Jan 4, 2010
2009 has gone quickly with some lovely trips! I'm not sure if I'll ever write about all of them in detail remembering what I saw and did but the photos can tell us how beautiful places I visited.
In summer 2009, I printed out a map of Europe and marked the countries and the capitals where I'd been to see where I hadn't been. It was my plan to visit all European countries while I live in Helsinki.
I realized I hadn't been to Ireland though I had been to the UK many times. So I booked a ticket and flew to Dublin. I wanted to go somewhere beautiful in the nature and looked at the photos in the Lonely Planet. I chose to go to the west coast and checked the train schedule and local tours. I went to Galway by morning train and joined the Galway tour, the first day to Connemara & Cong, and the second day to Cliffs of Moher & Burren. Though it was rainy and windy on the both day, I was glad to see many beautiful places and met some fun people in the tours. I wish I had more time to take photos. But one has to compromise when it comes to a group tour! Photos I took there are at
http://smileyumi.typepad.com/photos/200909_irelandwest_coast/index.html
One of the other unmarked places was Iceland! I imagined it would be magical there. I asked Japanese friends living in Helsinki and we all decided to go there on Christmas holiday. Well, it was magical indeed. We went Geysir and Gullfoss and happened to go through the Pingvellir National Park. We even didn't know about the National Park but it was on the way to the famous Geysir and the frozen water fall (during winter), Gullfoss. And we enjoyed Blue Lagoon hot springs : ) Photos are at
http://smileyumi.typepad.com/photos/200912_iceland/index.html
We also could see the Northern light and I took many pictures. I'd like to upload the photos with some commentary later. I think it's fun to write about our excitement with the photos.
And this morning, a fried was asking if I was interested in going to see the Season of Light 2010 in the Helsinki city center. Yes, I wanted to go to see it! And it was excellent. Photos are at
http://smileyumi.typepad.com/photos/201001_helsinki_light_sho/