Yesterday I finally read the "Who moved my cheese" book. Well,I should have read it years ago but because of so many other books to read. Good now I read it.
Have to say that I like it. The book make the diffcult things so easy to read and understand. But I know sometimes things are more easy to read or think than to do. Just like the book said "Always smell your cheese then you know when it is getting old."Then it is the time that you have to go to find new cheese,but the preparation could be long or short,somebody might prepare for that from the first day he found the new cheese. Yes,I agree that change is good sometime and be prepare for that is really needed in daily life,especaily nowadays everything is changing so fast!
Just reminded me that last week I met two of my friends,one is very happy that she is getting a baby soon,the baby will change her life and probably make her more happy. The other one is not happy about her marriage that she wants some changes in her life... I really hope that they can find their new cheeses and happiness soon!
What about me? Well,still looking for my new cheese,did I prepare good enough for that? I am not so sure yet,but I will work on it!
July 2006 Archives
Berlin is the last stop of our summer trip in Europe, from Düsseldorf to Berlin by train is about 4 and half hours.Ourside the train was typical german villages,hills,rivers.... Well,I like to take the train sometimes that I could see the outside scenery more clear and good than sit in the plane.
Arrived in Berlin central station already almost ten at night. This was the new station that they built for the World Cup. Very busy today! It was the Love Parade- The big Techno party in Europe. Every year it is in Berlin once. So when we were here it was just finished. We took the metro to the hotel,but it was full of people since all the young people were going back from the dancing party.The air in the metro was full of the mixture of alchol,sweat,perfum...
But some unexpected things happened again,the booking had some problem then we had to share one single bed for one night! Oh my god! The first impression of Berlin was not good,people were crazy and service was bad!
We will stay in Berlin for three and half days, so the first day we went to the Berlin wall musem. It was really a wall that to separate people and culture and everything.Good that it was gone now! The next we visited was a concerntraion camp in Oranienburg-A place about 1 hour by train from Berlin. It is Sachsenhausen memorial and museum. First I felt terrible that went to such a place,imagining how the people surfered here....There were still some houses and towers left,of course some mess graves... It seems that you still can hear how the people scream and cry and everything....It was a terrible place but a place to remember the history! Back to Berlin was not early any more,so we went to eat Turkish food,well this time I was really hated it! Quickly finished and we had a walk in the center near a university, there was a big square and they were having the buddy bear exhibition,every country has one bear and the artist from that country designed the bear. It looked very interesting and it showed people that world peace is very important! Even though at that night some war still happening in the middle east!
Berlin wall 
Buddy bear 
The sencond day we decided to go to the Berlin zoo. Almost every city we visited we went to the zoo.I like animals especially birds,horses,fish...It was not a very big zoo, but we saw some lovely penguins and even one panda from China. After that we went to some shopping street and experienced luxury brand stores in Berlin. Well,I have read somewhere that in Europe or America, the consumers of luxury brands are mostly middle aged women,but in China or Japan that are mostly young girls! That is true here in Germany,I saw lots of old ladies carrying Gucci bags walking on the street,but not much young girls.... Maybe that is one of the culture difference.
For dinner we ate in a spanish restaurant,it was very popular one, good tapas!
Penguins 
The last day in Berlin we visited Pergamonmusem in the museum island. There was many acient treasures and things from Egypt,Islamic countries... Then we went to the modern art museum, they were having a Berlin-Tokyo art exhibition,interesting and funny modern arts! Since we were in Germany we had not taste the real german food, so tonight was the night to try the german food-sausages,souer krant,mashed potatos. Actually it did not taste bad,but it can not be my daily food.
National museum 
The half day before we got on the plane,we just walked in the street of berlin,mostly the former east part. In the afternoon we had to catch the plane back to Helsinki, to my surprise that the berlin airport for European flight was rather small.
Germany is a funny place with full of different things.Mixed culture and miserable history,everything made Germany special and unique.
Sit in the train again, this time was from Luxembourg to Düsseldorf-a northwest city in Germany. Also about three hours, we passed lots of german countrysides and camping places. Moutains,rivers,peoples' camps and lots of swans....Well,french countryside is romantic and quiet,but german one seems have more energy and colorful!
