Aurinko Paistaa ( The sun is shining )

May 19, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 16 Comments

I’ve always loved the sun, which is not great in New Zealand where we are exposed to high levels of UV rays. But my love affair with the sun is even more pronounced here in Finland, where it has become something of a long distance love affair.

I realise now there is a strong difference between sunlight and sunshine. One marks the day and one warms the skin. The second is now returning after a long hiatus and seriously, I could weep with joy. Which makes a nice difference from the day I wept on the way home from Finnish class for no real reason – other than lack of Vitamin D.

I’ve done my first Finnish winter now and spring has never felt so good. The difference in the trees is amazing, week to week, and the presence of birds and flowers is increasing.

On a recent walk from Hietalahti Market Square to Merekatu I was delighted to see the outdoor market growing in size once again.

I also came across this sculpture by Rafael Saifulin called Onni.

Onni means happiness or bliss. To me he’s really captured the pleasure of feeling the sun on your face once again.

Although fairly weak, the sun is now up from 4am to 10pm in Helsinki, with a month to go until summer solstice. Miko told me he can’t go to bed until the sun goes down, but considering that won’t really be until October, honestly, he’s kidding himself.

Like most Finns we are now eating ice cream any chance we get. The funny thing is, as good as it feels, it’s still only 10 degrees outside.

But that’s okay, the sun is back and we’ve learnt to savour it while we have it.

A Weekend of Festivals in Helsinki

May 15, 2015May 21, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 7 Comments

With spring finally making itself felt around the city, Helsinki’s festival season now kicks off. There is so much on tomorrow, the hardest thing will be knowing what to do first.

Ravintolapäivä (Restaurant Day) – the city becomes a food festival as anyone can open a cafe or restaurant for the day. Download the app to plan your route or just head somewhere like Ruttopuisto (Vanha kirkkopuisto) for a great selection of food.

Cafe Tivoli

Cat Video Cafe – and if it rains you can always duck indoors and watch funny videos of cats while you eat cupcakes.

Photo credit: Helsinki Think Company

Teurastamo (The Abbatoir) – this redeveloped area comes alive in the warmer months and tomorrow marks the opening of the summer season. There will be music, seedlings for your garden, events for cyclists and of course, lots of food.

Arabian Street Festival – in Helsinki you can catch a tram to such exotic places as Arabia without leaving the country. Home to artists and other creative people, the Arabia Street Festival will also host 17,000 visitors according to its Facebook page.

Photo credit: arabiahelsinki.fi

Puu-Vallilan Yard Sale – the suburb of Puu-Vallila is unique in Helsinki as it is full of wooden houses. (Puu means tree or wood in Finnish). Wander around the markets and enjoy the neighbourhood, only a short ride from the city centre.

Photo credit: osuma.fi

Whatever you do this weekend, try not to eat too much before you leave home and take some cash with you. Seems it will be a weekend of food, fun and hopefully more sunshine. Hyvää Viikonloppua!

A Quick Guide to Helsinki

May 8, 2015May 8, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 16 Comments

I get lots of emails from people visiting Helsinki, asking what to do while they are here. So here’s a list of ideas to get you started, which I will add to and update. You can also check out my City Guide to Helsinki, which I wrote for Design*Sponge.

Many museums in Helsinki have one day a month where entry is free. Many places also have different opening hours during summer and winter, so always visit the relevant website before you head out.

City walks

Katajanokka – a suburb of beautiful architecture and great coffee

Töölönlahti – frozen in winter and beautiful in summer, this bay has coffee shops dotted around it’s edge. More photos here.

Uunisaari – an island connected by bridge during winter

Lauttasaari – lovely coastal walk and summer cabins

Baana – a converted freight line is now a cycle and walking path

Five things to do on Fredrikinkatu

Five things to do on Korkeavuorenkatu

Places to visit – outdoors

Linnanmäki – amusement park, free entry, open during summer

Korkeasaari – Helsinki’s island zoo, ferry runs only in summer, bus access otherwise

Seurasaari – outdoor museum on an island, bus access

Pihlajasaari – summer island for swimming

Suomenlinna – fortress island and UNESCO World Heritage Site

Places to visit – indoors

Sea Life – great option for a rainy or cold day in Helsinki

Annantalo – arts centre with exhibitions for children with family friendly book cafe

