Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Year full of travelling ♥

Year is ending soon and now is time to check all the places I travelled this year!

On February it was time for Japan! I discovered that I have distant relatives living there and I had an opportunity to go and meet them ♥ So on Valentines Day I headed to Osaka. I bought my tickets from Stockmans's Hullut Päivät-event and they cost only ~600€. My relatives were really kind and let me stay at their place and they took me to many places. It was so nice! I had a good change also to travel alone around Osaka and Kioto and it was really nice to just walk and look around. We went to Nara as well and we saw deers and temples. Finnish readers can read my posts from Japan in my main blog Matsukaze, starting from here. Actually this was my second time in Japan. I went to Tokyo for a month couple years ago and it was amazing trip. I need to write about it here too.

Kinkakuji - the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto, Japan.
June was really chilly this year but regardless of that my boyfriend told me that we are going north around midsummer. V's dad lend his car to us and we tuned it so that we could sleep in the back space of it. Our roadtrip started on 20th of June and we headed straight to north. We stopped in many places here in Finland because I wanted to see and explore my own country as well. It was actually my first time in Lapland so I was thrilled to see it. Unfortunately the weather was really cold and it made sleeping on first night really hard. But we learned from the trip so much so we are better equipped when we decide to go on a roadtrip again! The northest point where we went was Tromssa, Norway, but we didn't spend much time in there. The views in the northern Norway are unbelievable! We reserved a cabin from caravan site in Birtavarre and slept there one night. When we came back to Finland we visited Santa Claus in Rovaniemi and took a bit different route back to home. We went to Sweden also at some point when we drove near the border. Here is our route:
Actually we went back to Rauma but Google Maps can mark only ten places at the same time...

Tromssa seen from top of fjeld.
On September I went to Stockholm with my boyfriend but this time it wasn't for leisure; it was a trip to hell and back, to be more precise, trip to seminar where my opponent crushed me mentally. I survived, barely. Truth to be told, I don't really want to even remember this trip, but for your sake I will tell shortly our tour in Stockholm. We went there by boat because its really convenient and cheap way to travel from Turku or Helsinki to Stockholm. We arrived there on morning and travelled with tunnelbana (metro, subway, underground, you name it) to the centre of the city. We spend some time in nice cafe called Espresso House since there was a wi-fi and after that I wanted to show Gamla Stan (Old Town) to my boyfriend. It's really easy to go there with tunnelbana and it's truly a very beautiful place. You can find duty free shops and other small boutiques from there and also Royal Palace, Parliament House and Storkyrkan (the Great Church) among other things. Remember to wear good shoes before going there! After out tour in Gamla Stan we met with my teacher in T-centralen- station and went together to Stockholm University where my seminar was held. Our campus is really beautiful, especially in summer. It takes quite long to walk from the tunnelbana station to there and many students go there by bus. Anyways I had my horrible seminar and after that we went back to city centre and had some food in a Japanese restaurant. Unfortunately I was in shock still and I can't remember the name or exact location of the restaurant. The food was ok, nothing special, or it could also be because I didn't really have any appetite at that time. We came back to Finland with an evening boat, so it was only a day in Stockholm trip.

On October I went to Thailand as those who have read my blog can remember. Firts we went to Hua Hin and stayed there for a few days and then headed to Bangkok. You can read more from my previous posts! Thailand was really exotic for a Finnish girl and the best part was when we went to the jungle and waterfall. I hope I can have a change to see something as beautiful again someday.


On November, we decided together with my friend Elina to go celebrate our birthdays to Istanbul, Turkey. This was my second time in Turkey but first time in Istanbul and I really fell in love. For more information about Istanbul, please see my previous post! :) I really want to go there again for a longer period.

Istanbul on evening

On December I went again to Stockholm, but this time I went to see a Japanese band called One Ok Rock. Together was my best buddy Jonna and we sailed trought the storm (literally) to hop on a broken tunnelbana (literally) to find a expensive taxi (literally) who would take as to our hotel with the price of 666SEK. Literally. I mean what is the chances that the price is exactly 666? I must say that someone downstairs didn't like us showing our faces in Stockholm that night! Anyway we found our way to the place where the gig was held and everything was ok. Next day we did some shopping in Drottning-street which is easy to access from Gamla Stan. It's really popular shopping street in Stockholm and I found lots of nice staff (including Christmas presents) from there.


Truth to be told this was the busiest year of mine so far and I LOVED it. I had a chance to travel so many places with nice people so I feel very grateful. All in all I went to 5 different countries in one year. I wish next year will be full of travelling again. Next trip is planned to be on February but I'm not sure yet whether to go or not, because I need to safe money for my student exchange in Japan.

I wish you all a happy New Year 2015 and I hope you will have a chance to see many new places during it!

Friday, December 19, 2014

Historical Istanbul ♥

I had a change to go and see Istanbul this fall and I think I fell in love. I mean Istanbul has so much to offer for a traveller and those who love history (read: peoples like me).

Our journey took place in early November as we flew with Turkish Airlines from Helsinki to Istanbul. The travel time was really nice compared to the long flights to Asia! Only 3-4 hours and we were there. I think Turkish Airlines was chosen as a best European airline in some competition, but I have to wonder why. Well it wasn't bad, but the crew was all over the place and there was not enough food for everyone (or was, but not what they wanted to eat).

Anyway, we arrived to Istanbul and took a taxi to the hotel. Our hotel was situated in the old town and it was bit hard to find. The view was quite nice along the way although it was already completely dark as we arrived in the evening. It took as quite some time to reach the hotel because of the traffic jams and everything and when we finally arrived we found out that there had been some kind of mistake and the room was double booked. Well, we were sent to another hotel which was under the same name and in the same area, just a bit closer to the shops and everything so infact it was a good thing for us.

The hotel was nice and the staff was nice but the room was not what we expected. We had booked a suite because it was super cheap (like normal room price) and we only got... well, a normal room. It wasn't bad at all, but it wasn't a suite! :(

We decided to go and look around the surroundings on that same evening and we found out that Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia were basically on our backyard! It was a really amazing sight with the dark sky, gorgeous mosque with lights and all the people around.