Again, in no particular order.. a few suggestions of places to visit if you happen to find yourself in Shanghai one day.

1. The magnificent buffet at Westin Bund hotel
2. Donghu Hotel is located in a very nice area close to Shan Xi road subway station
3. The subway system is quite efficient and cheap. 3 RMB for a short trip.
4. Taxis are 11 RMB for a short trip. You can use the same electronic public transport on both taxis and subway.
5. Museum of Contemporary Art. Located in the southern part of the most central park in the city.. the People’s Park.
6. Another nice park to visit is the Lu Xun Park. You can rent an electric boat for about 30 RMB. You can often spot Tai Chi practicioners and various bands and dance groups rehearsing in most parks.
7. For a glamourous night out at a cocktail bar try M The Glamour Bar
8. For less glamourous night, try the pool table at The Spot. Decent meals available over there as well
9. The permanent Shanghai Circus World is very touristy, but still worth it.
10. Try Karaoke at one the gazillion “KTV” palaces around the city
11. Citizen Cafe at Jin Xian Lu is a nice, quiet place to have lunch or a cappuccino.
12. If you are offered a “a watch or a bag” by someone on the street say firmly “Pu Yau” once and keep on walking. If you say “no, thanks”, they’ll stick to you for a minute or two.
13. Internet require a a passport. Most hotels have internet access. Sometimes it is included in the room price and sometimes it isn’t. Connection speeds vary, but they are usually quite slow.
14. Bohdisattva offers excellent mountainbike and hiking excursions to the outskirts of the city and beyond. Good value for money.
15. El Willy has excellent spanish food.
16. Oriental Oil Massage at Green Massage. It’s relatively expensive, but the atmosphere is nice and they have high quality therapists.

Have a look at my snapshots of this megacity at the gallery

Well, I’m back from the wilderness. The bogs proved to be way too deep for my Scarpa alpine hiking shoes. I spent quite a few nights by the campfire drying my feet, shoes & socks. I also spent two nights at one of the most scenic wilderness huts in Lappland, the Vaskolompolo hut. Two other outdoor enthusiasts joined me to spend the night at the safety and comfort of the hut. One of them was Reijo, a retired border guard and the other one was Ivalo-Joe, a friendly gold miner who was hunting for bears in the area. He had a superb hunting dog with him called K.A. Lotti. I spotted a few bear droppings myself.. and half a dozen moose who chose to run away with great commotion and noise when I approached them.

We spoke about the habits of the animals, gold mining legends and other interesting and very non-urban subjects. During the first night there were some nice Aurora Borealis on the sky and we took the opportunity to take a few long exposure shots of them. (The new Aurea models by Philips remind me of them, by the way)

Once again, I was completely enchanted by the nature and the people of the North. I plan to return over there again and perhaps even do some gold panning one day. I heard that many men have panned the gold for their own wedding rings in the old days.

After I’ve returned to Helsinki, I’ve been a bit busy with work and real estate deals, so I haven’t had time to upload photograhs from the trip, but I’ll try to do it later. We’ll be moving to a new address next week.

I am having real troubles trying to resume the previous, more or less regular update schedule of this blog. I’m finally back in Finland. In July everything closes down around here and people head to their precious little summer cabins to relax and enjoy the sunsets and mosquitos.

Anyway, our last leg in the long trip around the Balkan countries was a cycling trip down the Danube river. There are many companies that arrange such trips and we chose the “economical option” of one of the bigger companies. They take your luggage from hotel to hotel and all you have to do is to hop on a bike every morning and ride 50-80 kilometers to the next pitstop.

All in all, it worked like a charm. The overnight stops had been chosen very carefully to offer a delightful variety of different styles of accommodation. In Linz we stayed at Hotel Kolping, which is run by a christian social organization. In many other cities we stayed at smaller gasthauses and guest rooms run by Weinguts & Heurigens (vineyards & wineries, that is). They were often run by a single family and the staff was always very friendly and hospitable, yet completely professional in the way they handled the business.

Every now and then we would see the some of our trip companions, but you could easily enjoy the nature and the steady, satisfying downhill speed of the route all by yourself if you wanted to. The scenery was beautiful and the river made it easy to find the right way. We had a little well written guide book with us. It was provided by the company that organized the trip and contained detailed maps of the entire route. Sometimes it was a little hard to find the exact spot of the accommodation, but we didn’t have to ask for directions at any time.

I highly recommend this option for anyone who is interested in starting multi-day cycling trips, but isn’t keen on spending a lot of time finding out about accommodation options or carrying a lot of stuff with them. It is the most popular bike route in all of Europe and for a very good reason. The bike lane quality is excellent and there are plenty of choices for a quick snack or a lunch along the way.

I’ll upload some photographs once I’m back from my own personal summer cabin trip after a week or so. Until then… Peace out, brothers and sisters!

Without further introduction, here is a list of my travel tips for Vienna (and especially for the area surrounding Karlsplatz):