We arrived at Düsseldorf central station,it was not a small one since it is not a small city in Germany. Took the tram to the hotel,because we did not understand the ticket machine we did not buy a ticket this time.(bad!) The hotel was quite good even it was a private one. Clean rooms and with good bathroom. Time was still early so we decided to go out and check things out.
Luckily we were not live far from the Japanese neighborhood, Düsseldorf has the largest Japanese community in Europe, lots of Japanese companies here. There was one street full of Japanese stores,restaurant,hotels...even the people walking on the street were mostly Japanese!
Well, good! We are big fan of Japanese food,so quickly we found one Japanese restaurant and entered! Oh! surprised! Except us and one another german couple, the small restaurant was fully occupied by Japanese men! eating and drinking and seemed they knew each other and also the restaurant owner! Ok! I just think these are the places for Japanese men to gather together after work! Food was pretty good! Still has some problem with the communication. They only had Japanese and German menu,so I have to guess from the Japanese one. Well,at first they expected I spoke Japanese and my partner spoke German. But they were totally wrong,so the conversation was mixed with Japanese,English and German!
River Rhine
Night here was much cooler than in Luxembourg or Paris,maybe because it was more to the north. Finally I could have a good sleep after many hot nights!
Weahter was good in Germany too! We decided first went to Cologne-City about 30 minutes by train from Düsseldorf. The Cologne church was very famours, I wanted to see it for a long time! But it was partly underconstruction,but it was still looked so different! Walked around in the Cologne city and some park.In the afternoon we went back to Düsseldorf,since for dinner we would have with my parents in law. It was a nice night with the parents and we had the very good germen-korean food! Along the Rhine river,there were bars,restaurants, these are the places for the german men hanging out!
Cologne church 
The next day we walked through the Düsseldorf city and along the river, also in some park. In the afternoon we were heading to our last stop-Berlin.
These two german cities were really good,a little bit typical german for me! Less romantic than in Paris but made me feel that in these cities people are more efficient and live for the real life!
In the afternoon we went by train from Paris to Luxembourg-small and quiet place in Europe. Three and half hours in the train and we saw from the window the beautiful countryside of France:little houses,rivers,grape fields.... Everything is quiet and have some special beauty inside.
The train station of Luxembourg was not far from the hotel,but the hotel was also a tiny small one.Well,quite hot inside the room like in the finnish sauna...Get away from the little steam room, we went to the Luxembourg city and try to find the castles,fortress in the map we got. But we were very dissappoited,some of them are under construction,we could not enter it, so walked through the city we climbed a little hill and got lost, finally on the top of the hill which is the EU conference center. But down to the valley was nice,cool in the forest and we saw some hidden fortress and churches,some of them even not on the map!
Old buildings 
Tired! I did not expect to climb hills in Luxembourg,what I imagined was a little quiet place with old buildings and some rivers.... In here there are many old buildings and many hills,also many places are under constructions!
Dinner was good,we were in an Indian restaurant. We were the first customer there so chatted with the Indian owner a little bit. He is quite interested in us because just like us,his wife is from singapore and they are living in somewhere faraway from their country. Food was good and conversation was nice!
Back to the little sauna room,we used the little fan there but did not help much. I woke up at two in the morning because of the heat and sweared to myself I will never come back here in summer!
The next day weather kept being so good! We went to some casemates-tunnels that the spanish built to kill their enemies. These ones are the only left ones,since Luxembourg wanted to be independent they had to destroy most of the casemates. Dark and cool inside the casemates but somewhat I felt scaring,this is the place that the fighting and killing happened. But this is the place to prove the history.
Old buildings along the river 
Luxembourg is nice except the heat! It does not like Paris so busy and noisy everywhere. It just kept its own style,it is a special place with histories!
Shortly after the Iceland trip, we were on road again. This time the destinations are: Paris,Luxembourg,Dusseldorf and Berlin. So first go to Paris-romantic place!
