Finland voted world’s happiest for the 5^th year in the row, how?

After a long 11-hour flight from Bangkok we finally landed at the capital Helsinki, we landed super early in the morning, just before 6am, ughh that was hard trying not to sleep at all. After going through all the hoops of immigration we got a taxi through a bidding war and got to our first place we we’re staying for 3 nights Espoo, a quite town just 30 minutes from the city centre. We met with our close friend and first host Aino and her cute puppy Roomba a jack Russell.
After sitting around and relaxing for a while we headed for S-market a up-market shop with so much fresh bread, fish, pastries and even a sushi bar, it was an exciting venture, trying to figure out what type of pastries we’re what, and asking dad to translate everything for us, ha-ha sorry dad.

For dinner that night dad’s school friend Hanu came and picked us up and we went to his apartment. After dinner we all headed home to hit the hay.

Day 1 of Finland,
After sleeping well we headed off to the city for the day to see the wonderful sights of Helsinki, even though it’s my 2^nd time in Finland I hadn’t actually seen the sights, so I was excited to be there, even though it was quite cold and windy. We walked around the main pedestrian streets and then headed for the main attraction of the Lutheran cathedral, those fit enough can climb the 43 stairs to the top to reach the cathedral, I didn’t attempt it any time I went.
After marvelling at the cathedral we headed to market square, a huge market filled with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, reindeer on a stick and other various finish traditional foods, instead of eating outside in the cold we headed inside to the food hall, a bit like the food hall at the easter show every year but more classier, there we’re tastings everywhere, little tiny cafes that could only seat 15 people, fish and meat as well as some really exotic foods like reindeer jerky, I wish I bought some however Iceland’s law on no meat products killed it. We had a lunch time snack at a little tiny French looking café, I had my first karelian pie (a delicious rye crust with rice and egg butter).

After lunch we decided to go for a walk but just before we were leaving there was a big downpour and we had to wait it out, we ended up going for a walk in the rain and then it stopped raining, basically like Melbourne weather.

We headed to the best bookstore in Helsinki called academic bookstore, a nice two storey book shop, after the bookshop we decided to head home.

We arrived back and just relaxed the afternoon away, for dinner we headed across the road to an Italian restaurant, even though it was authentic it still tasted delicious, after dinner we headed back to the apartment and went to bed, unfortunately due to jetlag I couldn’t sleep well enough.

Day 2
This day dad and I decided to go to the city again and explore while mum had a rest, we headed out early and caught the direct bus to Helsinki and off we went with our day, again a crisp windy morning, we went for a walk to the church in the rock, however not a free attraction we decided to not to go inside, the next attraction on our list was going for a walk around billionaire’s row to find me a young gorgeous bachelor, but unfortunately no luck.
We walked around the area for a little bit even heading to the ocean to soak up more of this beautiful chilly wind then heading down memory lane for dad where we went passed dads old apartment he used to live in, after heading to his old apartment we headed to Olympia stadium where we went to the top of a tower overlooking the entire city, after the tower we went to a small market area where we had some coffee and a pastry, one thing I’m not a fan of is Finland’s filtered coffee, sorry but nothing tastes as good as any type of espresso.
Next we went to the station to meet my cousin Nora and her two children, we went for a walk to the fazer café a famous chocolate branded café in the centre of town, I had a delicious fazer geisha dome mouse cake, I couldn’t how amazing it tasted, after lunch we all went for a walk through a beautiful skinny park, it was so luscious and green, the weather also had heated up a lot by this stage it was a nice 23c, the park leads you to market square so we decided to all go on the observation wheel, we took our photo in front of the green screen and on we went, once on there the views of Helsinki city were incredible, after the observation wheel we walked towards the city and dad and I headed back.

For dinner that night we went across the road again to the shopping centre and went to an all type cuisine restaurant, the food unfortunately wasn’t good to my liking and at the end of the meal the waitress told us she came from Ukraine, she told us that she fled the war and her mother and two kids we’re with her but her husband and father stayed back in Ukraine to help fight it.

Day 3

Today we decided to have an easy morning and pack our bags and headed to central, of course after leaving I realised I forgot my thick coat hanging in the closet so it put me in a bad mood, once we got to central we put all our bags in the lockers and headed for an early lunch, a tapas restaurant across from the station, the server was so rude she had so much attitude because and kept grunting, eventually she calmed down and laughed at the situation but the tapas food was delicious. After that we headed to the station and waited 30 minutes for our train to go to Hanko, the southern most city in Finland, a beautiful seaside town, the train took about an hour and a half and then we had to get out and catch a coach the rest of the way and that only took 45 minutes.

We arrived in Hanko and went straight to our accommodation, right in front of the train tracks, a beautiful old but renovated and soon to be finished building, we settled in and got ready for dinner, we went to a small restaurant, the atmosphere was so lively and the food was delicious, after dinner we went for a nightcap, the night time sky was perfect so I went outside to the beach and captured a couple good shots.