1. La Norma (authentic italian food and very friendly service. Another place worth visiting, Das Kleine Café is just around the corner on the Franziskanerplatz)
2. First Floor (a smoky, dimly lit cocktail bar. rather classy, but also suitable for serious drinking.)
3. Anton Heldwein (one of the best jewellers on Graben)
4. Opera (don’t bother if you can’t get proper tickets for seats with good visibility though.. the peddlers near Stephansdom will usually try to sell you cheap ones in the back. you can get good tickets for the less popular operas online exactly one month before the show)
5. Haus der Musik (a music museum)
6. Sisi museum and royal apartments (consider skipping the silverware section and heading straight to the apartments.. they are much more interesting)
7. Local Heurigens (take a tram and a long walk around the vineyards and then sit down for an hour or two to enjoy the wines. Try Zadowsky to see an authentic vineyard instead of a inner atrium only)
8. Puma Store (on Mariahilferstrasse which is a good street for shopping in general)
9. Brunch at Naschmarkt (it’s a bustling food market with many nice restaurants. gets very busy on Saturdays, also a flea market)
10. Flakturms (there are three old air defense towers in the city. all of them are impressive sights to behold)
11. Vintage fashion (right next to Babette’s)
12. Specialty tea shops (it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a few around the city center)
13. Palmhausen (it is run by the same people as Volksgarten)
14. Fresh Soup and Salad (the name says it all, it’s a franchise, but the concept works well)
15. Podium (an unhurried, relaxed and friendly atmosphere)
16. Fratelli il Gelato (one of the many great ice cream bars in the city. fast service, the orders are transmitted wirelessly to the kitchen)
17. Uhrenbörs (a store specializing in old and antique wrist watches)
18. Babette’s (bookstore specializing in cooking books)
19. Musik Kiosk (a must see club that can be summed up in three words: sausage, mustard, music)
20. Tiberius (slightly less discreet souvenirs for that special someone)
21. Volksgarten (an institution in the clubbing scene.. some say it’s one of the best in the world)
22. Stadtpark (a pleasant restaurant pavillion right next to the u-bahn station. the park is rather compact, there is a grass field reserved for sun bathing and just lying around at the north part of the park)
23. Aroma.at (a cozy little place suitable for chatting and drinking)
24. Breakfast club (a restaurant that sells only breakfasts)
25. Badeschiff (a floating restaurant around the very nice Schwedenplatz area)
26. Sunday brunch at Marriott (lavish and expensive buffet, worth trying at least once in your life. we were lucky enough to get gift vouchers for it)
27. Kunsthalle Wien Project Space (another great option for a brunch or a breakfast.. they are open until 2 am)
28. Schloss Schönbrunn (there is a zoo and a nice palm house in the area. Plenty of walking opportunities)
29. Belvedere (A Baroque residence complete with a nice park. there is also a botanical garden right next to it)
30. Kohlmarkt (a shopping street with Chanel, Prada and other luxury brands)
31. Museumsquartier (including museum of modern art)
32. Donau Insel (rent a citybike or rollerskates, register your credit card on the internet site of citybikes before the rental)
33. El Español (a members only tapas club on most night, but try making a reservation for Tuesday)
34. TwinCity liner to Bratislava (it’s a nice way to see the river on a boat)
35. Cafe Sperl (a great example of the highly refined cafe culture around here)
36. Parndorf Outlet Park (Helly Hansen, Levi’s etc)
37. Prater amusement park (the ferris wheel is worth visiting, so are some of the wilder rides, several outdoor restaurants in the area)
38. Bergfuchs (mountain equipment store)
39. Alte Donau area (a tv tower and a big field suitable for playing soccer, I didn’t try the huge chinese restaurant)
40. Danube Trail (if you are fitness orientated, you could cycle up or down the river for a few days, we’ll be doing the trip with this company)
41. Sababa (perfect for late night snacks, for a drink try the nana limo.. a type of non-alcoholic mojito)
42. The public transport works like a dream. The easiest way to get around is the U-Bahn. Get a weekly ticket for 12,50 euros. Taxis are relatively cheap as well.

That’s all for now.. comments and corrections are welcome! I’ll be travelling in Hungary, Slovenia and Croatia for the next few weeks, so don’t expect too many updates to this blog in June.

P.S. If you are also going to Berlin, check out my travel tips fo Berlin

Kapuzinerberg

The oldest indications of walls on the Kapuzinerberg Mountain date back to the 13th century. The “Trompeterschlössl Castle” was the base for the Capuchin Church and extended walls down the mountain to the Inneres Steintor in the Steingasse. On the other side, the spread to the Ostertor in the Linzergasse (house number 12), which is not preserved anymore.

However, these walls proved to be insufficient for Salzburg during the Thirty Years War and Prince Archbishop Paris Lodron decided to include all of the Kapuzinerberg into Salzburg’s fortifications.

Between 1629 and 1632, the Southern side of the mountain was heavily fortified, whereas the Northern side was secured naturally by steep rock walls and cliffs.

On the Kapuzinerberg mountain there lives a few homeless people who have made the old guard towers their home. It was surprising to find people who were collecting firewood and living a rather primitive life compared to the glitz of the totally over-commercialized city center closeby. Salzburg is one of the wealthiest, and some say snobbiest, areas in Austria. It is very difficult to integrate in the community unless you were born over there. I talked about these homeless people with someone who had worked with the social service in the area and he mentioned that the city much prefers to keep the homeless people out of the sight of tourists. As far as the city officials are concerned, they are apparently free to live the life of “forest men” up there on the mountain. Some of them had built wooden shelters out of the branches and fallen tree trunks. I assume there must be a quite a few more of them within the big woods of the mountains. We stumbled upon a muscular and long haired fellow who looked more like a native american indian than a typical immaculately dressed austrian city person.

Other than that, my main recollection about Salzburg is that the Sound of Music is almost as big over there as the Lord of the Rings is in New Zealand. They played the movie non-stop on one of the hotel tv channels.

P.S. To help the homeless people, a student has come up with a concept of a collapsible cardboard shelter. Read all about it at shellhouse.org.

A few days ago I spotted a poster for Levi’s “Road trip from the Original” club tour featuring Felix Da Housecat. The poster was at a huge local store specializing in water pipes and hydrophonic cultivation systems. The original venue was a small artsy joint called Loft 16, but they had to relocate to a bigger space apparently because they had pre-sold too many tickets. The new venue turned out to be the prestigious Zeiss Planetarium right by one of Vienna’s landmarks, the giant ferris wheel at Prater.

