Mr Claus, Exploring and the Fabulous Disc Golf

As the first part in the title suggest, we got to meet the real Santa Claus! First, our wonderful host, Esa took us to the Santa Claus village (that would have been a hassle to get to otherwise. Santa Claus Village was actually the start of the land that encompasses the Arctic Circle. So, we got to be in the Arctic Circle! (sounds very adventurous 😀 ). We stepped into Santa’s workshop and after a small walk through it, we finally got to meet the man. True to the image of Santa, he was a man who simply radiated warmth and joy. We actually heard him speaking Japanese to a group of tourists before us and when we asked him about it, he said that it was his job to know all the languages  of the world. Was a really nice experience meeting him and despite it being an obvious tourist trap, we still bought photos of our meeting with Santa 🙂

After meeting Santa, Esa brought us around to show us laavus. laavus were basically huts designed to keep the inhabitants warm while they camped there at night, mostly while waiting for Northern Lights. He showed us two different ones. One was on top of a hill that allowed us to see the entire view of Rovaniemi (which was awesome). The other laavu was in front of a huge frozen lake that was about 300 metres from where Esa was staying. This was the deciding factor when we chose to camp out here for our first attempt on spotting the Northern Lights (next post). The snow in Rovaniemi was so magical to me, so soft and deceptively deep. I took every opportunity to play in the snow, whether it was wrestling with Sheng Yang in the snow, having snowball fights, and getting stuck in the snow :D. This was basically our second day.

Day 3 was all about disc golf and Finnish sauna. Esa picked us up and brought us to a disc golf course. Disc golf was essentially the combination of both Frisbee and Golf. We would attempt to throw a frisbee into a collection point. The scoring is exactly the same as golf. We found this sport incredibly fun, The challenge was so real as we often ended up throwing our discs into deep snow, had to waddle our way to the disc and struggle to throw the disc from the deep snow. The funniest part were mainly when we threw the frisbee, it hits a tree and gains very little ground. Every single time that happened, we were on the ground laughing our lungs out. We also took every opportunity to push each other into deep snow and it was a constant and hilarious theme of the day. As for the disc golf, i think i did decently, scoring a few pars and even one birdie. Esa on the other hand, was schooling us on the course. He hit at least apr for each one, a few birdies and even a hole-in-one! By the end we were just craving more 😦  After the dic golf, Esa found a small slope nearby that we could sled on (Esa had a sled). That was so so thrilling and even though the slope looked shallow, we still went down an really fast speeds. Well, except for David, he kept crashing before reaching the end HAHAHA (All in good jest bro). After this activity, Esa bought us into his home to use his personal Sauna (against his girlfriend’s wishes). The sauna was really no joke as i could not last 20 minutes in there before feeling light headed. The rest of the guys lasted the 20 minutes but i was not able to. Still tho, by the end we were so relaxed that we honestly did not want to move. As a thank you, Esa and the four of us had a meal at the northern-most Macdonalds in the world (we treated him to meal). For some reason, Finnish Macs has a burger that was so delicious, i could hardly believe it was from Macs! This was Day 3

Day 4 was mostly just lazing around for me. Sid, Sheng Yang and David visited the town for a few hours but i was way to lazy. After a few hours of boredom, i decided to catch the sunset. However, as a challenge, i tried to bash my way through the wilderness to a nearby hill (that we had visited the day before). It was pretty fun as it was a small twist on some adventures in my army days in that i was bashing in snow. It was not easy at all. I got stuck in snow a couple of times and lucky for the sled i brought with me as i used on a few times to get out of the snow. The view was quite stunning but the real highlight was the super steep slope nearby. It felt pretty dangerous but i did it nonetheless. It was super exhilarating as it was really breakneck speed and the snow kept flying on my face. The walk up was so exhausting that i was only able to do the slope 3 times. By this time it was getting dark and this was where the scary part happened. Having stepped in a very deep patch of snow, i was stuck till my waist and my left leg was not able to move, I was little afraid as there was no one around and it was getting dark. Luckily, i was able to crawl out and made it back to the house safely. Dangerous situation avoided! I shudder to think what would have happened if both my legs got stuck (my phone had no data). That was pretty much the activities for our time in Rovaniemi.