The Cube

It was a travelling day for us. We requested the hotel front desk to organise a cab to bring us to the Rovaniemi bus station as public bus service hasn't start yet then, €30.10. The plan was to take the 10am bus to Pello, Finland (€22 per person), walked over to Pello, Sweden and continue on another bus ride (SEK 358 per person) to Kiruna. The stop on Pello (Finland) is Pellon Kirkko and the stop over at Sweden side is Pellohallen. 

Please remember that there is an hour difference between Sweden and Finland, with Finland an hour ahead. 

This is the Rovaniemi bus station that we went to get us to Pello, Finland. The 'platforms' were out in the open. There were 2 staffs in the station but they don't sell tickets, appears to be manning some parcels counters. 

So we were on the look out for our bus, once a bus pulled into 'platform' 2, we walked out to the bus. Payment was to the bus driver via credit card. We told the bus driver that we wanted to cross over to Sweden at Pello and if he could let us know when to get off. He very kindly told us that he would drop us off at the bridge. We were the only 3 passengers in the bus, all the way from Rovaniemi to Pello.

View was great along the way but it was raining so not great for photos. 

We were dropped off at the bridge and we walked over to Pellonhallen - which is a supermarket. 

We arrived in Pello, Finland at about 11:30am (Finland time) and our nex bus wasn't till 12:45pm (Sweden time). The bus stop in Sweden side is across the road from a supermarket (ICA Pellohallen), and this is very important because there is a cafe area. We bought some food from the fridge and they heated it up for us, there were also coffee/tea on sale. It was a machine coffee but hot beverage in a heated supermarket in a small town when one is waiting for a bus is a luxury. Also there is a public toilet around the corner of the supermarket. 

We initially stood outside the supermarket while waiting for the bus when it was close to the bus arrival time because it was warmer. The supermarket staffs were super kind and one of them came out to let us know that we needed to stand at the bus stop, else the bus will not stop. 

By the time we arrived in Kiruna, it was evening at around 4:35pm. We stayed a night in Kiruna as there is no more transport to get to Abisko where we wanted to get to. 

As I mentioned previously, the main reason for this trip is aurora borealis. To increase the probabilty of seeing one, we decided to sign up for a tour and hopefully on the earlier part of our trip. December isn't the best month for aurora sighting despite it being right smack in the winter due to high probability of precipitation. However, there's the mandatory company closing over Christmas - New Year period that days away from work are deducted from annual leave allocation - which resulted as to why I travel during this time nowadays. 

Sis found a small aurora hunting tour departs from Rovaniemi where departure time or location depends on forecast at the particular day. No tour is available on bad weather days or when aurora activity is weak, which was why we didn't get on the tour on the day we arrived in Rovaniemi. Our guide, Alex contacted sis to let us know that the tour would be departing at 6pm on the new year's day. 

The tour definitely helped us in self-hunting aurora later on. We learnt that the lights mostly start off as a horizontal streak, and could be grey-ish white looking like clouds. If it wasn't obvious to the naked eye, then try to take a picture as the colour is more apparent in photos. Look towards the northern sky - we find that once we located the Big Dipper (constellation which looks like a spoon), we are usually looking at the right direction. 

While we have downloaded some apps to receive notifications when the aurora activity level increases but it doesn't really correlate with actual situation. Many times the alerts went off but none to be seen when we piled on the layers and went out. I find the aurora live cam works better though. 

Despite departing from Rovaniemi, the clearer sky that evening/night was actually towards Sweden, so Alex drove us to Sweden. On driving passed a wide open area, Alex said he spotted the lights so we got off the car and waited for a short while and the aurora put up an amazing dance. It lasted for awhile before fading away. 

We didn't bring tripod, not because being ambitious but the logistic of having to lugging it around. 

After leaving the first stop location, midway driving Alex spotted aurora again so we stopped by the road side and started watching the lights dance. This round was as strong as the initial round too. It was indeed a very happy new year's day.

We saw aurora again at 2 different nights when we were in Abisko. The aurora was strong even when we were just standing right outside the hostel. We went to a lake nearby the following night to wait for aurora but it wasn't as clear. They appeared mostly as streaks of white-greyish clouds. 

For the lack of words to describe this, it was truly an amazing sight. I am most thankful that our aurora hunting was successful, and that aurora put up with such a spectacular dance. 

We were onboard the Santa Claus Express from Helsinki to Rovaniemi. There were 3 of us, we chose to book a sleeper cabin with shower and toilet, and another bed without shower/toilet. Both cabins were selectd to be close to one another so that the one staying in the berth without facilities can easily use the shower. We were in the impression that the empty bed not taken would be available for sale so I took this bed as I'm used to staying in dorm so I don't mind having to 'room' with a stranger. 