His style has been classified with terms such as Neo-Electro and Left-Field House

Left-Field House

Left-field house producers tend to ignore at least one major chapter of the traditional deep-house production playbook, whether doing away with the 4/4 rhythmic structure, the need for hand percussion, or the emphasis on the beat. If the deviation in the production can’t be pinned down to a specific quality, there remains something certifiably askew. There’s no single sound that typifies left-field house. It can be abstract and grimy like Theo Parrish, whose productions often favor low BPMs and samples from obscure jazz recordings, all the while retaining a pronounced 4/4 rhythm. It can come from house’s back door, through post-disco R&B and Italo disco influences, like Metro Area — a duo who regularly bypasses the relentless 4/4 thump completely. Or it can be equally experimental and contemporary like Herbert, whose concepts and methodologies (sampling sources that range from kitchen utensils to biological functions) occasionally overshadow his accomplishments.

Well, I’ve been a fan of the Housecat for several years now and I just knew that I couldn’t forgive myself if I let this opportunity pass. I wasn’t sure when he would start his set, so I showed up early at 11 pm. There was some trouble with the dryness of eyes at the home base, so I was clubbing solo this time. The location was very atmospheric (no pun intended) and there was even a spacious garden with beach chairs and all. I chit chatted with the locals and met someone who had cured his impending tinnitus with some type of ultra low frequency sound therapy. I decided to find out more about that even though I haven’t problems with tinnitus yet. As far as I could tell, I was the only person among about a thousand clubbers wearing ear plugs! The sound system was pumping a steady bass line at about at least 110 db, so it is practically certain that some of the speaker hugging crowd will have some high frequency hearing loss and/or tinnitus in the decades to come. Don’t lose the music, my friends.

After one or two Vodka Smirnoffs and an energetic show by the French Cassius, I decided to chill out the actual planetarium while waiting for the DJ set to start. According to their web site, the planetarium is one of the most advanced ones in the world (aren’t they all). I can’t remember if I’ve been to one earlier, but I found the huge revolving optical Zeiss “Universium” projector a very intriguing device by itself. The projected stars were visibly vibrating to the bass line of the music. I observed this interesting phenomen on the comfy seats for hours before returning to the main hall to find out that it had been invaded by literally hundreds of clubbers. There was no need for smoke machine since around here people will smoke their cancer butts just about anywhere no matter what the signs or laws dictate. They must have some sort of built-in reflex to avoid cigarette burns in other people and their clothes even in extremely crowded situations. Unfortunately there was almost no room to dance at all and dancing was mostly about maintaining your own 200 square centimeters of floor space with your feet while rhythmically shaking your hands at various directions to ward of the bottle wielding floor space invaders.

Well, soon after the Cassius act, they announced “DJ Felix da Housecat” and his instantly recognizable envelope twitching, aggressive and dirty Chicago house sound started flowing. I slowly worked my way closer to the DJ table over the course of an hour or so and finally saw the master of the wheels of steel himself. He was totally grooving to his own sonic creation in his little Pioneer/Apple branded techno altar and so was the crowd. I don’t know if it was the limited space or just the general politiness of austrians, but I didn’t see too much wild and out of control dancing. The club scene in Berlin for example is generally much wilder and expressive. The VJ work was stupendously dull and uncreative, but there were pleasant whiffs of herbal aroma in the air and the music was also pulsating and vibrating in a most enjoyable manner. I really like his style with the use of vocal samples and the seemingly endless variations with envelope modulations. There is no doubt in my mind that mixing music and sounds with this degree of proficiency is no less admirable than the work of master concert violinist for example.

Just listen to the “Buy Now For Sale” sample on his myspace page to get an idea what I am talking about. This is the kind of music that only works like it’s intended if you have the dynamics of a big sound system and a roomful of people jumping up and down to it. Isolated from it’s context, hearing it by itself on a small computer speaker it sounds like broken record player, but at the planetarium it felt like the universe itself was shaking.

I didn’t have the camera with me so I had to borrow the picture above from a Mysteryland 2005 gig. He is still wearing a similar t-shirt, shades and earphones and looked pretty much the same last night. He had a bright yellow helmet with a big number 3 on it as a type of an amulet or idol on the mixing table. A female member of the crowd had apparently placed blue panties on it and this caused much amusement among the technical crew and the DJ himself.

To conclude this slightly incoherent and rambling entry with even more irrelevant trivia, I’ll remind you about another type of musical event that is approaching with great inevitability. The Eurovision song contest is held in Helsinki on the 12th of May. For once they have managed to pull together a decent web site to showcase the host city. Check out www.helsinkihostcity.fi. I can’t comprehend why they haven’t been able to produce a tourism promotion web site of this quality before the excuse of this contest. Budgetary reasons perhaps. Anyway, two thumbs up for the creative use of photographs and soundtrack.

Innsbruck as a word reminded me of East Germany for some strange reason. I had seen the railway station a few times and I wasn’t really expecting much. In reality, Innsbruck is a truly beautiful, wealthy and laid back tyrolean city. We promptly bought a tourist orientated “city card” that gives you free entrance to all the important sights and you can use the public transport as well. The ski jumping tower designed by an iraqi architect, an alpine zoo, a few castles and royal residences and last, but not least, Swarowski Crystal World were all worth visiting.

Swarowski is an interesting business. In essence they are turning lead, soda, lime and sand into cold hard cash. They are producing all kinds of crystal creations and they have mastered the art of brand management. You can see official Swarowski crystals in all imaginable objects… nail files, slalom skis and even thongs! The Crystal World is a series of chambers that features art works by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Brian Eno. At the end of the dazzling tour (with a surprising amount of mysticism) you enter a shop that is just brimming with sparkling crystal creations and eager sales assistants. You can buy a life sized crystal pineapple for about 4000 euros for example.

