St.Petersburg, Part 2

Saturday 12.4.

When we woke up we noticed the sun was beginning to shine :) After big and tasty breakfast we did a bus tour around the city. Our guide was this Russian man who spoke good English and told interesting facts and stories about the city and people who used to live there. We made a few stops to the most photographic spots. We had already seen them during the limo ride, though, but it was alright seeing them in daylight, as well. We also went to the St.Peter and St.Paul fortress, which is considered to be the first structure of St.Petersburg. We went inside this beautiful church where nearly all the members of the Romanov royal family are buried. Our next destination was this souvenir shop where we were offered free coffee, tee, chocolate and shots. I bought a tiny maatuska doll (don´t know what they´re called in English). I saw the most beautiful hand painted maatuska dolls at the shop! After shopping we were dropped off at the St.Isaac´s cathedral. Tuija and I decided not to take part in the guided tour at the cathedral but discover it by ourselves. We climbed upstairs up to the tower, where we could enjoy a good view over the city.


Inside the church at St.Peter and St.Paul Fortress


Maatuska Dolls


At the top of the St.Isaac´s Cathedral

After taking several pictures we decided it was time for lunch. We had been told the city is full of sushi restaurants and since we both are huge fans of sushi we just had to eat at a sushi place. We had spotted a good looking sushi restaurant on Newsky so we began to walk there. After a while we noticed we had walked to the opposite direction and crossed Neva... Fortunately we found this another really nice Japanese style sushi restaurant on the other side of Neva. The sushi rolls were delicious :P I ordered some kind of mousse topped with white chocolate for dessert. The day had gone by fast and it was time to start heading towards our hotel. We took the subway closer to Newsky and wandered around for a while checking out nice looking clothing stores. Tuija found a shirt but I didn´t buy anything (so uncharacteristic to me lol). We enjoyed walking in sunshine and stopped by at a supermarket next to our hotel. We wanted to buy some food stuff that we can´t get in Finland. Tuija built her chips collection with some rare flavors while I bought chocolate bars :P

Then we went to the hotel to change clothes for the nights ballet. We walked to this another subway station through some neighbourhoods and markets we hadn´t seen before, and took the train to Newsky. It was a short walk to the theather but we managed to get a bit lost anyways. We saw The Cathedral of Spilled blood, which is impressive, but unfortunately we hadn´t much time to admire it since we had to rush to the theather. We ended up getting there in time, to find out our seats were at the most upper level. The theater itself was a beautiful old building and therefore perfect environment for a ballet. The ballet was Yanka. I hadn´t heard of it before so I bought a booklet telling the story. To make it short, it was about this dance group putting together a performance, loving each other and getting jealous... all the soap opera stuff with melancholy typical to Russian art. I quite didn´t understand the ending, though. The dance was an interesting mix of classical ballet with hard shoes and modern dancing with original moves and costumes. The ballet lasted almost for 3 hours. Tuija and I decided to skip clubbing that night so we went straight back to the hotel where we ate some apples for late dinner.


The Cathedral of Spilled blood


Yanka Ballet

Sunday 13.4.

We woke up in time to eat lots at breakfast :) Then we had an hour to spend before our bus left for Lappeenranta (and Joensuu). First Tuija and I went to this souvenir store located next to our hotel and bought some little cute things. Then we spotted a cosmetics store right next to it and managed to spend quite a lot of time there; comparing prices and checking out different brands. We bought useful stuff like combs, toothpaste etc... Then it was time to return our keycards (I had managed to loose mine,though) and leave the city. We drove to Viipuri, spending the journey chatting with our bus driver and Joensuu Student Union representatives. Viipuri is quite a dirty and grey town. You can definately see that in Russia all the money goes to the bigger cities, such as St.Petersburg and Moscow. The road right before we reached Viipuri was awful and we had to drive at 30km/h to avoid breaking the bus. Our destination was this huge supermarket selling just everything! Our target was clear: Everyone pretty much headed straight to the alcohol section :) Because of import limits I could buy only a bottle of cream liquer (for cocktail party) and 3 cans of cider. Most people were optimizing their intake by buying vodka and beer.

Soon we faced some boarder formalities. Our passports were checked a couple of times and we had to go inside this building to return the forms we had filled in when entering the country. Everything went smoothly, they decided not to investigate our bus, and soon we were back in Finland. It didn´t take long to drive to Lappeenranta, where we were dropped off at the uni. It was raining so I got quite wet while walking home... It was such a fun trip and definately worth taking part in :D I wanna visit St.Petersburg sometime again, preferably in the summer!

(I hadn´t remembered how much time it takes to write blog entries... So, once again, I apologize my bad grammar :/ I´m just too lazy to write proper English here. And, be prepared, I´ll be back soon...in early June, I´d say.)

St.Petersburg, Part 1

This is just a temporary comeback to my blog. I just got back from St.Petersburg and wanted to write down some things about the trip. I had wanted to visit St.Petersburg ever since I began to study at LUT because Russia is so close to Lappeenranta. Students Unions of LUT, Joensuu and Tampere organize trips in cooperation with this travel agency mainly for exchange students. Tuija and I decided to join the trip, as well, so we spent the past 4 days traveling in Russia...

Thursday 10.4.