Arrived in Paris at about eight in the evening and try to figure out how to get away from this big and "drangers" airport! Lots of people there and lots of bags,suitcases.....It is a very busy airport,and the people in uniform was trying to keep control everything,unfornately he just spoke everything in French. Well,I think most of the people there do not speak french!
Found the way and took the shuttle bus to the big opera house of Paris. The area is quiet at night,not really like what I imagined- Paris do not sleep! Everywhere music and people.... Well,this area is pretty the opposite. Tired! We walked to the hotel,it was a very old building and have tiny stairs and elevator! Good anyway this is Pairs! We are in Paris now!
Inside the room was quite hot! no air conditioning! It is summer in Paris.
But weather was always every good for us,sun was shining all the time and we got burned a little bit.And trying to figure out what was the French people saying is also fun,even we asked everything in English. We went out on the street,along the Seine river,it was really beautiful! Well I could feel the romantic atmosphere around me!
Seine 
Then we went to the famous Louvre museum,a huge one! One day is not enough to see all the things! The smile of the Mona Lisa, the mysterious Egypcian statues...we have to leave before it closed! Then walking on the big shopping street,mixed with different kinda people, it is a world place or you could see the world there!
Louvre museum 
Dinner was quite good and we met a waiter who is from China,well chinese is everywhere!
Then the tour continued, we went to Versaille but only in the big garden with lots of foutains! The king himself to enjoy so big garden! From there we went to the Chinese street in Paris,it was just like little China in Paris. We try to eat in one of the Morrocan restaurant,but because today was the match for the World Cup-France to Italy,most of the restaurant was closed. We could just get some salad and steak. But it was fine. Well the result was that France did not win that match, otherwise we could see a really big celebration!
Days passed quick, the last day we were in Paris.We went to Noter Dame and Eiffel tower,Picasso museum. Stood in the sun for one hour then we could get on the Eiffel Tower. Good! It was really beautiful to see Paris from the Eiffel tower: The river,the buildings,the churches....everything is small but so elegant! This night we just simply ate some Pizza,but I have to use fork and knife to eat it, so I just ate half and gave up.
Eiffel tower 
The last morning, we by accident went to a white church in Paris on the way to the Dali museum. It was on the moutain,and on the other side of the moutain is the Dali museum. In the afternoon we took the train from Paris to Luxembourg.
White church 
I have to say I love Paris! For her beauty,for her arts,for her culture....(maybe not for the French language)
It was the last half day we were here in Iceland. It was raining and raining. We just went to the city and walk around like other tourists, also walked into some tourists shops.
There is one big church,I think it looked rather strange. Different from all the other churches I have seen before. It is one of the typical things in Reykjavik.
Church 
Well,in the afternoon we took the plane via copenhagen back to Helsinki.
This is our Iceland trip,good one but little bit too short,there are so many things to see!
Give you who read my blog some advice,if you want to travel to Iceland,please rent a four wheel jeep since the mourain road here is not good for normal street cars. Or! Rent a good quality Toyota like us!
Byebye Iceland! Hope one day I have chance to visit there again!
After yesterday's excitement and tiredness,we decided to do more relax things today. One other reason that we were so tired is that we did some hiking up on the moutain yesterday also. Forgot to tell in yesterday's blog.So today I will tell a little bit about it,because it was my first time on such high moutains hiking. Weather was not good,raining and the sky was grey all the time. We climbed up one moutain which near the skogafoss waterfall, then from there we started the real hiking. Up on the moutain with only sheep,grass and mud everywhere,the right side of us are moutains and moutains,but the left is so deep could not really see where was the end. Well, I was a little afraid of the height since I was not so used to it. We climbed up and down moutains,saw lots of inside moutain waterfalls which normally can not be seen. Rain getting to be very hard,we did not have very good hiking clothes,with the wet clothes and wet muddy shoes,after two hours we were going back.
