Tag Archives: photography

Grey time of the year is here

Just compare these two pictures from the same spot and separated by only 2 days.

Boats in the bay
Grey season is here

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Autumn in Finland

2010 will go down in history as the year where the 4 seasons were picture perfect herabouts in the far north (@banton dixit).  If you don’t believe me, check out the stuff below.

Sunset over Haukilahti

Sunset over Haukilahti

Lake in Nuuksio

Lake in Nuuksio

Not your average mushroom-picker

Not your average mushroom-picker

Dude, where are my Ewoks?

Dude, where are my Ewoks? Definitely not in Nuuksio.

Autumn is definitely here

Autumn is definitely here.

Red leaves at work

Red leaves at work.

Red leaves

More read leaves.

Autumn colours

Autumn colours

Otsonlahti Autumn Panorama

Otsonlahti autumn panorama

Frosty, winter is coming

Frosty: winter is coming

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Welcoming N8

Sunset over Espoo

One of the first pictures I took with the Nokia N8

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Mexico City & Ixtapan de la Sal

We spent two weeks in Mexico on holiday.  We didn’t have any plans for travelling around the country as the main goals were to participate in certain social occasions: we attended a wedding, birthdays, the Mexican Independence Bicentennial and even the birth of my niece.  Even so, we managed to slip away for a couple of nights to Ixtapan de la Sal, a small spa town not far away from Mexico City.

Route AMS-MEX

Helsinki-Amsterdam-Mexico City

Tacos al pastor & tacos de bistec

Excellent welcome: Tacos al pastor & tacos de bistec

Mole de olla!

Mom's best: Mole de olla

Rubik art

Piñata aftermath or Rubik art

Esquites

Esquites: boiled corn grains with cream, mayonnaise, cheese, lime juice and lots of chilli powder

Autumn in Mexico

You might not believe it, but the 4 seasons also manifest themselves in Mexico.

Chile en Nogada

Chile en Nogada is only available around Mexican Independence Day and consists of a Poblano chilli stuffed with prepared ground meat in a nut sauce and obviously adorned with Mexican colours.

Ángel de la Independencia / Angel of Independence

Ángel de la Independencia / Angel of Independence

Ecobici

Bycicles for rent in Reforma.

Ixtapan de la Sal main square

Ixtapan de la Sal main square

Hotel Ixtapan

Hotel Ixtapan

Ardilla / Squirrel / Orava

Ardilla / Squirrel / Orava

Salseras

A restaurant in Mexico will live or die by its availability of good sauces, so they are presented like this.

Mexico City landscape

Mexico City air quality is not as bad as it used to be in the beginning of the 90's. It also helped that late summer is the rainy season.

Virgen de Guadalupe

Paying our respects at the Virgin of Guadalupe main shrine. A manifestation of the Virgin Mary, it is said that maybe not all Mexicans are Catholics but all are Guadalupanos.

Antigua Basílica de Guadalupe

According to legend, the Virgin appeared to an Indian atop a mountain almost 500 years ago, and there they built her shrine.

Playing golf in Chiluca

A little bit of golf doesn't hurt.

Tostada de pata, tamal de rajas & tamal oaxaqueño

Tostada de pata, tamal de rajas & tamal oaxaqueño at the Mexican Independence Day bicentennial dinner

Coyoacán

Streets of Coyoacán, in the southern part of the city.

Coyotes de Coyoacán

Coyoacán means "place where coyotes roam"

Vista desde las Torres de Satélite

Vista desde las Torres de Satélite

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Turkey one last time

Was in Istanbul, Kayseri & Ankara to see through the project that has brought me to Turkey. Since we were over a week here we had some time to see some of the sights, which was more than welcome. A big thanks to my colleagues and business partners for making the project a success and the stay enjoyable.

Istanbul at night

Istanbul at night

Mosque in Nisantasi

Mosque in Nisantasi. Notice the minaret is in the style of a classical Greek column.

