This day is one of the sadder days during my holiday, because this is the day when we actually have to part from the main group, heading onward to Sweden instead, while the rest head back to Singapore. the thought of me being pretty lonely at night felt pretty saddening! you know when you actually recount the fun times you used to have, and when i took those out of the equation as i looked on toward Sweden, i wasn't keen on heading on! The only reason that kept me going, was the fact that mum's trip to the ice hotel, which is in her bucket list, was ahead. Wow and i am listening to a documentary on radioactive wolves while blogging xD

aaaaaaaand once again, i got kicked out of a server on Battlefield 3 after being accused as a hacker. So. Annoying. and battlefield 4 sucks because of all those crappy netcodes that they have! seriously they should just ditch BF4 and give Three a much needed, much appreciated upgrade.

In the morning, i was off to east coast park for a nice jog! though im still having flu... its gotten slightly better, so i was like heck let's go run! let's = myself #foreveralone photos taken using my xperia z! cuz it's lovely :D
still desperately trying to condition myself back into running, especially after the december holidays, my knee injury and the upcoming chinese new year! oh those ba kwassssss *drool* hmmmm so i musnt grow any fatter!! gotta exercise....although my right knee is still crappy but oh well~!
 

Sheeesh days off are so good mannnn xD i get to really relax and let life pass by :P sometimes life seems to be moving just too fast and we need a time to catch up! I still have a ton of nerf gun stuffs to modify and troubleshoot X.X let alone piano practices....

Let's get this started shall we?



okay maybe i should stop posting food eh! :P hmmm it's always about salmon and mashed potatoes! hmmm the red things you see on my plate are actually prawns! they really didnt look like it.... initially, i thought it's some sort of weird foodie but just took it :P Until i put it in my mouth, and realised its actually prawns!
 The weather for that day was -20degrees! as you can tell, its snowing pretty heavily! this is one of the heavier snowing we had so far! well this day was actually a really simple day, whereby we had time to walk around the various shopping malls nearby to buy some souvenirs and what not, and by noon, we would be on our wway to the Santa Claus village before flying back. and for my family, its onward to Sweden!

Hmmm though the buildings here are pretty big, there are VERY VERY few people here actually! like frankly speaking, the malls are pretty dead with very few people inside. Hmmm... is it comparable to any mall in Singapore....nope....unless youre talking about Siglap mall then perhaps...Siglap mall is an extremely ulu (secluded) mall in SG! you can walk though a stretch of shops and sometimes you would bump into people. Whereas if you'r esay at....vivocity? You have to nudge your way around, especially so on weekends. Absolute hell. Dont know about ya but i hate MASSIVE crowds! small crowds are alright, because they liven up the place yeah! (y) #pickyfella

 Thankfully, they have all these sorts of roadside stalls! frankly speaking this was the only one open at that time. PHEW managed to buy some reindeer products from these shops, makes me feel like trying to make a handy gift for myself using a reindeer horn! :D idea idea. well there isnt really much for you to buy here, unless you want to buy trucks? anyone? like seriously these were on sale on the pedestrian walkways.
take a look at the buildings in Finland, and how different the buildings look! Really, their buildings have more colour xD

 YEAHHHHHH told ya its pretty empty eh! hmmm as you can tell, the mall is pretty new, like i dont know how they do it, they keep renovating these malls although very few people go there? as in like in Singapore, you have malls still having those traditional metal grills at the sidessssss.

 Here, you have my dad being a Seppala model wanna-be.





COME ON, admit it, it looks so cute!!

















Hmmm come to think of it, its chinese new year real soon and my house is in a mess :x sighhh so much to clean up seriously. But oh well! my table is once again messy just a week after clearing. At least my life isn't in a mess! or is it?

oh lol! it writes here as -10, but the other temperatures show it as -20 weirdddddd. how cold is it outside? when a cold wind blows, you better hope you're wearing a ear muff! when visiting a cold country like this, you just gotta take photo of the thermometer so you can actually remember the temperature there! Stay too long outside and youll begin to feel really cold alright!


We spent quite a long time at the Santa Claus village, frankly speaking there's quite a lot to see here and enjoy, so... if there's anyone planning a trip here, do take your time and explore this place kay! hehe if you ask me, its like a mini wonderland? with shops and cafes and sorts, oh and santa too, so its good to cater a long time for this, like half a day! (well at least we stayed here till the skies became dark, i believe that should be around...12pm i think. Good thing is that it's very close to the airport! well you gotta take a plane from here, to Helsinki Int Airport before you can fly back to SG>>>>>

You know at first, i thought that blogging about this day is gonna be pretty short, since its just on santa claus village, but you'll be surprised how much stuff we did at santa village! it's just like you needa spend that amount of time there lah :)



Dont forget to keep a lookout for the signage that shows where home is!
how cool if you could have such a signage that is covered in snow in Singapore!!


