Wknd in Tallinn, Estonia

The summer weather in Finland has been amazing this year. Except for a few rainy days in the beginning it’s basically been blue skies, sunshine and 25 degrees every single day. Since we live pretty much next to a forest and a lake, it’s been a lot of swimming during the last few weeks.

When the weather is so great you become almost ignorant to the fact that just because the sunshine is where you are, that doesn’t mean it’s sunny everywhere else. Or at least if your name is Jonna. So, when we decided to do a spontaneous wknd trip to Tallinn, Estonia, and I saw a weather forecast that said 17 degrees and rain, I still didn’t believe it. In shorts and a t-shirt (and equipped with no umbrella!) I jumped on a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn.

The ferry took 2 hours and once we arrived my shorts felt like the most ridiculous choice of clothing. It wasn’t that it was raining. Oh no. It was pouring down. Literally pouring down. There was so much water on the road that the cars could barely drive off the ferry.

Slightly disorganized Tallinn harbour didn’t really come with a taxi line so we had to wait for the taxi war to end before we managed to grab a car to our hotel, which was located in the beautiful old town.

Once there (and checked in), a windy and rainy day followed. Residents and shop owners of tourist-Tallinn obviously saw the rain as a great opportunity to make shit loads of money out of silly tourists (like us) who hadn’t brought an umbrella, and sold some pretty basic stuff at 18-21 euros, which is around 200 rmb. Yeah, I don’t think so.

After some serious searching we managed to buy plastic raincoats from a small shop for 1 euro/each (that’s more like it!) and challenged the weather. Fortunately it stopped raining towards the night and we had a nice time walking around old town, checking out old buildings and cute little shops, bars and restaurants.

Tallinn's a very touristy place with a focus on the medieval times, and locals aren’t necessarily the most friendly people that I’ve come across. At one cute little restaurant, for instance, we were sitting at the bar having drinks when a countless number of people came in asking to see the menu. The staff kept handing them a menu, but then when the guests required a table they just said:

-Sorry, we have no free tables and are booked all night.

Hm... so why not tell them that before they start studying the menu?!

We did some bar hopping, enjoyed an average Italian meal, and saw some pretty drunk groups of tourists, which is probably one of the reasons why locals don’t love the visitor flow. The next day the weather was better and on the ferry back to Helsinki we even sat on the sun deck, playing card games.

Suddenly a guy came up to me, saying:

-Hey, you live in Shanghai right?

-Eh… yes I do!

-Yeah, I recognize you. We work in the same office building. You’re on the 15th floor! I’m on the 17th!

There he was, a Brazilian guy hailing all the way from Shanghai to the Tallinn ferry, and he was pretty surprised to see me there too. We are now officially elevator buddies in Shanghai.

I have a tendency to bump into people that I know on airports, no matter what kind of strange place I get to I often see someone I know. But on a Tallinn ferry on my way to Helsinki?! Turns out –it’s a small world.

Some pix from Tallinn:


Estonia has only been independent since 1991 (This memorial stone is for all the people that died when the boat "Estonia" sank in 1994). With a population of 1,3 million (Tallinn has 400 000 citizens) it's a small country.

In a 1 euro raincoat...






Tallinn by nite

Summer in Finland

Despite the horrific events that took place in Norway on July 22 I’ve managed to have a pretty good holiday. It was just really hard for a while to think about anything but the attacks. I have a countless number of Norwegian friends (from studying in Australia 2003-2005) and I’ve been in touch with pretty much all of them, just to make sure that they are OK (they all are. One guy has an apartment located some 500 m away from where to bomb blast took place, however, but he was in Australia for a holiday when everything happened. Fortunately, his flat is still intact). Since I can read Norwegian, I had a bit of an “information overload” situation in the beginning of last week, where I sat glued to the computer and read everything I saw in the newspapers, as well as blog posts and comments from Norwegian survivors. As a result, I cried a lot and didn’t sleep for three night, and when I did, I had nightmares where the shooter appeared, trying to kill me. So, I decided to keep away from the Internet for a bit, hence my decision to not blog. Hope you understand.

But except for the days that followed the sleepless nights last week (those were not fun) I’ve had a lot of fun. My first week in Finland was spent at my bf’s parent’s summer cabin, located in a small community called Hankasalmi. It’s a gorgeous place, and this time my folks came with us (all the way from Sweden, it took them quite some time to first drive to Stockholm, then take the ferry to Helsinki and then drive from there to Hankasalmi) for the first time! They loved it too (how can you not!) and we had some great times even though the weather wasn’t on our side at all times.