I went to the uni already at 8.30am to give a speech at an orientation for outgoing Finnish exchance students. Juulia and I were asked to give a short presentation about living and studying in a foreign country. We had prepared a powerpoint show and told about being abroad in general and tried to give some good tips. Our favorite part of the presentation was the end: We showed some pictures from Australia :) Going through all the pictures made me really miss all the good times in Australia and I felt like traveling again! So it was perfect timing for our St.Petersburg trip. I rushed to the uni lobby right after the presentation. There were only 6 other students from LUT taking part in the trip so we shared a bus with people from Joensuu. They came to pick us up and we headed towards the boarder of Russia.

It was my first time visinting Russia and I was expecting to spend many hours at the boarder, but all the formalities went suprisingly smoothly. Our passports were checked a couple of times; an officer came to our bus. We had sent our passports to the Russian Assembly before the trip to get visas, that were stamped at the boarder. After crossing the boarder the did a quick stop to change money to buy some groceries for lunch. Then we continued our journey until...bang! Our left tyres were broken on the bumpy road. All we could do was to stop and call for help. Fortunately another bus, full of students from Tampere, was driving right behind us and ten of us were asked to move to that bus. Tuija and I were among them, which ended up being a good decision. The others left behind were picked up by a Russian bus a couple of hours later and they didn´t arrive to the hotel until late. The bus driver had a long night getting new tyres changed, but the bus was fixed by the following day.

As we approached St.Petersburg we could see some neighbourhoods with crappy houses and kinda dirty surroundings. The area looked pretty grey and to be honest I wouldn´t choose to live there. There were some brand new houses with large windows, too. It looked funny having those crappy and posh houses right next to each other - but you could notice the poor and rich combined everywhere else, too. There were both new expensive cars (especially city jeps) and some Ladas that looked like they could break down any moment. Due to the traffic it took us quite long to drive the last 5km to our hotel, Hotel Sovitskaya. Being used to staying at cheap hostels the hotel was a great suprise :) Tuija and I had our own room with comfy beds (I just loved sleeping on a proper, soft bed!), own bathroom and TV. Our view was to one of the smaller rivers - very nice indeed.


St. Petersburg


An old building


I found my dream car lol.

We were given an option to sign up for some additional activities, and Tuija and I decided to take part in this Russian dinner that night. Because the others being left with the broken bus didn´t arrive until later our departure for the dinner was postponed till 9.30pm. We had time to walk to a nearby cafe for cappucino. It was a cousy place, where we sat for a while drinking coffee. We tested our newly-learned Russian speaking skills - Spasiba means Thank You - but the waitress pretty much laughed at us :) We met at the hotel lobby and drove to this restaurant at a shopping mall. That´s where we met our local guide, Nina. Our other guides, Kaisa and Mikko, were students from Tampere. We sat at long tables and were served a Russian dinner. For appetisers we got salad with rice, peas and apple - my favorite part of the meal. For main course we had traditional Russian beef soup, potatoes and chicken topped with cheese and mushrooms. We got also lots of bread and each table shared a few bottles of vodka. It reminded me of sitsit, except we had a lot less alcohol. This group consisting of 2 ladies and 2 men performed us some tradtional Russian dances and songs, which was entertaining. They played some famous songs and invited us to take part in most of the games and dances. It was nice having them there :) The dinner ended right after midnight. Some people went to continue the night at a night club, but most of us headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.


Russian performance


Shots of Russian vodka

Friday 11.4.

We woke up at 8am and took the elevator up to the 18th floor, where breakfast was served. The view over the city was good over there! The buffee breakfast was so delicious :P I ate tons of croisants, outmeal, cheese, fruit, salad, cakes... The weather was rainy so we decided to spend the day mostly at museums. First we walked to the nearest subway station, where we tried to figure out how to buy tickets. None of the officials spoke English but one of them pointed us to the right direction when we showed her the map. We managed to buy tickets (that were actually coins) and took the train to the other side of Neva (the main river going through St.Petersburg). Then we walked along a nice street full of interesting looking shops, restaurants and cafes. It was kinda difficult knowing what was sold where, though, because most of the store windows were painted or covered and we couldn´t understand the Russian signs. So we just opened some doors and looked inside :) We also learned a few important words: cafe, subway and museum.


Russian fast food kiosk


The street with restaurants and shops

Anyways, our first destination was The Kunstkamera. It´s a big museum of natural sciences. There´re many ancient/really old things collected by travellers and scientists. The section we were most interested in was about abnormalities. There was a whole room full of embryos in glass bottles in clear liquid. Some of them were siamic twins, and the freakiest ones were connected from their heads. There were also kids heads in those bottles. I didn´t feel like eating anything right after that section! But there were other more beautiful things, as well, like old stuff from all over the World. We spent some hours in the museum before crossing Neva to the State Hermitage Museum. It´s the former Winter Palace built in the 18th century. Today it´s one of the worlds finest art museums with art by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Picasso etc. We were most amazed by the architechture, though. The Russian Baroque style building is huge and every room is so glamorous! We walked ramdomly around for two hours but covered only a few sections of the whole museum. Every time we stepped to a new room we were amazed! Each room is designed with different colors: floors, walls and ceilings are made of marble and paintings and decorated with such style. There´re 2,7 million exhibits and someone told us that if you spent one minute admiring each piece of art you´d spend 11 years at the museum. We didn´t feel like seeing every single room and exhibit, so we decided it was time for lunch.


