Beautiful Christmas Gift

Apple has this beautiful TV ad for christmas and I absolutely loved it. This young man was misunderstood by his family that he only stuck his head with his phone and not bonding with the family. But it turns out he is making this wondering surprise video gift for his family. Sweet!

Have a wonderful time everyone. 

Summer means

I really love summer in Australia! That means it's beach time. It's about going out. Having heaps of mangos an watermelon! And of course packing my Christmas orders! Love printing calendars for rerun customers! They make me feel special.

Nelson Mandela

Change my race - SBS documentary

We watched the SBS documentary Change My Race last night. I was shocked by some of the Asian how they see themselves and some of the outrages comments from the parents. It's sad that we don't even like our own race. We feel shameful how we look like. I felt the same when I first came to Australia but honestly I've never gone to that extreme.

It's a face that will never been change. I am an Asian. No matter how well my English is and how much I know about Australia. I will always be called an Asian. However after the 12 years that I spent in Australia, I feel like most of the Australian don't care what race you are as long as you can blend in with the Australian culture. I am always welcomed by my friends and colleagues. I have never feel like I am an outsider. There are so many things that I have to learn about Australia but most of the Australian are very accepting and willing to learn our culture as well.

Looking at all the young women gone through the plastic surgeries, do they look THAT Aussie after the plastic surgeries? Iain didn't even noticed what the difference was. He was like "What is a double eye lids?"

I think it's more important that people can fit in the society. Don't listen to their parents or peers about the stupid surgeries. Just be yourself and love the way you are.

Love Christmas shopping

Wow! You can buy shoes from a machine?

It's a beautiful world.

Among all the places we have been to in this trip, Helsinki is the city not as charm as the other cities but it's the most friendly one. It has the best tourists signs. Everyone speaks English and friendly. Everything is similar to Australia. It's a small city but easy access to everything. Actually I should say easy access to everywhere. It's a 2 hours train trip to Saint Petersburg. It's few hours from Estonia by cruise and it's an overnight trip to Sweden. I m so jealous of the Finnish. Coz it takes at least 6 hours for us to get out of Australia! Helsinki has a bit of everything. You can see a Russian style building on one side of the road then you see some European style building on the other side. The constant changes of the senceary makes this city very interesting. The wooden red house in northern Finland are so cute! It may be one of the coldest place in the world but people are so warm and friendly that make you want to stay here forever. 

Russia is a crazily beautiful. Unfortunately the weather wasn't that good when we were there but the grey sky gave it another kind of beauty. I have to say the Russia are a bit cold compare to Finnish. But our metro tour guide was wonderful. Our landlord in Moscow was amazingly nice and helpful. Walking in Moscow and Saint Petersburg were never boring. It's like you are walking in a live museum. It's amazing. A romantic day dreamer like me can spend years wonder around this city and never get bored. Looking at the buildings around you and the people around give you unlimited imagination. Ideas were bursting in my head that I worry I will have a heart attack. All the giant beautiful buildings with bright colors and detailed decoration. It must takes a lot of effort to maintain the history of the cities. I love Russia. This is the second time I visited this country and once again it won my heart. I m jealous of the children of Russia. I m jealous they are given the opportunities to grow up with the history. We saw lots of children in the Winter Palace. They can go to the museum for free. I saw them doing live drawings in front of an old painting. How lucky they are! 

We haven't spent enough time in China, Sweden and Estonia. But all these countries have such strong characters we will never forget. 

Sweden was the only country has that multicultural feeling similar to Australia. It's a vibrant country. We can feel the energy coming from everywhere. People are riding a bike. People are shopping. People having a good time in the restaurant. The energy of the city just shock you in the face! We would like to spend more time in Sweden next time. It's a beautiful country.

I m amazed with all the bad stories we have heard about traveling in Russia and Europe and nothing happened to us.We have only experienced some scam in China. It's not even seriously at all.  We were safed. We haven't had any bad experience with people. I guess the world isn't too bad after all. As long as you travel with care and respect. You can still have an amazing experience like ours. I love traveling. I love overseas. Without all these difference experiences we will never know how good our home is. 

The last few days

The last few days of our trip was peaceful and relax. We had some McDonald delivery of course as well as Chinese famous hotpot. We had a wonderful time in China. 

It's such a shame that the last day of our trip was very dusty and polluted. The air quality is not good at all. We had plenty of time but we didn't want to go out when we looked at the sky. 

China is beautiful. It has a beauty that no where in the world can offer. The people and the way things works in China are strange and sometimes I cannot understand, but I guess if you can work it out, it's an amazing country to travel to or maybe to live in. 