This line above represent the artic cicle.... is it? hmmm i think so! hahaha by the time we were in rovainiemi ( seriously its hell getting the name right)  yeah correct! oops ah yes this is the line for the artic circle! Actually the weather here is a lot mroe manageable than what we faced when we were 250km into the artic circle.

After that, we headed in to the gift shop where we could get a chop that we've been to the artic circle and Santa Claus village on our passport! seriously i miss my could passport xD it had those cool scouts jamboree chops when i was in primary school D: it would be so cool to collect such chops~!
oops hehe i was distracted by a pretty girl~ woots~




let's take a look what's inside Santa's house shall we! (you dont have a choice)

Upon entering, going past the "santa is in" sign, we came across this wall filled with mini doors!! guess what that is! :)) well actually, its a calendar! pretty cool huh!! hehehe so that means, it was 10Dec when we were there. Its quite like those boxes with doors, whereby every time it was a day closer to christmas, we would be able to open up one door! Dont know how many of ya actually fiddled with those stuff!



Inside the Santa Claus house, it's modelled after a clock tower, having a really really dark interior with lotsa moving parts! I thought i took a video of the gears and all moving inside... i have no idea where the video went. But anyway, it's two storeys high inside, seemingly big as compared to the exterior aye?



Ya know, it feels weird blogging about christmas which is supposedly coming, when in reality its already way past it xD DAWWWWW and we are already on to Chinese new year :(((( sobs hehe i feel kinda sad when time passes by. Like as though that can be helped. I mean like when you look back at the days and wonderful times that you used to have for the past christmases. Thats why the song, Last Christmas is so sad!!!!!!! T^T
 HEHEHEHE im sitting next to the pretty girl that i was distracted by previously xD oopsie~ too bad she doesnt talk much though we tried opening up to her. more peeps, more fun! (yes she's in the same tour group as me and yes the tour is ending supposedly) you know, there's always some peeps whom you converse more than others because you click better. That's all!




We also had the chance to send out postcards to friends across the world, of course you gotta pay for postage, but frankly speaking how much does postage cost?! i think each stamp was about a dollar? like come on you can spare a dollar or two right?? just eat less chicken rice.

dont know why my camera wont focus on the stamps but oh well!


 Look at how much snow there is!! and as usual, my sub conscious winking of my eye when taking photographs all hail ming yang the winker. wow sounds kinda wrong (wanker) xD hahahahah  ahhhhhhh okok PG13.. :l HUGE snowman alrightttt
Of course, since it's the last day before we part ways, i got to take some photos of the awesome people ive met right!!! *eating croissant while blogging one handed* this is harddddd OKOK hahaha surprisingly, we turned out to be really good friends after the holiday! :D :D hehe that's why group tours are more fun because you get to mix around, and who knows! you might someone who clicks really well with ya and become awesome buddies!!

hehe after that, we went to play on the slides that they had! well they only had two xD one big, one small.
Ahhhh blur shot, bro took this photo.... -_-"' he seriously needs some lesson on photography alrighttttt. well at least i have a video of me sliding down the small slope! :P the big slope was a failure HAHA first vid is the small slope, second is the big one. hope no one saw my fail then! a big THANK YOU to SARAH for sending me the vid!!!
YUPPPPP we soon went over to the Post office, where we got to post our postcards! yes we havent posted them yet xD come to think of it, after they out the postboxes in another house, it helps to split up the crowd too! so at least its not too crowded at one spot :) luckily, we were in time to post the cards so that they would reach by 2013 christmas! i couldnt decide whether to write this or last christmas -.-

Trust me, when you post a postcard liek these, its not so simple. one does not simply post a letter and walk off. Lemme show you how long i took. just when it seems like the postcards are going in...
  I thought i had more but oh well!! hehehe super retarded and i always got to make way for others who wanna post first xD

here, you can see the various "elves" working hard to sort out the letters that we posted to Santa! pretty cute huh! Hehe i remember some of them have really nice costumes :3 cant imagine going to work in that, you boarding the train like that xD or you driving on the expressway hehehe

 So here you have people also writing more postcards for their relatives back home! bumped into japanese, singaporean and US tourists!
hehehe so this is how it looks like when its raining huh!! :P

And it's pretty soon then did we board the bus, on the way to the airport.... my family followed, before the bus driver or bus captain as they would like to say it, dropped us off back at the hotel. well that was after we grabbed a cuppa chocolate from the santa claus village cafe~! hey wait a minute i didnt take photo of the cafe?? Sheeeesh and the cafe was so well done!! Darn. All i remember is the numerous matchstick boxes that they sold. Apparently its a common thing in finland. matchsticks. all sizes! (wanted to say all shapes and sizes but all of em are same shapes) oh except for the different boxes they are in, really really nicely done up boxes i must say.

