On Timeline: 23-27 Dec 2007
Still in Europe, and the clock's ticking away...Now I'm in Lillehammer, Norway, and making my way back to Sweden soon. The hostel here in Lillehammer is fantastic (HI hostel) and expensive (hotel style). Paid 600 NOK for a double room in the hostel, and it's just above the train station. How convenient. And now, Felix is snoozing on the bed whilst I furiously type in this entry. A rough account of what happened over the past few days since my last entry @ Xmas.
For the past 2 nights, I've been sitting on night trains bouncing from town to town, from our lovely Kiruna cabin lodge, to a god-forsakened place called Brücke, then hopping over to the small town of Storlien, and finally crossing the border to Trondheim. Of course, we passed by Hell.
And after Trondheim on the 28th, we traveled by night train (again) to Lillehammer, which took about 4hrs and we were lucky to arrive in snowy Lillehammer. Definitely a great greeting for us. The train station was warm enough so we managed to have a nice cozy place to get away from the cold, till the reception of the hostel opened. And of course, after checking in and having our breakfast, we moved to explore the town.
But this post will be focusing on the trips prior to the last 2 days. It will be more on Kiruna, which is way up north in the Arctic circle, near to Narvik (Norway) and Finland.
Met up with Anthony and Kelvin (I still prefer to call him Lisheng) at the Stockholm Arlanda airport after bidding farewell to Xian Xin, who was kind enough to host me for the previous night (as per previous post). I was almost late, but luckily I managed to check in my luggage in time, had a quick 60 SEK Max meal (I was starving then), and only managed to finish up the fries and cup of coke in 5 minutes, before I had to board the SAS plane bound for Narvik. Thus, the burger took the 1hr 45 min ride up north, and was subsequently consumed by the hungry owner on reaching the cold Narvik airport (which reminded me of Broome in Australia, a totally no-frills airport!)
Oh, and how can I forget the funny pilots of the SAS plane? Wearing Santa hats, giving me a feel of the Xmas mood in good 'ol Sweden.
On reaching Narvik airport, we met up with the driver, who took us to the train station to pick up the remainder of our group - Felix, Weixian, Qiaoluan, Kirun and Hair Chin. The latter 2 were South Koreans, and WX and QL were from NTU, on exchange to DTU in Denmark. After picking up them and their luggage, we zipped off to the nearest supermarket, where we did grocery shopping for our 4 day stay in the cabin lodge, away from civilisation (woohoo!!!).
The first 2 days (23rd and 24th) were kinda slack, we did cross-country skiing on the 24th after settling down on the 23rd, and 24th was also Christmas eve, so we tried to cook up some Christmas dishes. I tried to make a Swedish Christmas dish called Julskinka, with some helpful instructions online. It is basically the typical Swedish Christmas ham, and being a first-timer at cooking such dishes, I did not know that a meat thermometer would help tremendously, and that I need to desalt and unfreeze the ham. Good learning values for me.
Anyway, the ham tasted well and we even had smoked reindeer heart which yours truly brought all the way from the Xmas market in Stockholm! God Jul!
Julskinka - Shiyao style
Kelvin serving the meat
The 25th was a fun day, where we had dog sledging and we got to meet up with Finn Nielsen, a retiree who has 8 years experience on this special craft, and has been doing for tourists for the past 3 years as a sideline. It was wonderful being with him on the dog sleigh, as his dogs were all interesting and he took great efforts to introduce each and every one of them to all 8 of us, even though not all of us would take his sleigh! And I simply love the dogs, especially the one named "Loser". She was super quiet and obedient.
All ready to go!
Moving towards the sunset
Us and the moon
Us on the sleigh!
The hardworking dogs who pulled our sleighs (ok these 2 were relatively better behaved)
After the sleigh ride, we popped into the sauna and had arctic swimming, and for those who haven't tried it or do not know what it is, you should try it at least once in your lifetime! Imagine sweating in the hot sauna and then dipping into the freezing waters...Shiok ah! (Too bad, all pics are censored)
The 26th was a long day...rumbling around on the snowmobile towards the IceHotel! Ok the snowmobile part was definitely fun. Haha. Never had much chance to touch such an equipment so it was a great drive! And sitting behind Felix was really a scare at times...we even managed to spin in the middle of the frozen lake, 3 full rounds to be exact!
The visit to the IceHotel was quite good, though it wasn't fully completed yet, the art rooms are definitely a must-visit. As the IceHotel has a different design every year, it is wonderful to have such enriching design by different sculptors and designers for the hotel. And a night at the hotel would cost you at least 2000 SEK for the normal rooms (no designs) and the art suites and deluxe suites, definitely more.
On top of that, the hotel has a IceBar, which serves the highest grade of Absolut Vodka, which is the 50% alcohol version called Absolut 100. And they are served in ice-glasses! Too bad the glasses cannot be kept, as they are made of ice and will melt with all the traveling I am doing. Well, Eskibar definitely sounds like a spin-off from this IceBar!
The Ice-Bar
After the tour, we had a great lunch of reindeer meat with potatoes! Topped with Lingum berry jam, it was a fantastic feast. I liked it so much that I had 4 servings of the yummylicious meat!
I'm the chef for the day!
A pity that we couldn't see the auroras at all, and that the stay at Kiruna had to end so fast. But...memories are there to stay. Definitely.
Current Mood:
God Jul!
Happy