The Hermitage


Inside the Hermitage

Since it was still raining we didn´t feel like walking outside for too long. We found this nice looking restaurant that was Russian-Azerbaizan. I ordered a dish that sounded good on the menu - chicken, capsicum and potatoes - but it was swimming in fat so I didn´t end up eating much of it. Tuija´s chicken with mushrooms looked better. After lunch we walked to Newsky Prospekt, the main street in St.Petersburg. Our travel guide had told us about this market place so we went there and found some stores with relatively cheap prices. Most of the stuff was fake brand clothes but there were also some other brands. I bought only two pairs of "real" Calvin Klein - underwear. Since we weren´t far from our hotel we decided to walk there and found heaps of tempting looking clothing stores on our way there. Russia is the wonderland of shoes - we kept wondering how all the ladies can walk on such high heels, especially on the not-so-good streets - so if we had started to shop for them we wouldn´t have had time for anything else ;) Unfortunately we hadn´t time for more shopping because we had to get ready for the nights limousine ride...

After changing clothes we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for dinner. I ate pasta filled with potatoes and onion and liked it better than my lunch. Our travel group met at the hotel lobby for limousine ride. Two limousines - one traditional and one jeep style - came to pick us up and drove us around the city centre for an hour and half. I had never been to a limo before so it was a fun experience: We sat there drinking champagne, listening to Russian pop music and enjoying the view. St.Petersburg is beautiful at night with all the old buildings along Neva and some smaller rivers lighted tastefully. We made a few stops for pictures and got to change limos, too. Our ride ended to The Revolution nigh club. They checked our bags at the door and prohibited me from bringing chocolate into the club. But they didn´t check our IDs, weird :o The club was pretty similar to those in Finland and everywhere else. It had three floors: one with pop music, one with trance music and one with quieter music and a good view over the city. Tuija and I ordered drinks, danced and sat upstairs. At 2am we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. We had been told that using unofficial taxis is a common and safe way to get home in Russia. Even though I had some doubts about their safety we picked up an old car outside the club, gave the driver 200 ruples and asked him to drive us to the hotel. He did so, and soon we were back in our cousy room ready to get some sleep.


Our posh limo :P


The Hermitage at night

Goodbye!

Well, I´m back in Finland and it´s time to end this blog... I´ve been home for a week now and it feels good. Apart from feeling cold all the time I´m enjoying the winter weather, especially since it snowed today :) I´m trying to fully concentrate on my studies this spring. My plan is to graduate within two years so I´d better work hard! It´s been great seeing my family again, as well as all of my friends <3 Well, I really dunno what else to write. I guess it´s time to say goodbye for now. I might come back, though, but next time from another continent...

Asia: Hong Kong 2

Friday 11.1.

Tina and I had planned a trip over to Macau. She didn´t wake up in time despite of having an alarm clock so we left for the ferry station pretty late. After buying tickets I began to doubt whether I´d actually need my passport, which was true indeed. Tina had hers and she decided to go to Macau anyways, while I had to change my ticket till the following day and come up with other plans for the day. I took the train to the New Territories, to walk Ping Shan Heritage trail. It was historic buildings of the Tang Clan that established themselves there 1000 years ago. The trail was only one kilometer long and to be honest, nothing that special: small temples and halls surronded by people´s homes. The weather was hot and sunny.

A tower built by Tang Clan

My next destination was Hong Kong Wetland Park, which was meant both for recreational and educational use. I walked around for over an hour, and even though the park wasn´t anything spectacular I enjoyed being in the nature and not surronded by tons of people for a while. The park was mostly wetlands, small ponds and wooden trails going around. There were some birds living on mud, as well as butterflies and insects. Ching Chung Koon was just one train stop away, so I went there next. It was a peaceful oasis, opened in 1961, with pavilions, lotus ponds and a Taoist temple. It was a beautiful area and there weren´t too many people there. Some local people gave fruit, nuts and even juice to the gods of the temple.

Wetland Park

Wetland Park

Ching Chung Koon

Me by a lotus pond

Gods in the temple

Having missed going to the Temple Street Night Markets with Tina before I decided to take the train there. First I had dinner at a small Chinese restaurant. I had Japanese style steamed dumplings, which were healthy and tasty :P The markets were pretty much the same as all the other markets. Even though they were called also the Men´s Markets the most stuff was just clothes, bags and handcraft. Then I headed to Harbour City to buy a cell phone. I had looked around for cell phone prices during the past days and decided to get mine from a proper store. It was still over 50euros cheaper than in Finland. I also bought a sweater from Hillfiger and winter boots from NKDY on my way back to the hostel, where I played with my new cell phone.

Saturday 12.1.

It was my day to go to Macau. I was lucky I couldn´t go on Friday! There was a ferry accident on Friday night, two ferries crashing and injuring over 130 people. They cancelled all ferries after that and Tina couldn´t get back to Hong Kong but had to spend the night in Macau, causing her to miss her flight to New Zealand. So I was very lucky indeed! I took the 11 o´clock ferry that was delayed a bit, and arrived in Macau at 1pm. Macau is a city in mainland China and it used to be invaded by Portugese. That´s why it´s a mix of East and West, which makes it an interesting city to visit. First I took the bus to the main sightseeing area. I met this polite high school kid in the bus and he told me where to get off and showed where I was on the map. All the World Heritage things were along this one road and it was crowded with tourists! The weather was hot and sunny, perfect for spending the day outside.

