Arto's Blog

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.

I just noticed that in addition to the public transport route planner for Helsinki metropolitan region, there's now a similar service for cyclists at http://kevytliikenne.ytv.fi/.

The system knows about cycling paths through parks and forests too, so the suggested route is often a nice one, at least based on a few quick tests. The "print route" feature is well done, showing both an overview map and detailed maps for the route. Cool. :-)

Of course all cyclists in Helsinki should also get the free Helsinki Metropolitan Area Outdoor map (Ulkoilukartta in Finnish), available e.g. from Jugendsali, Pohjoisesplanadi 19. The city has also produced some suggested loop routes in the city center and in many suburbs, describing the history, buildings and other features of each area. I'll have to check out some of those routes myself. Most of them are only available in Finnish though. The cycling route planner mentioned above works also in Swedish and English.

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.

My return trip which started from Phnom Penh went rather smoothly. I pedaled towards the Thai border on the southern side of Tonle Sap lake, stopping mainly to eat and sleep on the way. In the afternoon I sometimes had a bit longer break to escape the heat, which exceeded 35 degrees on some days. In Phnom Sampeau I was once more hosted in a Cambodian family, this time a restaurant owner with his wife and a few months old son. He was searching for a foreign partner to open a guesthouse in Siem Reap. I wasn't ready for that but it was still interesting to talk with him.

Near the town of Pailin I crossed the border to Thailand and met my friend Phisit again in Chanthaburi. We visited once more his sister's fruit garden and returned to Phanathikhom. After one day of relaxing there I had my flight back to Helsinki from Bangkok airport. Once more I had to try to get through without overweight fees. I put my luggage on the scale, with the bicycle only halfway there — the display showed 23.3 kg and the girl behind the counter just smiled as they always do in Thailand. I smiled back and even the extra bag containing a selection of exotic fruits went through without problems.

In Finland I started by cycling from the airport to my parents' place with my friends Mikko and Sami. I wore only a t-shirt and shorts, which was a mistake resulting in a flu for the next couple of days. Mikko and Sami weren't suffering from cold in the same outfit so apparently my resistance to less than 30 degree weather had weakened in the warm countries.

In Helsinki it was surprising how easy it is to fill again your non-existing calendar. During the first six days I already met friends from the MikroPC magazine, hosted two French cyclists for a couple of days, visited my grandparents near Kotka and participated in my friend's graduation party. I also moved to my apartment in Haaga (in Northern Helsinki) and started to carry stuff back in. I began with the most important things such as installing the cd player, amplifier and loudspeakers. Otherwise arranging the flat hasn't progressed much, but it doesn't matter: I've got plenty of time to do it during the summer.

I won't stay in Helsinki for the whole summer, however. For the midsummer I'll head to Lapland beyond the arctic circle. Believe it or not, although I've lived in Finland for almost all my life it'll be the first time for me to experience the real midnight sun. I've seen plenty of nights during which it never becomes dark, but I have never been far enough in the north during the middle of the summer to see the sun up in the sky still at midnight.