There is a subtle element in Austrian society and culture that is a bit hard to explain, but it has something to do with things like official titles, official endorsement and even religious ceremonies. I can see it all over the place. The roadside Jesus statues, “k.u.k.” approved producers (Imperial and Royal) and the way Sacher cakes are packed in a little wooden box with an official “seal”. Centuries ago all government acts took place in the name of “His Imperial and Royal Majesty”: most of the time abbreviated to “k.u.k.”.

These days royal titles are forbidden and all kinds of religious inequality is probably forbidden as well. However, there is a deep need for the ingenious austrians to have a sense of national identity and perhaps to even separate themselves from the immigrated elements of the society. Language and manners are obviously one way to do that. Some are concerned that the turkish have finally invaded the country after having failed twice in the history.

Anyway, my point is, that the austrians seem to enjoy various kinds of symbolic displays of power and approval. Swarowski is exploiting this subconscious need in a clever way by using their brand name much in the same way as “k.u.k.” was used during the times of the monarchy. This attitude really resonates with those citizens that have money to spare.

Well, enough of that… I also managed to get a healthy dose of outdoor life in the form of hiking, cycling and snowboarding in the surrounding mountains. I found really nice Dovo nail scissors in one of the souvenir shops. The chamber of curiosities and the old armors at Schloss Ambras and Kaiserjäger museum were also interesting.

I came back to Vienna to visit my dentist in Hungary and I’m off to Salzburg (the setting of Sound of Music!) today.

On Saturday the local audiovisual oasis for film addicts, über cool Alphaville, hosted an excellent 10 year anniversary party at the Gartenbau Kino. Unfortunately I’ve had a streak of bad luck and I’ve managed to break down both my iBook and the brand new ceramic inlay which I had inserted on my first molar about a year ago in Bangkok. I’m heading over to Hungary as a dental tourist to have the inlay fixed and hopefully get a new logic board for the iBook later this week.

Anyway, I missed some of the earlier shows at the party while I was arranging my travel schedule. I did make it to the gala premiere of Life in Loops which is a remix of fresh footage, music by Sofa Surfers and raw footage from another film called Megacities. I especially liked the New York hustler and crack dealer sequences and the dyestuff man in India:

Timo Novotny labels his new project an experimental music documentary film, in a remix of the celebrated film Megacities (1997), a visually refined essay on the hidden faces of several world “megacities” by leading Austrian documentarist Michael Glawogger. Novotny complements 30% of material taken straight from the film (and re-edited) with 70% as yet unseen footage in which he blends original shots unused by Glawogger with his own sequences (shot by Megacities cameraman Wolfgang Thaler) from Tokyo. Alongside the Japanese metropolis, Life in Loops takes us right into the atmosphere of Mexico City, New York, Moscow and Bombay. This electrifying combination of fascinating film images and an equally compelling soundtrack from Sofa Surfers sets us off on a stunning audiovisual adventure across the continents. The film also makes an original contribution to the discussion on new trends in documentary filmmaking.

After the premiere we headed to the pavillion in Stadtpark and bumped into two finns who were on a day trip from Budapest where they were studying to become hotel professionals. They had interesting stories to tell about their work. An older gentleman comes to the hotel with a different young lady several times a week and then visits the same hotel on a Sunday brunch with his family.

After midnight I ended up sitting almost next to one of my musical heroes, B. Fleischmann, while he was busy with his laptop mixing a new soundtrack to an old Buster Keaton movie. The movie was mostly about the american civil war and steam engines. The soundtrack was superbly minimalistic true to his inimitable style and he sipped a well deserved beer after the credits.

I’m off to Innsbruck next weekend. I’ll probably visit the Stubai Glacier to do some summer snowboarding to get some sun and shake off the bad vibes about stuff breaking down around (and in) me.

The all healing Summer is finally arriving and the sun is shining with it’s wondrous warmth and unrestrained luminosity. Take care, brothers and sisters… and remember to enjoy what life and mother earth have in store for you!

I spent the weekend in the Imst valley area with my friend Armin and his girlfriend Sandra. He is designing and building avalanche control devices over there. I was originally planning to make a little hiking trip to the finding site of Oetzi the Iceman, but it turned out that snowshoeing at high altitudes is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It has also started snowing, so I’ll give it another go in April. Nevertheless we had a great time hiking up one of the local mountains and running down the ski slopes back to the valley floor. Here is an album of pictures from the trip.

The Austrian railways have a weekend ticket that lets you travel as much as you like on any given Saturday for only 11 euros. It’s a great deal, but unfortunately the offer expires at the end of March.

I’m back in Vienna now. The pit stop for next weekend is Bratislava, Slovakia.

Ischgl (1377m) is a small village (population: 1489 in 2001) in the Paznaun Valley in Tyrol (Austria). Its ski resort Silvretta Arena Ischgl-Samnaun is connected with the ski resort of Samnaun across the border in Switzerland. Together this ski area belongs to the largest skiing resorts in the Alps. Its 200km of groomed pistes are served by over 40 mechanical lifts including cable cars, gondolas, detachable chair lifts and some T-bars. Ischgl is well-known (and sometimes criticized) for its lively après-ski parties and roistering nightlife. The resort became famous when it began regularly hosting pop concerts celebrating the end of the annual ski season (Top of the Mountain Concert) at the Idalp (2300m). Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, and Elton John are among the international stars who have performed at these concerts. In April, 2002 Bill Clinton gave a Message from the Mountains at Ischgl and made this tiny mountain village a worldly media event.

Jawohl, here we go! Open up the pearly lift gates and let us in! To kick off the residence in Austria we’re heading towards Ischgl. It was incredibly difficult to book accommodation, but finally I got lucky with a guest house that was just being built. I guess that’s why it wasn’t fully booked yet. There was a small dump of fresh snow earlier this week so the slopes shouldn’t be all that bad.