Yrjönkatu Uimahalli – swimming hall with sauna, men & women separate, only open during winter

Natural History Museum – displays of Nordic and other animals over a few floors

Botanical Gardens – beautiful gardens in glasshouses, good option for a rainy day

Cultural

The Rock Church

Chapel of Silence

Lokal – art gallery & cafe

Kiasma – Museum of Contemporary Art

Alvar Aalto House

Markets

Hietalahti Market Square – summer time flea market & antiques

Old Market Hall – Vanhakauppahalli is a great place for lunch

Day Trips

Tips for Visiting in Winter & Getting Around

How to walk on ice without dying

How to walk under ice without dying

How to dress a child for Finnish winter

Using Helsinki’s Metro

Cultural Events

Saint Lucia – December

Christmas Path – December

Vappu – May

Samba Carnival – June

Baltic Herring Festival – October

All Saint’s Day – November

Cleaning Day – a giant yard sale throughout the city, held various times a year

Restaurant Day – a street food carnival where anyone can open a restaurant for the day, held four times a year

Places to eat & drink

Cafe Regatta – traditional Finnish cafe by the water, for coffee and cinnamon buns

Mockbar – Soviet style bar specialising in vodka and bad service

Moko Market & Kaffa Roastery – cafe and homewares, great for buying gifts and very family friendly.

Freese – owned by Finnish barista champion Kalle Freese, check Facebook for opening times as can be closed if busy elsewhere

Good Life Coffee – great coffee and delicious almond croissants

Skiffer – pizza bar on an island, only open during summer months. City venue during winter

Fafa’s – good falafel and vegetarian takeaway

Dancing in the Shadows – at Annantalo

May 4, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 7 Comments

I’ve walked past Annantalo so many times and never stopped to wonder what it is. Turns out – it’s great is what it is!

Annantalo is an arts centre for children and young people, housed in a beautiful old school that was built in 1886. Miko and I recently visited with friends on a rainy afternoon after daycare.

On the ground floor is the large Kirja Kahvila (book cafe) with loads of space for families and smaller tables set up with paper and colouring pencils. There’s also shelves full of childrens’ books, printed in Finnish and Swedish.

The cafe is also home to Tutti-tukaani (Pacifier Toucan) who sits atop a large bottle where children put their pacifiers when the time comes to give them up. The idea is based loosely on similar traditions in Finland and was dreamed up by the Office Manager.

The cafe is run by a lovely woman called Krista, who told me she loves all the handmade touches around Annantalo.

This includes the warm korvapuustit (cinammon buns) and the woollen covers on the tea glasses.

Upstairs in the building, there are art classes, as well as dance and theatre for young people. Miko’s daycare has visited in the past to watch a puppet show, which he still talks about.

There are also exhibitions for children, which are really creative and interactive. Miko loved going inside a big teepee and looking at tiny worlds inside boxes with a torch during the last one.

Although the cafe is family focussed it can be very quiet at times and there’s lots of space to spread out if you need to work. With wheelchair access it’s a great place for anyone to visit, young and old alike.

Annantalo – events and courses

Annankatu 30, Helsinki

Due to a bad dose of the flu there were no Vappu celebrations for me this year. The spring carnival on May Day is one of the biggest events on the Finnish calendar. You can read my post from last year here.

Sandwiches in the Snow

April 20, 2015April 20, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 9 Comments

A few weeks ago after Finnish class I decided to walk to Töölö where I was headed to interview a young cobbler. It started to snow so intensely it was like being stuck inside a snow dome someone had just shaken up.

With an hour to go until the interview I was relieved to spy this cafe and ducked inside, out of the cold.

Stepping inside I was taken back by the size. It was tiny! The floor space was about 2m wide by 10m long.

No one was around but I could understand the sign: ‘Ring bell. We are in the kitchen. Thanks!’

A young guy came out and took my order from the menu on the wall. He said the store had been open since the 1960’s and his family had bought it fairly recently.

Most people, he said, phone ahead and take-away. He went back to the kitchen so I took a seat, admiring the retro Danish posters.

It was great, as though the cafe had been decorated in the 1960’s and hadn’t been updated since.

My lunch soon arrived – a delicious open sandwich with fresh salmon and cottage cheese.