Macau streets full of tourists

I wanted to eat some Portugese food for lunch, so I picked this restaurant having a Portugese menu with cheap prices. Apparently I should´ve picked a bit more expensive place, since all I got was greasy chicken and spaghetti. Anyways, after eating half of it I walked to the other end of the sightseeing road. I could easily see the western influence there: All signs were both in Chinese and Portugese (what a weird combination!), quite many European style buildings and narrow, deep streets. First I headed to Ruins of St.Paul. It used to be a church, built in 1580, but was burned down, leaving only its front fall standing. Right next to the Catholic church ruins stood Na Tcha Temple, showing how different religions are present side my side in Macau.

Ruins of St.Paul

A sign by the ruins (in Chinese and Portugese)

My next destination was Casa Garden, which was a beautiful place with flowers & plants, fountains and old walls made of stone. There were quite many local men playing poker there. I didn´t have much time to wander around in the garden, because I wanted to see most of the World Heritage things. There were signs for them all around the area, but I managed to get lost a couple of times anyways. The map was no help whatsoever. So I just ended up walking around half-randomly, and saw most of the things. It was many impressive buildings, Catholic churches and temples. (I can´t recall all of them or remember which picture is from which building.)

Casa Garden

Smelling fish that I found when I got lost

Inside a beautiful church

I had seen most of the sightseeing by 5.30pm and I figured I should head back to the ferry station. So I took the bus there and was lucky to catch the 6pm ferry. I hadn´t time to visit the many big casinos Macau is famous of, but I saw some of them from the bus. I was back in Hong Kong after 7pm and started to look for a dinner place. I found this place making healthy Chinese food and had a delicious meal of dark rice, duck and veggies.

Sunday 13.1.

I had planned to go to Kowloon Park to spend the morning, but it was raining so I decided to go shopping instead. I took the train to IFC mall. Most of the stores there were too expensive for me, but I bought a nice sweater from Kelvin & Clain and a sports top. At noon I went back to my hostel to check out, and then to look for a lunch place. On my way there I found this cheap place for a manicure, so I went there first to get my nails done. It was only 55HKD and the Chinese lady there did a much better job with my French manicure than the lady in Bangkok. I had lunch at a nearby Japanese place; delicious seafood noodle soup and California sushi rolls.

After lunch I went to Harbour City for some more shopping. After a while I felt like being outside so I walked to see the Avenue of Stars by the water. It was nothing special really; just a walkway where famous Asian actors and actresses (who I don´t really know) had signed by their handprints. Two fortune tellers tried to approach to me, but I didn´t feel like paying them. The weather was still cloudy and rainy, so I headed back to the mall. On my way there I ran to this street performance by the City Contemporary Dance Company and ended up sending over half and hour watching the dancing. It was a group of skilled and beautiful Chinese dancers performing several contemporary coreographies. When it began to rain more heavily I went back to the mall.

Jackie Chan´s handprints and autograph

Dancing street performance

When it was time for dinner I went back to the same healthy restaurant and had rice with veggie tomato sauce this time. Then I took a shower at the hostel and took a bus to the airport. I was really nervous about checking in my luggage since even without having a scale I knew it was way over weight. It was 28kg indeed (the limit is 23kg for BA), but the guy said nothing. I literally jumped up and down lol :) Then I wandered around the airport shopping area and found out they had samples of all chocolates :P So I was well entertained until my flight departed. Luckily it was on time.

Asia: Hong Kong 1

Wednesday 9.1.

I woke up at the same time with Laura. We had also met with Tina from Sweden and Elmo from Philippines at the reception on Thursday, and we had decided to do some sightseeing together. First we had to take Laura´s luggage to this storage place, so we took the train there and had coffee at a nearby Starbucks. From there we took the train to Hong Kong Island to go see this lookout called Peak. We took an old stylish tramp uphill and it was really steep! Then we go to this tower building and took elevators up to the roof top viewing place. The view over Hong Kong was amazing! It was hard to take any good pictures since it was high skyscrapers where ever I looked at. Hong Kong definitely is a big and modern city and in a way reminds me of Singapore.

Hong Kong

Me, Tina and Laura

After the others had had beer at a bar at the tower to took a cab to Soho, which is an area of a couple of blocks. It´s mainly trendy, international restaurants and some antique & art shopping. We spent some time checking out the restaurants and decided to eat at this French place. It ended up being good value for our money: For 88HKD we got a three course meal and excellent service. For appetizers I had a salmon salad, for main course fish and potatoes and for dessert chocolate brownie with strawberry sorbet.

Soho

Our next destination was Hong Kong Park. There´re quire many buildings and stairs there, and it didn´t really seem like a proper park to me. There´s a caged area, which is home to many different kinds of colourful birds. We also checked out this Olympic Park. Hong Kong is obviously getting excited about the 2008 Olympics in China, according to all the Olympic billboards and stuff they´ve got around. We also would´ve wanted to go to a tea museum, but it was closed already.

Hong Kong Park

Olympic spirit :)

We took the train back to the hostel, where my stuff had been moved to a nice single room. The room was new and clean, and I had my own shower and TV. Laura and Elmo left for their next destinations that night already, so it was Tina and I left to go to Victoria Harbour to see Symphony of Lights – show. The show was by the river, and it was spotlights from the tops of some skyscrapers, as well as other lights at them, with music. It was dark and the view of all the lighted skyscrapers was impressive. It was a rather cool night, though, and I had to wear a sweater and a scarf to keep warm. After the show we went inside to look for some restaurants. We found this pretty posh Chinese place and had seafood soup with rice. For some reason they always serve hot water at restaurants, and you gotta ask for cold water.