I have to say yesterday was the most exciting day in all the trip.Today we planed to do more relax things. So in the morning,we booked a two hours Icelandic hourse riding tour. Riding hourse by myself also the first time for me.I had a white female horse and they called her princess. She was beautiful and gentle,we became friends very soon.This kinda horses are not big and only exist in Iceland,they are one of the nature forces of Iceland.(In Iceland there are not much animals and plants due to the coldness) The tour mainly in some lava fields and horses are really relaxed walking and sometimes little bit hop hop...Fun! After that each of us even got a certificate about riding horses! ( Well not professional yet)
Yuan and horses
In the afternoon, we drove to one of the national park-Thingvellir. It was huge and beautiful, just one thing lack- no trees. Only bushes and grass on the moutains,but still make them looks green and full of lives! Through the moutains we reached to the big geyser area, there is one geyser can spit out the hot spring about 20 meters high, but that one is not very active. We saw some smaller ones,every ten minutes it spit out the spring about 5 or 6 meters high.Everyone around it cheered and got very excited by it!
Geyser
Further on there is the most beautiful waterfall I have ever seen-Gullfoss waterfall. Big and broad waterfall between moutains,big sounds of the falling water you could hear from very far. Ha! rainbow! a colorful bridge on the waterfall. We walked very closed to the waterfall to feel its power and strength! Well of course we got very wet again!
Gullfoss waterfall 
Ok,this was the last night we were in Iceland,we planed to experience some place that little bit far from the city(the main tourists place). So we drove to the town Akranes, which has 5793 people.It is not a small town in Iceland but for me it is rather small and quiet. Found a restaurant but they did not have English menu, so the waitress tried to translated everything for us. I tried the Icelandic horse meat,but after I ate I regreted.They are so gentle and beautiful and what I just did to them?
It was getting late,so we quickly finished and heading back. To our surprise, from there back to Reykjavik we have to go through a 5,57km undersea tunnel,and it is one of the world's longest underwater road tunnel. Ok, we became fish once in the car! Let's go through the sea!
Good adventures today! It gave our Iceland trip a very good end! [to be continued]
We started very early today since we planed to head to the southeast part of Iceland. Weather was not good,raining very hard.
Drove on the high way,although not many cars,I still felt unsafe since it was raining hard and the moutain road had lots of blindhead. Car kept moving fast,suddenly the rain stopped and little bit sunshine on us again.Strange weather or we just drove out of the raining cloud!
Our planed distination is Skogafoss- a nature resource place. Along the road we saw many waterfalls,small ones and big ones. Water running nonstop. From far away it was just a beautiful painting: Green moutains and clouds gentlely touching the moutain as if do not want to wake them up,at the moutain foot there are camping places, and water keep falling from the moutain. We stopped at the first waterfall because we could go behind the waterfall,well cold and wet after through the water!
Waterfall
There were lots of the waterfalls on the way, but they were all different for me.Finally we were at the Skogafoss, there was also a big waterfall. But we were trying to find the hiking road from there and go for a hiking. Unfortunately we could not. By the map we found another way which could lead us to the same rout.
This way was little bit terrible and much worse than the bad moutain road I said before. And oh God! there was a river running through the middle of the road. If we want to continue we must drive across the river, the river seems not deep but quite broad. Well, first we waited and waited to see if some other cars could cross the river. But there was no one. Ok, we started to hike from here! That was our first decition, weather started to become worse,raining hard and wind and we have to cross the river by our feet. No! after 30 minutes we decided to drive the car cross the river. It was not a pleasant thing to cross the river but we succeded! Like this we crossed about 6 similar sized river. At the 7th, we doubted again, it was much broader and seems much deeper. We wanted to give a try,almost reach the other side,some bad things happened! the right front wheel stucked in the stone and mud,engine stopped! We were stucked in the river! I was little bit scared since it was a place with no one.... Luckily after few minutes,some jeeps passed by and they helped to drag us out of the river. Thanks! I felt much better! and we decided to go back and not continue any more,since this road is not for our kinda car. But there are problems again, back means we have to cross the rivers again,7 rivers! I was counting them one by one. Oh! good! everything went fine while we were crossing back. I want to kiss the great car!!! (I have to do little advertisement here: We were again proved the quality of a Toyota car)
After this scaring and exciting drive, we felt rather tired. So we were back to the city quite early, and went to eat some typical Icelandic food. We had shark meat,whale meat and some sea bird meat. Strange taste! Well, they can not become our favorite food but at least we knew how it tasted! [to be continued]
There is one problem for sleeping here is that it is never get dark.I woke up at five in the morning but thought it was already ten. The weather was good,sun was shining,because it was weekend,everywhere was so quiet.
