London Big Bus Ride and Conclusion

We spent about 24 hours in London.  We got on the tube and went to Westminster then caught the big bus and went on a large loop.  First stopped at Picadilly to have some lunch then caught the bus back to Westminster.  The city is pretty big, we didn't have a lot of time so we tried to make the most of it.  Took lots of photos, here are a select few.

Aquarium along the River Thames.

In front of big ben (the clock), it was a bit windy.

Somebody lose their clothes?

Sherlock holmes statue along baker street.

Trafalgar square.

London Bridge.

There's so many spy cameras in London, you can see them everywhere, some posts had 4 cameras!

We then caught the tube to Knightsbridge, had a walk around Harrods, bought a few things, namely tea, then caught the tube back to our hotel at the aiport, packed our things (with 10 mins to checkout!) then went to book in. The flight was surprisingly not empty. The person at the counter said there weren't many people but there were. Mostly were New Zealanders and Australians going back to their own country. There was a couple sitting next to us in the middle aisle and they had 2 children, one of them was crying and screaming at varying points throughout the night. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep, and when I did get some sleep it was in incredible awkward positions.

So now I'm back in Singapore, we just had a tasty dinner in Geylang. Scallops, dim sum, porridge, otak, miam miam.

This will be my last post for this blog. I've had a wonderful and incredible past few weeks. Memorable experiences (northern lights, dog sledding, awesome and incredible scenery, driving in waist deep snow, sub zero temperatures, going on a boat, long flight times) and (mostly) good food. There's such a huge difference in the lives of people here compared to the other side of the world. Even different topics of interest, areas of concern. Being with different company. Even the food that you think tastes the same? It tastes different elsewhere. Makes it interesting to see the bigger picture on how the world really works. If you ever have the chance I highly recommend visiting Iceland and Norway. Of course, make sure you have the money first and I mean cash not credit. :)

Leave Norway for London

Today we flew from Tromsø to Oslo then from Oslo to London. Our flight from Tromsø was delayed by half an hour due to bad weather and we barely made it for the fight from Oslo to London. We're a bit lucky, yesterday ALL flights from Tromsø were cancelled. So this morning was spent mostly on lolly shopping, I bought 90 AUD worth of chocolates and other sweets, I didn't buy much to be honest, things here are very expensive compared to what I'm used to. I found a stick of lip balm that cost 30 Australian dollars and a large pizza here costs 50 Australian dollars. :)

We got into London at 6pm then checked into our hotel before catching the train to Hammersmith to meet an old New Zealand friend. Had dinner at Japanese restaurant, it was nice to pay "cheap" prices for dinner for once.

It was a bit strange to see take the train and go past the stations that we use as test cases for work. MAN to EUS, only work people will know what I'm talking about. :)

Now we're back in the hotel and it's 12ish am. Today we'll explore London and then catch our final flight back to Singapore.

So the Scandinavian adventure has ended but there's going to be another day of blog updates. Stay tuned.

Day 7 - Polaria (Tromsø aquarium) and Dog Sledding at Lyngen (Town to the North of Tromsø)

Today we woke up a bit late. I had set the alarm for PM instead of AM, opps. Good thing Lauren woke up in time. Our reindeer sledding had been cancelled in Tromsø due to bad weather but good thing we found another company that did dog sledding at Lyngen which is an area that's more inland, and that was for 5pm so we booked that and then went to Polaria, the aquarium here that's famous for its bearded seals.

Bearded seals can grow up to 350 kilos and consist of 60% muscle and 40% fat. They are apparently easier to train than dogs.

One of the trainers telling one of the seals (there were 2 of them both female) to go fetch.

Freaky fish!

We also watched a documentary on the king crab. Russia's trying to re-introduce it and Norway's trying to get rid of it. Funny.

Did you know ...?

Arctic prawns, they are much smaller in size than the ones in Australia and Singapore.  I've eaten lots of these in the past couple of weeks.

At 4pm we went back to the hotel to book our accomodation in London for tomorrow then at 5pm the tour van came to pick us up for the dog sledding. The weather was bad, you could not see anything outside the van!

We dog sled in snowing weather with nothing but head lamps, it was really hard to take photos and at times we had to push the dog sled in waist deep snow!

