Honeymoon - Finland: Helsinki - Cafe Regatta - City Sights

Off we went to Café Regatta, a quaint little house by the seaside. It was quite a distance, not a the city centre, so we took public bus and had to walk abit. 

I can't remember what we had, but one was cinnamon bun, the other is some pie with sweet cream.

Now to the sightseeing. They are all within the city area, so we walked to the different locations - Helsinki Cathedral, Senate Square, Tori Quarters, Esplanadi. 

Helsinki Cathedral is huge and very beautiful. It looks like the Supreme Court in Singapore. 

It stands right in front of the Senate Square, a status of Alexander (I think?)…. 

The clouds were low that day, the mist covering the tip of the cathedral. 

Esplanadi - Just a big park with rows of shopping on opposite both sides. 

And the most interesting place in Helsinki in my opinion is … the old market hall! hahah... It's a hall with food/ dry goods/café... 

I think I spent a lot of time inside looking at each shop, figuring what food is that. cause many are unfamiliar to me. 

We settled for lunch here where there was a crowd so we decided to try! It serves soup in a huge bowl, we both shared one, with free flow of bread. It taste different from the usual soup I drink, but it's nice!

We filled our tummy, and off we went to Suomenlinna Fortress, a UNESCO world heritage. 

It shows the history of Finland, where Finland used to be part of Sweden, and also shows the history of their world war. You will need to catch the Suomenlinna ferry over, which was an amazing sight. 

The ferry could let cars in! and not only that, I experience first time in my life, a ferry travelling and crashing through the ice berg on the sea! It was a little bumpy at first, but after that it was fine. 

The fortress is big, but unfortunately I think it's not suitable for winter time, cause there's nothing to see, and it's quite dangerous in some areas as during winter no one maintains the fortress. It was quite icy and prone to slipping. It isn't as beautiful as I thought it would be. The trees are all botak. 

After that, while we still had time, we decided to visit another market - Hakaniemi Market Hall. 

We took a train over... the place was most upscale than the old market hall. More gourmet food. It also sells non-food items like cards/sewing stuff etc.

We had a little tea break there before heading back for dinner. 

Inside the train

We were searching for dinner places, and randomly came across this Japanese joint and decided to settle for that. Been so long since I had some hot and soupy and ASIAN. 
It was really so good! I slurped down all the soup!  

 That's the end of our Helsinki trip. Well, I think I would have spent more time in other areas of Rovaniemi and skip Helsinki as it is just another city and nothing much to do. One day is enough to tour everything. Not my favourite city in this honeymoon. 

Next up is ICELAND!!!!!  

Honeymoon - Finland: Rovaniemi - Helsinki

It was the end of Rovaniemi... we took the bus all the back to Rovaniemi airport. Took about 3 hrs in total. We were early at the airport since the timing of the bus was fixed. 
This was the bus... 

 The airport is really quite small... and the café is so-so... 

Beautiful sky upon departure. 

We took Norwegian Air to Helsinki, cost about $333 for 2 person. 
Upon arriving at Helsinki, we took their train HSR from the airport to city centre. Cost 5 euros per person. Took about 30min to city. 
https://www.hsl.fi/en/timetables-and-routes/terminals/transport-links-helsinki-airport

The train is clean and nice looking, spacious too!

The screen show the journey, hard to get lost. City centre is the last stop.

We went to check in at our air bnb, hurried did some laundry before heading out for dinner. 
The sunset is early, so it gets dark pretty early.

We went to Lappi Restaurant for a good Lappish meal! The ambience was quiet and cosy. We had a traditional salmon soup for starter, reindeer fillet and fried whitebait for our main course. The whitebait wasn't quite nice for me as I find it too jelat after eating a few. Maybe because it's fried? 

We enjoyed our night stroll back and planned for the next day. 

Honeymoon - Finland: Rovaniemi - Saariselka

The next morning was our checkout day :(
So we spent our morning finishing up our snowman.... and our end products! :)
Isit CUTE??? *loves*

So we headed off to get to our bus stop that will bring us to Saariselka. The resort drove us out and was kind enough to drop us at the bus stop.  The bus stop is outside the main resort area. Just a simple sign....