I’ve never personally been all that excited about the “after ski” business, but a Pacha in the middle of mountains is a sight surely not to be missed. Paris Hilton celebrates her birthday over there tonight. She is currently in Austria to promote a canned sparkling wine called “Rich”.

EDIT: Added an Ischgl album to the gallery.

We’ve settled quite well in our new, cozy home on Favoritenstrasse in the Wieden district of Vienna. The Internet is working, there is hot water in the shower and a delicious smell of fresh bread reaches our apartment every morning. After a little scouting a few other essential services were found: an organic supermarket, an affordable gym and a whole bunch of nice little restaurants in the immediate surroundings.

The austrians are highly civilized and surprisingly friendly. The city is just oozing with layers of history and generations of royalty. They obviously value all kinds of cultural things including contemporary art, classical music, cuisine, viniculture etc.

One thing they can’t do all that well is writing pop music. Their only real hope, Falco (of “Rock me Amadeus” fame) perished in a car crash in 1998.

One thing I’ve noticed that there is definitively some sort of kinky undertone in their relationship with human body. The picture on the right is of a model in the Chanel store on the ultra-luxurious shopping street, Kohlmarkt. There is a Ball Season right now and that is also complimented with a flamboyant thing called Rosenball which is a disco version of a traditional Opera Ball. After checking out the background on Prince Eugene I realize that this is nothing new.

I just created a preliminary Wien album in the travelogue section of the gallery.

Tivoli Gardens

In 1943, Nazi sympathisers attempted to break the Danish people’s spirit by burning many of Tivoli’s buildings, including the concert hall, to the ground. Undaunted, the Danes built temporary buildings, and the park was back in operation after a few weeks.

Chinese style which in 1874 took the place of an older smaller theater. The audience stands in the open, the stage being inside the building. The theatre’s “curtain” is a mechanical peacock’s tail. From the very beginning, the Theater was the home of Italian pantomimes, introduced in Denmark by the Italian Giuseppe Casorti. This tradition, which is dependent on the Italian Commedia dell’Arte has been kept alive, including the characters Cassander (the old father), Columbine (his beautiful daughter), Harlequin (her lover), and, especially popular with the youngest spectators, the stupid servant Pierrot. The absence of spoken dialogue is an advantage, as Tivoli is now an international tourist attraction.

Tivoli is always evolving without abandoning its original charm or traditions. As Georg Carstensen said in 1844, “Tivoli will never, so to speak, be finished,” a sentiment echoed just over a century later when Walt Disney said of his own Tivoli-inspired theme park, “Disneyland will never be finished as long as there is imagination left in the world.”

Yes, this is just a filler entry with a picture and a long quote from Wikipedia. I guess most of my energy is still going to the digestion of the traditional Christmas meals. Well, here’s a little update of what’s been happening since Christmas.

We’ve been to Stockholm on one of them floating hotels that have their home port in Helsinki. The highlights of the trip included a massage on the ship and a visit to Hallwyl palace.

After the Stockholm trip, we went to Copenhagen to celebrate the New Year with friends. I still had some leftover frequent flyer points from the round the world trip earlier this year and they were good for two free return flights. Incidentally, they let me wait for my flight at the SAS lounge at Copenhagen airport. It had a cozy fireplace, free champagne, fresh newspaper and fruits and was amazingly luxurious in many, many ways. You can easily get enough points for the silver level of Star Alliance’s frequent flyer bonus program with a single round the world trip.

In Copenhagen, the most memorable places were the Tivoli gardens and the utopian hippie community of Christiania. The locals went completely bonkers with their fire crackers on the New Years Eve. The explosives were about twice as powerful as I’m used to.. ambulances and police cars were driving back and forth on the streets.

After getting back to Finland I’ve been trying to get some yearly maintenance done on my essential gear: bicycle, snowboard and computers.

The gadget freak that I am, I couldn’t resist the tempatation to order the topographical map of Austria for my handheld GPS unit (Garmin Vista Cx). Arnoweg, here I come!

Vaho Works is a company that designs and produces some truly innovative urban bags, furniture and other products that use recycled material and objects. Their gallery is at Corto Cotoners 8. I think that the item above is either a wheelchair or a child trolley. It was surprisingly sturdy considering that it is a modified shopping cart.

Another great find in the center of Barcelona is an erotic lifestyle shop, Le Boudoir. It is an ultra sensual lingerie boutique with a very pleasant atmosphere.. velvet draped dressing rooms, feather masks and other bespoke items. Ring the buzzer at Calle Canuda 21 for entry.

Gracious Lady Fate has guided me to Barcelona, Spain. One of the first excursions was to the bustling marketplace of produce, meat, cheese and other delicacies – La Boqueria. The fridge is now full of fruits, Cava, jamon and chorizo. A delightful city!

Rovaniemi is the 8th largest city in the world by surface area (8016 square kilometers).

I stayed there for a night while I was on my way to hike in the Urho Kekkonen National park.

Lapland is one of the biggest wilderness areas in Europe. It’s well worth visiting, if you are interested in hiking and other outdoor pursuits. Rovaniemi is one of the few urban areas in the region. There are reindeer crossing the road all the time, but yet people seem to have traffic accidents mostly with street signs.

Lapland – Wikipedia

The area covered by Lapland lies mostly north of the Arctic Circle. The western portion is an area of fjords, deep valleys, glaciers, and mountains, the highest point being Mount Kebnekaise (2,111 m/6,926 ft), in Swedish Lapland. Farther east, the terrain is that of a low plateau, containing many marshes and lakes, the largest and most important of which is Lake Inari, in Finnish Lapland. The extreme eastern section lies within the tundra region.

