Kiruna: The Adventure!!!

When the SAS plane bumped onto onto Kiruna ground, I woke with a start, looked out the window and saw this:

Cheyy, nolah, tipu. The view at the airport not so hebat. More like this:

But still! White white white!! Everywhere white! Okaylah, I've been to Aviemore slopes for skiing and it's all white there too but I still can't get used to the fact that my surroundings are predominated by the colour white. Soft snowy white.

At this point in the trip, my heart was racing already! Excited-nyerrrr!!

At the airport

Then a Swedish dude with killer radio station tracks in his van came late to pick us up which got us worried a bit.

No really decent picture of him so here's an artsy fartsy one.

What really kills is that he can't speak any English and we don't understand any Swedish. So our entire trip with him sending us around, we had to try very hard to communicate with sign language and whatnot. Actually most of the time we nodded like we understood while he went on happily mumbling in Swedish like a Sims character. Lol.

First night, we rode the snowmobiles to see the Northern Lights but the weather was bad (not Aviemore ski trip bad but just a lil too snowy to ride up the mountains) and it was snowing so we couldn't see any Northern lights that night. Boo hoo. But Cherie, Lynno and I built the first snowman:

A lil cacat but HEY! damn hard to build a huge snowman kay?! The snow was so soft, it didn't want to compact itself and the more snow you put on it, doesn't seem to make a difference to the size so we made do with the small size snowman we had. =D

After that, Kah Wei went and trampled on it like so mean. That barbarian. =(

The next day found us snowmobiling again in the sunny sunshine! The sunlight glittered off the snow flakes so the whole area looked so glittery like glitter dust!

See the sparkles?

Snowmobiling is the bee's knees, yo!

Fo shizzle! Dunno why Cherie didn't want to drive the snowmobile at all - she say thumb pain. I ambil kesempatan and offer to be her driver for the entire trip. Lol!

Up the mountains we go on our frickin' cool snowmobile.

Emo at top of mountains pic.

Then Desmond made us pose like this. =S Haha. But it's all good. Chinaman got some nice photos on his cam there.

Back down again for some authentic Swedish cuisine - reindeermeat with potatoes and lingonberry jam. Slurp slurp. Yummeee!! Also warm lingonberry juice to drink as we sat on warm reindeer skins by the smoky fire!

Salivate!

Then for the dog sled ride we went!

The stupid dog look. Darn cute!

'Course we do! So cute! So handsome! How not to love?! Sumore purposely make cute face for the camera! Wa piang!!

Off we go through the snowy wilderness of the woods where if you're lucky, you can catch sight of reindeer tracks in the snow and maybe even spot one!

Of course we didn't. We saw reindeer in the city tho and not only on our lunch plates!

On our last day in Kiruna, we went to the famous Ice Hotel! It was so amazing! Ice sculptures of every kind! Even a church that people can go get married in and then honeymoon in the hotel and also the Absolut Ice Bar!!

An ice toilet us Asians all gathered around to camwhore with.

Best room in the Ice Hotel. A dragon sculpted into the walls with the tail you can see at the left, the body going round the room ending in the head (which is the bed) in the middle of the floor. Awesome possum.

The other best room in the hotel. You can't see it well in the picture but those are three ice horses we're riding up there. They look really cool cuz they're so real.

The other other best ice sculpture in the hotel: It's an ice car! The headlights would be lit but you can't see them in this picture. The tracks ran along the walls of the room.

Colourful cocktails at the Ice Bar served in ice glasses which are SEK 25 which is about RM 12 per glass. The green colour one was custom-made for Kah Wei. Apple-flavoured too. The yellow is lychee, blue is blueberry, the red one is lingonberry juice.

Cherie advertising the cocktail. "Drink Ice Tundra cocktail for good health! Made from essence of bear's bone and fortified with 24 vitamins and minerals. Drink Ice Tundra and get healthy and energetic today!"

We be chillin'. Me and Lynno be smokin' cigars and sippin' colourful drinks while having intelligent conversation upon the ice chairs.

Klah. A ton of other Ice Hotel pics buthen too many to post up. So moving on!

Random French dude running out onto the icy snow in his tinies into sub-zero temperatures in the camp after steaming in the sauna for about an hour:

Steaming hot!

Unrelated, but some French dudes wanted to invite Lynno to the sauna for some uh... intelligent conversation and hot tea! Lol. French magnet!!

ICE FISHING!!

I'd be lying if I said we caught 35 little fishies that day!

Our Snow Slide Architect Anson Tan!

He built all the snow slides we slid on. Got different difficulty levels sumore, kay, don't play.

Video of Cherie on the most dangerous most steepest slide of all!

Evil Lynn scheming to throw a snowball at Hansel!

A good picture of me and Leif, the tour operator with the funny Swedish accent!

XD

Leif: "You all have to be careful on the snowmobile! Every year, 5 tourists die while on the snowmobile"
Us: *stun*
Leif: "I joke!"

Us very kesian sitting on reindeer skins huddling up on the cold cold cold misty area of the frozen lake with frostbitten fingers and toes just to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights on our very last night and caught a glimpse of it we did and complete our Kiruna experience it did.

MORE cute doggies!! This time they're all caged up in their van cage and ready to go home to their home! Such sad eyes they have!! Why??

I know it sounds extremely cliche but I'll take the risk, all in all, Kiruna was truly an experience I'll never forget. Dog sleds, snowmobiling, snow slides... sub-zero temperatures, Northern lights... Aiyuh, where else?? Was so sad to leave the place and go back to depressing Glasgow where abundant work awaits and lurks in the depths of my messy uncleared study desk. =(

But blogging this just made me happier already! Hahah! Oh yah, not to forget, Yannee made a nice Kiruna trip video that I like which nicely sums up other aspects of the trip. Go watch go watch! Got nice soundtrack also!

Yannee the Terrorist!! I kill you!11

Blek! =P