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| How about waking up to this beautiful sunrise everyday? |
[020212-040212]
Upon hearing that I went to Finland for exchange, one of the first things people often ask is what's the lowest temperature that I ever experienced. Technically, I didn't experience my lowest in Finland, I had it in Kiruna, Sweden instead and it was..............
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| YES, FREAKING -36DEGREES OMG. |
One can never be outdoors for more than an hour despite wearing 5 or 6 layers :/ I swear you won't want to! Usually wind plays a really important role in determining how cold it is but beyond a certain temperature, it doesn't really matter whether there's wind or not, it's still ASS FREEZING all the same. Water freezes almost instantly, tears turn to ice on your eye lashes.......
Kiruna was the place that celebrated many firsts, first time riding on a dog sledge, first time riding a snow mobile, first time seeing an ice hotel, first time setting up a fireplace in a real wilderness cottage, first time seeing northern lights, first time experiencing temperatures beyond -30degrees Celsius.
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| Outside our wilderness cottage |
The first thing we did upon arrival was to go for a ride on a dog sledge after nightfall. (Honestly, I don't remember how late it was, I don't think it was that late, nightfall happens after 4pm in winter :P)
A sledge sat 4 people and a guide, and had to be pulled by 10 to 12 huskies!!! I felt bad for them, having to pull my fat ass along the cold winter night :/ They were panting non stop when we ended but it looked like they actually enjoyed the work out, rolling in the snow to cool down thereafter.
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| Isn't he cute??? :D He's one of the most well behaved doggie that was pulling our sledge! Most of them were rather aggressive, seemingly seconds away from eating us up whenever we get within 30cm proximity. |
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| Us with our guide and doggie ;) |
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| awwwwwwwww |
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| Everyone wants a shot w the well behaved doggie ;) Please pardon my lion head, it was really FREAKING COLD, I had to wear more! |
After some intensive dog sledge riding through the cold winter forest, we headed back to our cosy little cottage to rest.
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| Down jackets and boots - winter essentials |
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| COSY FIREPLACE <3 |
After resting for a while we decided to head out for a walk and much to our amazement, we saw THIS:
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| YES, NORTHERN LIGHTS!! As it was my first time seeing these green streaks of wonder, I excitedly ran back to get my tripod to capture them. It took a lot of experimenting to get the aperture and shutter speed settings right. |
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| After like an hour, our cameras and bodies could not stand the cold so we had to return to the cottage to rest for a while. |
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| After my camera lens unfroze itself, I headed out and was delighted at the sight of the ongoing light show. |
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| Look at how the streaks of green blended into the night sky! |
After a long and cold night, all I wanted to do was to snuggle under the covers and snooooooooooze!
The very next morning, I woke up to THIS
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| Isn't it beautiful? |
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| RODE A SNOW MOBILE FOR THE FIRS TIME AND IT WAS MAD FUN :D WE DROVE OURSELVES TO THE ICE HOTEL ;) |
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| Check out the fur coat door |
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| Exquisite benches in the ice chapel |
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| I was wearing 6 layers!!! 2 Thermals, knitted long sleeves, trenchcoat, down jacket, wind breaker jump suit! 2 layers of thermals underneath my jeans, 3 pairs of socks and 3 pairs of gloves! |
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| The walls had such pretty designs |
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| Look, electronic card reader works even in ice |
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| We went up to the viewing balcony and the sun was really GLARING. |
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| QL, me and XR all wrapped up! |
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| FZ, YI and I, with Alex looking away |
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| All the rooms had their own themes and this one is on Egypt |
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| Those suites have their own unique names and are designed by artists year after year! It's always different every winter and one can actually submit your own designs if you deem fit. |
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| #foreveralone |
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| Clarence, Ivie and Nigel |
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| I like this bedroom because it gives off this princess air |
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| Nigel. Clarence. IV |
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| YI, FZ and the gaming machine |
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| What an ego booster |
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| Clarence and I |
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| The BEAR. |
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| If I'm not wrong, this is the bed fit for a king! REALLY BIG. |
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| Spongebob would love this! It looks like a pineapple! |
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| A math geek's fav |
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| I don't get why is this Fibonacci though |
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| omg giant cup! |
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| How many carats is that? :O |
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| We also checked out the ice bar ;) |
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| Isn't the ice mug cool? ahahaha I didn't order anything because it was rather expensive and we had to drive snow mobile back HAHAHA (ok the latter wasn't really taken in good consideration) |
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| With the 2 酒鬼 |
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| We had to ride back in the setting sun..... |
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| Funny thing about riding on snow mobiles is that one could be resulted to an alcohol testing by traffic police! Yes, there are traffic police in the deserted areas up north too! According to my Spanish friend, Enrique, he got stopped by a traffic police somewhere in the laplands and had to do an alcohol breath test! He was scared that the crazy amount of alchol he consumed the night before would show up but thank god it didn't. |
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me in my fatsuit and my snowmobile ;)
On the ride back, it wasn't all that smooth for my friends (Kayla and Finian), they got into an accident with a lamp post. The windscreen of the snow mobile was shattered and K fractured her left leg :/ Everything was pretty chaotic and she had to be taken to a hospital in a helicopter because the nearest hospital was a distant away. Lucky she recovered after a few months! |
Later that night, we saw northern lights again!! Aren't we lucky? This time we went to the (frozen) lake to get a better picture ;)
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| This is my favourite, it's been my fb cover picture for months hahahahah |
:) We were really lucky because a bunch of friends who went a few days before we did never saw anything! Back in the city that I lived in for a while, Oulu, there were a few sightings throughout winter too but i sadly never caught any :(
This is the last post for Sweden and it also marks the end of the posts with so much snow! Subsequent ones won't have anymore snow :(
OMG I MISS SNOW!
Labels: Kiruna, Sweden
