Thursday, April 06, 2023

Day 0 - Helsinki

shit you say goes in and out, my ear canals
so either my hearing's out or I don't give a shit about a thing you say
I just wanna feel like a king again
and if you don't like it, you can sit and spin
middle fingers up, we 'bout to do this shit again, uh-huh
The King and I - Eminem feat. CeeLo Green

That song started my playlist for this year's pilgrimage to see the world. I found a whole new appreciation of Eminem after watching 8 Mile, like 20 years after it was released - yeah I know it's super late. I do recall liking the lyric of the song from that movie at the time it was released, Lose Yourself which had the line, oh, there goes gravity - I thought that was very clever. After watching the movie, I found him to be quite awesome :D So anyways, last week I was in Iceland. It's the weirdest (for lack of a better word) trip of all the trips I've done so far, I'll talk about it more as I write more which may take some time since I have so many other important things to do. To get there, I took Finnair with long transits in Helsinki both ways. Before I talked about that first transit, I want to talk a bit about visa application. When will Indonesian passport be better? President Jokowi's two terms do not bring any change, I guess this is not a priority for him :( The process for me wasn't very smooth with more bank statements being asked when I applied and as usual I had difficulty with finger-printing. Side note: when I returned to Singapore, the immigration officer asked me why I didn't use the automatic gate and I said I tried but it told me to go to manual counter and she told me, oh yeah you've been noted here as having bad fingerprints, so you cannot use the automatic gate - sigh :( It doesn't matter when I exit out because the machine always works then, but on entering the machine is stricter. So anyways back to the visa, the website said visa application took 15 days or so. I went in on a Tuesday. On the Friday that week, I received the news that the visa processing was done. My mind raced, it's too fast, was I rejected? Darn it. Always, I always go to the worst because I'm just a pessimistic person. Praise be to God though that it's really done and I was successful. It was a relief, thank you Lord!!!

Back to Helsinki, arrived on a Sunday morning. The guy at the immigration check was a bit scary with his stiff English, but I passed through okay. The usual anxious me googled a lot and found out that week Finland was actually having a train strike. It was shocking reading the news of the strike because I forgot such things happen in places outside of Singapore and funny in a way because I guess not everyone is happy in the happiest country in the world. I was googling furiously how to get to the city if the strike didn't stop, but luckily the strike stopped just a few days before I arrived. Getting the ticket was easy enough, my card work. In the train, I sat by an Asian couple and just stroke a conversation with them, guessing they're Singaporeans which they are, we were in the same flight. They're kinda chatty, so that's nice. They're planning to take a walking tour and said I could join also, but I had my own plan. I knew Finland and Iceland was going to be cold, but what I didn't expect was that Sunday morning it was snowing. I started to get worried if I would survive the cold. Upon getting out the train, we all thought it's fine, we're gonna be fine. It was cold, but I didn't think I was going to die :D We parted ways and I made my way to my plan. My original plan was to visit Suomenlinna, but they rescheduled my flight back to Singapore to be with longer transit time, so I thought I should go there on my transit out instead of that day when I was just off a 13-hour flight which may make me not fully alert and still hadn't gotten my bearing. So the plan changed to visiting Sibelius monument first. I don't really know who Sibelius was, just kinda knew he's in music. The park was a bit far from the central train station though you could walk it you want to. However considering I should really make use of the single transportation ticket which cost 4,10 euro for 90 minutes in zone ABC and walking would be too tiring, I decided to take the tram. I was a bit disoriented in finding the tram stop but I found it. Upon getting off, I was a bit worried if I was walking to the right direction and it felt stupid if I were to walk here and there to course-correct with the snow falling no matter how interesting and new it all felt to me, but you know what you're gonna do, you just have to try and move. It was quiet that Sunday morning, I very rarely saw people. I made it to the park correctly though. It was such a new experience, fresh snow, and it dawned on me, I ruined those fresh snow with my track :D Anyways, kinda happy that I made it. This wasn't actually a priority to me because I thought getting there could be confusing but I was there alone and I was almost in awe that I made it, God help me get there :D

I wanted to explore the park further but remembering the 90 minutes on my ticket, I decided to go back to the tram stop and take the tram to Senaatintori / Senate Square and made it within the 90 minutes mark. Here's there's the Helsinki Cathedral. They had a service that Sunday morning, so I couldn't enter it. Then I also met the Singaporean couple again and we agreed then it was really cold :D After taking their pictures as requested, I parted ways with them again.