And soon, we had to bid farewell! NUUUUUU from here on, the tour is gonna be just my family! so.... not so much of chatting with others anymoreeee...SOBS//////hehe quite a lot of blur shots xD

AHHHH back in hotel room....sheeeesh had to pack our bags as we were gonna leave for Sweden on the following day.

You know somehow, after being to Finland and Sweden, along with watching frozen, the movie, it feels like i've gotten the whole package xD like its only when you go to such places and experience the northern lights, reindeers and winter can you really relate to frozen a lot better! :) thankful indeed!

That's all folks!!! thank you so much for reading my blog post ^^ really appreciate it!
i know its quite mad to scroll through such a long post and all, but i feel better to do a really comprehensive one. as usual, i leave you with some random photos. not that many since we only went to one place.
next episode,crossing the border and ice hotel!

HEHE yeap yeap i am grossly sick, so i shall blog tmr instead~! :) in the mean time.... lets go Von Damme shall we?
Because my pants cant split any further.


well just in case you didnt watch the epic split....


or the chuck norris one....


maybe, just maybe, there will be a ming yang edition >:))) i'm VERY KEEN muahahahah xD

Seriously who in the right frame of mind would go to a zoo, located in the artic, during WINTER time. Frankly speaking, we went there for the sole purpose of seeing polar bears. Even though the singapore zoo has polar bearsssssss....i dont know if they still do, they once had Inuka and it was such a lovely polar bear!! AHHHHH xD by far, the most. agonising. zoo. trip. ever.

You see, we spent quite a lot of daytime  travelling from Levi to Rovaniemi how to read that word, is exactly how you pronounce it when you read it as though its english! I'm just making a wild guess that whatever works for sweden works for finland too kay :) i'm listening to the news, playing facebook games, and reading up more on my psp game xD HAHAHA so..... if my blog post doesnt come out coherent in any way...hehe sorry in advance!!

okay okay how long was that bus ride....5hours was it? or something along those lines...well at the 3km+ point, we had a supermarket to drop by! they always have this thing whereby they split the shop space into one side being the supermart, the other side being a cafe!

  As usual, i went on my chocolate shopping spree! but its kinda not counted since i didnt buy any chocolates i think... instead, i bought reindeer meat!! xD i was extremely afraid that later on, when we go to Rovaniemi, there would be any reindeer meat xD wow #mingyanglogic
It is also at rovaniemi where we really got to experience a "white christmas" xD because everything there is just white white! this photo was taken at the cafe area side, its amazing how much area they actually allocate for the cafe area, and its so nice and scenic! in SG, when you look out (that is provided you can) you see road, and buildings. Here, you can really see what it means as a white christmas! everything, is, white. :)
After some travelling, we finally managed to see some buildings! the buildings here are pretty scattered, in the sense whereby you have a cluster of buildings together, then some random ones along the road here and there, before meeting another cluster. Also, those isolated ones are more of farmhouses.

I remember i've ever came across the style of clustering of such settlements around... sheeesh i dont take bio so nope i dont know!! i remember there's something nucleus something or something...ahhhhhhh whatever. MOOOVING ON~








This place is also where we first saw the sun!! xD like wowowow everytime in SG we always complain about not being able to see the sun, and here, you can see the bridge getting a big foggy! haha and all those green trees you see, are fig trees if i'm not wrong! (hope i'm not wrong)







Soon, we reached the zoo!! actually not so soon. but hey! look at that! doesnt the zoo look really beautiful?? :D :D like HELLOO Singapore's zoo (i should seriously stop comparing) looks so noobish as compared to this!!

 Hmmm the inside looks so white! kinda reminds me of IKEA, though nope the stuff here doesnt smell like IKEA. oops forgot, this is the dining area! its buffet style? but for a big group, buffet style in such a way.... hmmm.... really not like the buffet we had at the ski resort xD
 I was already beginning to feel sad because of the moment of everyone leaving us as they all head back to Singapore on the following day while we, my family, would continue and crossover into Sweden! The land of meatballs. though i dont recall seeing so many. meatballssssss~ anyway, here's some food! which of course didnt really make me feel any less sad..

The weather was VERY COLDDD. still below 30 degrees celcius.
THIS, I REMEMBER. because its the coldest zoo trip i've ever had.

