Have power board, will travel
After flying back from Oulu to Helsinki I had a couple of days to get some washing done at my favourite coin laundry, and get some more photos around Helsinki before my flight to Stockholm.
On the first day I got up fairly early and walked in the general direction of sea, passing the Cathedral and the Senate Square, before spotting the first of the sunrise.
I studied Chinese in high school, all the way to year 12, though I barely remember any now. I’ve eaten with chopsticks since I was a kid. I just remember chopsticks being in the cutlery drawer with everything else, like the little cake forks you use to eat cake. They’ve always just been there.
I’ve been to Hong Kong a few times, either as a 3 or 4 day stop over going to or from somewhere else, or for around a week with the school band, I played the bass clarinet. But I had never made it to mainland China.
Dad had been interested in going for years. Dad convinced mum to go by organising the trip through an agent with dedicated guides and drivers each day to take us around.
This was a very good idea.
Continue reading “China – Part 1 – Food and shopping”
Day 2 was a little different to day 1. The weather was not on our side. Thomas didn’t want to head out until later in the evening to maximise the chances of seeing something. He met me at the hotel around 9:30 and we set off north. The biggest challenge tonight was to find clear skies, and to find them we were driving north.
One of the things I was most eager for on this trip was a chance to see the aurora borealis, or the northern lights. There are also the aurora australis or southern lights that occasionally pop up in the south of Tasmania, but due to geography and physics, they aren’t nearly as strong or prevalent.
When booking the holiday I looked around to find a guide to take me out to hunt the aurora. There were some options for self supported cabins in the far north of Finland, but that seemed a bit much. I found a guide, Thomas, who operated out of a town called Oulu, about halfway up Finland on the coast, that seemed to be a good compromise. I booked two nights, the theory being if we don’t have good weather on one of the nights I would get a second chance the next day.
Continue reading “Chasing Aurora”
Our last stop in Europe this trip was Zurich. Mum and dad had flown in via Zurich on the way to Barcelona. We were only here for a few days. We spent one of the days visiting Liechtenstein. Our hotel was in the middle of the city, above a square with a number of restaurants and walking distance to most things. Downstairs was a traditional Swiss restaurant serving fondue.