Dusk over Istanbul

Dusk over Istanbul

FIBA Turkey 2010 World Championship opening ceremony

Dervishes at the FIBA Turkey 2010 World Championship opening ceremony.

Night over Istanbul

Another night over Istanbul

Sunrise at the airport

The only problem I encountered during the trip was that I had to wake up extremely early to catch connecting flights. This sunrise was taken at Istanbul Ataturk airport.

Turkey 2010 with Turkish Airlines

There's all kinds of things happening in Turkey this year.

Capadocia Panorama

Capadocia panorama

Avanos

Interesting rock formations in Capadocia

Ivory Coast fans

Ivorian fans at the World Basketball Championship

Basketballer from above

These basketball figurines were placed all over Ankara

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Holidays in China, part II

Continues from part I.

Qutang Gorge

The middle of the 3 Gorges of the Yangtze River, Qutang Gorge.

Shennong Stream

Shennong Stream off Yangtze River. Before the construction of the 3 Gorges Dam, the river was so difficult to sail that to go upstream you needed to be pulled along by trackers. Clothing optional.

3 Gorges Dam Panorama

Behold the 3 Gorges Dam.

3 Gorges Dam Panorama

Another view of the 3 Gorges Dam

Yichang at night

The hotel in Yichang was nice. The city itself was not that interesting. They seemed to have ads for a local corn-based liquor everywhere.

Pudong Panorama

Pudong panorama from the Bund.

Pudong at Dusk

Pudong at dusk.

Shanghai at night from the Oriental Pearl TV Tower

Skyscrapers in the Shanghainese night

Trying to get out

Trying to get out of the vantage point of the previous picture at the Oriental Pearl TV tower. This is why we were surprised by the lack of courteousness in Chinese crowds: people would run, push and shove as much as possible in a situation that was potentially very dangerous.

Yuyuan Gardens

Tea House at the Yuyuan gardens. The bridge is built in zigzag as bad spirits can't turn corners.

Yuyuan Gardens

The area around the Yuyuan gardens is full of shops and built in traditional Chinese style.

Chinese Painting at Shanghai Museum

Chinese painting at Shanghai museum. Probably the best museum in China, the ceramic, jade, copper and painting collections are worth the visit.

Mexico at the World Expo

Mexican pavillion at the World Expo: Replica of the Bell of Independence from the church of Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato.

Mexico at the World Expo

The Mexican pavillion had an introduction to Mexican art & history, but my favourites where these masks where you could see different parts of Mexico through the eyes of someone living there.

Finland at the World Expo

The Finnish pavillion had an overview of Finnish design, and while there was not a lot of food on offer there was a big space for Nokia ;)

Belgium at the World Expo

The Belgian pavillion focused more than anything on science and technology (and beer and chocolate, sure). They had a video that Frank de Winne, Belgian ESA astronaut, recorded from space for the Expo.

India and Saudi Arabia at the World Expo

Many pavillions remained unseen, even if we spent there the whole day.

French Concession / Xintiandi

The former French concession at Xintiandi was a nice stop. After two weeks, we were starting to miss certain European comforts like street cafés, sandwiches or good beer.

Restaurants

Even during the night it was very hot, up to 30°C.

Route from Beijing to Helsinki

Ready to fly back from Beijing. One of the decisive factors that convinced us to go to China was that it is only a 8 hour direct flight with Finnair.

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Holidays in China, part I

We spent 2 weeks in July in China.  Our route took us to Beijing where we stayed a few days, then we took an overnight train to Chongqing from where we boarded a ferry through the Yangtze River and the 3 Gorges to Yichang.  After sleeping there the night we took another train to Shanghai, where we stayed 4 days before returning back to Finland via Beijing.  It was quite a route as you can appreciate in the map below (we spent 60 hours in trains).


View Larger Map

It was very interesting as an experience, the sights are amazing, generally very safe, the people are usually kind and I thoroughly enjoyed the food.  However, we were more than once assaulted by culture shock.  China is not renowned for being one of the cleanest places on earth and the crowds, while expected, are not nearly as polite as in Japan or even Mexico.  However, as usual, the story is better told in pictures and videos (the rest are found in my Flickr stream as before).