A kammi is a type of traditional semi-permenent shelter typical of Lappland. Lappland is inhabited in part by natives called the Saami people. While hitchhiking to a little solo expedition at the Paistunturit area I got a ride from a friendly Saami lady. She was on her way to a funeral and she was wearing the full traditional costume for the occasion. I learned a few things about their way of life during the ride. All three of their most sacred Ailigas hills have a radio mast these days. She also inquired if I was able to kill a reindeer if we happen to hit one on the road. I told her that I haven’t done it before. She instructed me that there are two spots where to stab the reindeer with a knife to kill it quickly.. either the back of the head or stab directly in the eye. All in all, a very informative and thought provoking encounter. I found myself wondering why I know more about the life of Amazon indians and African bushmans that about the life of the indigenous people in my own country.

Anyway, where was I.. oh yes, the traditional shelters of Saami people. I hiked through the wilderness area near Kevo and found a few unmarked kammis on my way to Utsjoki. Some of them were made of natural materials such as the one above, but some of them were made of fancy modern roofind material and had mattrasses, gas stoves, books, mirrors and other luxuries. On occasion I chose to use my modern tent instead of staying at the kammi though. If interested, please check out a gallery of pictures taken on the trip.

Jouni Laaksonen maintains an excellent catalog of cabins in Lappland. Some of the known kammis are listed there as well.

Rok Nok and Rok Nai Islands (outside and inside) are located about 25 kilometres South of Ha Island and belong to the Koh Lanta National Park. The two sister-islands are separated by a narrow channel about 15 metres deep, have some of the prettiest beaches in Thailand and are completely uninhabited. Diving here is relatively shallow, with the best corals and fish life living above 18 metres. The bottom is composed mostly of hard corals, with small areas of soft corals at deeper depths. Black tip sharks patrol the reef shallows and Hawksbill turtles are also sighted regularly.

There is a little campground on Ko Rok Nok. About a year ago one of the park rangers had four of his fingers biten off by one of these lazy iguana-like creatures. He was cutting fish on a table and dropped something. He reached under the table with some pieces of fish in his hand without looking first.

The only medical problem I suffered on the island was a sweaty hangover in my hammock after consuming just a drink or two too many of Sam Songs with an Austrian blacksmith and his friends.

After leaving Wellington, I’ve gradually upgraded my backpacking style to the trendy flashpacking up-market level. I spent half a day in Hilton Airport at Melbourne and managed to lose a bit of my tooth while mucnhing on the continental breakfast lamb sausages. I knew that my calcium intake had diminished significantly while living here on the Southern Pacific region, but maybe it had nothing to do with the incident. To remedy the situation, I’ve bought some dolomite tablets though.

After consulting my insurance company, I decided to visit the Bangkok Nursing Home hospital to have a quick emergency filling made. However, after arriving at the hospital and seeing the reception lobby and the friendly dentist, I chose to have the highest quality ceramic filling available. The old filling removal and mold taking were of extremely professional quality and after the operation I was escorted away to the taxi by the gentleman in the picture above. I celebrated the success of my dental operations with a platterful of stir fried coconut worms.

I remember seeing a little news tidbit about Thai hospitals advertising their heart surgery services for Europeans. Just next to our hotel is a dialysis clinic and it seems to be increasingly popular to come over here to have combined vacation/medical treatment trip. Although it might usually not be a good idea to have complicated surgeries made while in a relatively poor country, I am happy to report that (based on my experience) Thailand seems to be the exception to the rule.

In addition to spending some time in the wilderness on the South Island, I also attended one of the numerous bus tours that are available for tourists. I chose Flying Kiwi and to be fair, they did pretty much deliver what they promised on their website.

Here are some of the things I learned on the trip:

• New Zealanders drink all kinds of alchol; both beer AND wine!
• Sports team names usually feature the word “Black”.
• They drive on the wrong side of the street.
• They use dead possums to mark the center of the road.
• “Sweet as” is spelled with one S.
• Everybody is your mate.
• EFTPOS is your friend.
• Here is where the leftover hills of the world are stored.
• You pay BEFORE you jump!
• Hot water will eventually come from one of the taps.
• The coach will eventually come.

To get a better idea what the tour was like, have a look at this video (Quicktime slideshow, 44 Mb).

It’s a rather big download, so don’t bother to click on it unless you have broadband access.

I’ll be spending February in Thailand, so the updates to this blog will be quite infrequent. Take it easy, brothers and sisters.

Route Guide: Lake Angelus – Articles – New Zealand Tramper

Only another 400 metres higher is the fine peak of Mt. Angelus (2075m). The most spectacular hiking access to the lake, hut and mountain is along the Robert Ridge – a consistently high, sometimes narrow and usually beautiful route. There are great views into the basins above the Travers Valley and alpine herbfields for budding botanists.

The high altitude (up to 1600 metres) means that this area is subject to bad weather (including snow) at any time of the year. The steep slopes to either side are prone to avalanches in winter. This is a popular area even in winter with ski-tourers on the ridge and frozen lake and climbers tackling snow and ice on Mt. Angelus.

When starting this walk you have a few choices:

• Stay in St. Arnaud overnight to allow a full days walking along the ridge.
• Head straight up the ridge after travelling to the park (unless you are a local this means starting around noon and a late finish at the hut). Good for the fit or those in a hurry.
• Go up to Bushline Hut on the first day – a leisurely way to fill in an afternoon.

The trip can be compressed into 2 days but I suggest that you break the first long day (up to 9 hours) with a stay at Bushline Hut.

Be aware that Angelus Hut can get full very easily, especially during holiday periods. Don’t expect to be alone at the hut and large groups should carry tents.

The sun burned my neck in the high altitude and I almost hit my head on a rock a couple of times while slipping and sliding my way down via the Cascade Track to Lakehead hut, but other than that it was a truly excellent tramp. Lake Angelus itself had a really nice atmosphere.

