The trip to Finland

Well this is my first time making a blog, so wish me luck! Anyway I am gonna be talking about my trip to Finland and what a wonderful experience it has been, and maybe this could be helpful for you if you plan a trip there too! Before that, I want to thank my mom and dad for helping make this trip possible, love ya'll!
Me and my dad took off from Singapore at around half past midnight after a 45 minute delay due to some issues with the aircraft, which did cause us to become a little worried as our already short layover at Munich became even shorter and we only had an hour to get onto the connecting flight. We landed at Munich with a 30 minute delay thanks to the pilots flying faster to make up for lost time, and we quickly ran over to the connecting flight and had to pass through immigration which had a long line, but we made it through and had plenty of time to spare. 3 hours later, we arrived in Helsinki.

Helsinki

It was around noon when we arrived in Helsinki, but it looked more like evening because the sun was lower since we were further up north. The airport was surprisingly small and we quickly got out of departure, we then headed over to a food center and ordered some Japanese food (don't worry we did try some local food later on in the trip). Once we were done, we got our SIM cards and headed to the train station, bought our tickets, and waited for the train. There were two trains that headed to downtown Helsinki, one that looped east and the other west, we took the east loop since it came first. The ride was much smoother than I expected even though the train was moving much much faster compared to where I'm from. The ride took just over half an hour and we arrived in downtown Helsinki. The weather was not too bad, it was only raining ever so slightly. We crossed the zebra crossing infront of the station and I decided to take some photos of the station, that's when a girl (probably my age) came up to me and asked if I was a photographer, I didn't really consider myself a photographer at that time so I just said "no, not really", though now I wonder what if I had said I was... anyway she then thanked us and walked away. My dad and I, still confused continued walking to our hotel, that's when we realised the pavement was those old kinds with the stones, meaning that our luggage is not gonna have a good time, little did we know that we did not need to have gone through all that hassle. After dragging our luggage on the bumpy pavement and momentarily getting lost, we finally reached our hotel: Hotelli St. George. Check in was swift and we went into our rooms and unloaded our stuff, the day was still young but we were pretty tired after over half a day of being in the air, so we rested and cleaned ourselves up before heading out for dinner. We left at around 5pm and walked around town and going into malls, but we did notice how dead the city felt... I mean it was still winter, so not out of the ordinary, most people would probably be in their homes or saunas. After an hour of wandering around, we started getting hungry and went to a place called Bastard Burger. I had a cheeseburger, lovingly called "The Bastard" which was pretty darn juciy and delicious, Finland really knows how to burger here. We didn't do much after dinner as it was pretty dark and we were pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.

The next day, we went to have breakfast at Café Engel which was right next to Helsinki Cathedral, and with the sun out, it looked beautiful even though it was under renovation, but that didn't last long as the clouds came in not too long later. While eating, we saw what appeared to be a parade happening. We finished our breakfast and walked over to it to get some photos, but it soon started to rain again. We continued walking around the city since the rain wasn't too heavy and walked to Uspenski Cathedral. The rain started getting heavier so we quickly walked to a nearby building and took shelter. While waiting for the rain to past, we saw the same parade walking just across the river in the rain, man that must be tough. About 10 minutes later the rain subsided and we continued walking around and walked thorugh Esplanadi park and stopped by a Starbucks to have a snack. I noticed a Moomin shop just across the road and thought of going there to buy stuff for myself and my family. I have no idea how but I swear I have seen that white character before, I dunno where but it looks very very familiar. We bought a cup for my brother and a pouch for my mom and headed off for lunch at a place called Ekberg 1852. It turns out we entered the wrong part of the shop and ate at the cafe side rather than the actual restruaunt but it was too late when we realised. While eating, a couple came over and sat next to us, and turns out they were Singaporeans too! We chatted a bit and got to know more about ourselves. After a very nice lunch with salmon and potatoes, my dad and I said goodbye to the couple and continued on. We rested a bit at the hotel and waited for dinner as there really was not much to see there at this time of year. For dinner, went to a place called Momotoko Kamppi at a mall called Kamppi Helsinki. It is a japanese restaurant with pretty decent ramen, my dad did not really enjoy it though... oh well. With that, our day was over yet again, and we went back to the hotel, took a shower and went to bed. We got up early and started packing our things getting ready to head back to the airport. While packing, my dad told me that there was apparently a more straight foward route to the train station rather than that bumpy mess we walked through when we arrived. Looking at the map he showed me, it was kinda stupid where we walked... We took the train back to the aiport using the same east side train and checked in our luggage and took our breakfast at a cafe, and soon enough, we were in the clouds yet again. We departed Helsinki just before noon on a two hour flight to Ivalo, and that's when we crossed the arctic circle.

