Happy New Year 2013!

Whoopsie-daisie.. it seems apparent I wasn't able to publish all the updates for 2012 during the same year, sorry about that. I will try to do better next year. ;)

HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS!

Coming up next..

Almost done with July, whew.. still in the next series of updates I intend to cover the main holiday trip I did last summer.. so stay tuned. :)

Parolan Panssarimuseo

It must have been somewhat like ten years since the last time I visited the "the Panzer museum" in Parolannummi, near Hämeenlinna. Time sure flies past quite fast!

Kouvola

During the "Days of the sea" event in Kotka we actually stayed in a hotel in Kouvola, because all the hotels in Kotka were already full. There was a frequent "party train" connection to the Kotka harbour, and this arrangement turned out to be working just fine for us.

I can confirm that Kouvola was a perfectly suitable place to spend some time in, or to sleep over at!

Kotkan Meripäivät

Kotkan Meripäivät is the second biggest festival in Finland, second only to Helsingin Juhlaviikot. The city of Kotka only has about 54.000 residents, and there was 232.000 visitors during the festival week this year..

So, being there was like.. expensive, but fun, and with a LOT of other people to party with!

MCC Action @ Mielakka

Hey, how convenient, I'm visiting Kouvola and they say that Finland's fastest MCC track is nearby.. :)

KohinaBaari

KohinaBaari was opened in the first half of 2012 in the Numminen village, and it may just be what this whole town (Mäntsälä) has been waiting for. It's about time Gasthaus Wäinölä gets some competition!

No - seriously - these bars are like 10 kilometers apart from each other, and both are kind of unique. But KohinaBaari was a really nice place to visit. It was rather quiet evening when I visited there, but I'm looking forward to another visit, and I'm sure it will be more lively the next time.

Orimattila x3

This summer I visited Orimattila at least three times. On the first visit I took my daughter to see Orimattilan Eläinpuisto, on the second time we went to check out the Megamyyntiareena (a large outlet center), touring back with a planned coffee breakt at the nicely decorated Mato & Makkara kiosk in Mallusjoki. Then my third visit to Orimattila was for checking out the great annual Mallusjoen Takinkääntöviikot event also this summer.

Camping @ Lake Bodom (and visit to Villa Elfvik)

And then we come to some good stuff. In the latter part of July we went camping with the little buddy to Oittaa Camping in Espoo. After setting up the tent and sleeping bags we enjoyed camp life in the form of lemonade, potato chips and grilled sausage.

The next day, we visited the "nature house" Villa Elfvik and its' beautiful surroundings (I actually realized later that also Espoon Automuseo would have been quite close to the camping area).

After all, my son said he had a great time and so did I, so I guess we need to come up with some trip like this next summer too! :)

Sahtimarkkinat 2012

Okey dokey now, here we go. The first event I visited in July was the traditional Sahtimarkkinat @ Padasjoki. Umm.. the following image was the most suitable "artistic representation" I could find. ;)

Ping!

Oh yeah, the rest part of those Summer 2012 updates - coming soon, I promise! :)

Citymarket - the first hypermarket in Mäntsälä!

Another landmark of modern civilization was finally opened this week. Mäntsälä got its' first hypermarket, the Citymarket. Though I will probably still be doing most of my daily grocery shopping at Lidl I'm really glad also this option, with wider selection, is now around!

I consider this to be the second biggest "cultural" event of the year for Mäntsälä (The biggest still being start-up of Rekolan Panimo). This is a huge step for this town on the evolution path towards becoming a real city.

Rekolan Panimo - a microbrewery in Mäntsälä!

This is like my dream come true. I've always been a fan of microbreweries, and today I got to taste Amerikan Serkku ("American Cousin") at the Maja kiosk terrace! The beer travelled like one kilometer from the brewery to the tap.. now that's what I call a local beer. :)

The brewery that makes the beer is called Rekolan Panimo. Rekola is actually a city district in Vantaa, but it seems it was worthwhile for them to come all the way to Mäntsälä to find optimal premises the brewery. Lucky us! You can read more of the story from their blog [in Finnish].

Personally, to me this is probably biggest cultural event of the year concerning Mäntsälä. Now I'm only waiting for bottles to appear for sale.

Next up: "The second biggest event of the year concerning Mäntsälä".

Cheers!

At a summer cottage again

A week apart, and I find my self from a summer cottage again, this time near Salo. It was nice to perform sports like "frisbee golf" with friends.

It's also interesting what kind of creatures can suddenly land on the lakeside pier.. ;)

Juhannus 2012 @ Heinola

This year it was time to relax on a summer cottage in Heinola by the lakeside. Too bad the "Heinola city" wasn't very active due to it being Midsummer time, but managed to catch my traveller's interest. So Heinola, it was nice to see you, and we'll probably see again next year!

Tramspotting (a.k.a "My WDC day")

Helsinki is World Design Capital in the year 2012. One sunny wednesday in June I took a day off and decided to check out how it looks like.

Too bad the main attraction I was looking for, the HI Design exhibition at Kaapelitehdas was only open from Thursday to Sunday..

After seeking consultation from WDC guides at Kauppatori I decided to see the Finnish Design Museum (Designmuseo). I also was along on the very first ride of the Culture Tram (Kulttuuriratikka). During the ride I noticed that the Spårakoff restaurant tram was following us, so I stepped out from Kulttuuriratikka and stepped into another interesting tram for one-hour ride.. :)

(Anyway, luckily I've finally also managed to check out the HI Design exhibition now, in August!)

The Rhododendron Park @ bloom!

Every now and then it just so happens that one may discover amazing places you didn't realize were so close, even though you've been walking past them for 10 years or so!

There's a large park at Etelä-Haaga in Helsinki with rhododendron rose trees. It's not much of a sight for most of the year, but defintely worth visiting in the beginning of June when they're in bloom (I happened to finally discover this place on June 15th, and will definetely try to return there at approximately the same time next year).

Crazy Drivers Stunt Show

Let's get started with June updates. Crazy Drivers Stunt Show visited Mäntsälä in early June. It wasn't cheap, but offered pretty good entertainment for the whole family!

Ping!

Long time, no update. Even though it's only mid-August you can feel that summer is turning into autumn slowly but inevitably.. So I guess it's time to index all the sunny summer 2012 photos and start publishing them into this blog again. Stay tuned, there's going to be a bunch of updates heading this way soon.. :)

The royal happening in Stockholm

During May I also had a chance to visit Stockholm with the family. It happened to be the christening ceremony day of baby Estelle when we arrived there. Judging from the pictures one might disagree, but the city and public transport system were quite packed. Perhaps we would've been better of without bringing yet another baby carriage to the city right at this day. ;)

Anyway, naturally our sincere best wishes go out to the adorable Princess Estelle of Sweden! :)

Oakland!

I stayed in San Francisco's neighbouring city across the Bay, Oakland, for a few days more.

Actually, I became quite fond of this city, it offered a really nice contrast to the tourist fuss of SF. The local residents seem proud of their city, and it's actually recognized as one of the most diverse cities in the US (both ethnically and scenically).

There's also a lot of microbreweries in Oakland.