Scenic roadway

Saariselka is further up North, the town is small, mainly a resort village, but it's really worth spending some time here to do your activities here! We kinda regret for staying so short. 

We stayed at Saariselka Holiday Club, right at the centre of the town area. 

We went to a café at the front corner of Holiday Club. It's called Café Porotupa, a small hut but so lovely, warm and friendly. The food was great too! And the berry juice here is just perfect. I fell in love with berry juice here in Finland, and I can't seem to find a place that sells this... :(
There are only 2 such tables inside this lovely café. 

After that, we went for a tour around Saariselka. We hopped on the bus that is a loop, and paying 5euros, you can hop on and off through the day. We went to check out Saariselka Ski & Sport Resort, and I thought it was going to be boring... but I was wrong. 
This ski resort is so huge and seeing them ski in the cold weather, i'm fascinated and wished I had learnt how to ski. 
BTW … Saariselka Ski Resort is the northernmost ski resort in Europe! 

Look at this kid. So young so smooth in skiing already. 

We walked to the various slopes and admire them, before heading up to the summit of Kaunispaa. It's called KAUNISPÄÄN HUIPPU in Finnish. 
You may refer to the Ski bus timetable for the stops and timing. Note subject to changes. Here's the link. 
https://saariselka.com/saariselka/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Ski-Bus-timetable.pdf


The summit was beautiful. Vast white land covered with snow overseeing the village. 
So here, those who ski can take the chair lift up to the summit, and ski all the way down. 
It looks steep …. and long.....
There's a restaurant as well. 

Everything looks frozen here. 

You can also take the toboggan down the slope, which is so cool. We couldn't because we didn't know, and the toboggan is self collection at the bottom. So you carry up the summit then go down. 

It was getting quite cold and snowing with strong winds, so I headed to the restaurant to hide while waiting for the last bus to go back down. 
We went back to our hotel and had dinner and got ready for our night activity - Night Snowmobile safari! 
This cost us €145.00 per person... Not cheap but worth the experience. It is a 3 hr tour, with someone picking you up at your hotel. Depending on the weather, if it is snowing heavily, the tour might be cancelled/ postponed. 

Suiting up was a tough job. The overalls are thick and heavy because it has to keep you warm, and they are very particular about ears cause that's where you will feel cold first and it will make you cold overall. We have to wear their shoes too, cause it's also thicker and waterproof. Strictly no go-pros or big cameras in the pockets cause you might lose them. 

That's all the photo I have for the night snowmobile because it's dark, cannot take pictures. 
The guide taught us how to use the snowmobile, it's like riding a bike except safer (stable). There are strict travelling speeds, so he makes sure these are adhered to during the journey and also1 single file. Off we went to hunt! 
We went deep into the forest and it was really dark. We stopped at one of the hut in the jungle where he took out warm juices and bread for us as a pit stop. 
We further continue deeper, hoping to catch a glimpse of northern lights. 
Unfortunately we didn't. :(
But nonetheless, this tour is definitely exciting for me, riding a snowmobile for the first time. 
If we had stayed one more day, we might have done this again or do another tour for aurora hunting! 
We ended close to midnight and the tour operator dropped us off at our hotel. 

Honeymoon - Finland: Rovaniemi - Kakslauttanen

This day was also one of my bucket list and I seriously never thought I would really stay in this place! This whole trip has lots of things that made me feel so surreal and am so glad my boy was so accommodating to fulfill my wants :)

So, we had to reach the bus terminal early where the bus leaves at 8.21AM.The bus journey takes about slightly over 3 hrs. Please reserve your bus ticket as ours were packed. It passes through one of the train station where many people hopped on. Also, although we didn't reserve seats, we were lucky because we were the first stop. However, I would strongly recommend reserving seats if you are not the first stop in the bus journey. We did reserved seats for our other journey. It cost additional 2.50 per seat... 