About 60% of the trampers in New Zealand Department of Conservation huts are from overseas. There are about 900 huts around the country and some of them are serviced and have wardens. They are outdoorsy people with a lot of good advice things like route choice and make the whole tramping business a much more safe and pleasurable experience. The warden on duty at Angelus was a nice lady called Robyn.

The picture above shows the shovel that can be used to dig a hole to the entrance of the hut if it is buried under snow. More pictures of this tramp can be found at the gallery.

After a sweaty 1500 meter approach climb I’m staying overnight at the lovely Bushline hut in the Travers-Sabine circuit of the Nelson lakes national park. Tomorrow I’ll head off to the remote lake Angelus along the Mt. Roberts ridgeline if the weather is good.

My dinner tonight is Backcountry Cuisine’s Thai Chicken Curry. These dehydrated meals can be surprisingly tasty if you just let them stand for a while. Stay away from their Cooked Breakfast though. Adding boiling water to egg powder and freeze dried bacon just doesn’t work.

Canyon Swing

I did the forward jump and the Gimp goes to Hollywood style.

I didn’t mean to scream.

I strapped a camera to my wrist. Here’s a little video of my first jump.

I spent the New Year’s Eve at the beach with a very nice Maori family. People are unbelievably friendly around here. All aspects of everyday social life and transactions are very, very smooth and empathic.

I stopped by at a net cafe to update my travelogue gallery.

There are new entries for the cities I visited in December on my round the world trip:

• Munich (Germany)
• San Francisco (USA)
• Matei (Fiji)
• Wellington (New Zealand)

I’ll out in the bush hiking and cycling most of the January, 2006. The best way to reach me is via e-mail.

I recently arrived to New Zealand from Fiji. A lot of people have tattoos around here. Here’s my sketch for one. It also doubles as a calendar if I lose track of time.

Yarr.

The photo above is borrowed from some fellow traveller that had the pleasure of seeing the airport city of Nadi in Fiji.

I’ve been staying at a place called Grand Melanesian and it is indeed grand in that respect that it does not have cockroaches and electricity is on 24 hours a day.

I strolled down the main road and got pestered by tricksters and conmen about 6 times in about an hour. I also took a cheap haircut at around 6 dollars (3 euros). For that price you get a bald look or “zero hair?” as my indian barber wanted to confirm.

I had the film in my disposable Fuji quicksnap camera developed and about a third of the shots turned out decent enough. After that I stumbled upon a movie theatre and decided to go in to chill out for a couple of hours while enjoying a Bollywood creation called Dosti – Friends Forever. I found it very entertaining especially because the audience was laughing quite a lot and it helped me spot all the humorous parts in the movie.

An indian night club called Rangeel was unfortunately closed yesterday due to a public holiday, but I think I’ve had my dose of indian culture for the moment.

Well, I still have no digital camera, so I have to rely on other people’s shots of the area I am in right now. The picture above is from one the waterfall sites on the island.

It is really quite primitive down here. The generator is on from 6 pm to 9 pm at my place, so I have to really plan cell phone charging and all that carefully.

Yesterday I had a nice Christmas dinner with a bunch of other western people at a place called Coconut Grove. I met a friendly bloke from Manchester. He is working for a local video production company at the main island. They have one national tv channel and one of the shows is a “solve this crime” show which is done by a local policeman who just turns on a consumer video camera by himself and steps in front of camera to make a quick “Do-It-Yourself” tv show to tell about and ask for tips about the latest crimes in the area.

My garden has a bountiful supply of passion fruits, bananas, powpows and coconuts.

That’s all for now. Catch you later, friends.

View of the Somosomo Straits from the deck of Matei Pointe in Taveuni, Fiji.

The island of Taveuni has a lot of beautiful things… waterfalls, pristine jungle and beaches and above all, a great community of friendly and happy Fijians. One thing it doesn’t have though is Internet. There are only a couple of places down here to connect, so I’ve been off the grid for quite a while. My internal clock has totally switched to ‘Island Time’ which pretty much means that time stands still.

In other news, the old faitfull Digital Ixus i I’ve been carrying with me decided to end it’s contract with me on a snorkeling trip. I bought a disposable camera to replace it for the moment.

There is a lot of different kinds of spirituality in the air over here. My host Mr. Bibi is a passionate catholic and yesterday I met a nice cook/saxophone player from Seattle who was on his way to a remote island to worship a local Guru, Adi Da. Adi Da is leaving for California soon and he is taking an entourage of at least 40 followers with him. The cook had volunteered to come to the island to help with the farm work while the guru is away.

I also met some very nice people down South in the village of Vuna. One of them was a shark tamer. That encounter along with a solitary zen moment at the Lavena waterfall swimming hole (where they shot The Return to the Blue Lagoon) have been the most enjoyable experiences so far in this wonderful country.

Merry Christmas to everyone! I’ll be back in air around New Year.

I didn’t really pay much attention to all the pre-premiere buzz about this movie. I just saw Narnia yesterday, which was a bit of a disappointment, so I wasn’t really expecting anything much with this one either. Luckily the movie easily lived up to all the hype. It has the kind of truly epic storytelling that the blockbuster movies have lost while trying to give a little bit of something for everyone. I think Narnia suffered from that approach as have many other movies that have tried to snatch in both the kids and parents with one swat.

Anyways, the amazing color work is worth seeing all by itself. The soundtrack is also very well made. The Kong himself is full of primal energy and you can really relate to him while he tries to save the damsel in distress. This might not be a bad movie for a date, by the way. I enjoyed the predictable and slightly sappy plot immensively all by myself though. Peter Jackson masterfully recreates this story with cinematic tools developed for action movies and larger than life classical drama structure. As another reviewer noted, it is bound to become an instant classic.

