing over a cup of coffee, perhaps artists showing their works. No, a hike or drive to the nearby mall was the only option. Curiously, even very few kids were playing outside. Overall, a completely different way of planning the area, which felt kind of distant and somehow alien to the French way of life. Naturally, that didn't prevent me from having wonderful time with my friend and his kind and hospitable family — after all, to meet them was what I traveled there for.

A message was out, inviting people to play with snow and to build an ice sauna. The people behind the invitation were Philippe, a Canadian mathematician who had settled down in Finnish Lapland some years ago, and his Finnish girlfriend Kirsi. Wow, that was something not to miss. :) Read on, or go directly to the photo gallery on Phil's site.

The meeting was held at Phil's home in Torvinen, a village about 80 km north of the Arctic Circle and about 30 km south of Sodankylä. Three French and a Belgian guy had already arrived a couple of days earlier and helped to cut some seven tons of ice from a nearby lake, using a chainsaw and Phil's Land Cruiser. The ice was chopped to about 50 kg (35x35x40cm) blocks which could be lifted without a winch or other heavy tools.

The ice blocks were then used to build a round shaped small room, leaving a small entrance on one side. Between the blocks we put snow sprinkled with water which worked as glue in the -15°C temperature. Two seats inside and the roof were made out of wood. A sauna stove was installed in the middle.

We were 16 people in total so not everybody could be building the sauna at the same time. In the kitchen Kirsi together with guests baked and cooked Lappish bread, Carelian pies, salmon soup, apple pie with vanilla sauce and other tasty food with enough butter and fat to maintain human energy and good mood.

On Saturday sun shined beautifully and most people went out skiing, snowshoeing or ice fishing. I climbed on top of the Luosto fell with two friends. The small trees carrying a thick snow cover were simply beautiful. This year we've had very little snow in Helsinki, but even during a normal winter there's rarely anything similar in Southern Finland. Only in Lapland and other arctic areas, where the wind blows hard across vast open spaces, does the snow get packed in fascinating shapes like that. See page 5 and page 6 of the photo gallery.

How about the sauna, did it work? Well, not perfectly but at least the temperature was above zero. :) The stove was a bit too small and the wood we used for heating were waste pieces with low energy content. When the stones on the stove were finally hot, it was 2:30 am and most people were already sleeping. I had decided to test my sleeping bag outside and didn't want to get wet just before going to sleep under the stars. So only two people got naked, went in the sauna, poured a lot of water on the stones to get as much steam as possible, and had fun.

The following day some improvements were made and more people tried the special sauna experience. I was already on the way back towards the south with a few fellow travelers by then, but we had a nice sauna evening in Riihimäki. Now I also know that if I put my two sleeping bags inside each other and wear some woollen underwear, a fleece and a face mask I can sleep outside in about -30°C — there's no need to buy a separate winter sleeping bag.

The first weekend of February I traveled to Otepää in Estonia to participate in VastlaCamp, a Hospitality Club and CouchSurfing meeting. With a few friends I ended up joining the Georgian team in Winter Olympics which were not even part of the camp. :) See the photo gallery.

Vastlapäev is the Estonian name for Shrove Tuesday, or laskiainen in Finnish. Traditions of the festival include building sledges and sliding downhill in them. Some might aim for a long slide, but at least among students nowadays it's more about style: the funnier the better. That was also the plan at VastlaCamp, but because of small amount of snow and lack of equipment the sledge building part of the camp on Saturday was cancelled.

I went for a walk with a few other people and noticed a group of people marching in a formation and shouting something. They were carrying signs reading "Armeenia", "Georgia", "Kreeka" and "Nigeeria". It looked fun so we immediately joined the procession and the Georgian team got surprise reinforcements. Olympic rings were formed and flag hoisted, and the first event was a skiing competition.