After the summer cottage stay I spent a wknd in Helsinki, followed by some gorgeous days in Tampere, Vammala, Vaasa and –Estonia’s Tallinn! But more about that in the following day’s posts.

Here comes some photos from the summer cottage:

Summer blog topics -suggestions, anyone?

Finally, my holiday is here! Today I’m off to Finland. I’ll be spending 3 weeks there, and then I’ll head over to Sweden for my final week. A whole month off –feels unbelievable! This wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for all the overtime hours I’ve done this spring (and really, I’ve worked a lot), so I guess working loads also has its advantages, hehe.

For those that have followed this blog carefully, today is also the day when by no-sugar bet with my significant other ends. Do you think I made it? No candy, cakes or sugar for some 2,5 months in order to win a shopping spree?

Well, of course I did. And not eating sugar has made me feel great, so who knows, maybe it’s something I will keep up. It wasn’t that hard to tell you the truth. Give it 2 weeks to get rid of the sugar craving and then you’re fine. Highly recommend it to anyone who is struggling with keeping their hands off chocolate bars.

Since I will be on a holiday there won’t be much action going on in my life. The summer days in Scandinavia tend to be bright and beautiful, but kind of boring in terms of action and events. So I’m not sure what to blog about. Do you guys have any suggestions/wishes? Anything you want to know about life in Finland/Sweden? Photo essays? Anything China related you wish me to write about? Could be anything -about studying in China, some restaurant recommendations, anything... Any questions you want answered? Fire away, because I’d like to keep this blog going even while I am away, but I need your input in order to make it interesting.

But first I have a 1 hour taxi drive, a 9 hour flight, and a 3 hour bus ride to look forward to… see you on the other side!

Midsummer in Sweden

Idyllic Nordic summer shot -how it's supposed to be (this shot is actually from Savonlinna in Finland)

Sorry for the lack of updates -I'm in Sweden on a business trip. But I took today off in order to celebrate Swedish Midsummer -a traditional festive day that I haven't celebrated in Sweden for 10 years! As usual, this day comes with a bit of a wind, some chilly temperatures and rain, but that's Swedish summer in a nutshell, and especially on this day! I'm soon heading over to one of my old childhood friends for a traditional Swedish midsummer feast. Happy midsummer everyone!

Just 2 months to go!

It’s around 2 months until my summer holiday now. I cannot believe it. It feels as if I just got back from Australia and calculated that it would be a good, 6 months until my next time off. And suddenly, here we are, just 2 months to go. Time flies.

Before this holiday I have so much to do (at work) that I don’t know if I should cry or laugh. It’ll work itself out (it always does!), but still. Two months feels like nothing.

This summer will be spent in Finland, Sweden and London (oh, and I guess I’ll also have to go to Copenhagen now when there’s a city tunnel between Malmö in Sweden and Copenhagen in Denmark. It apparently takes something like 10-15 minutes to move across, or, OK, under the sea. Nice. It took them 10 years to finish that tunnel. No comments).

I haven’t been back in England since 2006. I spent 6 months living in London straight after high school back in 2001. I headed over together with 7 (!) close friends. One after another dropped off (missed their boyfriends, couldn’t find a job, got homesick, had fights) and in the “end” it was just me and my best friend Tess left. Then I had to leave in order to start my degree in Australia, while Tess stayed on. I remember being really upset about leaving, and considering postponing my studies, just so that I could stay in London (and work as a bartender –man, that would NOT have made mom happy!). However, I never did. Tess, however, stayed on, and she’s been living in London since. Now she’s bought a flat in central London and is about to marry her British dream man next year. Guess who’s her bride’s maid?! And guess where she had her dress done… :)

Can’t wait to head over and catch up with some old friends –not to mention a fantastic city. London really is one of the best cities there is in Europe. Ah... summer holiday. I know that you shouldn't wish for time to go faster (especially since I just said that 2 months is nothing, and I have so much that needs to be done before then), but I cannot help myself: Come, come!

Xi'an 西安, day 2 -Terracotta Army 兵马俑

Day 2 in Xi’an was all about the Terracotta Army 兵马俑. Since we were flying back to Shanghai that night we decided to get a driver for the whole day, so that we could keep our luggage in his car, and, so that he could take us to the airport after we had visited the sight (the terracotta army is located quite far away from Xi’an so going back and fourth to the hotel did not feel like an option). I chatted to the bell boys at our hotel for about 30 minutes until we came up with a good deal and were assigned Mr Guo, a black car driver, to take us around for the whole day and then drop us off at the airport.