On the sled.

After sledding we had to remove the muzzle and place each dog back to its chain which is close to its kennel.

Dinner was in a Sami hut thingy where we had soup (potato, onion, carrots and reindeer meat) around a fire.

I also took some photos of Tromsø at night, we didn't get back till after 1am.

Today will be our last full day in Norway, tomorrow afternoon we will fly off to London for a day then back to Singapore.

Day 6 - Hammerfest and back to Tromsø

Today was spent mostly on board the ship.  At Hammerfest we went for the Arctic Energy tour.  The tour guide spoke in 4 different languages even though there were less than 10 of us who attended.  We also arrived late and had only an hour before the ship was scheduled to leave.  Hammerfest is the northernmost town in Norway and exports LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) to Europe and the US.

Hammerfest from the top of the mountain.

LNG facility, view from the ship.

The tour was a bit disappointing really, it was a tour of the energy house, and the energy house was basically only 2 rooms!  I expected a tour of the facility.

Types of wall insulation, from post world war 2 to present, left to right.  The new (right most) insulation is supposed to be more energy efficient.

The oldest generator, still working and provides 2% of the energy requirements for the town.

We boarded the ship at 12:45pm then read and slept for the next several hours.  There's not much to do on the ship and the next stop was at 4pm, at Skjervøy which was only for 15 minutes but we got off anyway just to have a walk about.

It was raining and the ground had turned to ice (snow's melted) so it was very dangerous to walk.

Skjervøy dock.

Dinner was again at 8:30pm, same table, same people.  We had to check out at 10pm so after dinner we packed our things and waited at the deck for our arrival at Tromsø at 12am. Now we're back in a decent hotel so I can finally send an update.

Tomorrow (or should I say, today!) we shall explore more of Tromsø!

Day 5 - Leave Kirkenes

Today was spent mostly on the ship. We boarded at about 12:45pm but did not leave as timed because someone had broken their leg off the ship and we had to wait for them. Eventually we departed the Kirkenes port at 1:30pm so we were a little behind schedule. Our ship was called Polarlys which means polar lights.

Our ship from the Kirkenes dock.

Dinner tonight was at 8:30pm so at the next port, Vardø, we went to the grocery to get some snacks before dinner.

Ice age characters promoting bread.

Reindeer jerky!  I bought some.

At 6:30pm an annoucement was made that the northern lights were visible so we scuttled up to the level 7 deck to have a look. We can't get enough of the lights, it was amazing!! I took some photos but this time without the tripod and on a higher ISO, they turned out a bit grainier but you can see see them here.

We had a short nap after that before dinner as we haven't been getting enough sleep lately. Dinner was allocated seating on table 26. We had dinner with the same elderly couple on our first night and another (not so) elderly couple. I would say they are in their late 40s or mid 50s. Both are British, lots of British people on board this ship. Our entree was fish soup, followed by a main course of reindeer steak (which tastes exactly like liver) with reindeer sausage, and cloudberry ice cream was for dessert. I particularly liked the ice cream and the berries. We were the only ones to finish our main meal, not everyone else was game enough to finish it. :)

Photos of northern lights from the deck

Tea followed after dinner then it was bed time. Very short day. Tomorrow we will go off on an Arctic Energy tour at the northernmost town, Hammerfest.

Day 4 - King Crab Fishing (Freaking Awesome)

We visited the museum this morning after getting back from the Snow Hotel.  The tour guide woke us up close to 9am and we were the last to leave.  He drove us to our new "real" hotel, the Rica Arctic hotel where we dropped our things off then took a walk to the museum.

Where we are, and where we could possibly go...

The museum.  A Chinese woman from Beijing served us at the counter, she married a Norwegian, that's how she ended up there.

Some exhibits in the museum.  There were 2 floors, the 1st floor was mostly World War 2 related facts and stories, and the 2nd floor was more about the history of Kirkenes but it was all in Norwegian so we only understood what was on the 1st floor.

Propaganda posters.

Bomb shell.