Day 1 in Hanko
We all woke up early and dad and I went for a walk around the markets and it was quite cold only about 14c or a bit lower, once we got back to the room we only waited about 15 minutes and then Aino came to pick us up for breakfast, we made a quick stop at a local bakery which sold delicious croissant’s, artesian bread and cakes, we went back to Aino’s place and enjoyed the breakfast together, it was a really beautiful morning and the sun was out.

We finished off our breakfast and coffees and headed out for the day, our first stop we went to indoor market where there were individual shops in each cubic area, after that we went to a couple other shops and then we headed to a town called Ekenan another cute seaside village, this one was a bit more greener and a lot more houses that were really close together, we went to a café there for lunch and the café was in an old house which was super cute, it had outdoor seating very much like a cottage backyard vibe, it started to rain so we headed back to Hanko, and then I went for a walk with Aino and Roomba around the town inlet area, it was so beautiful to see all the houses, they’re very rich and old fashioned at the same time, they really know how to design houses in Finland.

After the walk I headed back home for a small amount of time before we went out for dinner to the other side of the marina, this one only had small fisherman style boats and the setting was so beautiful, the inside of the restaurant was small but relaxing with nice furnishings and it overlooked the beautiful marina the food was great too, after dinner we went for another nightcap this time at a local wine bar, then we had a nice enjoyable walk home.

Day 2 of Hanko
After no sleep again (thanks to an overhang of jetlag) we had a late morning and went to the Hanko casino for lunch, (we thought it was brunch but we got the time wrong) so before eating our lunch we went to have a look at some shops and by the time we got back it was ready to go in.
The lunch was superb, there was reindeer meat sliced and in two different ways, salmon, salads, chicken, fish and vegetables, plus more, my favourite was the sliced reindeer meat (cured) on a piece of baguette with mayonnaise, I also had an espresso coffee.
After lunch we went for a drive around town and headed for an afternoon nap before going to dinner, once dinner time hit the weather turned quite chilly and really windy, this time we headed to another marina the place was a tiny sea shack with only about 20 seats inside and the same outside, we were lucky enough to get seats inside eventually and had a good warm meal, we went for one last night cap and a quick walk around with the dog and said our goodbye’s to Aino.

The next day was a long travel day, we had to catch another bus but this time it didn’t have any storage underneath, so I placed my bags wheels first and of course as soon as the bus left the stop the bags kept rolling around like a roller derby, eventually by one of the stops I got up to go and lay them on their sides however the bus driver must’ve thought I was hopping off and opened the back door where my bag was and it was like my bag was trying to run away, just going wheels first out the door and smack on the road outside, I got back on the bus for one second put my hands up to the driver to gesture (what the hell bro) and put my bag on the bus again. We got to our train and it felt a lot slower than the first one did, we finally got to central and put our bags in the lockers again and dad headed to Espoo to get my jacket so mum and I went for a café and had an espresso, gosh it was good.
After our little café stop mum and I headed for the shops, we didn’t buy anything but it was nice to window shop, after that we met dad again and headed to the bar for a quick drink at the station and then we hopped on a train and headed to the airport to fly to Rovaniemi (Lapland), the airport was busy but we moved through efficiently, we found a spot to eat and had a look at the shops and then went to our gate, our gate was packed and there was no where to sit, so we waited and waited until they called our boarding number, mum and I were on the same number however dad was on another number, very weird because we were all sitting next to each other.
Once on the plane I realised how small it was, it felt like I was a giant or a adult on a kids ride, no leg room, knees touching the person in front of, the armrests were built as if someone had tiny arms, it was just very uncomfortable, but as a budget airline what can you expect.

After only 1 hour we landed at Santa Clause’s main airport, we finally got my bag and we headed for the door, straight away seeing Heidi, Enska, it was so nice to be there and start our northern Finland experience, my first time being in Lapland so I was excited to see everything, we got on the road and headed to the region of Pyha a ski resort that we spent the week at, but along the way we saw Santa’s Village and then after driving for only 30 minutes we saw our first reindeer, reindeers aren’t on the side of the road they are usually right in the middle blocking both sides of traffic just so people can perfectly take a photo of them, they also weirdly run along side the car too like dolphins chasing a boat, we then drove some more and went to a different resort, at the first I thought we had arrived at our place, I was so excited and this reindeer looked like it was fake just standing before a balcony, but instead we drove some more and saw a 1 year old reindeer, oh it was so cute and small, after another 30 minutes of driving we had finally made it to Pyha and wow what a place, I was just in awe of it, brand new ski chalets or bungalows, inside there were two bathrooms a nice updated kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a large lounge room with a sunroom attached, it basically felt like heaven, I had never seen anything like it before.