Later it turned out that the "olympics" were part of a teambuilding event for the Delfi company which maintains a popular news website in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. First they actually thought we were some Latvian employees who were expected to arrive late. The reality was soon revealed but it didn't matter, they kindly welcomed us. So we got a chance to try sledging after all, both downhill and on flatland.

After a couple of hours we headed back to the camp which was at the Otepää high school. Pea soup and special buns were waiting for us and before evening sauna we still had time to go snowtubing. There were also a lot of social games both Friday and Saturday evening. One of the most interesting ones went like this: Chairs were put in a circle and participants sat on them sideways, knees as close to the chair in front as possible. Next everybody leaned back on the lap of the person behind. Then the chairs were taken away one by one... against all odds it actually worked and didn't result in everybody collapsing down! Other games included air guitar competition, button spinning, and writing a folk song in 5 minutes.

Saturday night ended in a costume party and dancing. My favourite costume was a cardboard television set which had enough space for another person to join in order to create a tv program. I dressed up as a Japanese in festival outfit which matched my habit of going around and taking photos of all the others.

One of the classrooms of the school was reserved for the party and next three for sleeping, the closest to the party room being labeled for "party animals" and the furthest for "sleepers". The party animals room wasn't quiet but not too wild either. A few people who didn't want to dance all night gathered there in a story telling circle. Vivid descriptions of bus travel with chickens in Bolivia and hitchhiking experiences all over Europe were just some of the topics.

The total number of participants was about 40 which felt just right for that kind of meeting. About half were from from Estonia and other half from neighbouring countries. Estonians have been very active in Hospitality Club and the HC Eesti spirit was certainly there! It was my first HC/CS meeting in Estonia but probably not the last.

During August and September I again noted how Helsinki is full of festivals, concerts and other cultural events. I participated in quite a few, especially in events somehow related to Japan.

First there was a performance by three geishas from Kyoto, a promotional event by Finnair and the travel agency Ebookers who are increasing their frequency of flights to various Asian destinations. The traditional dances weren't anything new for me but the geishas also performed a rock, paper and scissors style game designed to entertain sake-drinking customers in the geisha houses. And of course virtually all of my old friends from various Japanese related societies in Finland were there. I compiled a small picture gallery of the event.

My longest trip in August and September was just a cruise to Stockholm, with a Japanese theme organized by the Japania ry society. I wrote a travel story with a few pictures (in Finnish) of the cruise too.

Shortly after the cruise I was asked if I could help the yearly Helsinki Comics Festival by hosting Keitaro Arima, a Japanese manga artist who was one of the main guests of the event. I didn't have to think twice, getting a rare opportunity to spend time with a person from the center of the manga culture (which is very popular in Japan), practising my Japanese and meeting several Finnish comics artists on the way.

It was a very nicely organized festival with a huge variety of interviews, shows and comics from all over the world, naturally emphasizing the Finnish scene. I especially liked that all the evening parties were open for everybody (with the exception of one dinner on Saturday), so one didn't need to be an insider to meet the artists and organizers also outside the daytime program of the festival. Manga fans were certainly happy with Keitaro Arima's signing session — he would not only give his signature but draw an individual picture for every fan in the queue. The session which was originally planned to last for an hour eventually became 3.5 hours.

Arima was staying in a hotel, but in Hospitality Club and CouchSurfing language hosting means offering a place to stay for someone. I've been quite active recently also in that, perhaps even a bit too active. I just counted that 21 people stayed at my place during the last two months. Almost half of them were cyclists and all the continents except Antartica were represented by at least one person. I didn't have a single bad experience and many of the guests were wonderful people, but too many is still too many. I think I'll have a break from hosting now, perhaps not completely closing my door but at least having less guests. It might happen naturally by simply getting less requests, as October and November are not the most popular months to travel in Finland for quite obvious reasons.