Saariselkä

We arrived in Ivalo Airport at around 1pm and got out the plane. Since it was a small airport, there weren't any aerobridges so we had to walk outside for a bit, thankfully it wasn't too cold or windy. We got out of arrivals and went to get our rental car. We got a small Yaris since it was only just me and my dad. With that, we started driving off to Saariselkä which was about a 20 minute drive from the airport. It was a nice clear and sunny afternoon, so the drive was pretty scenic and we could see snow covered trees for as far as the eye could see. 20 minutes later, our turn off was coming up and I told my dad to slow down, but he misjudged the turn since there was a lot of snow on the side of the road and he ended up skidding the car, probably also because he was more used to driving an AWD rather than FWD, but I did tell him to slow down so... Anyway we went to grab a burger for lunch at Anne's Garden Grill & Cafe, and I had a bacon and cheese burger, and I would definitely recommend this place. It was then I realised that this is the northern most I have ever been and probably will be for a long time.

We then headed to our Airbnb which was on the outskirts of town in the middle of a forested area. It looked very cozy with it's A-frame design with the untouched layer of snow on it. We settled down and unloaded our things once again. When evening came around, the lighting from the evening sky looked amazing, and I had the idea to head out from the back to take some photos of the house. I knew there would be deep snow outside, but I had the impression it was only shin or at most knee deep, little did I know... As I got further from the house, it just kept getting deeper until it was at my waist. I could barely even move, but I pushed further to get the perfect shot of the house since I was already halfway there. After what felt like an eternety, I finally got to the spot I wanted. There were two small trees, and they perfectly framed the house. I got some pics and just sat there for awhile looking into the forest. Honestly I kinda just wanna be there forever, it was so quiet, probably the most quiet I've ever experienced. It started getting darker and the fog started rolling in, and it was just pure silence and peace, something I'll probably never experience where I'm from. I stayed out there for about 15 minutes just admiring the snow-covered forest, but I knew I had to get into the house eventually, so I started crawling back on all fours so I have an easier time moving rather than sinking into the snow. I got back with my dad having an amused face. Earlier in the day we bought some spaghetti, so we had that for dinner, unfortunately the sauce did not come with meat like we thought, so all we had was slightly overcooked spaghetti with the sauce, and some biscuits afterwards. My dad went to bed early, but I stayed up to try to catch some auroras since it was a clear night, but unfortunately I could not see anything, however my camera did manage to capture a green glow, which was sorta expected since there wasn't much solar activity that day.

