Sunday, January 08, 2006

Skiing trip (updated)

UPDATE: PICTURES ARE UPLOADED. And the place is Kisakangi or something. I really don't have a knack for Finnish names.

Went to Kisaki-whatever for the skiing trip. (It's south of Oulu cos I can see the airport from there. The name is simply too mind-boggling (long). And of course pictures are much better than words. But one thing I found out is that those guys I'm with don't take many pictures. I am the one 'suaku' (what's that word in English?) that is taking all the pictures.

It's just that my stupid computer can't read the card reader for some reason and I am super pissed cos I wan to upload my pictures and it's not working. I will try to figure out this shiet. Soon? Maybe. Of course maaaaaaaaan.

I am talking to a lot of European people (well most are European, for obvious reasons, but there are also African, American, Mexican and Canadian folks here). It's really too mind bogglingly international here. I can't remember all their names but I have some pictures of them haha.



Manu (from Belgium), me and Nima (from Iran but living in Italy). They're my flatmates. They're both jokers. Real funny people. You can see our accomodation in the background. OK not my block, but it looks the same.
Me, Manu and Louie/Louis aka Chico. Chico's a real cool guy and all the girls give him a lot of their attention. Haha.. he's quite knowledgeable about some stuff and he drinks (beer) like a camel. OK maybe more. Me, Stelvio (from Italy) and Jihye (pronounced Ji-Hei, from Korea). Stelvio is so handsome right? Swoon over him, girls! U wanna contact him? Haha. Wei Ling wanted to have a pic with him. ZM heard about him too. See for yourself ZM!
Jihye, Ederr (from Spain, lookie at his moustache, so man lol!) and me.
Me and Markus (from Austria). He's damn tall, about 1.94m but he says he's short for a basketball player. He's really smooth at picking up girls haha!
Me, Gabor (from Hungary, he likes rock climbing) and Lander.

Talking to these people really makes me slang a bit. I found out that most of them won't understand me one bit if I talk like I do to my friends and family. They'll probably go like, 'HUH?' or maybe politely nod their head when they don't know what the hell I'm saying. Or cock their head to one side. So I might just come back to Singapore with a slang maaaaaaaan. (American shiet.)

I am getting some kinda rash on my skin. I don't know why too. maybe it's the wool? Or it's the dryness? I bathe everyday (well almost, better than most of the others who will just nah forget it).
For those who weren' t skiing, there was a Finnish game to play. There are points on each block. If u hit only one, u get the points indicated by that block. Else if u hit more than one, u get the points equivalent of the number of blocks you hit.

Me trying to hit something.

Ok more about skiing. I tried it today and it was quite fun. Well forget about the 10 times that I fell down and had to pick up myself up even when my skis were tangled in a mess. I was so fed up at one point that I took the skis off and walked on the path. I saw a girl fall face first into the snow when going downhill, so it's not really that fun. I helped her up cos I was without my skis (and feeling really lucky).


(Top)At the starting point and preparing to ski. (Bottom) our Finnish guide (in blue shirt). Anteksi, I forgot his name. Nono, Anteksi isn't his name. Anteksi (un-tek-si) in Finnish means sorry/excuse me.

(Top 3 pics) Getting adjusted to the skis, they're not as easy as you think. One would most probably fall when putting on the skis. So i was very careful. (4th pic) I think I may have gotten it. Posing for posterity's sake. =)
Suzie the crazy German coming over to join me. I thought she didn't know how to ski. Turned out she was pretty ok. Oh yeah, she spent like 50 euros at a pub and didn't get drunk. She said tat's cos maybe she's just too German. Remember Germans have their Oktoberfest. Haha.


But I realized that I wasn't to gain anything by walking back to the starting point. And most importantly there wasn't anyone to see how dumb I looked (cos I was so slow they were all miles ahead of me). So I made myself ski the rest of the 1km track. Yea 1km. Anyway it wasn't downhill skiing which you can break your neck if u fall. It's cross country skiing, with uphills and downhills, albeit small ones.

Skiing is really wonderful once you get the hang of it. Towards the end of the track, a dumbo like me only fell down twice. What a wonderful change from falling down every 10 metres. LOL. And yeah, guess what, I was wearing jeans. They were soaked after the whole thing. Should have worn my ski pants, dammit I forgot.

So I had wet socks, wet jeans, wet underwear and I was just cold and fed up. Went back to the little cottage where they were having a real fire in a real fireplace and roasting makarra. Oh cool, warmth.

The little cottage where we had a real fire in a real fireplace.

Makarra is a Finnish sausage (they call it their Finnish vegetable for reasons explained later). It tastes almost like the hot dog we have back there. But the thing is that it isn't the same as a real sausage. A real sausage contains almost all meat. This contains only 15% meat and the rest is made of flour and also fat (65%). I only knew the fat content at the end of the trip. by then I had 4 safely being digested by my overzealous stomach. I am so going to be FAT.

Roasting some makarra. Nice, fat and juicy sausages.
Eating and interaction. Nice cosy cottage.

After eating, I went out to the snow again, and did one back flip into the snow from this strange looking structure. It's like diving into snow. HOHO so fun. One Italian and one American were competing to see who could do a good flip. The Italian almost landed on his head HAHAHAHA! But its really safe cos the snow is like cotton wool. It's feels so good to lie on snow. AHHHH.














Getting ready, JUMP and landing in the snow. It's more fun if you do a backflip but I am really afraid I might land on my head. So yea, just jump.

But I regretted not going to the sauna cos those people inside were enjoying. In a Finnish sauna (yea the Finns were the ones who invented the sauna, which is pronounced SAO NAH, not SAW NAH) you have to be almost nude, so there are separate rooms for guys and gals. Manu told me that it was a little hard to breathe in there (it was almost 80 degC inside!), but otherwise it was fun. And after that, they were all jumping into snow without their clothes. No kick, Manu said. I was really surprised that nudity was something they weren't bothered about. HAHA! (Sorry people, no pics!)

So well, that's about it. Enough for one day yea? Nope. Going downtown to paint the town red later. Ottok, here I come. Sunday's going to be a lazy day and I will just sleep it away.

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