Mr Guo turned out not only to be a good driver, but he was also a great guide who, once he realized that I could speak Chinese, told me everything I wanted to know about Xi’an (I could then translate for mom and dad). We started off with a visit to the Banpo Village Ruins museum, followed by the Terracotta Army, and then dinner at a local joint at the mountain area. The Terracotta Army was quite spectacular, way above my expectations. This might have something to do with the fact that we actually rented ourselves a guide who took us through the history of everything. Although the area was crammed with tourists (“and this is nothing yet, just wait until the high season!” Mr Guo told me when I made a comment about it) it was still a really good and interesting visit. I would recommend anyone to go and see the terracotta army, but make sure you go before the peak season, and get a guide unless you’re an expert on Chinese history.

We had a little incident later at the mountain restaurant (which, although the food was lovely, obviously was a tourist trap) when we were given a picture menu with prices that made go “whoooot?!” How about 98 rmb for some cabbage, 150 rmb for spareribs etc… Nah, I don’t think so.

-Can I see the Chinese menu please, I said, and although the waiter claimed I wouldn’t understand anything of it, I did, and we managed to order some good food at a more reasonable price (because, obviously, the dishes on the Chinese menu were priced according to Chinese standards).

A large group of waitresses stood, sniggering at our table when I read the Chinese menu and ordered in Chinese. Still, when we got the final bill I saw that they had charged us 20 rmb for napkins etc (my own bad, I should have known better and asked how much they were before we used them)… so yeah, always have to be careful when visiting tourist attractions in China –even though this restaurant wasn’t even located within the actual Terracotta Army area. All in all it was a good visit, a nice little getaway, and I believe mom and dad also found it interesting and fun.

Xi'an 西安, day 1

I had some lovely days in Xi’an with my parents. It was much warmer than in Shanghai and we made sure to make the most of each day:

Thursday (dad’s birthday) started off with a hike to the city wall 城墙 (which was conveniently located next to our hotel, however, where to get up on the wall wasn’t as obvious as we first thought. We had to look for a while until we managed to locate the south gate). Once we got there we rented bikes and rode around the wall. It was a bumpy, noisy ride, but due to the fact that the peak season hadn’t yet started it wasn’t too crowded and we enjoyed ourselves... until mom realized that she had dropped her jacket and we had to go all the way back on the wall (and no, we still didn’t find the jacket).

After the wall we set out to be tourists de luxe and did something I never do when travelling: visited sights and towers! We went to both the Bell Tower 钟楼 and the Drum Tower 鼓楼 (!). None of them impressed me that much, but there was a group performance (= bored looking youngsters hitting their drums with perfection. They were really, really good, but one could tell that it wasn’t the first time they performed. Some of them looked bored to death) at the Drum Tower just when we entered so that was quite interesting (although painful to the ears) to watch.

After that we went to explore the Muslim street 回民街, and this was the day’s highlight. I just loooove walking on busy, messy food streets, sampling street snacks and talking to vendors. We spent hours there, I went camera and snack crazy and for a while everything was wonderful.

Then we decided to do a short walk to a hotel bar that we’d heard of for a relaxing drink. Sound good, right? Yeah, if only it would have been a “short walk” –we ended up walking around for 1 hour until we finally found it. However, wine has never tasted better.

The bar staff gave us a bowl of snacks that we literally emptied like beasts, realizing that we were probably quite hungry. We decided to go for a restaurant that I located via dianping.com (love that site for restaurants) but apparently the list was out of date because when the taxi driver dropped us off there was a clothes shop rather than a restaurant at the address given. On top of that, the taxi driver tried to fool us (he didn’t turn on the taximeter –I was too hungry to notice- and once we got ready to get out he asked for 20 kuai, something that made me see red. After some yelling we gave him 10 kuai and walked off). Then followed some aimless, lost walking around in a hunger daze (it was impossible to get a taxi at that time) until we located something that looked quite decent and settled for that. Turned out to be a spicy, Hunan joint. Good food, but I was slightly disappointed that we never made it to any authentic Xi’an restaurant that day.

The next day was all about the Terracotta Army, but more about that tomorrow. For now, I’ll give you a picture bomb from day one.

Riding on the city wall



View from the Bell Tower
Drums at the Drum Tower
Muslim Street -food street, yum!