Symphony of Lights - show

Some impressions of Hong Kong: It´s easy to see it used to be a British colonial, and that it´s a growing business centre. Compared to Bangkok it´s cleaner and less chaotic, and people speak better English and dress more fashionable. (In Sydney it was easy to point out any Honkies; They dress kinda in a more funky and creative way. That´s why I shopped mostly international brands since my dressing style is more simple than theirs.) In addition, Hong Kong seems wealthier and most things are more expensive. All in all, I liked Hong Kong better than Bangkok.
Thursday 10.10.

It was a shopping day :) Tina and I met in the morning, and headed to Harbour City, which is a big shopping mall close to our hostel. They´ve got all the international brands there; from the posh ones like Gucci and Boss to the more affordable ones like Zara and Mango. We didn´t notice huge price differences compared to those brands in Europe/Australia/US, so we decided to go to discover some outlets for samples and second hand items. We headed to Granville Road in Kowloon, where we found this good stores selling samples and faulty stuff. I bought a pair of Miss Sixty jeans for 500HKD and there´s nothing wrong with them. I also got a spring jacket and a business style skirt from Petite. We had lunch at a Japanese fast food place. It was pretty much like McDonalds but with Asian food. It was alright but not as delicious as at real restaurants.

Granville Road

Next we took the train and bus to Stanley Markets in Kong Kong Island. The bus trip was nice indeed and we saw some beaches on the way. In Stanley we went to see Murray House and Maritime Museum inside. The museum wasn´t quite as cool as the one in Sydney, but we spent some time playing these funny simulator games there. We also saw this pier that is stated as a point of interest in the city guide. Then we walked around the markets. They had pretty much fixed prices but we managed to do some bargaining, as well. They sold mostly handicrafts and I found some souvenirs. We decided to continue exploring markets, so we took the train to Mong Kok. First we had dinner at this Chinese fast food place, and the food was too fattning to taste any good. After eating we went to wander around at Ladies Markets. There were so many stalls selling fake clothes, bags & belts, handicrafts, jewellery, candles etc… I bought quite a lot of stuff, including a fake Gucci belt. From there Tina went still to check out other markets, but my back was hurting too much to do any more walking. So I headed back to the hostel, checked cell phone prices online at an internet café downstairs, and went to bed.

Pier in Stanley

Stanley markets

Asia: Phuket & flights

I´m so close to home already: I´m sitting at the London Heathrow Airport lounge waiting for my flight to Helsinki. And I though I might just as well continue writing about Asia travelling… I´m close to falling asleep so don´t expect any proper English, though.

Friday 4.1.

I took the train and taxi to the airport to fly to Phuket. My flight was delayed by 2 hours so I just sat there writing this blog. I had upgraded myself to business class when booking the flights before, thinking that I´d have to carry all of my luggage with me. (The restriction in economy class for NokAir is 15kg. I ended up leaving my big suitcase to the hostel in Bangkok, though.) However, there was no business class in that particular plane so I promised refund, which I collected at the Phuket Airport. It was sweet getting 1700THB extra money :)

I took the airport bus to Patong Beach, which is the biggest and most touristic beach in Phuket. My hostel was located right in the middle of all the restaurants, shops and night clubs and only a 5min walk away from the beach. It was also right next to this big and posh shopping mall. The man at the hostel was nice and spoke good English. By that time I was starving, so I went to have dinner at the first place I saw. I had my first meal of many of delicious Thai food :P It´s one of my favourite types of Asian food because it´s simple and not everything is cooked in plenty of fat like Chinese food.

Then I spent the rest of the day just walking up and down the main shopping street, which is full of little stores and stalls selling everything from fake stuff to food. I ended up buying a beach towel, sun screen, a face Dolge & Gobbana wallet, and also sticky rice with mango for dessert. There were tons of Finns there! I could hear people speaking Finnish all around me, and it was easy to point out the Finns without hearing them speak, too, just by their general appearance and way of dressing and acting. I also quickly checked out the huge shopping mall, and they had this water & light show outside of it. After buying a box of cereal and little tarts of soy milk to take to the hostel for breakfast I went to sleep.

Show outside the mall

Saturday 5.1.

I woke up already at 8am, excited to spend the day at the beach. After breakfast I walked down the main street, that was quiet that early, and to the beach. Patong Beach is very long and full of beach chairs, by a street with several restaurants and shops. Despite of it being too touristic for me I enjoyed just laying in the sun and dipping into the water every now and then. I hired my own beach chair for the whole day for just 100THB, and ended up sitting next to this middle-aged Norwegian couple who I chatted with. There were lots of local people walking around and selling stuff to tourists: clothes, sunglasses, fresh fruit (which was great; I could get readily chopped pineapple for 35THB!), and you could get even massages and nail treatments right by the beach. For lunch I had Thai Pod salad, which was good but a bit too spicy.

Reconstruction after the tsunami

Patong Beach

I left the beach at 4pm when it got kinda cloudy, and after showering at the hostel I started to look for a dinner place. I had planned to walk around and read the menus of several places, but it started to rain so I just ran to the nearest place and had fried noodles with pork. Then I went to the big shopping mall, where they had many international brands and sales. Afraid that I wouldn´t be able to fit any more stuff to my suitcase I didn´t buy anything, though. Sis had told me to eat ice cream at Swanssons, so I went there and picked a thing called Chocolate Millionaire. It was 4 different kinds of ice cream (all chocolate flavours) with truffles, chocolate sauce etc… Yummy :P I also went to quickly use the internet at an internet café, and since it had stopped raining walked to the beach, which looked different when it was dark and empty. It was a warm summer night and I spent some time just enjoying the view of seeing all the light up the hills surrounding the beach. I went back to my hostel to sleep fairly early. Patong Beach is a huge partying place with heaps of clubs open till early morning and selling cheap cocktails, but since I was alone I didn´t feel like going to any of them.