The next day, we went up to the peak of Saariselkä, unfortunately it was a cloudy moring so we could not see far. As soon as we got out of the car we were blasted with the wind. I actually felt pretty fine when I was there, I didn't feel cold or anything but I could tell my dad could not take it since his jacket wasn't as great as mine, so I knew I had to do what I wanted quickly, so I took some photos of the Saariselkä sign, and took some photos from the observation deck (which was covered in windblasted ice) and quickly got back into the car. We then headed to Husky & Co as we had husky sledding today! The van that will transport us to the farm arrived not too long later, and we started heading to the farm to meet our huskies. We entered a little building and put on our overalls and boots and proceeded to the farm, and as soon as we entered, all the dogs started howling and barking. We then finally went to our assigned sledding group, which was all the way in the front, and apparently the strongest group. My dad was the one who was going to "drive" the dogs for the first half while I sat down in the front taking pictures. I could tell the dogs were all excited as they were jumping up and down, barking and wanting to pull the sled. Once our safety rope was untied, we were off and they were surprisingly quick. Other than the peeing and pooping at the start, the ride was pretty smooth for the rest of the trip, we even got to see some reindeer! We then took a break and swapped positions, I was going to be controling the dogs for the first time, and not gonna lie it was kinda scary, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes pretty fun, but it can get tiring. Before we knew it, it was the end of the track and we got to pet the dogs before leaving, they were all good bois and gals. We left the farm and got back to Saariselkä, and walked just across the road to get some lunch. I was feeling adventerous and had a reindeer hot dog, and honestly it just tastes like beef. We got back into the car and drove a little further down to the entrance of Urho Kekkonen National Park. We took a walk through the forest and slowly made our way to Aurora Day Hut which is a little look out into the wilderness, you can even enter the building if you want to warm up. As the name suggests, you can come out here in the night to go Aurora hunting too. While there, a local came up to us and chatted a bit, saying we should come here past midnight as he usualy see auroras during that time, to which we took note of but probably was not going to do since we were lazy as heck. There wasn't much to do other than that, so we headed back to the moutain to grab some dinner. We had dinner at the Star Arctic Hotel, and it also another must try. We had, in short, raw reindeer for starters and it tasted much much better than expected, I think that was also the first time I had raw meat, other than fish of course. We then got our mains, to which I ordered roast reindeer steak. We then headed back to the house and it also started snowing, so I decided to head out for a walk. I wanted to experience what I did the day before, so I started walking off to the side of the house instead of from the back, and this time the snow was definitely deeper going up to my chest. I walked deeper into the forest, then made a little hole for me to lie down and just looked up at the night sky and watched the snow fall. I closed my eyes and just listened to the silence. I don't know how to put it into words but it was just an amazing feeling being there, just lying on some soft snow, watching the snow fall in the forest at night. I was laying there for about 30 minutes just relaxing, and of course taking some pictures. I really am a chionophile thinking about it now. I got back into the house and cleaned myself up, ate some snacks and went to bed.

We were going to be doing snowmobilling today, which was around 2-4pm. We didn't do much for the first half of the day, so we had our lunch then went back to Husky & Co since they also did snowmobile tours. We put on our overalls, boots and helmets and crossed the road to get to our snowmobiles. My dad was the only one who could drive since he has a drivers license, so I sat at the back. We had a short briefing and we were on our way. It was quite a bumpy ride so I couldn't take many good photos. We took a short break on the top of a hill and looked around, and continued back into the forest and took another break with some juice and snacks. After about 2 hours of driving, we were back. We returned all the gear and headed back to the house, rested, and went out for dinner again.
One cloudy night later, we were off for snowboarding lessons. Our lesson was pretty early in the day so the slopes were very empty when we were having lessons which was perfect, and it was snowing too which was nice. Our instructor was a guy named Ryan and he was pretty chill, he was very patient with us. We learnt surprisingly fast, well my dad had taught himself snowboarding many years ago but he was obviously pretty rusty, but I managed to get the hang of using the t-bar lifts before he could, so that's cool, even the lift operator was very impressed. Is it really as hard to use the t-bar as the snowboarders on Instagram say? I got the hang of snowboarding pretty quick, and after an hour of lessons, we were on our own for the whole day. We went up and down the slopes, falling down many times but we slowly started getting used to it. I have done skiing before, and comparing both, I think snowboarding is much more comfortable, but the learning curve is defnitely steeper. We took a break in the afternoon and had our lunch and went back to snowboarding. We left at around 3pm and went back to the house and cooked spaghetti for dinner(with the meat this time), but not before my very intelligent dad had a very intelligent idea of going out for a run in winter just because he saw some locals do it, and mind you his tolerance for cold is much lower than mine. He came back with some of his hair being frozen, not that there's much to freeze anyway.

