Diary of a Tropical Island Girl in the Finnish Lapland, in point-form: Part 6

The final 3 days of our Finnish Lapland trip~

Day 8

¤ Saying our goodbyes to Nellim =(

Bye, Nellim squirrel~

¤ After breakfast, we made a 2-hour journey to Inari, one of the largest villages in the Inari municipality. As for population density, "largest" is pretty much an over-statement. The whole population in Inari can fit nicely  in my neighbourhood...

Nonetheless, the Inari village has a town center, which might be small but packs a punch. So, welcome back to civilization! =P

Modern hotel

Supermarket and convenience store!

Their small buildings are equally cute as Nellim's

Another quaint church :)

Horse-riding nearby? Look, there're sleds!

¤ Our hotel was beside a river and the view of broken river ice slabs was breathtaking.

¤ The night was so clear tonight that I mistook the full moon for a street lamp when we stepped out of the hotel reception after dinner... The guys were again very excited for such a clear night but... I came down with a fever and felt too sick to join them. I took some paracetamol meds and slept through the night... =(


Day 9

¤ I felt much better today. The guys told me that I didn't miss anything the night before.. Coz there wasn't any aurora. Ahhh.. But the sky this morning didn't look good. Cloudy.

¤ We visited the Siida Musuem today. We had a deeper insight about the history, economy and geography of Inari. Spent our whole day there. We're like school children again. haha. And it snowed pretty heavily outside..

Cute baby wolverines.. There were tons of such fake animals around the exhibits.

Retro snow mobile

I actually find this kinda cute...

Woof! Statue outside the museum

¤ By the time we left the museum, it's already late afternoon. It's stopped snowing. Looking up, half the sky's  covered with clouds while the sky over at the river side was clearing up..

While walking back to our hotel rooms (by the river), we heard what sounded like a low "boom". A little hard to describe how it sounded, but looks like the ice was breaking! It's pretty scary actually. And we suddenly were able to hear river flowing!!

One of these ice slabs broke??

¤ During dinner, I went to check spaceweather.com again. Good news! There was a sudden disturbance in Earth's magnetic field! For no apparent reason! Some parts of Finland had already caught some glimpses of the aurora. Looking out of the restaurant window, I was all hyped up to see the sky was clear! But it was still a little too bright (at 8pm!) for aurora viewing.

We waited a little longer and were contented to have a good ending to our little Lapland journey.

Fail? I tried to snap a photo without the tripod.. That's my friend in the middle..

My best attempt at trying to keep still....

Okay, nice clear photo from XB

Gotta love the swirls

This was when the light show came to a climax. Half of the sky was covered with aurora and the edge was really intense and moving really fast!

My friend went out earlier than us and he managed to catch the rare red color in the aurora!

An amazing shot that my friend took of the heavens and aurora

And for the comet-buffs, can you spot PANSTARRS? (Enlarge the photo)

After this episode of nothing happened while I was sick but we were given the gift of a magnificent light show on the last night when I was well, it really makes me wonder.. God works in mysterious ways huh?


Day 10

¤ Had our last breakfast and lunch at Inari today. Made our last minute shopping before heading back to Ivalo Airport to get on our flight back to Singapore, transiting at Helsinki.

Diary of a Tropical Island Girl in the Finnish Lapland, in point-form: Part 5

Let's resume my Finland trip diary..

Day 7

¤ Oh boy, how time flew! Today's our last day in Nellim and we would be leaving tomorrow morning for Inari. The full impact of the "reluctance-to-leave" syndrome hadn't really hit me yet as I was pretty excited for today's activity. We're going to experience how life is like for a reindeer herder!

¤ This morning was really sunny and beautiful!

¤ We had an extremely large group attending today's activity and our convoy of snow mobiles was impressive. We had the usual snowmobile test drive, but it was shocking to see puddles of melting ice along the snowmobile tracks. This was a far cry from the -28 deg c weather we had some days back.