Party people at Patong Beach

Sunday 6.1.

I had quite a rough night. I was supposed to be in a dorm with 2 other people, but instead I had my own room that was separated from another one by a wall that was open close to the roof. (So I could hear all the noise, see their lights and feel the air conditioning.) The guys living there came back from partying at 5am and started to listen to music and talk loudly, and turned on the air con so I was close to freezing. I managed to sleep till 9am, though.

I headed straight to the beach. It wasn´t the perfect beach weather since it was half cloudy, but it was hot enough to lay there and relax reading a magazine. I sat next to 3 school teachers from Sydney and chatted a bit with them. I spent all day just enjoying the warmth, and went to have some steamed rice and veggies for lunch. They do offer some water sports there, as well: waterskiing, jet skiing and parasuit flying (or what ever it´s called when you´re wearing a parasuit and they drag you behind a boat). I decided not to spend my money on those activities, though. People also go snorkelling in Phuket, but since I had snorkelled quite a bit at Great Barrier Reef I skipped those trips, too.

I was at the beach till 5pm, and headed to the main street for dinner and shopping again. When I was looking for some tops I asked this lady for prices, but when I decided not to buy them she got angry with me and started yelling at me. That´s what I find a bit annoying about shopping at markets: you can´t even walk past a stall without people trying to sell you things, and when you just look around they start following you around and bugging you about buying everything.

After discovering how cheap it really is in Thailand (1euro = 48THB, 1AUD = 29THB) I withdrew 3000THB more and went to the big mall for facial treatment. It lasted for over an hour and they did all kinds of things; deep cleansing, pimple & blackhead removal, masks etc… They removed my tan, though :( I should´ve thought removing the outer skin layers also removes your tan, but I didn´t until I ended up with a pale, but silky and smooth feeling face. So now I´m going home with a tan body and pale face :/

Monday 7.1.

Because later airport shuttles were booked out I had to leave to the airport already at 9am and wait there for 4 hours. I spent the time writing this blog and had a sandwich for lunch. This plane had a first class, where I was seated for some reason. I had gotten refund also for my return flight, but I didn´t complain getting a bigger seat, newspapers and a small snack. Even though the flight lasted only for an hour and half I spent almost the whole day getting to the airport, waiting, flying and getting out of the airport. (To be honest, even though I´m generally a big fan of airports and flying I´ve been doing it so much lately I´m getting kinda tired of it. Not the actual flying part, but having to be there so early and waiting around, and especially delays.) Anyways, back in Bangkok I first went to Smile Tailors to pick up my suit. I tried it on and it does look really nice :) Then I went to this nearby place for a manicure and pedicure. I saw people getting relaxing looking foot massages, and since it was so cheap (250THB) I decided to get one, too. So I spent over 2 hours at the place getting all the different treatments, and really enjoyed myself! Before going to the hostel to pack my stuff I had steamed rice and chicken for dinner.

NokAir plane

Tuesday 8.1.

I had planned to take the bus to the airport, but as I stepped out of the hostel door with all my luggage and just thought about dragging it to the bus stop, I decided to hop into a taxi instead. It was convenient and quick and I arrived at the airport fairly early. I got through check-in with 24kgs even though China Airlines restricts it to 20kgs, so I was feeling very happy :) I had some Thai baths left, and there was tons of shopping at the airport! I spent all the time wandering around this make-up & perfume store trying to figure out what to spend my money on. I ended up buying a mascara and an eye shadow. The flight was the best I´ve been on so far! The facilities were spacious and modern, food was good (for aeroplane food) and they had a wide selection of movies and TV programs. I started watching The Game Plan but unfortunately hadn´t enough time to finish it before arriving in Hong Kong.

I took the airport bus to Kowloon, where my hostel was located. Kowloon is one of the main shopping and dining areas in Hong Kong, and the hostel was located right in the middle of it. You gotta take an elevator up to the 15th floor to get there, though, that takes some time. The Mansion Building ground floor is full of Indian food places, little electronics stores and Indian people. Even though I was supposed to get my own room, I ended up sharing a double room with Laura from England. The Chinese people running the hostel were nice but very unorganized and the reception was closed when ever I needed to go there before noon. Since it was already 8pm when I had checked in to my room (see, I spent another day just flying) I just went downstairs to get a naan bread and a banana for dinner.

(And now I´m deadly tired :/ My flight doesn´t leave until in 2 hours. I think I´m gonna turn off the computer for a while and walk around the shopping area. Not that I´ve got any pounds to buy anything but they might have free sampling lol. My head hurts. All I want is to go home already.)