Got some bread from an Icelandic backery store,drove the car away from the city,we started our Iceland nature journey today!
Well, roads outside the city was getting to be "bad", on the moutain road car can not drive faster than 50km/h. But the moutain road is quiet, no other cars,only us on the road around the moutain.Suddenly felt myself is so small here inside the moutains. Some feelings is strange,can not really describe it good in words.
About an hour, we reached the first place-Lake Kleifarvatn.It is just a lake,but for me it is so big and surrounded by all the moutains. Sky is so blue and also the water,blue and very clear.No noise,no other people,no trees....Just the moutains,the lake and us! Trying to climb one of the small hill, some typical lava field grass and flowers on the hill with some huge bees! I never can imagine that the rocks and the water can be so good to match each other.The rock moutains looks so hard and unmovable,but the lake looks so soft and sometimes moves with the winds! Nature made things match each other so well!
The lake 
Further on led by the "rotten egg" smell, we arrived one of the geyser area-Seltun. White smokes came from the area and water looked so hot and kept boiling itself. But I have to say the smell was rather strong. So we did not stay too long!
Geyser
Along the road, we could reach to the seaside. No beautiful beach but rocks. Some strange shaped stones on the seaside,did not know if it was humanmade or formed by nature. But I was sure that this area was the seagull's paradise, all the rocks are "white" because of them.
Weather changed so quick, it was raining and wind near the sea. So we decided to enjoy the hot spring today. The blue lagoon- the most famous hot spring bath place in iceland. Well,quite much people there but most are like us-tourists. They still use the nature heating system but with 70% sea water and 30% normal water. So mainly we were bathing in the hot salty water and also put some of the mud on the face( they said it was a good mask for skin). The water was warm made me relax. I was in my paradise then!
Blue lagoon 
Ok, the day was quite long and to have a good end for it,we went to a good fish restaurant in the city, and I had some strange flat fish with soft bones. Well, in the new place I adjusted myself to eat new things....[to be continued]
Well,finally I am getting over all the excitment and tiredness from the trips, now start to write my blog. First I will write about my Iceland trip,though it is not a very long trip (4 and half days),it was a good one.
on the 30th,June, we arrived in Reykjavik airport,because Iceland is not an EU country,there was a little problem with me and my passport. But things turned out to be fine,so we got the rented car and heading first to the hotel we booked earlier. Weather was not very good for summer, just rained and little bit cold (10 degrees,while when we left Finland it was about 27 degrees). Well, the way to hotel is not very diffcult,just one long highway,cars were driving all very fast even it was still raining. Along the coast,we could see rocks,grass,but no trees...
Arrived at the hotel, it was a nice little guest house,well....nothing can be for sure, the hotel owner said she had already canceled our reservation while we did not recieve any notification. The problem is during that weekend there was some kinda conference in Reykjavik,so hotels might be full. But the owner was kind,she recommended us to another newly build hotel,because it was new it might still have room for us.
Luckily settled down in the new hotel,well it was not bad ( have to say much better than I expected). Drove our rented Toyota to the city. It was not a very big city and seems everywhere have the smell of fish,since the major industry here is fishing. Walking around a little bit,it was raining again. We found an American style restaurant in the city since other restaurants had no space. Well, the food was ok and this place seems more for local people to meet friends or family going out together.
First day in this lonely island, it started with some problems but in the end turned out to be fine. We had to sleep earlier since the next day we have planed lots of things to do... [ to be continued]
This photo is taken near the Reykjavik harbor 
I was back from Iceland on the 5th,July very early in the morning. It was a wonderful trip,lots of natrual things and first time on a moutain road with nobody around us,just sheep and horses.
Today I will travel to France,so on the road again. I will write about all these trips together when I am back in the late July.