Impressive!

¤ Today's pace was slower than the day of snowmobile safari but the slippery melting ice did not make the drive any easier. XB was constantly worried that the snowmobile might veer or topple..

¤ We first made our way to Hannu Pekka's (he's one of our guides) dad's reindeer farm. I tell you, it's cuteness overload. By now, reindeer was nothing new to us, but to see a herd of young reindeer was like surrounding yourself with kittens and puppies...

It's pretty funny to see them running towards us. Coz humans = treat time!

Omnomnomnom

The emo one.. "Where are my antlers??" You're still good-looking, bro.*

The one who thinks he's walking on the runway.. I guess bigger antlers = more confidence.*

But none can beat this guy! O.O Alpha male, anyone?*

* It's a fact that reindeer lose antlers. Young males lose them in early spring (like what you're seeing here), old males lose them in December and the females lose them in summer. Sooo... that last reindeer might be a female!!??

¤ It's another day of campfire lunch. But this time round, almost everyone helped out a bit. Some went to search for fire wood while a few of us (that'd be me!) helped to prepare the cheese toasts. The guides had prepared a pot of hot and delicious reindeer stew and we were all enjoying our simple but satisfying meal.

Helping out with the cheese toasts.. But.. No cheese toasts to be seen...

There you go! Cheese toasts!

¤ And during lunch, I stumbled upon some wild berries. Yes, they were edible.. And yes I tried them.. But..

... the frozen crowberries were tasteless... 

... And the lingonberries were *scrunch face* sour...

¤ And next up, we delved into the art and science of ice-fishing. No, it's not your usual "drill a hole, set a rod, then sit and wait" kind of ice-fishing. This is real fishing with real tools. Markers were placed, holes were drilled and nets were cast. After a few days, these big boys would return, in hope for a good harvest.

Matti (and Hannu Pekka) demonstrating net-casting

Catch of the day! This was from the net cast a few days back.

¤ It's our last night... And the skies were clear. The guys were hopeful for some auroras, so they went out again. As for me.. I didn't really feel like going out.. Partly because I had already bathed and partly because I knew the chance of seeing an aurora that night was quite low (thanks to spaceweather.com).

And with the almost full moon in the sky and without a tripod, I was totally discouraged from stargazing in the cold. (The sky still appeared blue even at 9pm! ah, yes.. It's quite a weird experience to feel what seemed to be like summer days in wintry weathers, and this "early sunrise, late sunset" pattern got more evident during our last few days here)

I told XB I'd wait for the aurora in the living room. And with all the lights out and the door closed, I started to test if there were auroras in the skies. Snap. Snap. Snap. Nothing. Zilch.

Nada.. Notice the blue tinge in the sky even at 9pm..?

I thought I'd wait a while before trying again. But I drifted into lalaland sooner than I thought.... And then I suddenly woke up freezing.. Somehow, the heaters in the living room had stopped working. It's already 1 plus in the morning and I should be going to bed. But for some reasons, the first thing I did was to open the window and snap a photo of the sky. I then stared at the camera LCD screen. There, in front of me, was a photo with a green band in it.

What? I tried snapping a few more times again. The green band's gone.

Nada again..

At that moment, I felt a little weird. What a coincidence... And that's not the last that I felt this way..

Diary of a Tropical Island Girl in the Finnish Lapland, in point-form: Part 4

Day 6

¤ We had a really rushed breakfast today as we had to make a trip down to Saariselkä, which was an hour or so away by car, for our reindeer safari. But little did we know the activity would only start about an hour later and we had to chill for a little at the Joikun Kota.. But thankfully, the lady owner was really cheery and hospitable. Had a really nice cuppa fruit tea. Yumm~~

Joikun Kota, painstakingly built by the lady owner's husband!