As a side note, the attendants made a few inspection walks down the aisles to check that nobody was videotaping the movie. I think there was also some sort of theatre specific digital fingerprint composed of green streaks of light at one of dinosaur fight scenes.

This neat little gas heater has a radio frequency remote control! It also acts as a terrific replacement for a televison. The fake wood in the heater looked completely convincing with a red hot glow and all.

I believe television was originally developed partly as a replacement for a traditional fireplace in the post second world war era. Families could gather around it’s glow to spend time together and chat. Nothing beats the atmosphere a real fire creates though.

Fireplace-Direct appears to sell quite similar cast iron stoves

The East Bay Depot for Creative ReUse

The East Bay Depot for Creative ReUse is a nonprofit corporation devoted to getting people to reuse materials. Since the early ’80s, the Depot has been promoting solid waste diversion and resource conservation by collecting and redistributing reusable materials for education, arts & crafts, and a wide variety of other creative projects. The Depot also spreads the word about the importance of waste reduction, recycling, and reusable materials through a school-based environmental education cirriculum and a annual junk art contest. In the Depot Store are displays of many creative reuse projects that have been developed by our staff, customers, and local artisans. We invite you to come in to be inspired to create something useful -or simply beautiful- for yourself or for someone you know. The prices will amaze you!

I met this fellow customer at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse. He said he was the jack of all trades and master of none. I think his name was Uno something. The depot was just full of interesting stuff to use in all kinds of art projects. There was a whole crate full of old slides, stencil letters, oak handles, a recipe book for ground beef, fabrics, traffic light reflectors etc.

Originally, the producers of the TV show wanted a blonde, a redhead and
a brunette for the three Charlie’s Angels cast members but they wanted
both Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith so bad that they gave up the idea.

John Forsythe was not the first choice for the voice of Charlie. The
originally hired actor showed up drunk for work and John agreed to take
the job.

The hair style worn by the character “Jill Monroe” was so popular that
shortly after the show began, a large percentage of America’s females
were wearing “Farrah Fawcett Hairdos”.

Robert Wagner reluctantly accepted 45% ownership of the show as payment
for a prior contract he had with Aaron Spelling. He said that he felt
the show was the worst idea he’d ever heard!

I
I wish you could swim
like the dolphins
like the dolphins can swim
though nothing
though nothing will keep us together
we can beat them
for ever and ever
oh we can be heroes
just for one day

One thing I really love about the culture here on the West Coast is that prejudice against race, age and style are not as much as an issue as they are in many European countries.

On my way to 47th street near Martin Luther King Jr.

curfew [O.Fr.,=cover fire], originally a signal, such as the ringing of a bell, to damp the fire, extinguish all lights in the dwelling, and retire for the night. The custom originated as a precaution against fires and was common throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. The curfew has most recently been used in times of turbulence, such as revolution or civil disorders. It is a restrictive measure forcing all persons into their homes to reduce activity against the government or the occupying force. In some communities it has been applied to curb juvenile delinquency.

I’ve always enjoyed walking around at night, but in some areas there is something distressing about the way that people hide in their homes or automobiles when the sun goes down. A sort of a curfew (of decent people) seems to be norm in some big cities.

Palmistry

Chiromancy or cheiromancy, (Greek cheir, “hand”; manteia, “divination”), is the art of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm, also known as palmistry, palm-reading, or hand analysis. The practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations.

Modern palmistry can trace its roots back to gypsy fortune tellers and Indian mystics, but often modern palmists combine traditional predictive techniques with psychology, holistic healing, and alternative methods of divination.

Spotted this palmistry reference at College Street in Berkeley. My culture shock has been pleasantly reduced by the presence of local Finnish people. It’s quite a bit warmer than I expected.

Impressive tire on the rear wheel

Lufthansa has wi-fi in their planes these days, yay! I feel like I’ve just joined the mile high club.

The trip to the Tyrolian mountains was a great success. No broken bones or other problems. Snowboard rental, lifts etc. worked like an Austrian clockwork. The weather was very foggy and the visibility was poor, but that didn’t harm the actual beef which was decent vertical drop, fresh powder snow and a comfortable and fast gondola ski lift. I got stuck in deep snow a couple of times, but it was fortunately at the end of the day. It was a truly exhausting task trying to climb back up on more solid snow.

The autonbahns were full of Audis, BMWs, Volkswagens and other wonders of German engineering. I learned that BMW is actually short for Bayerische Motor Werk. Other stake holders have been trying in vain to buy out the family that owns a substantial portion of this fine european car manufacturer. I was observing in awe when Natascha drove her Audi station wagon at close to 200 km per hour at times with one hand only and nonchalantly chatted with us at the same time.

The food, the archtitecture and a lot of other areas of my interest have been unexpectedly impressive here in Southern Germany. All in all, a great start for this long journey. This is my last entry from here… off to San Francisco tomorrow.

I have landed safely here in Munich. This silent couple was standing in the Olympic park for no apparent reason.

Off to Tiroli tomorrow to do some snowboarding or “shredding” as it is more fashionably referred to.

Star Alliance Round the World Calculator

Look-Plan-Create-Buy

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The Round the World Mileage Calculator (RTW MC) puts you in control of the route planning process. With the latest schedules at your fingertips you can plan your round the world trip at your own pace. Try ‘what if’ trips, see which routes fit the standard rules. Once you have successfully completed a valid trip you can send it to your favourite Star Alliance member carrier for re-confirmation and further handling.

This tool is just indispensable if you are planning a round the world trip on a tight budget. I managed to squeeze Germany, California, Fiji Islands, New Zealand and Bangkok within the 26000 mile limit of the cheapest round the world fare of Star Alliance.

I’m leaving on Sunday so the updates to this blog will be slightly less frequent until March, 2006.