The latest chunk of Japanese culture I got in the Love and Anarchy film festival, which faithfully to its traditions featured a good selection of anime and non-animated Japanese films among other good movies from all around the world. I didn't see many movies during my year on the road so now it was a good time to catch up. Especially as the movie theatres in Helsinki are becoming more and more controlled by one single company which shows little else than the latest Hollywood blockbusters.

The animations Paprika and Tekkonkinkreet were both beautiful, although I didn't like the character drawing style in the latter too much. I didn't see yet Tales from Earthsea, the latest offering from Studio Ghibli, but it's one of the exceptions which will come to the mainstream theaters soon. Festival veteran Takashi Miike's this year's flick Like a Dragon was only mildly entertaining, Sakebi's Retribution was better but not exceptional. Same rating for Lost in Beijing by Ping Guo, the only Chinese film I went to see. Korea is producing more and more interesting movies, this year's good picks being Kim Ki Duk's Breath and Chan-Wook Park's I'm a Cyborg but That's Okay, which was a delighfully refreshing take on a difficult topic, my favorite this year. Año Uña was an interesting Brazilian experiment to do a film based on still photos, well done but still not really to my taste. The discussion with the director after the film added a nice personal touch into the viewing experience. Eastern Europe offered some of the darkest but well-done and realistic films this year, with the Cannes Golden Palm winner 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days directed by Christian Mungiu from Romania and and The Trap by Srdjan Golubovic from Serbia. The Georgian-French joint production 13 Tzameti had the most stylistic black and white shooting.

Time was 1:30 am on Sunday, 24th of June. Mist was slowly rising from a small pond on the north side of a swamp. A light breeze was gently shaping the mist into small clouds which crawled above the water. A girl was sitting on a hummock by the pond, playing flute. The sun was just above the horizon, casting an orange glow on her face. About twenty people were standing, sitting or lying still next to the girl, silently admiring the beauty of the moment.

That was the highlight of the Hospitality Club and CouchSurfing Midnight Sun Camp in Tuntsa, near the Russian border in northern Finland. We were quite lucky with the weather so the sun was actually visible during three out of the four nights we were there. In addition to watching the midnight sun, the camp included quite a lot of hiking, going to sauna, eating, a bit of drinking and some sleeping too. About half of the 38 participants were sleeping in a large cottage we had rented, other half in tents around it. There was no electricity and even mobile phones didn't work so it really felt being away in the woods. The cottage and sauna were located by the Tuntsa river, whose water we used directly for drinking — in the sauna we realized that it was possible to swim and drink at the same time! :-)

As generally in Finland, hiking in Tuntsa was more about small beautiful things than dramatic mountain scenery. None of the nearby hills rose much more than 200 meters higher than the surroundings, but that was enough to get above the tree cover and see quite far over the hilltops. There were a lot of dead trees with interesting strange shapes, some of them still standing, some fallen to the ground. Reindeer were common, other wildlife sightings included a number of different birds and one fox. Oh, there were mosquitoes too, although fortunately less than I expected.

For hiking people were mainly divided into four groups and I had promised to lead one of them. Of course it was not obligatory to join, but to my surprise almost everybody wanted to go walking instead of just relaxing at the camp. Most of the hikes we did were between 15 and 20 kilometers, partly on marked routes and partly away from all paths. I enjoyed going offroad and after once leading the group through a couple of extra swamps I learned to take into account the difference between geographical and magnetic north. The difference in those latitudes was already about 10 degrees, which was significant when hiking for several kilometers mainly relying on the compass.

On my long cycling tour I also stopped in several places to hike in the nature. There I usually went on my trips alone. In Tuntsa it was again easy to notice how different it is be in a group compared to hiking alone. As a talkative person I was almost all the time chatting with someone, whereas while hiking alone I listen to the nature more. The group in Tuntsa was great but the experience also tells me that at least occasionally I need the lonely walks too.

Now I'm already on another trip, cycling in Northern Norway with my old friends Mikko and Sami. At the moment we are in Lakselv, continuing further north. More about that later.