¤ The skies were especially blue today~~


¤ As for the reindeer safari activity... I guess we were no Santa claus.. hahaha.. I had always imagined sitting on a sled led by a group of reindeer would be like flying (pun intended). Nothing of that sort though. The whole ride was more of a relaxing affair, allowing you to absorb the beauty of the wondrous nature.

Reindeer and sleds

This was one enthusiastic reindeer!

Hehehe.. 

Do you know that moss is like candy to reindeer?

The ride might be a little too slow-moving for us "youngsters", but we did thoroughly enjoy our chats with our guide and fellow activity participants. We had our lunch at the cozy Joikun Kota and we chatted a little with the lady owner. We were the most surprised when she told us that there were a number of Singaporeans working around the area!

With the lady owner

¤ We had our 2nd aurora camp tonight. It's a shame that we didn't get to see any auroras even though the night sky got clearer later into the night... =(

No aurora to be sighted. But Cassiopeia's pretty obvious!

Diary of a Tropical Island Girl in the Finnish Lapland, in point-form: Part 3

Day 4

¤ It's fun to see the reindeer back grazing around our cabin. Though they seemed different from the ones yesterday......

¤ We had snowshoeing today. I am not exactly the sporty kind but I actually liked it (perhaps partly because I could hydrate myself by grabbing some snow while walking)!

The 4km course on uneven terrain was quite a workout but it was a thrill to be able to walk up to the top of one of the knolls and experience the chilly winds while at the same time, having a great view of the Russian lands not too far away.

We got to slide down the steep side of the knoll which was way more fun than a normal slide! Lesson learnt though: Remember to double or triple-knot the boot laces in case they come undone during snowshoeing.. I had the most uncomfortable walk in my life for the last 500m coz I kept feeling my feet slipping out of my boots! =S

¤ We had campfire food for lunch today. Simple but satisfying at the same time. Love our guides, Noora and Joonas. It's a joy to hear Noora talk about her life experiences in a humorous way and the soft-spoken Joonas trying to crack some toilet jokes. LOL!

Noora and a snowshoe participant got the campfire going!

Joonas topping up firewood on the campfire

¤ It's another cloudy night... =(


Day 5

¤ There's no activity in the morning so we decided to walk to the Skolt Sámi Orthodox Church. Heavy snow hit us but that's no biggie. It's pretty fun, actually.. hahaha

Heavy snow + pretty strong wind. The snow was blown horizontally..!

Quaint little wooden Church! It looks like something out of a fairy tale!

¤ We had a rushed lunch before making our way to the husky sledding activity. I love dogs so I was really pumped up about this activity.

I am a self-proclaimed klutz, so I was the passenger in the sled throughout the whole activity while XB's the musher. You would think with the blanket on, it should be warm and cozy in the sled. That's totally not the case and I was freezing cold by the time we stopped for a break...

My team of huskies! And yes, I was still sitting in the sled while taking this...

They are just too adorable!

And friendly too~

Still, the huskies were just precious even when they didn't smell exactly like roses..


¤ Tonight's our first aurora camp. I gotta sat on a sleigh led by a snowmobile! =D Noora's our guide and we hitched some snowmobiling help from Joonas for our big group of people.

The sleigh

What are camps without campfires? Once we reached the campsite, Noora, the superwoman, started to pick up the large firewood from the shed, chop them up into smaller pieces and set up the campfire, all by herself. And while she's at that, most of us started to get into photography mode.

Again, the sky's cloudy and there was no aurora except for the "I think this green thing (in the camera LCD screen) might be an aurora?" moment when this patch of sky cleared a bit...

The "green" thing

To while our time away, Noora started telling her entertaining life experiences again. It's just fun listening to her. Hahaha. It's not so fun to have my butt aimed in the direction of the lake though.. Not sure what the temperature was but my back was freezing from the wind and the warmth from the campfire wasn't really helping...

I guess the cold kinda took a toll on me and I hibernated (aka dozed off) while sitting on the sleigh back to the reception building. Hahaha...