We got up at 4:30 am on Saturday, the same time I usually get up for work on a normal weekday, and we were ready to go by 5:00 am. We did the usual household lockdown – turning off the automatic timers and making sure that everything will be quiet while we are gone for two weeks. Then we rolled our new suitcase (recently bought during our trip to California) out to Okubo station to take the first train out. We got to Sannomiya, bought some tickets to Kansai airport, and boarded the bus. I think we both slept through most of the bus ride – I remember the bus pulling out onto the expressway then the next thing I remember is arriving at the airport – a pretty painless way to get there.
For the first time we are taking a direct flight from Kansai International Airport to our first trip destination. Usually we do some sort of transit in Dubai, China or Turkey, so this should be fun. It also cuts a lot of wasted time in airports – it is only 9 1/2 hours to Helsinki on a Finnair jet from Osaka, so more time to enjoy our holiday.
There was still a little time to kill so we had a light breakfast and coffee from Starbucks, and then the gate opened and we checked our luggage and got our boarding passes. There was time on the other side of security, so we relaxed together in a semi-private lounge chair on that side of the terminal, and eventually got two cold beers and some Jagarico snacks to munch on – we were eager to have that first cold beer of the trip. While waiting we sat near a window that facced our Finnair jet being prepped and loaded. Kuniko still had some phone calls to make and emails to send off to students, and there was a funny moment when she was in the middle of explaining something to a company that her student is meeting with, and then the airport announcement system started blaring overhead so loudly they could barely finish the call. Finally, with everything all wrapped up we boarded and took our seats and we were off.
It was my first time on Finnair and it was a good experience. If I had to describe the service of Finnair in one word I would say “simple”. I guess they are building this sort of Nordic simplicity theme, but from the meals to the easy to use interface for the in-flight entertainment system everything was simple (in a good way). I managed to sleep a little more on the flight as we flew around North Korea, over China and Mongolia, and then watched three movies over Russia. After that it was time for our descent into Helsinki.
Helsinki wasn’t really on our radar when planning this trip, but the combination of direct flight, good price, and constant ferry service across to Estonia convinced us it would make a good starting place. I had heard that there wasn’t a lot to do in Helsinki, and that it was quite expensive, and both of those things turned out to be true. But it also was a nice re-introduction to the European art of summer relaxation.
After zipping through immigration and customs (the airport was surprisingly silent and empty – most of the passengers from our flight went on to transfers and there were only a handful of people staying here) we walked through the terminal and found the train station. It was easy to buy two train tickets at a kiosk using a credit card, and then we went downstairs and caught the next train into town. It was about a half hour ride, and during that time nobody checked our tickets so the ticket price was technically an unnecessary expense.
The train ride was short but nice, with great views of how people lived outside of town. The weather was cool and there was plenty of blue sky and sunshine – quite a contrast to the sticky wet summer we had left behind in Osaka.
Kuniko had chosen the hotel carefully based on the location of the train station, and when the train pulled into the old fashioned Helsinki Central Terminal we had only a short walk to reach our check-in counter. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Helsinki Centre, and it was fairly stylish, clean and friendly. At check-in the clerk told us that rain was in the forecast for the next day, so we decided to drop off our stuff and do sort of aggressive sightseeing today to avoid gray cloudy pictures the next day.
It turned out that the town was easy to see on foot. We started by walking through the center of town towards the water on a pedestrian walkway/park called the Esplanadin Puisto. With shops and streets on both sides there was a center strip of a park dedicated to pedestrians, with fountains, statues and beautifully maintained gardens. The entire walkway was lined with benches and this being Saturday many of the locals were sitting outside soaking in the sun. We followed the pathway to the harbor area, just one of the many ports on the southern side of the city. This port seemed to be filled mainly with cruise ships and ferries, and we ended up riding one of them out of the country a few days later.
The harbor is also where they had many tents selling fruits, souvenirs, and food (salmon fillets, moose balls, reindeer haunches, steamed vegetables). We decided to wait on the moose balls and instead spent time in the area taking pictures of the cathedrals and other buildings. Two highlights were the Uspenski Cathedral, a big red cathedral overlooking the harbor directly, and the more dramatic Helsinki Cathedral on a square a few blocks away from the harbor.
We decided to have dinner at a restaurant called SUNN, located on that same square. Our dinner table was next to a window so we could look out on the cathedral while we ate. The square in front of the cathedral was active with tourists, some demonstrators (holding signs with a strange illustrated picture of their hero), and a few police officers watching things idly.
The wine list was quite good and it was nice to be in the EU again and have access to their high quality wines at a (relatively) lower price. The dinner was excellent, too. I had a cut of reindeer sirloin, and Kuniko had an open-faced sandwich of crayfish on dark bread.
After dinner we strolled a bit looking for a wine bar for a couple of glasses of wine and maybe some local cheese, but the wine bar never appeared. We instead went to a craft beer place and sat outside. We were very surprised to see the price of 500mL of craft beer was about the same as in Japan – about 10 euros. Rather than spend more time (and money) here we decided to find a place to do some shopping and take the party back to our hotel room.
We settled on a grocery store near our hotel, and we bought two pieces of cheese and a big carton of blueberry juice for our nightcap. One cheese was from Denmark, a truffle camembert, and the other from a local farm – a semi-hard cheese laced with chili peppers. They were both great, but about 15 minutes into our blueberry juice and cheese party we both felt the effects of the time difference and jet lag, and we hit the sack soon after. It was still light outside – the sun set around 10:00 pm – but we had fallen asleep long before that.