Asia: Bangkok

I´m at the Dong Mueang Airport in Bangkok at the moment, waiting for my flight to Phuket. (It´s been delayed by 2 hours.) So I decided to use this time usefully and write my blog. I just spent three fun days in Bangkok, that I´m going to tell about…

Monday 31.1.2007

When it was finally time to leave for the airport I first had to drag my suitcase to Central to take the train to the airport. I was there well in time to check in, which proved to be good. First of all, I was worried about having a heavily overweight luggage, and ended up making it lighter by throwing away some stuff (towels, shampoo etc). As I was at the check-in desk they sent me over to the service desk to clarify my tickets. It took them forever to figure out my tickets, and I had to pay almost $300 for changing the tickets (which I had done in August, when the friendly lady didn´t charge me the fee), service and Hong Kong airport tax. After finally being able to check in I got a $15 vouncher to spend at any restaurant. My flight ended up being delayed by 2 more hours, so I used the vouncher to buy lemon chicken salad at a Japanese restaurant, and then just walked around the area until it was finally time to board.

So the flight was delayed altogether by 5 hours, and I didn´t arrive in Bangkok until 3.30am. I didn´t even notice the change of year as I was watching a movie. (They´ve got a really good selection at Quantas: all newest movies and TV shows.) I spent most of the flight sleeping and eating all the food they kept serving. When I arrived in Bangkok I took a taxi to my hostel. I had been told to ask for meter, but I was really tired and got confused by all the people coming up to me and starting to bargain for taxi prices. So I agreed to pay 500THB for a trip to my hostel, which was ripping me off (it´s usually 300-400THB). But it was good to go to bed finally and get some sleep!

Tuesday 1.1.2008

I woke up at 8am, after sleeping only for 3 hours, but too excited to sleep any more. So I decided to find a place to get a cup of coffee. I found a small tourist map from the hostel lobby, and started walking along Silom Road (where my hostel was located) until I found a café. It was really quiet because of New Years Day – closed stores and few people - and my first impression of Bangkok was a bit shaky. I spent some time at the café studying the map and then started walking towards the Chao Pharaya River. I met this nice man on my way there, who told me how to get to the wharf. There I was offered all kinds of cruises and trips with different boats. Luckily I met Sis, a Danish girl, who told me to just get onto the normal river boat. We talked a bit more on the boat, and exchanged phone numbers. I took the boat to Grand Palace. The river boat ended up being the fastest and most convenient way of getting around in Bangkok, and it only costed 20THB. The river wasn´t as beautiful as I would´ve tought, but I could see some temples, lots of skyscrapers and the big bridge from there.

A river boat

I was pretty hungry when I got to the wharf, and luckily found a market place with all kinds of different food. I bought Thai noodle soup before starting to randomly walk around the area. I was really tired and had hard time focusing on anything, so I decided to spend the day just wandering around and figuring out the city. I found some more markets, and tons of people trying to sell me just everything (this lady even tried to ask me money for throwing corn to birds). I bought ice cream and walked past the National Museum and National Theater, that were both closed for New Year. I wanted to go see some old war boats at the Royal Barge Shed. So I crossed a bridge and then tried to find my way to the museum. (I had asked a tourist police officer and he had told me the museum is open.) I got suspicious as I followed the signs to the museum. I walked through some poor and dirty neighbourhoods, on really small paths, sometimes inside people´s homes. After I had walked for almost half an hour I faced a wooden path crossing a little river full of rubbish. I almost turned around, but decided to give it a try, and found the museum. It was just a shelter. The boats inside looked impressive – they were long and decorated – but the museum was closed indeed. Some men standing there offered to let me in, just to stand in the corner and take 5 pictures, for 100THB, but I declined the offer and walked back to the bridge.

Pictures of the King and the Royal Family

I took a ferry to the other side of the river and walked to Phrasumain Fortress, that was just a white building surrounded by a small park overlooking the river. Then I walked to the Democracy Monument, that was worth seeing! I climbed upstairs, where I had a good view over the city. Bangkok is full of diversity: glorious palaces right next to poor and dirty neighbourhoods. There´re also King´s pictures everywhere. Thai people obviously love their King. Sis told me they gotta salute the King even at the cinema before starting the movie. Golden Mount is a big temple with all golden roof next to the Democracy Monument, so I went there next. I climbed upstairs to take a look, but it was crowed with tourists so I skipped going to the highest part.

Pharasumain Fortress

Democracy Monument

Golden Mount (I think)

By that time I was feeling really tired and wanted to go back to the hostel. I walked around for a while trying to find a bus and even asked for directions, but with no luck. So I ended up taking a taxi (this time with meter, which costed 70THB). I was offered tuktuk-rides all the time; where ever I walked the drivers stopped me and asked where I was going to. After a while it was hard to keep being polite to all of them. After taking a shower at the hostel I went to walk along Silom Road. It´s like the Wall Street in the US, full of shops and market stalls selling everything: fake designer clothes, bags & belts, scarfs, flower shaped candles, wooden stuff, jewelry etc… And tons of food is being sold everywhere in the streets of Bangkok; grilled meat, fruit, coffee... None of the market stalls have fixed prices but you gotta bargain for everything. The best way is to walk around first and ask for prices, and when you find something you like start bargaining for it. I didn´t buy anything this time and went back to the hostel to sleep rather early.

Markets on Silom Road

Wednesday 2.1.2008

I slept for 10 hours and felt a lot more alert after waking up :) I went to buy instant coffee from a nearby 7-Eleven (Thailand is full of them!) and then walked towards the wharf. On my way there I saw tons of tailor shops and went into one of them to ask for prices. The man there spoke good English and had served many Finns before, and without hesitating long I decided to have a suit made for me. I chose to go for the best quality of fabric and brown colour with white stripes. I used my bargaining skills to get a suit jacket, pants, skirt and two blouses for 9500THB.

