Jaymee Ongpeng from Philippines with guide Timo in Porkkala
Guide Arja shows how we love our trees
Guide Timo tries to rest
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One client wanted to have a group of Finnish Santa Claus actors to spend a week in China, visiting restaurants and delivering food for their customers. This client had an advertising deal with Chinese company that is running fast food restaurants in China. The selection of the Finnish Santa Claus guys was done, and we were part of that group!
From left: Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Erlin Yang, Santa Claus, Santa Claus and Santa Claus!
We arrived to Shanghai Pudong airport, and after getting our bags claimed a quick change to the outfit was done in the local restroom... men were laughing, but that was of course the name of the game...
At the airport we had our first photo session in local KFC restaurant. Guess how easy it is to eat with the beard on?
Especially the boiled rice soup was creating some difficulties
Not even Santa Claus reindeer Petteri is as fast as this bullet-speed train from Shanghai to Beijing
Pendolino trains in Finland can reach max 220 km/h speed. Here in China max speed of the train was 348 km/h. These routes do of course have straight and new tracks.
In Beijing our team woke up early and had a Tai Chi rehearsal in local park.
Mama Santa was the fastest to learn the correct moves
Local newspapers were telling our story saying that the Finnish Santa Claus is very talented... yeah right!
Mama Santa in Xi'An
Next morning our team had a bicycle ride on the Xi'An old town wall.
We visited also one local video blogger company BiliBili
Another train ride to Wuhan town
Chengdu and smaller village Ya'an with the Panda Research center
One Panda in a tree and one just lying around
Santa Claus men and Mama Santa in Guangzhou
Guangzhou tower has nice sight-seeing round-trip up there
The Canton Tower, formally Guangzhou TV Astronomical and Sightseeing Tower is a 604 metres tall multi-purpose observation tower in the Haizhu
District of the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton).
The tower was topped out in 2009 and it became operational on 29 September 2010 for the 2010 Asian Games.
The tower briefly held the title of tallest tower in the world, replacing the CN Tower, before being surpassed by the Tokyo Skytree.
It was the tallest structure in China prior to the topping out of Shanghai Tower on 3 August 2013. It is now the second tallest tower and the fourth-tallest freestanding structure in the world.
Nice view from the tower!
Next day flight to Shanghai and free evening in the old town area. Raining...
Wild Wild Wolf Disco song performed by San Laoren team
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzow1msERy8
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Ketunretket provides Sauna Experiences to our clients. Of course, sometimes we need some relaxation ourselves, so this weekend it came possible to participate in a Whisking International Conference in Kaunas, Vilnus..
This conference had participants from Baltics, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, USA and other EU countries.
Logo of the International Whisking Academy
Here is the Whisker Man, Mr. Rimas Kavaliauskas from Lithuania. But hey, he has not got whiskers?
Here is one example of the Right and the Only Way of Whisking - or is it?
Juha from Finland is getting what he wanted...
Sauna-Mama Arja from Finland is getting ready for the Sauna
Now this was the best part of the weekend: a real Lithuanian Pirtis (Sauna) by Liuda Medine and Arvydas Medinis in western part of Kaunas.
Owner of the Pirtis (Lithuanian Sauna Bath) mr. Arvydas Medinis with Arja and Mari from Finland
Arvydas has built this wonderful sauna himself. It includes a big stove and a relaxation room.
Liuda, Timo, Arvydas and Mari in the hot room with whisking twigs.
Arvydas had installed a pump bringing ice-cold water from the pond.
I'm not as good as you, I am as good as I am!
Liuda had placed dry herbs over a transparent cloth above the relaxation room.
Liuda collects and dries herbs for the relaxation tea
Next day we had a 100km drive to Rimas's own small sauna area near Vilnus, to receive whisking education. However, this education was expensive and gave nothing, to be honest.
Rimas Kavaliauskas has written a book of how to provide whisking on 10 different difficulty levels. This guy used to be a physics professor, now he is the sauna master! -
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An exciting day with a top-quality cardiologist can also be funny:
I had a client from Las Vegas for a short tour around Helsinki. He did not mention to me what he's doing for his profession but my friend Google knew him well...
We visited Sibelius monument and he wanted to take a video of me telling about Jean Sibelius, who he was and what he had done. As he was coming from a little bit warmer environment, we had a walk to the seashore and tried if the water is cold... and again taking a new video - yes, it is darn cold...
Dr. Sanjay Vohra was a good example of a Free Independent Traveller (FIT) and also in an enormously good fit... running up the stairs all the time, and also being able to take a 10 minute nap while guide speaks beside him in the car... I gave him a task to find out who Sibelius was, and what kind of music he had composed... let's hope he'll follow the task.
After visiting Rock Church he told me that he does not very often get amazed on architecture, but now this was really amazing. -
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In the shoreline of Hanko Peninsula is situated an old Swedish fortress. This site is kept in condition by the Finnish Lighthouse Society. The reconstruction projects in Gustavsvärn started 2005 and continues actively.
This lighthouse is actually not original, only the top glass part is same that was used in the first lighthouse.
An old map shows how the fortress was looking out, before Russian army decided that they do not need it anymore and exploded everything August 27 year 1854. They needed 10 000 kilograms of black gunpowder.King of Sweden had given his name and date of the visit year 1793 carved to the shoreline stones.
Great rap-music video of mr. Elastinen from Finland has been filmed at Gustavsvärn: https://youtu.be/e46J14Eivto
There is also an old army fortress Russarö nearby, having a lighthouse.
Let's be happy that this kind of equipment have not been used for a long time...
Gustavsvärn seen from the shoreline.
Peaceful moment in the old fortress site... what should I do?
OK OK, I know. Let's start benchmarking! -
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We thoroughly enjoyed our foraging tour with Timo. He is very knowledgeable in picking mushrooms and has magical eyes in finding them! He cooked the mushrooms with onion, garlic and cheese/cream, which was one of the best dishes we had during this trip. (And we went to some fancy restaurants to compare to!) A bonus for me, being a bit of history nerd, was history of Finland he talked about. I'll be doing some reading on the topic. I will definitely recommend him as your foraging guide.
Yoko Nishida