Food anyone? other than the rice and curry chicken, i have no idea what i am eating. oh and that drink? its not root bear, instead, its their home made beer! i think.... actually i ant remember what they called it but oh whatever. it tastes nothing like the usual beer i drink xD its non alcoholic so yeap children can have a taste! though seriously i still dont understand how people can like beer. it's so rough! might as well drink i dont know root beer with peas?? i dont know.

 AHA! that's reindeer stew! they really have everything reindeer lah. it tastes really good!! hmmm though frankly speaking all the meat soups to me tastes kinda same. :P but its nice and becomes especially good on a cold winter like this!

OKAY so...we're supposed to see polar bears in this zoo. Seriously every other animal was either hibernating or just missing.
AHAHAHA HAVEN"T EVEN ENTERED THE ZOO AND I FOUND IT~! TRALALA~
I would like to thank my parents and my brother for their unwavering support these past years, as well as my friends for always believing in me! thank you thank you! *grabs panda-spotted award*

 The pandas are very far into the zoo... its really all the way at the end! which er.... no choice la huh? just walk. The route can get pretty slippery at times because there isnt much snow covering the ice underneath!

 Obviously the one with the safety beep isnt one of us.





Blue=me, beige=bro.
There's really a lot of walking to do alright!! it was like never ending! at some point in time, i was really wondering, are we there yet, are we there yet.... and it was really cold here! seriously my legs were freezing. I soon began calculating on the distance we would require to get back to the reception area, and how long it would take us. Seriously treated the mini map they gave us like it was a topographic map -.- #scoutsmode






but hey! we soon managed to see the polar bears!! and a not-so-many lot of animals~! im kinda more mesmerized by the scenery instead of the animals seriously. I dont know but it feels like the zoo was one of the "buffer" activities that we had? you know, like some activities are fun, like snowmobile and all, but some are just walking around, like this. eh but seriously in a zoo under such conditions?! OH PLEASE. what an experience!

 Tadaaaa p-a-n-d-a. eh what...polar bear!! wow am i even paying attention to what i'm typing.... i got distracted with dad commenting on me blogging (which is deeply annoying)
but hey! guess what, all thanks to my camera zoom, i managed to get some close up shots of the polar bears!! muahahahah without having to bring those bulky lens. beat that! >:)



Woot i thought it was my mum standing there for an instance, but that's a real life size comparison of the polar bear! its really huge actually! :D all i can think of is.... SO FLUFFAYYYYY sorry guys.


Cant see one of my eye as usual, cant  see one of my bro's eye too! #retardedbrothers

TOLD YA. the scenery looks really really good right?!?!?!




Try and photograph one of these things running, whilst on zoom. absolutely hard okayyyyy -_-"'





HEHEHE the wonders of yet again, having amazing zoom HAHAHAHA. look at the difference!! xD xD dont ask me what animal this is~ though its eyes seriously look scarily too big.

surprisingly... we got to have a taste of what's it like in ice hotel!! hehe with this igloo here xD its quite a cute igloo, though i have no idea why the zoo would so something like this! can you imagine, when spring comes, all of these would be gone???


 Ahhhh no more animals to show you guys! its seriously nothing much, other than seeing reindeers and oxen and foxes? yep yep. Pretty normal stuff you would see in a zoo eh!! so nah, nothing much great to comment on~


here, you can see all the work that is being done outside! Also, dont you think the sculptures look really really beautiful?? :D AHHHH its like can you imagine having them at home?!?!?! wohoo! SO PRETTYYYYY even if you keep it in the fridge too!! but nope not gonna happen. *sigh*



 There ya go! some shots!! before we headed back to the reception area! well from here on, i actually went ahead of my mum! because she was taking so longgggggg. well i explored the zoo together with bro and sarah! so we walked and walked and trie dto navigate before finally reaching warm grounds!! ^^

After that i did something lame. :3 hehe lets see how many people get it!!

Is the hotel room nice? hmm.... not really.... well i didnt really take much photographs because i was pretty tired out! well even though we went back to the hotel when the sky was dark, it wasn't because it was late, but due to the little daylight that we have over there :)
HEHE retarded shot as usual~ ah but oh well!! its time for me to rush to book in!! NUUUUUU T^T seriously maybe i should consider blogging in camp hehe. but i cant have any photos with me so its kinda troublesome to edit blog posts....

by the time we got back to our hotel, it was around -20 degrees celcius :) hehe the last night was fun though! because we got to play card games!! i was honestly very tired, so i really didnt want to go out. so instead, we slacked in the hotel room! bro was busy fiddling with the massively heavy lappy he brought, while i was busy cuddling myself under the bedsheet to stay warm! for once, bro's fats come in useful okay... i was walking around the hotel barefooted and in my heattech clothes.

random shots~