Tag Archives: finland

Collaboration with our first post: Örö

Week 40, 2020
Turku, Finland

NEWS! for first time in my life, I start to collaborate in writing articles for a more established blog. The name of the blog is: Out in the Nature and their URL is this one: https://www.outinthenature.com/

A brief story behind this milestone. I discovered Out in the Nature’s blog last year, when doing some research for umaze. We were preparing ourselves to visit the labyrinth in Nagu, and the team behind Out in the Nature, had some information about this location in their post: Troy Town rock maze in Nauvo archipelago.

After reading more of their blog, I thought to myself: maybe if I start collaborating with them it will allow me to share some of my discoveries, from my Finnish adventures outdoors. I have this good intention of sharing since long, as you can see in some of my posts as this one in paddling or this one in Koli. However, I confess, it is mainly a good intention. Many times I start to write, but “n” things happen and either I do not start or I leave a post in the middle. Only few adventures are able to pass the publication’s challenges threshold. Actually, my life, I could say is so similar to the following cartoon of developers….

I believe a collaboration with Out in the Nature might benefit us both. To me, it will help me to actually finalize articles and share things to an audience, and I will do quality content for the site. After some emails, we agree to give it a try. Then I start to write my first post for them.

Then, guess what? Yes, the post was al: most ready and my chaos hit my desk, leaving my article in hold. The only aspects missing were address, some tags, and to activate a plugin needed to activate an interactive story, I made with ubium’s MINE editor. Yes, there were small details, but of those that require time.

Then the collaboration started to bring fruits, as a colleague from Out in the Nature reach to me, and helping to fine tune the details that were missing. Then voilà the article is out for the public to enjoy. The title is: Örö – Military history and a fragiel ecosystem. You can fin d it in following this link: https://www.outinthenature.com/oro-military-history-and-a-fragile-ecosystem/ Feel free to visit the post and let your comment.

I am so happy.

In my agreement with Out on the Nature is that the interactive stories that I produced can be also share in other blogs. Hence, here is the story I did about Örö

I truly believe this collaboration will be positive for both parties. We will find synergies due to common interests. And most importantly I start to feel it will also allow us to build friendships. Now to move forward in this share journey!

This photo is our arrival to Örö. First marina of this new collaborative journey!

Archipelago, Archipelago National Park, Child-friendly, Historical site, Island, Kimitoön, Protected area

Paddling at Kuuskoski

Week 21, 2020
Turku, Finland

Even in pandemic times, there are many things happening during one day. Furthermore, the days continue passing by quickly. I believe if one day I am able to harness the challenge to cope with time, I can say I succeed in one of the biggest quests in life. Anyway, this post is not about time, but about paddling at Kuuskoski.

Thursday May 21 was a public holiday in Finland, the Ascension day. In this day, Mikko and I decided to go paddling as the weather was perfect: sunny and “warm” (note: warm can be a relative to interpretations depending the context). I didn’t review how warm was it, however for this post I researched this information and according to the Finnish Meteorological Institute and should have been around 13C, as we left late in the afternoon

The follow up question after taking the decision to go paddling was: where to go? . To give answer to this question, Mikko shared with me a map (Side note: this map is well done by the the Foundation of the river Aura). The selection was: Kuuskoski.

We reached our destination, approx 40km from Turku center. The first sign we saw was the placate from http://koskipirtti.com/

Due to the current regulations for covi-19, we were not able to visit the the museum (behind the yellow house of the photo above) as it was closed. Next time we will visit it. What called my attention was the private home next to the museum, which is BEAUTIFUL.

At first I thought it was a church. However, a sign down a road (next photo) indicated that it is a private property. Nevertheless, I got many questions about this unique construction.

The next decision was: which direction to paddle ? We had two options up stream or down stream. Down stream was a family already enjoying the water, as you can perceive in the photo below. With this photo serves as evidence that in Finland to keep a distance between people to avoid covid-19 transmission is relatively easy 😉

While searching for our start point for paddling, we got a closer view to the rapids” . Note the following photo with my shadow 🙂

We decided to paddle upstream. Thus, a large rock was our departure spot.

In total we paddled approx 10km. I can’t believe it!

The following screenshot indicates the point where we return from our paddling. Where the Jalkalanjoki intersects the Aura river.

That was approx 5kms in one direction and 5 kms back. The river was calm and beautiful.

For the human eyes and ears, it is undeniably we are in the middle of spring. Many trees still do not have leafs, at the same time the “lemon-green” starts to be noticeable in the landscape, and one can listen birds singing. This is, unquestionably, a beautiful time.

As we advance paddling the landscape changes. The naked tree photographed below was magnificent. The photo does not transmit its grandeur.

Suddenly, one could see more spruce trees as we can observe below (I think those are spruces, I need to ask).

Of course Risen Bear was present all the time 🙂

In the next photo has the purpose to show a bird house hanging from a pole, which in my opinion was a big bird house with a large hole. Wondering who could be the tenants of such a house? (my knowledge of birds is literally nonexistent).

The following bridge also call my attention. Wondering if I can find information about it. Apparently is a wooden bridge, and with all the calmness of the water look alluring to my eyes.

