Top of the World 世界的顶端 [4]: LumiLinna Snow Castle 雪城堡

People build things with all kinds of materials, in the Nordic, where ice and snow are abundant, it make the perfect building materials, and quite a challenge as ice and snow are made of water which does not have solid shape. I once saw on Discovery Channel the planning and challenges in building an ice hotel.

This trip to the north, we are lucky that the Snow Castle is still standing and it is a rare opportunity for us. The Snow Castle is complete with a chapel, restaurants and hotel rooms. Everything is made of huge ice blocks, like tables, chairs and bar top. There are also ice sculpture in various animals shapes, sculpture on the walls on various world landmarks.

It is a truly amazing experiences, from seeing it on TV to touching it with my hands, wow!

Top of the World 世界的顶端 [3]: Arctic Circle 北极圈

“Iye Ping, you’ve traveled 2 continents, over 10,000 km, from the Equator to the Arctic, you’ve now officially crossed the Arctic Circle, congratulations!”

The Arctic Circle, I think this is about the closest to the North Pole I’ll ever get in this lifetime. Another mark on the map of “the places I’ve been to”! Should I buy a certificate to commerate this milestone?

 

Top of the World 世界的顶端 [2]: Meeting Santa Claus 与圣诞老人会面

Is Santa Claus a myth, a legend or real and very much alive today?
Every Christmas season, there are bound to be movies with the subject of saving Santa Claus, reminding people to remember Santa Claus, if we cease to remember him, he’ll cease to exist.

Well, there is definitely a place for Santa Claus in Rovaniemi Santa Claus Village. Is Christmas all year round here and Santa setup his base camp here – his office, post office and meeting hall. Everyday, adoring fans come from all over the world to meet Santa, for a very reasonable fee, they get to commemorate their brief meeting with video and photo. Santa Post Office received thousands of letters yearly and you can request a letter from Santa to be send to your loved ones with a small fee. You can also send your greetings from Santa Post Office. With so much commercial activities surrounding Santa, I doubt that anyone will let him be forgotten!

I wasn’t brought up to believe in Santa Claus, and Christmas is about Jesus Christ, not Santa Claus. I was very surprised that people actually believed in Santa Claus. Regardless of what people believed, I guessed everyone just want to have hope, hope beyond human capability, miracle to continue living, to face another tomorrow. Don’t look further, Jesus offers that!

Top of the World 世界的顶端 [1]: Snow White Land 无敌雪景

The Arctic Circle – an invisible latitude line with the co-ordinates of 66 – signify the start of The North Pole. The city of Rovaniemi, 900 km north of Helsinki is situated right on this ring. With a free weekend in Helsinki, we decided to take the journey to the Top of the World.

It was a long train journey of nearly 24 hours to and fro. We started on Friday night 10 pm, we took the inter-city train to Tampere, then changed to express train to Kokkola, finally at 4.12 in the morning, we changed to the express train heading to our final destination Rovaniemi. We woke up to spectacular snow view (无敌雪景) ! On one hand we were excited, on the other, we were weary if we can take the cold, the REAL winter of Finland, though we came prepared with double socked, double pants and up to 5 layers of clothing. It was 6-10 below freezing point throughout the day!

Growing up in a country near the Equator,  where it is summer all the year around, seeing snow covered everything from roof top, tree top to everything on the street, seeing everything in white as oppose to its natural colours, is a very different feeling. White can be so beautiful too! And it brighten up the gloomy winter sky.