Tiananmen square

Tiananmen square in the rain

Who comes up with these names?

Who comes up with these names?

Temple of Heaven

Temple of Heaven

The little Emperor didn't like his new clothes

This little Emperor was ready to take off his picture-perfect disguise.

Forbidden City Panorama

Inside the Forbidden City

Foggy at the Great Wall

It was extremely foggy when we visited the Great Wall of China at Mutianyu. Somehow doesn't surprise me as I had the same luck at the Cristo de Corcovado.

Great Wall

Another view of the foggy Great Wall of China

Looks like a taco!

Imagine my surprise when we went to a restaurant specialising in Peking duck and found out it's eaten almost like a taco.

Asian maps again

In East Asia their maps are different. Deal with it ;)

In the train to Chongqing

The standard "soft sleeper" cabins in Chinese trains are quite good. Pity the toilets are an absolute disaster, even in the newest trains. In fact, not only in trains, but pretty much everywhere. Maybe the government should start a nationwide "Be dignified, learn to use a loo" campaign?

Chongqing Panorama

Chongqing panorama at night

Lord of Hell

The Lord of Hell in Fengdu, the ghost city.

Continues in part II

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Riga

We were lucky enough to have spent a couple of days of the Easter weekend in Riga, capital of Latvia.  The city has a great collection of Jugendstil (German Art Noveau) buildings from the 1930′s and it was very nice to walk in its cobbled streets, even if the weather was not much better than Finland.  It was very interesting to see how much investment has come from the Nordic countries, with a large amount of Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian companies present in the country and a partly-renovated airport that looks decidedly similar to those of Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm & Helsinki with its use of wood, glass and iron.

The country has a long history of foreign occupations from Germany, Sweden and Russia, so a visit to its museums is definitely recommended to get some background information on the way the country came to be what it is.  Furthermore, it currently tries to recover from the after-effects of the global financial crisis, when it’s economy pretty much collapsed.  Not surprisingly, travelling here is relatively cheap, but due to inflation consumer prices are almost at Scandinavian levels.

The break was very welcome indeed and I’m happy to have crossed out the last of the Baltic countries I was missing.

House of Blackheads

The House of Blackheads with the statue of Roland, one of the main hallmarks of the city.

St. George at the House of Blackheads

St. George, a detail of the House of Blackheads

Flowers at the Freedom Monument

The Monument to Freedom. Latvians renew the flower offerings every day.

Latvian National TV in Easter

The country has a sizable Russian-speaking minority, so foreign TV programmes are dubbed in Latvian and subtitled in Russian.

Soldiers at Riga Castle

Soldiers at Riga Castle

Daugava River Panorama

Panorama of Riga and the Daugava river

River in the park

Small channel in the old city.

Promises of eternal love

Promises of eternal love.

Riga skyline

Riga skyline.

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Science poems in the Tube

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Real winter in Finland

 

The current winter in Finland is the continuously coldest, snowiest I have ever experienced after 9 years here.  With temperatures averaging -10 (but reaching -27, without the windchill) and an amount of snowfall that is reaching a metre, the place looks and feels decidedly wintry.  I mean, there’s more snow here than in Lapland!

 

 

 

 

 

Cross-country skiing in deep snow

Cross-country skiing is possible in almost any sidewalk now, even after they clean them.

 

Snowed-over cars

There's a car somewhere under that pile of snow

 

 

 

 

 

Ice panorama

Icicles in a cave

 

Slope in downtown

Snowboarding slope in downtown

 

 

 

Ski tracks in the bay

Ski tracks on the snow over a frozen bay.

 

Winter aerial panorama of Otsonlahti, a.k.a "The calm between snowstorms"

Panorama of the bay between snowstorms

 

 

Winter dusk

Colours of dusk in winter

 

Walking in the snowstorm

The same spot as before, but in a snowstorm

 

 

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