A closer view to the bridge.

A photo after we just cross it, underneath in our way back.

In this trip I called my mom, who has been inside her flat since mid-march, with the intention to bring her along and let her see the beauty and calmness of nature. Also I attempted that she listened to the birds. However the build-in mic of a mobile phone does not have the quality to capture the birds’ signing. Something to look for: a good mic. I hope she was able to enjoy some of the landscape.

In our way back the calmness was more evident and the birds were louder, maybe indicating us that it was time to go to sleep.

Getting close to our departure spot.

It was a wonderful and recharging time. No wonder Finns are happy, quality time in nature is unbeatable.

— Yop!

D18/15 — Values and Trust

Week 6, 2018
Turku, Finland

This weekend Finland showed me what it is made of. This is a new perspective. I already recognize its SISU, as I have talked even at events (example here).

In this weekend I learn about values and trust. Here are the specific examples.

*** Saturday

At the K-market , which is a chain of supermakets, I bought an electrical house appliance because it had 30% of discount for store affiliates. My companion to the store holds the store’s card, so we bought this machine. Once at the cashier I paid my bill with a debit card. When I got my receipt, I notice the system did not reflect the 30% off my purchase. This discount should appear automatically on the bill and it did not. So, as soon as I notice the discount was missing we told that to the cashier. Then, the cashier made a phone call, apparently to check what happen, and once she hang up, the following happen:

The cashier clicked something at its “computer” and gave me a new “ticket”.
I signed this new “ticket”, as the cashier informed she was returning me the money of all my shopping to my card. Note: I did not put my card on the card-reader to proceed with this step.
After signing, the cashier printed a new receipt with the total of my shopping, now showing the 30% off (note: this was done based based on what the cashier’s “computer” has recorded because the items were not registered again).
I paid this new ticket by adding my card into the card-reader.
We left the store as nothing had happened. The cashier did not give me any paper proving what has happened (the return of the money at least).

I was anxious, to be honest. My companion, who is Finnish, was certain that everything will be ok. Myself, honestly, I was not trusting the system 100% and I was concern what would happen if they charge me both amounts. 24hrs later, I can confirm that my bank account only shows the second payment. The first one was, indeed eliminated.

Still, I feel strange that all this process is done without a hard-copy proof of the event, with the cashier and without “supervision”. It is amazing the trust on the system. Also the values of everybody to make the system work.

*** Sunday

We went to play bowling, and the shoes were without surveillance.

I have never seen this, and I have been in different countries playing bowling. The shoes are always behind someone who is controlling them. If you think it is because is a small city, well, I think with 182k inhabitants (as it is registered by 2014) it is evident that the trust on people is present. Customer behave and respect the property of this business.

I only can say, Finland, I take my hat off as a sign of respect to you. You have incredible values and trust.

— CAIS

D18/005 Tacos

Week 1, 2018
Turku, Finland

Back in Finland, and while walking on the street I read on the door a restaurant called Taconito the following message: “approved by mexicans”. Naturally, I got curious and visited the place. There were tacos! 🙂

I believe it was important to try them so I bought some to take away. the first nice suprised is that they gave me the “salsas” to take away as we do at home. That was just lovely. Later at home, we try them and honestly, there were very good tacos!

So, if you are in Turku and you want to eat good tacos with a good service please visit Taco Nito. This was a very good discovery! 🙂

Tacos at home with the set of salsas aside. DELICIOUS!

— cais

Europeade 2017 Turku

Week 30
Tuku, Finland

First some updates. On May 19th I moved to Turku, but I haven’t been really here. My things have been. It is until last Sunday, 23.7.2017, were I “landed” in Turku, so adventures ahead….

While being in a new city, a habit I am building up is: after work go to discover.
At the moment we are doing this discovering by biking, so far so good. :).
Btw, this habit should be well build up and permanent, it is amazing what one can find.

On Tuesday while returning back home, we hear someone testing a microphone on a street. It was loud for a Finnish context, this was a bit odd. Also during this day we saw small stages and people dancing on them.

Rehersal at Europeade 2017

It was on Wednesday, after we saw a sign on a street about Europeade 2017 that we realized something was going on. Then, I decided to stop at the tourist information office and I was informed about the Europeade 2017 schedule. We were just on time for the opening ceremony.

We biked to the main stage where the opening was programmed and surprise! I saw the following regional dresses:

Germany / Austria at the Europeade

The official opening include over 300 dancers from Turku region, it was something special to watch. Here a small clip of it:

The event include individuals of ALL ages groups, and this is literal, from infants to grandpas. All ages have a space in here. As the commentator mentioned:

“More than 6000 dancers got together from 24 countries, and no matter their age, weight or wehre you come from. The most important thing is the spirit!”

Indeed one could feel a magical spirit. 🙂

Diversity of ages at the Europeade

Once the ceremony finalized, as you can imagine the dancing floor was open for EVERYBODY:

So what is Europeade? Let me copy the following text from the Europeade’s website: We are committed to the preservation of our intangible heritage of regional folk culture, be it music, dance, song, or costume. To reach this goal, we spend five days together sharing our dance and music with our friends and performing in the shows.

Next a summary of this rich experience!

— cais