My Journey: Kiruna 1

Kiruna - a place i'll never forget, a place i'd never imagine i'll have the chance to visit, the coolest place ever.... A group of six, suz jian, qristine, pei fong, yi shan, wei meng and me start our journey right after our DDS exam, though juz slept for 1 and a half hour last night, the adrenaline rush cause by excitement keep me going. We took a night plane from glasgow to stockholm (which is the capital of sweden), planning to spend our night at the citycentre bus station due to the tight budget, but found ourself wandering outsite the bus station because the station doesn't operate 24 hours. Can't bare with the cold weathere which is -4 celcius, we went to a kebab restaurant for shelter and had some food while waitng for our bus to Arlanda airport where we spend our night there.....

Stockholm Arlanda airport

Found a nice spot to sleep, with christmas tree beside

SAS plane to kiruna . . .

14:00

After 1 and a half hour of flight, we reached Kiruna airport, which gives a strong christmas atmosphere for the airport is painted in red and there is snow everywhere. Due to 1st time encountering snow, i'm all excited and nearly slip when walk towards the airport from the plane.

Kiruna airport

Cool welcome sign in ice

Escort by the ice hotel staff who looks like"cystal maiden" in warcraft and were send there by this bus

16:00

What lies infront of my eye is astonishing, it's just so unbelievable "COOL".... So this is how the ice hotel looks like. After checking in, we spend some time touring around the place and were given some tips of staying in the cold room, have some idea of how the ice is transfer from the river Torne nearby . Though the ice hotel is smaller and more simpler than i immagine (different form what we seen in one of the episonde of James Bond), i'm really amaze on how they build a hotel with ice. In the design suit, every room had it's own theme and were design with ice sculpture. The bed is also made of ice with a reindeer skin lying on top of it. We are provided with a blue sleeping beg where we can stay warm sleeping in it.

What can i say, COOL ....! Ice Hotel

A photo taken form inside, note that there is chrismas tree outsite.

Gateway into the ice room

Design suit

Thanks for the tips, i know that pillow is definitely for sleeping

Ice bowl

Ice Chair

18:00

After satisfying with taking pictures around ice hotel, we prepare ourself for the Northern light trip organised by Camp Alta, where we are suppose to drive the snow mobile through fozen lake and forest to a hill call Aptasvaara, where we have a high chance of having a clear view of the Northern light. Ironically, we didn't get to see it up the hill but on the way to the hill. It looks like a green smoke which change it's pattern ramdomly and slowly dissapear in sight after some time. The way towards Aptasvaara is adventurous and challenging one as the tourguide told us the bad weathere yesterday has cause the path to become uneven and bumpy. We drove to a camp site after reaching Aptasvaara where we sit around the fire and had a wee chat with coffee and some snacks....

Snow Mobile

Northern Light ... !

Camp fire

Exhausted after the ride with suz jian and qritine

Sweden gang with the tour guide, Life

11.46

Get back to the ice hotel and took a hot bath not following the advice of keeping our body natural oil as an insulator. After that, it's time for a drink, we went in to the absolute ice bar in the ice hotel, where our drink is serve in ice not with ice, the container itself is ice instead of glass. Ordered a blue drink, it's defenitely chilled, but the portion is too little. That's the last place we spend before we get our sleeping bag from the reception and headed to our own ice room.

Craving for a drink