We headed back at 12:30 as we were going to be picked up at 1pm.  So lunch was chips that we bought from the grocery back at Tromsø.  Our guide picked us up at 1pm, his name was Oerjan and he turned out to be a great guide!  We had no idea what we were in for.  He basically gave us a history of the area while driving us around, took us to the same scenic spot we were yesterday and even drove us to the Russia Norway border!  Our fishing spot was Lanabukt and took about half an hour to get there, it's close to the Russia Norway border so he showed us that area too which is quite nice of him.

Our tour guide on the left, he wasn't really a guide but... a one man show, guide, chef, fisherman...

Dam and church in Russia.

One footstep I was away from Russian territory, taken near Storskog.

After that we continued to our destination, then prepped ourselves to go on the boat for fishing!

Prepping the boat.

Here's one of the crabs, it's pretty big, about 1m in length!  We got a few.

Check out the size of its teeth, it's apparently the size of a horse's tooth.

Oerjan holding up one of the crabs.

After he gutted them, this was our catch...

King crab fishing is now permitted as it's a pest in Norway, so we are helping to control the population.

We also went further up the fjord to have a look at the salmon farm.  The ice was hitting everyone in the face and I caught this picture. :)

After that we had a short drive, then when we thought it was all over, we went on a ski doo out to the bush where we were going to cook the crabs!  I had fuel in my face as I was sitting in the back on a sleigh attached.  Haha!  Anyway Oerjan made a fire and then cooked the crab.  We were sitting around the fire but it was still freezing!!

It was nice though, different.  Eating distracted us from the cold. :)

Our cooked crab!

We did not manage to finish all of it, but don't worry the remains will be given to the foxes.

Now it's close to 3am and I have to sleep.  Tomorrow we get on the boat again which I am not really looking forward to so this could be my last post for a while but hopefully not.

Day 3 - Kirkenes Snow Hotel

Day 3 dropped us off at Kirkenes at 9:30am, a small but historic mining town of 3300 people, early in the morning. Kirkenes doesn't get the gulf stream so it's colder here and the waters turn into ice along the coast.  That night we were going to sleep in their Snow Hotel which is rebuilt every year with different patterns on the walls. Very cool. It's maintained at a steady temperature of -4 degrees C.

We spent the afternoon wandering about as we had to wait for the bus to pick us up at 6pm.  We got into town at 11:30am so there was a lot of time to kill.  We were going to go King Crab fishing initially but it was cancelled.  Eventually we got onto another tour operator (one man show) for the next day so that was fantastic otherwise we would have had nothing to do in this small town.  That took about an hour to sort out (done at 12:30pm!) so we had some lunch after that and wandered about some more.

Town of Kirkenes taken from a scenic spot (which was covered up by piles and piles of snow!)

Zoomed in view.

More of the town.

A bed taken in one of the rooms of the Snow Hotel (taken with camera flash).  There are 20 rooms in all, 2 corridors with 10 rooms, 1 on each side.  Each room is different with different wall artefacts.  The area connecting the 2 corridors is an ice bar and the entrance is connected to the ice bar.  And instead of a door to a room you have curtains.

Bear paw in one of the rooms, no flash used.

The ice bar where our guide served us some tasty cloud berry juice.

Room located at the end of the corridor.

Crab in ice!  This was part of the wall in the room with the ice bar.

One of the corridors.

Lauren sitting on one of the ice furniture.. it's coooooold.  Natural lighting in background.

Me next.  Different chair.

We had a 3 course meal with reindeer sausage wrapped in pancake as starter.  We had to cook our sausage by the fire in the restaurant.

The restaurant from the outside.

Some of the interior of the restaurant.

After dinner we caught some of the northern lights.  It was simply awesome, the sky was clear, there weren't many people around, not many lights and seeing the lights dance magically was a sight to behold!  I took some photos too, here are the best ones.

More lights.  The house is a shed containing our clothes for the night, i.e. sleeping bag.

In case you were wondering, the toilets are located in a different building.  We were only allowed to bring a small bag of extra clothes with us.  Each of us slept in a sleeping bag and wore layers of wool or whatever we brought to sleep.  I slept okay except my face was freezing and I woke up probably a few times but I did get sleep after covering my face with my beanie.  So I can say I slept in -4 degrees C with nothing but a sleeping bag!  All in all, an experience to remember :)