Then I made my way to one corner of Esplanadi park and made my way to Kauppatori / market place. Found where the ferry to Suomenlinna is, so I took note of that. Took pictures of the surrounding area, places across the water. People were putting those "love" locks on the little bridges nearby I was thinking, are we not tired of these things yet? Maybe in my cold heart, I hate love? :D

Then I saw the beautiful Uspenski Cathedral and made my way there. Again there's a service going on, so I couldn't enter it, but peeking inside from the door, it looked beautiful inside too. After that I just walked around the area a bit.

After that, I started my way back, traversing Esplanadi Park which I thought would be bigger. Stopped by Café Esplanad for hot chocolate and cinnamon roll - I know that is so tourist of me :D Both was okay. Then I made my way back to Central Station, then I thought we still had time, why not go to Oodi / Central Library. I also thought there should be toilets there too. Found my way there without any trouble though I had my doubt - I always have anxiety. Found the toilets downstairs and was a bit confused because it's a unisex toilet area with many doors surrounding an interesting sinks area. To say Oodi is a library would not match what your thoughts of a library is, at least mine. After the toilet, I went to the top / 3rd level which was the only floor with books as far as I know and most of the books are children books or young adults. Here and in fact the whole of Oodi is more like a play space. In the third floor, kids mingled around and played and parents with their kids and other parents just had fun enjoying themselves and each others. There are different board games that people can just use and play with. Then on the second floor, it's more like a creation floor, there are sewing machines that you can use, 3D printing machines, engraving machines. I saw rooms with Xbox and a dad playing with his sons, studios to play music, there's also meeting rooms. I didn't explore first floor much, there's a cafe there. The whole of Oodi just seems like a place to have fun and experiment and it's so cool. Some of the machines like the 3D machines seem like you have to pay a bit, but imagine a place where you have easy access to experiment? Is this one reason why Finland is the happiest place in the world? You have a place where you can just be creative? I am a bit envious seeing this.

After Oodi, I made my way back to the airport. Flight to Iceland was uneventful. 3-hour or so flight without food :( I got a free taxi ride from booking.com, but man finding the driver was not smooth. I lost like half an hour :( but I didn't give up because it's a free ride that delivered me straight to the hotel. It wasn't snowing in Iceland that day, in fact there was sun but good God, it was colder. After dropping things in my room, I went out and the cold bothered me, what's with the wind. Thanks to all the studying, I knew there's a supermarket and a food court kinda thing nearby. Went to the food court, I aready knew there's an Indonesian stall and I just went there, straight away saying hello to the mbak in Indonesian and she was nice. Look, if I have been living in Indonesia all this while, I may shun Indonesian food overseas, but since I live in a place where there aren't good / decent Indonesian food within my vicinity, I don't mind eating Indonesian food overseas and I also think I should support my fellow country men if I can. The mbak said, Iceland can look deceiving, you might think it's mild outside but it can be really cold. It's really nice talking to her in Indonesian. By the way, I find the food in Iceland is so expensive even though the portion is also big. I could do with paying half for half the portion, but alas such option does not exist. After the nasi goreng which I couldn't finish, I said good bye to the friendly mbak and her husband and got water in the supermarket. I know I could have drunk the water from the tap because it is of high quality, but even in Singapore, I boil the water from my tap. Though I have to admit that I also drink water from the water cooler / fountain here when I have to, but if I can help it I would rather not. Anyways, that's pretty much my day on arrival.

:) eKa @ 5:21:00 PM •