We finally arrived at.... Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort!!! I can't pronounce that right, so I always call it the "K" hotel. hahha… Check out the beautiful pictures they have, it does look the same in real life. 
http://www.kakslauttanen.fi/accommodation/#glass-igloos

The resort is really quite big, and because it's quite far off the city area, you settle your lunch/dinner and activities within the resort which they have quite a lot of activities for you. 
Breakfast and dinner is included in the night's stay, so you have to settle lunch yourself (ala carte/ buffet)…

When we reach the main resort, there is east and west village. You will have to wait for their driver to pick you and send you to the right check in village. 

Our little glass igloo that cost a bomb. It is really LITTLE and i'll show you why. 

Our unit right at the end

So, our LITTLE igloo. You open the door, once you step your feet in, the right side is a small tiny toilet, enough to fit a small basin and toilet bowl. No shower facilities mind you. There is a shared facilities elsewhere. On the left, there's a rim of space that places the kettle pot and some teabags. And then, the bed. The distance between the bed and the "bench/wall" is around 1 metre only. We had to put our luggage on the low bench.

At the height of 164cm, I still have to bend my head...

The twin bed

Our souvenir from the resort

My poor boy who is 183cm, had to keep bending his body... so poor thing. Everything seem so tiny in this igloo. 

Oh, also, even though it's expensive, there's not butler service. Our igloo was quite far from the resort, and with the pile of snow, how do you carry your luggage over? 
They provide this sledge?? Not sure if it's the right word, but yea, a trolley without wheels. 

Something new I've learnt! So, if you want stay at the igloo house, you better know what you are in for! 

Me enjoying my ride back

We booked a Reindeer Safari ride with the resort because of the timing wise, we couldn't do husky, so there we go. The tour guide will pick us at the resort, and a short ride to some wilderness.... Before we start, she made sure we were well equipped as it will get cold. She said our hats were not good for the cold, so she gave us the "real" thing with ears covered, and also really warm blankets.

One of the caretaker for the reindeer will walk with one of the reindeer in front, and we get sledged, while a back reindeer followed. 

Our ride was slow, something I didn't really expect. Towards the end, it was getting colder even though the hats and blankets were really thick. 

DID YOU KNOW?
Not all reindeers have antlers? Males have antlers, while some female in certain populations have and some don't. Males shed off their antlers in winter or spring, while female in summer. 
Males use their antlers during mating season to chase or fend off other reindeers. Then once mating season is over, the antlers fall off and start growing new ones. 
Something I didn't know until the guide shared! 

Then the guide showed us around the place, how the herders live etc. 
She brought us to a typical tent that Sami people will stay, also known as Teepee. 
She warmed us up using firewood and shared about the herder who walked with us, who is young and what they do daily. 

TIP! For cheaper tours for reindeer or husky rides, be sure to research well enough for reputable and cheap tours. We chose to do the ride at the resort because we were short of time, but it's cheaper to do them at Saariselka which we were heading there after this, of course if you have plans to go Saariselka (RECOMMENDED!). 

We headed back to rest and also played with snow. It was snowing, and the weather didn't looked too great. And then we decided to build a snowman! Building a snowman isn't as easy as I thought! In movies you see they gather and roll up snow and throw at people.... it doesn't work here! We spent some time googling and found out that the snow needs to have moisture and wetness to hold it together! 

By the time we were halfway through, it was dinner time so we headed to the main resort. The dinner is a 3 course meal, and it was nice! That night special was lobster salad, and look at this! Huge chuck of lobster! Fresh but also abit salty, but it was gooooood. 

Fresh fish fillet

Dessert - which the boy liked, but I didn't

We walked around the space to check out the resort, and also admire the night lights before going back. We had an early night lying down, hoping to catch some northern lights. But guess what, we fell asleep. HAHA... we set alarm at 1 or 2AM, woke up, see nothing and immediately went back to sleep. We didn't even bother to wait up. HAHAHA...