Soon another customer stepped in out of the snow and when his order arrived he made as though to eat it standing up. I invited him to share my table – the only table – and we chatted about a trip he’d made with his wife to Australia a few years before.

Sated and satisfied I headed back out into the snow, watched by a drummer boy pinned by the front door.

I felt a bit like him as I tightened my coat and set off once more into the swirling snow, my hat and hood piled high upon my head.

Dansk Smørrebrød – Cygnaeuksenkatu 5, Helsinki

Creating Helsinki – interview with cobbler, Juho Erving

Latvian Loma (holiday)

April 8, 2015October 31, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 12 Comments

Latvia’s capital Riga was founded in 1201 and sits about 360km south of Helsinki (the same distance as Auckland to Ohakune in New Zealand). The flight takes just under an hour, making it a perfect destination for a short Easter break.

As we headed out on Good Friday, I was looking forward to seeing the Old Town and the examples of Art Nouveau architecture, which are considered to be some of the best in the world.

It is estimated that around 40 per cent of Riga’s central buildings are in the Art Nouveau style, with many examples evident along Alberta Iela.

The street is also home to the Art Nouveau museum and a store selling beautiful Art Nouveau jewellery, lamps and art.

I have a soft spot for Latvia because two of my close friends in Australia have family from there. I would be lying however if I said the legacy of its occupation is not still visible in the city. To me it was apparent as soon as we left the airport.

Latvia was occupied by both the Soviets and Nazi Germany, before gaining back its independence in 1991.

There are a lot of parks in the city, which we walked through on our way to the Old Town.

I think they will become quite beautiful in summer, once all the trees are full once more of green foliage and the birds have returned from their southern migration.

We had such a great holiday – most countries outside of Finland are so much cheaper by comparison and with Latvia’s reputation as a spa destination we treated ourselves to massages and a nice hotel.

There were lots of locals around, including lots of women in maybe their sixties or seventies, many of them dressed alike. There is also a really good hipster scene, which I say with no judgement because where there’s hipsters – there’s good coffee!

I’m going to write more about all the yummy food we ate and the great markets we visited but for now, it’s time for lunch.

The island you never leave

April 2, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 19 Comments

There’s a joke in Helsinki that the residents of Katajanokka are so content with life they never leave the island. Which is particularly funny because this island is connected to the city by a short bridge and is two minutes walk from bustling Market Square.

It’s a great place to walk around because you really do feel as though you are away from the city, despite the proximity. Your tour begins once you find yourself looking up at the Orthodox church of Uspenski Cathedral.

There’s some beautiful housing to see on your walk. Katajanokka is described as one of the ‘most distinguished’ suburbs of Helsinki and used to be home to Finland’s former president.

It’s also home to wonderful examples of Art Noveau architecture, or Jugendstil as it is known here. (Kataja means juniper).

The details on the window frames and arches are incredible. (I had a bizarre experience this day, in that every time I photographed a door to a building, it would open and someone would walk out).

Not being too tall can be an asset on this island. I had to crouch quite low to get into this store, where entry is only available through the window.

Any hobbits visiting from New Zealand would feel quite at home, I’m sure.

As well as being home to a major port for cruise ships, Katajanokka is also home to the huge ice breaker ships that churn up the Baltic Sea during the colder months.

The red-brick style of architecture is more evident on this side of the island too and some official maritime offices are housed here.

Katajanokka is also home to one of Helsinki’s best cafes: Johan & Nyström. It was in their Stockholm branch that current Finnish Barista Champion Kalle Freese honed his craft, after discovering coffee culture while living in New Zealand. You can read my interview for Creating Helsinki with him here.

Just outside you can often watch hardy Finns walking from the sauna to the frozen water for avanto (ice swimming). From the cafe it’s just a short walk back to the base of Uspenski Cathedral and over the bridge to the city.

Unless of course, like the residents, you also decide that you never want to leave. In that case, the island’s former prison has been converted into a hotel where you can sleep in a renovated cell.

Which brings to mind the Eagles song Hotel California every time I think of it. ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave….”

Katajanokka

Uspenski Cathedral

Johan & Nystrom Cafe

Creating Helsinki: Kalle Freese Interview

Lost & Found

March 15, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 21 Comments

Visitors to Helsinki often comment on how well everything works. The trains run on time, the movies start when they say they will and it is very rare to see anyone cross the street before the green man appears, even when there are no cars.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the displaying of lost property. It seems there’s an unofficial understanding that if you find something of little value you drape it somewhere it will be easily found should the owner come back.