Once you board the train, you can enter the cabin that you have paid for as the cabin doors would be unlocked. We were at coach 26 and I located the cabin. Unfortunately the door was locked. I thought someone was inside and had locked the door. I knocked and waited, then knocked and waited again. After my sisters have settled, I brought my backpack up to their cabin to deposit and decided to track down a train inspector. 

I reasoned that there would at least be someone in the dining cabin, so I went there to ask. I was told the inspector would be at coach 26 soon for ticket inspection so I went back to stand outside my locked cabin to wait. I was told the cabin is faulty so I was allocated another one - at coach 21.

After retrieving my backpack from my sisters' cabin, I moved towards coach 21. On arriving at the newly allocated cabin, I realised the door was also locked. Fortunately I met a train inspector on my way to this new cabin just before and quickly went to find him. It appeared that he thought nobody was using the cabin and locked it. 

I left my backpack in the cabin, grabbed the things I needed for shower and then walked back to coach 26 to where my sisters were for shower. I was a little paranoid due to previous experience where I don't know how to operate simple procedure of opening door. So I tried to open the cabin door right after I closed it, and guess what - door remained tightly locked. 

The "new" cabin I was assigned to was one that has more space for pet. I'm not sure if this was the reason why the key card works differently from the one sis were in. I went to their cabin to shower and to ask for help on how to open door. I was lucky this round and we bumped into one of the ticket inspector. I was told I need to push in the key card harder, all the way in till it clicked. 

Aside from a little running between coaches in the beginning, the train was comfortable and I had a great night sleep. 

We arrived Rovaniemi at 7:20am the next day and walked to the Airbnb we booked. The Airbnb host was very kind to allow us to check in so much earlier that the usual check-in time. It was about 15 minutes walk from the train station. There was a small supermarket just a block away and the airbnb was furnished with kitchen so we cooked our meals in Rovaniemi. 

Rovaniemi, located within Finnish Lapland and the Arctic Circle is also known as the "official" home town of Santa Claus. So naturally we paid Father Christmas a visit in the Santa Claus village.

We took a bus to the Santa Claus Village and noticed that normal buses are cheaper at €3.60 per person for one way. The fare for Santa Claus branded bus was €4. 

Santa Claus office is the centre building upon entering the village. You'll have to make an appointment to see Santa. We were ushered in at the front of the office but there was a queue to see Santa himself at his office.  

One of the elves will take a photo of your meet and greet with Santa and available for purchase right after. We just wanted to see Father Christmas but not interested in getting the photos so we didn't get any.

The other popular thing to do is to send a mail or postcard from the Santa Claus Post Office. Mails delivered from here comes with a special Arctic Circle postmark. There are 2 mail boxes - a yellow and another red one. Mails through the yellow mailbox will be delivered right now while mails through the red one will be kept and sent for Christmas time. 

Another thing you can get here or from Santa's office is a letter from Father Christmas himself. It is said that the letter will be mailed using Santa's own special stamp and Santa Claus' Main Post Office postmark. I ordered one but as we were there just passed Christmas in 2022, I haven't seen it yet as it would be sent in 2023 Christmas. If you want, you can order it online but getting it in Rovaniemi feels different. Haha. 

This was expensive and moving after 1 night makes holidays a bit more hectic. We had 3 nights in Rovaniemi but after recommendation from friends we decided to find an igloo stay. Given we were travelling in a peak period and by the time we decided to book a stay in an igloo, we had limited options. We found this and got a premium igloo with alcove with breakfast included. 

It was comfortable but maximum heating allowable is 25 degrees which was decent but given how cold it was then, a little warmer would be welcomed. It would have been excellent if we managed to catch northern lights by lying in bed but unfortunately weather wasn't great when we were in Rovaniemi. It was fairly cloudy. There was a switch to slowly melt off the snow on the glass roof.

There are other activities arond Santa Claus Village like reindeer ride, dogsledding and food which we did none of those. We did have intention to do dog sledding but were planning it for later part of the trip when we were in Sweden. As for food, we read that Santa's Salmon Place is a popular option but we felt the price were a little steep so I ended up getting salmon from the supermarket and fried it ourselves. Different of course, but much cheaper option. 

Other things to do, of course was souvenir shopping. We got some magnets but the range of things on sale defnitely more than just that. 

I reasoned, if they are above budget to purchase, then I'll take a picture and look at them. Or tried to take a photo of a nicely shaped snowflake...