After being measured I continued my way towards the wharf and took a ferry to Grand Palace. This policeman told me the King had died today and there would be special trafic arrangements around the palace. It was true: All the people looked sad and many were dressed in black, and they kept closing the roads for some special vehicles driving by. I made my way to the palace and had to rent a skirt and a blouse to cover my shoulders and too tight leggings before going in. There was a lot to see and wonder inside the palace! So much glittering decorations, golden towers, temples with many buddhas and overall gloriousness! I think pictures tell more than words. I spent over an hour walking around before meeting Sis outside the palace.

Grand Palace

Grand Palace

Me wearing the clothes

We had agreed to meet outside the main entrance, but because of the special arrangements they had changed the entrance for the day so I was waiting for her at the wrong place. When we finally managed to find each other, surrounded by huge crowds of people, we went to the first place we found to have some lunch (prawn salad). Then we walked to Wat Po, which is a temple with a huge laying buddha. And I really mean huge! After seeing it we decided we had seen enough temples and buddhas for the day and headed to Khao San Road, which is a famous backpackers area with shops, markets and restaurants. It wasn´t too hot anymore, and we walked around looking at all the stuff and interesting looking food. We covered most of the place and enjoyed the more quiet and peaceful atmosphere without too much traffic. Then we went to have dinner at Sis´s favourite restaurant, which was really nice and cheap indeed. I had steamed rice with seafood in oyster sauce (65THB).

The huge buddha in Wat Po

Khao San Road

Eating my pineapple dish

The last ferry departed at 7:15pm and Sis walked me there. When I was walking on Silom Road I heard some noise and when I went to see what was going on there was this quite old man laying on the street, not showing any sings of being alive. He had been hit by a motorcycle I think. There was no ambulance and people were just standing and looking at him. I didn´t know what to do, either, so after a while I went back to my hostel. The traffic is crazy in Bangkok, though. Cars, busses, tuktuks and motorcycles just drive however and there are hardly any traffic lights. Crossing a road is about testing your luck; whether or not you end up being hit by someone. When crossing busy roads I tend to follow any local people to feel a bit safer.

Thursday 3.1.2008

I woke up at 8am, and after coffee and cereal I went to Smile Tailor to try on my pants. (They´re very nicely fitting. I hope I won´t gain a lot of weight in the near future.) Then I spent the morning wandering around on Silom Road and doing some souvenir & gift shopping. Sis and I had agreed to meet on Khao San Road at 1pm and I decided to test the local bus service to get there. I had asked for the right bus from the man working at the hostel, so I hopped to 705. The lady selling tickets inside told me to change busses at Siam, so I took 74 from there. It wasn´t as simple as I make it sound, though. I had to ask from several people before I got satisfying answers, since not all of them speak English and I guess they don´t like admitting they don´t know something, so even if being unsure they give some sort of advice, either correct or incorrect. I got to the right place eventually, but almost half and hour late. The traffic is pretty chaotic and the busses had to wait a lot.

Anyways, Sis and I had decided to have lunch on many of the nice looking places on Khao San Road. I had delicious rice & chicken in a carved pineapple. After lunch we spent an hour walking to Marble Temple. It was a good way to see some of the local neighbourhoods with lots of market stalls and tons of people. I like them selling fresh fruit and freshly squeezed juices in almost every corner, and I had a bottle of most delicious orange juice for dessert :P On the way there we walked past Anantasamakhom Throne Hall, which is a western looking building. The Marble Temple is a smaller area than Grand Palace but it´s beautiful. The main temple is made of white marble and there´s a buddha inside. (What a surprise. I think I´ve seen just enough buddhas by now. They´ve got temples just everywhere around the city.) The area consisted also of some green areas and fountains.

The Marble Temple

We decided to head to Victory Monument and spent again some time walking there. On our way we saw Chitralada Palace. It was fenced so we couldn´t go in, but saw some cows in there. (We couldn´t figure out why they had cows in a palace area.) All that walking was nice indeed since it felt like we had known each other for a lot longer time so we talked about just everything. Sis had been an exchange student in Singapore and she was travelling around Asia before returning there to do an internship at the university. The Victory Monument was a monument in a round about surrounded by tons of traffic: cars, trains and pedestrians.

Victory Monument and traffic

We took a train to Siam, which is a big western style and really posh shopping complex consisting of three multi-level malls. We went to this big supermarket, where Sis bought a salad for lunch. I did tons of free sampling and felt so full after it I didn´t need anything for dinner! We went outside to sit by this beautiful fountain & light thing. Then we went to walk around in one of the malls. We tried not to go into the stores, though, so we wouldn´t end up buying anything. (Both of us have the problem of already having too heavy luggage for flights.) They´ve tons of international brands, such as Gucci, Versace and Prada, but also cheaper brands like Mango and Zara, at so cheap prices! They also have interesting looking brands I had never heard of before that I´d love to try since they´re a bit different from the clothes I usually go for. We hadn´t much time to wander around before I had to take the train back to Silom Road. I had an appointment to try on my skirt and blouses at Smile Tailors.

Sis and I at the mall

(By the way, I´m at the Phuket Airport at the moment. I just spent two relaxing days at Patong Beach and I´m looking forward to writing about them, too. I´ll try to go online as soon as possible to post this text. I apologize for my terrible English, but I´m just too lazy to pay attention to grammar. Now I´ll turn off this laptop to save the battery and go buy a sandwich for lunch before boarding for the flight back to Bangkok…)