As the weather warms up the lost property du jour seems to be gloves. They are everywhere. Strategically placed on bushes, fences and elegantly draped over power boxes.

Which is not surprising really as Helsinki recently came first in an experiment to find the world’s most honest city. Eleven out of 12 ‘dropped’ wallets were returned to the owner with everything inside.

While every city has street crime I haven’t noticed it here. While Sydney is a great city, working in cafes there I witnessed bag snatching, wallet snatching, phone snatching, kids breaking into cars and people trying to steal the tip jar.

We even had one guy who would come in and stuff whole pieces of cake in his mouth and run off without paying. All part of living in a vibrant city of 4.5 million people where there’s a gap between those who have and those who have not.

So to me these Finnish displays of lost property seem like an indication of the overall honesty of the city’s population. True, no one wants one glove but I’ve also seen hats, shoes and sunglasses strategically arranged that have been left behind.

To be honest, Jonny’s Ray Bans disappeared after being left in a Helsinki changing room but he recently had a friend request on Facebook from a cafe worker here that he didn’t know. She was asking him to return to collect the credit card he’d left last time he bought a coffee.

Helsinki Tops World’s Most Honest Cities

Helsinki Metro Runs on Honesty

Beware of falling ice

March 9, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 15 Comments

Now that we’ve learnt how to walk on ice without dying, it’s important that we also know how to walk under it too. Because with the big thaws happening its the ice hanging from overhead buildings you’ve got to watch out for.

The first time a big load of snow was dumped down next to me I actually thought someone was throwing snow at us. But it’s all about timing and mine that day was bad.

Watch out for snow & ice falling off the roof (& people dancing in mid-air)

With your head down checking where your feet go, it’s a precarious job looking for falling ice. Luckily the City of Helsinki takes precautions for us by blocking off sections of the street.

But what are we to do? Wait until spring to use these parts of the pavement?

No, silly. Send young men up there to scrape it off and throw it into the streets below.

I know there must be rigorous health and safety methods going on but I swear this guy was just held up by his mate holding a rope around his waist.

However they do it, the ice has mostly gone in Helsinki and today was feeling quite tropical with a high of 10°. Unless we have takatalvi that is (literally: taka: back or rear & talvi: winter, which means wintery conditions in spring).

In which case you may find the sign pictured above waiting for you as you slide to the bottom of the stairs on your taka – Ei talvikunnossapitoa – not maintained in winter.

How I Came to Run an Art Gallery in Helsinki

February 26, 2015October 31, 2015 / Mel_inHelsinki / 12 Comments

I was engrossed in Google Maps the other day, looking for an art gallery I wanted to check out but could not find anywhere. Finally I looked up, and there it was. I was standing right outside.

Lokal describes itself as 72% art and 28% coffee, which is a pretty good blend to me. It specialises in local, independent artists and designers and holds themed exhibitions.

The current exhibition is ‘Never Never Land’ and features playful pieces from various artists, including some of the most stylish miniature houses I’ve ever seen.

The store is full of gorgeous design objects, with more available online and worldwide delivery.

I had a really nice chat with owner Katja Hagelstam, who opened Lokal in 2012. A courier came in as we talked and when she had to leave for a few minutes to give him a parcel she looked at me and said, ‘You’re in charge.’

Unfortunately not much happened. I didn’t even get to sit in my cool new office or make anyone an espresso.

But nothing got broken and Katja seemed very relaxed when she got back. Lokal is moving ten doors down at the end of this month and as I left there was no mention of me being in charge of packing or carrying boxes so I assume my contract is over. It was good while it lasted.

LOKAL – now at Annankatu 9, Helsinki

Hey Helsinki

A New Zealand girl in Finland

Helsinki

Aurinko Paistaa ( The sun is shining )

A Weekend of Festivals in Helsinki

A Quick Guide to Helsinki

Dancing in the Shadows – at Annantalo

Sandwiches in the Snow

Latvian Loma (holiday)

The island you never leave

Lost & Found

Beware of falling ice

How I Came to Run an Art Gallery in Helsinki

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