Our final day in Saariselkä wasn't really spent in Saariselkä but in Kakslauttanen, more specifically Kiilopää fell. We had our lunch at a restaurant next to the entrance and afterwards began our journey up the mountain. It was a mere 2km walk, but boy did it feel like 10km while having a weight tied to your legs because of the snow, but we pushed through and made it to the top. We were over 500m up, and the view was amazing. The broken clouds casting shadows on the white snow and dark trees, it's just beautiful. We took many pictures up there, and once we were done, we started our descent which was much easier than the ascent. Before leaving the park, my mom messaged me earlier saying she wanted to see me jump into the snow because she saw someone on instagram doing it and she thought it was funny, so I did, and also made some snow angels for her too. We left and, you guessed it, went back to the house and waited for dinner time. We went to Gastropub Giitu for dinner and once again had burgers. I loved the reindeer meat so I had a reindeer burger, definitely recommend this place too. My dad was thinking of walking to Aurora Day Hut again, but I disagreed as I could tell that he would not be able to handle the cold, plus the sky was pretty cloudy so there wasn't really a point, so we headed back.
It was time to leave Saariselkä and make our way to Äkäslompolo. We packed our things and left the house. It was about a 3 hour drive away, so we made a stop at Sodankylä to have lunch at Tori-Kioski Mikkola Ky which has pretty good food. We then continued on our way, but we headed to Levi first to check it out since it was not too far from Äkäslompolo. Levi honestly reminds me of when I was in Zermatt, maybe because of the architechture? We didn't stick around long since we didn't need to eat or shop or anything. We went into some shops, took a look at the ski slope and continued on our way to Äkäslompolo.

Äkäslompolo

When we arrived at Äkäslompolo, we parked at the K-market and walked towards the lake. Of course we took some pictures at the Ylläs Swing, and then we continued walking on the frozen lake. We walked one big round around the lake and took some pictures on an island called Selkäsaari. Why? I dunno. Anway the sun was starting to set, and the sky started to turn very pink. I have only seen pink sunsets in photos but seeing one in person is beautiful, the mountains and clouds having this pinkish-purplish hue which then fades into a dark blue above is really something. We then went back onto land and headed to a pizzeria called Pizzeria Via Tribunali Äkäslompolo which was just slightly past the K-mart we parked at. The pizza was huge, but thankfully I was hungry so I finished the whole damn thing. Afterwards we headed to our Airbnb. We arrived with the moon above our heads and started moving the luggage in and checked around the house. Honestly it was a bit disappointing that there was not any shower foam, just a baby shampoo(but we brought our own anyway so it was alright), and even more disappointing the fact that we had to but the bed sheets and cover ourselves which is crazy considering the fact that this place was more expensive compared to the first house. Other than that, it was a pretty decent house. We tried starting the fireplace because we were curious but the wood was just not burn, well it did burn for like a few minutes but then it burned out so we just gave up and just went to shower. My dad went to sleep, but I stayed up since there was once again clear skies and supposedly going to have auroral acrivity that night. I waited and waited for 2 hours, and finally, for the first time, I could visibly see them dancing. Though not as bright as I hoped, I was still very happy that I could see it with my own eyes, up to the point I was spamming my family chat pictures of the auroras(it was morning for my mom and brother). I was thinking of waking my dad up but I decieded against it because I don't want to make him tired becuase he is the driver too so yeah. Don't worry he got to see it later on in the trip (: . I kept watching and taking pictures for about an hour until they became to dim to see with my eyes, after which I went to bed at 2:30 in the morning.