Would you like to wrap your suitcase?

Since our flight has been cancelled so we spent like 10 hours at the airport waiting. We saw lots of people wrap their suitcases for no reason!! On the noticed board it said "we recommend you to wrap your suitcases just in case it got damaged; or for people accidentally open your suitcase". 

OMG! Why do you mean by accidentally open?? We got scared a little bit so we went there for a wrap. It costs 300 rubles each that's about $10 Australian dollars! We spent all our money on food already so we didn't wrap our stuffs.

Later we found out it's better not to wrap anything coz we saw a Chinese woman has over weight bags and she has to unwrap everything! Imagine that twenty bucks that you paid!!! And we saw all the troubles she gone through with unwrapping the whole thing! Maybe we should just let people accidentally open my suitcase.

I can't believe what happened!

We had our last meal at Helsinki market. Looks like Finnish loves their sausages. That's yummy tho. 

So that's it. Our three weeks trip has almost came to an end. Sitting at the market. Looking at the water and the islands over the water. It's beautiful and calm. I wonder will I ever have a chance to come back to Finland. 

When everything seems wonderfully calm I can't believe what happened to us at the airport. Our flight from Helsinki to China would stop over in Moscow for a night. We tried to check in online the night before and it only allowed us to check in the flight to Moscow not to Beijing. So we thought yeh maybe it's not quite 24 hours yet so we will let the people at the airport do it instead.

The lady at the airport tried to check in for us but she couldn't find the flight. It turned out the flight we booked has been cancelled and we were scheduled to another flight at night! What the hell??? She said the airline has emailed us three times and also SMS us. I checked my email EVERYDAY! I received no email from them even in the junk mail!! Unbelivalbe!! Even when I checked in online last night it still shown our flight the next day is at 2pm not 22 o'clock! I can't believe this happened to us. I m glad that we can fly out before mid night otherwise Iain will have a problem with his visa! 

Well that's not it. I tried to contact Novotel in Beijing and tell them our flight has been delayed we will check in one day later. The bloody reception said she can't help us and I have to call them back at 9am to talk to reservation! 

I emailed Agoda and the hotel to explain the situation. Agoda replied me the next morning said it's alright but the hotel replied me they are going to cancel the booking! Bloody shit! I told them why we can't check in on time and they replied the booking policy said no changes and cancellation! I almost exploded! I told them it's not our fault that the flight has been cancelled. So she finally agreed to extend our check in time to 12 noon the next day but we still have to pay for the first night. Oh my god!!! She didn't even know I have already paid the reservation!!! What the F has she been doing? When I told her we have already paid then she said everything is fine! OMG.... Why people can be so retarded?

Anyway. We arrived Beijing safely at the end.

Finland to Sweden

It worked out the price of the hotel for a night in Helsinki is more expensive than taking a cruise to Sweden! Unbelivavle isn't it? We booked Viking line for the cheapest room which is 90 euro and with this price we can't even book a three star hotel in Helsinki. Before we checked in, we asked the lady if we can upgrade so we paid 20 euro for a better room! What a bargain!

Anyway I m really glad that we went to Sweden coz it is really beautiful ! Shame that we were there for only a few hours. I think people should at least spend 2 days for this city.

We spent a long time in the Old Town. It has heaps of souvenirs shops and many places for good photos! Well honestly if I spent one more day there I will get bankrupt. Even their souvenirs are so pretty! Not like those made-in-china Australia souvenirs we have at Peddy market! 

Anyway, Stockholm's public wifi sucks! Unlike Russia and Finland, you need a SIM card in your phone to connect to wifi. So if you turn your phone to flight mode you can't have wifi. McDonald is the only place we found doesn't have this problem tho.

Anyway I met an old friend Kristina at Stockholm. I have known her for a long long time. It was from the day when writing a letter was the only way to communicate. And for 18 years I have never met my pen pal from Sweden. you can imagine how excited I was when I finally met her! It's a shame that our time for each other was only short as we have to go back to the boat by 4.30.

When we walked back to our cruise, we thought its a 15 mins walk but it turned out to be a 30 mins walk so we have to run for our lives!! Imagine if we missed the boat and all our stuffs are in our room? And we were catching the same day flight back to Russia!!! Lucky we made it. Just!! When we sat down in our room the cruise started moving!

