Now to the second installment of our holidays in Finland. I can’t say really why but even though Helsinki plays such big part of this trip I only have one single pictures from it! It might be because I lived there way too long or took last time enough pictures? No idea. So after one week at my parents cottage we drove to Helsinki to meet up with a lot of friends. With a lot of friends I mean really a lot to visit in just two days. Especially on our second day we had a tough schedule in which we met up with someone every hour from 10am till 6pm.
But now to the beginning of the Helsinki trip. We were already late as we run into tons of traffic jams on the way which meant that we arrived 2 hours late to Linnanmäki the theme park in Helsinki to meet up with several Chinese friends. With Chinese friends I mean exactly the ones I wrote about meeting in Xi’an so you might guess what all went wrong in just two days. We had in Helsinki a lovely place to stay just 10min by car from the city center. However this meant that we were nearly one hour away from any other place we had to visit, talk about excellent planning again by my wife (just as in Xi’an!).
The second day we were supposed to meet with our Chinese friends at Ikea at 10am and then eat there later lunch. Yes, it did not work out that way. When we left at 9am and were half way to Ikea we got a call that they were just preparing once again beef noodles for breakfast. Yep, we had to reschedule everything, meet with other friends first and then went to Ikea to eat lunch on our own. Much later our friends arrived so we had coffee and cake with them. The rest of our Helsinki time was spent on meeting with other friends, checking on our old apartment and rushing on the third day to get early enough to our next location.
The third day which was day number 10 in Finland we drove to Moominworld. From Helsinki it is a bit less than a three-hour drive as you will get stuck behind slow cars all the time. What to say about Moominworld? It is just a wonderful place for little children and also for adults. The amount of Japanese tourists was rather interesting but then again Moomins are still a big thing in Japan and they just opened/ are about to open a Moomin Theme Park over there. We had perfect (too hot) weather and explored the whole theme park for several hours. Everywhere you can find buildings from the different inhabitants of the Moomin Valley and character are walking around and interact with the visitors. We really enjoyed our time there even though Nathan was not too fond of meeting some of the character, especially Stinky and The Groke.
After Moominworld we drove to Turku Harbour to take our ferry back to Sweden. Well the drive through Sweden was nothing special once again but we had a longer stop at the Brahehus at Lake Vättern. Brahehus is an old ruin of a castle which sits about 270m above sea level. From there you have a stunning view over the countryside and especially over the Lake Vättern. The lake itself is so big that you can’t even see the other side. The entire length around the shore of that lake is around 300km, so it is a pretty big lake. At the castle we enjoyed the view and Nathan tried his best in boulder climbing but his mom and grandma were not so fond of it as it was rather high up there. After that trip we drove once again to my Uncle for a night and then left early morning to the second long drive through Danmark and back to Germany. With this our Finland holidays ended and normal working life got back immediately as we started work the same evening we arrived home.
Have you heard about Moomins before?
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Crazy Chinese Family 
I loved the Moomin books, nice to see inside the theme park.
I grew up with Moomin as in the early 90s a Moomin boom started with the new TV shows and movies in Finland and many other European countries. Took years till I learned how old Moomin was already
They’re wonderful books 🙂
I used to love Moomin as a child! It was one of the few animated shows that was dubbed into Nepali. I never thought about visiting Moominland when I was living in Kokkola, but it does look very nice. I think I’d enjoy it! Your children are growing so fast!
Moomin has been dubbed into so many different languages since the Moomin boom in the 90s. It is always surprising to hear people talk/ know them from so many different countries in the world, afterall it all comes from tiny unknown Finland 🙂
Yeah the kids grow up so quickly it is just crazy
Moomin is probably the best known export from Finland hehe 😀
I had to google Moomin. I had no idea they existed. So much pop culture, so little time.
Moomin is especially in Scandinavia and Japan a really huge thing (Japan as the animated TV adaptation are nearly all from there). It has been translated into so many languages over the past decades, interesting enough is also how dark and sinister the stories are the author wrote/ drew especially in the early years
Great the children were excited enough that they lulled themselves to sleep in reasonable time. 🙂 Always good to visit home.
Furthest I’ve travelled by car (actually small moving truck) was when we moved my stuff from Toronto to Vancouver.. that’s 4,300 km. westward. It took 10 days, because my partner can’t drive beyond 200-250 km. each day because he has narcolepsy…falling asleep when his body is still.which is dangerous when driving for long distances/many hrs.
It is through your blog I heard about Moomins. I do think I might have heard of them a very long time ago, but yeah, learnt about it the most from here 🙂 Moomin world seems to be like the real deal with all the characters life-sized. Good thing it was a nice day since it looks like an outdoors theme park. Lol it was amazing you got around and saw the sights with your wife friends’ lateness 😛
Moomins are just wonderful for kids and adults alike. I loved them when I was small and still enjoy watching it with my kids 🙂
The theme park was very interesting, as they had so many references there from the tv adaptation and the original books. They had put in so many details however the souvinirs were insanely expensive, some things like cups were +50% more expensive!
Souvenirs are always so expensive…and I guess that is one way for the locals to milk money from tourists. You can probably find the same souvenirs or a version of them online for a much cheaper price
The exact same items you can buy in Finland in any supermarket, even just in front of the theme park so much cheaper 😂
LOL so much cheaper right in the supermarket in front of theme park 😂 Charging for souvenirs like that is like daylight robbery 😂😂