For the next few days in Äkäslompolo we were finding it very hard to think of what to do since we already did most of our activities back in Saariselkä. We decided to do winter biking today around the lake, and boy it is a lot harder than it looks but my dad thinks it's easy as heck... We rented the bikes for 2 hours and cycled across the lake until we reached Helukka then we started cycling back down towards Äkäslompolo. It was a mere 7 kilometer ride but jeez did it feel like a marathon. Also please be careful where you're riding, don't ride on the ski tracks! We then headed over to Ylläs Ski Resort, the southern slopes specifically to get our snowboarding passes for the next day. We also had lunch there too at Restaurant Ylläskota. Similar to yesterday, my dad went to sleep, and I stayed up, and saw the auroras yet again, and they were definitely much stronger than before, but that's not the strongest it will get...

So the next day came and we had lunch at Jolie Lounge & Cafe before heading to the slopes. We didn't have an instructor today and only bought a 3 hour ticket since we felt a full day ticket was unnecessary. We tried getting more comfortable with the board and I actually got it pretty quick after watching some instagram videos, and I managed to start doing small s-turns on the slopes and getting faster and faster, I managed to control my board so well I could just slide onto the conveyer without unclipping. My dad on the other hand just kept falling, and had a few pretty bad falls and hurt his shoulder so he stopped and just stood at the bottom recording me instead. I feel kinda bad for him... but it's better for his safety as he's getting old. And just like that, 3 hours went by and we returned our gear. We headed back to the house when my dad had an idea: why not we go to the lake tonight and try to watch the auroras? So we left when night fell and waited at the lake for the show, which was supposedly going to be the strongest one we were going to expereince based on the statistics. Not too long later, the auroras showed up for a third night in a row, and cheers could be heard across the lake from excited tourists and locals. It got pretty bright too compared to the other two nights. It was amazing seeing the auroras just dance in the skies just doing their own thing. We didn't stay out for too long becuase my dad was just dying in the inside from the cold (he did enjoy the aurora show though), so we went back to the house. We had left all the lights off so we could still look out to see the show from the warmth of the house, and that's when the auroras became really strong. They were not dancing anymore they were doing the freaking Samba. We were both awestruck from the performance and started eating a bag of chips we bought earlier like popcorn. It lasted for over an hour before calming down. It came back later on in the night but not as bright as the first outburst, but still pretty cool.
We headed to Levi and had lunch at a Subway before taking a gondola up to Hotel Levi Panorama to have some snacks, but honestly you can just walk up here rather than paying for a short ride. We didn't stay there long and left back to Äkäslompolo, but this time going via the north route rather than the southern route. It was a pretty scenic drive especially when it turned golden hour. We stopped by the K-mart again and bought some stuff before heading back to the house. We went out for dinner again to Well Kitchen & Northern Cafe which we ate, as you probably guess it, burgers

On our final day in Äkäslompolo, we went to the top of Ylläs mountain and ate at Ylläskammi 718, and their food was pretty mediocore, but boy was the view incredible. Oh and guess what, there was another swing up here! We didn't stay up there for too long because of the damn wind so we went back down and went to Yllästunturi Visitor Center Kellokas and went for a walk around the Varkaankurunpolku Trail. It was a nice walk if you enjoy outdoors, and it also isn't too demanding. We called it a day and went back to the house and started packing our things, and unfortunately there wasn't an aurora show for us this time.

Conclusion

Finland is an amazing place to visit during the winter and there are many things to do if you know how to plan properly (not like what we did lol). Things I would highly recommend to do here during the winter is husky sledding, aurora hunting and trying winter walking. Some stuff I wish we've done is try out the sauna and buy a bag of Megapussi, but oh well there's always next time. Oh and if you really want to maximize your chance of seeing auroras, come during the time of solar maximum which happens every 11 years. We went to Finland when it was close to cycle 25's maximum, and cycle 26's maximum is expected occur around 2035. Also take note that auroras will not look like the bright green you always see in photos, they look more like gray streaks in the sky, only on rare occasions can you actually see the green, so look carefully!