The wrong Asian kitchen

We have almost a day free at Helsinki before we go to Stockholm. We were having a cup of coffee when we found this Wrong Asian Kitchen cross the road! Was it meant to be Wong? Like a Chinese last name??or does it really mean it's a wrong Asian kitchen coz it's a Korean kitchen?? It's funny! And there were so many people eating in there too!! That's the only restaurant we have seen in Helsinki is full so at!!  So wrong!!

On our way to Rovaniemi Airport

After we met the husky dogs we went to the airport straight away. It supposed to be 3 and a half hour drive but it turns out to be 6 hours!

Before we left the hotel people already told us there's some heavy snow between Inari and Rovaniemi but it didn't really bother us when we "heard" about it.

An hour later the snow was so bad that we couldn't see the road at all. We don't know where's our lane and where's the edge! Then Satu's words came to our head "it's easier to drive when it's minus 7" and that's absolutely right! Iain was so freaked out at that time coz the car was a bit out of control sometimes! When we were closer to Rovaniemi airport, the temperature is just at zero degree and the road was so slippery! Crazy! Iain kept saying to me we won't make it to the airport on time! I was too scared to say anything!

When we finally got to the airport it was half an hour before departure. We ran for our lives to the check in counter! Thank god we made it! 

It's a crazy day! 6 hours heavy snow drive! Then an hour fly to Helsinki and when we touched down I realized I left my folder, which was full of our travel documets, at the airport check in counter!!

Oh my god!!! We travelled to everywhere around the world from south to east to west to north from flight to car to train to cruise! I never lost anything until today, almost the last stop of our travel, I lost the whole folder!!!! I was going to leave it but it also has our passport and mirage certificate copies in it so we paid 140 Euro to get it same day courier back to us  at Helsinki !!

140 Euro!!! That's much more expensive than our flight tickets TOGETHER! I was so angry with myself ! 

So we spent another hour at the airport dealing with all the shit at the same time I was so worry we are going to be miss out hostel booking! As I didn't put a late check it notes with the booking, it will be cancelled if we turn up later than 6pm! What the hell... The taxi was stuck in traffic for a bit and I was completely stress out! I was so mad with myself for everything! But thank God again we made it just before 6pm!

Amazing adventure part 2

As we were heading back to the hotel from Norway Satu haven't given up on the northern lights yet. But whenever we saw the the northern lights it's either no where to stop the car or the trees are too tall to take photo. 

When we finally got the chance the northern lights were a bit blur coz of the cloud. However we had a chance to see all the beautiful stars upon us. There were so many of them. So beautiful. For the first time in my life I wished the time can stop. 

Anyway at this breath taking moment Satu's phone rang. It was our hotel. They wanted to know if she has returned us back to the hotel yet! I m not joking! We were famous Aussie couples in northern Finland!  But I wished Satu could say "nah we kept them as hostages to make sausages coz they can't pay the bill." Hahahhaha

We finally got back to the hotel at 1am. A 6 hours tour.... From northern lights to reindeers to sausages to crazy driving in the snow.

The next day we have to head back to Rovaniemi airport in the morning.  But before we went to the airport we went to visit the sled dogs at the dog farm. It's still part of the tour from yesterday!! So our adventure continued at this beautiful lake side dog farm. 

There were some beautiful horses there as well. You know when you see those red wooden horse at ikea? They always painted them with hair on the horses' neck? The horses in the sancadavian area are actually look like that!! I thought people were making things up!

The horses there can survie in extream cold weather. And same as the husky dogs. It's amazing to see these animals here. I wonder how they can cope with the cold. Satu told us yesterday there are bears around this area as will but they are all sleeping in winter. They slept so deep that the female bears didn't even know they gave birth! 

The husky dogs were so crazy! When they saw us they got all excited and jumping up and down! Most of the dogs were taller than me when they jumped so I really freaked out! They are all so smart and beautiful. The guy worked there explained to us the smartest dogs ( usually 2) will be the the leader of the pack and when the snow is deeper they will be leading the team to do all the running and huskysafari.  

It's so nice to talk to people who works there. What a nice job too. I mean what else do you want? Both sides of the house are around the lake, in summer you train the dog and in winter you get them out for husky safari. 

People in Inari are nice. They talked to you as if you were their friends. There was no commercial no fakeness in there. Everyone is so calm and polite. And because of all these people, they made you wanted to come back. We stayed there for 3 nights and we weren't bored at all. We thought oh a small towns like this we must find something else to do. It turned out we quite enjoyed our time there. You felt like  you can just look at the lake and watched the days went by. We went for a drive around the lake to take some photos. We went for a walk in the snow. Everything was so peaceful. If life can be this simple sometimes that would be nice.