KIRUNA: Snow mobile. some Skiing. dog Sleighs

Okay let's say I survived Kiruna in a way. It wasn't thaaat cold by the time we got there, so it was good.

Long train ride up north (I just found out it was really quite extreme north when I saw it on the google map a few days ago!) - two trains, to be exact. And we were delayed for our second, as the former had to be derailed at Nassjo C due to someone being on the track; not very sure what happened exactly though. But we were somehow guided to our transfer train, which was apparently waiting for (just) us?!

A couple of minutes just after we got on board the night train.

And so I poured my potato salad over my cold pasta.

Dinner for me that night.

We so needed water on the trains, I bought this bottle of mineral water for 17 kr. I got another Minute Maid orange juice (33cl) for 15 kr on the first train.

Outside the train, when we were almost about to alight the next morning.

This Henrik guy picked us up from the train station in his van.

Taken from the van.

And so you'd understand why we had to follow that certain path later on whilst snow-mobiling.

The doggies that brought us on our sleigh ride the next afternoon.

Rainu (reindeers)!

The apartment in the foreground was where we slept in that night,

and the other one was the toilet, for the girls.

Boys pee-ed outdoor, on the snow, where the P-sign was.

Where the ski shoes were kept in.

Okay. You could already guess that we weren't able to take any sort of shower for two nights in a row!

And so we had to chop our own firewood to make our own fires.

Yours truly also managed to successfully chop a few pieces (:

And now I know how to make fire, too.

Eight boxes of firewood.

Ice-fishing.

Barely a few minutes later there was still no imminent sign of any catch, and PL and I burst into laughter when we heard Bryan YAWN beside us.

It sure looks as though there's a frozen polar bear inside that piece of ice ain't it?

He stood so Near to the LAKE omgg!
In the end one of his legs fell in when the ice cracked, but there was no major problem.

Lunch on the 3rd day;

And they actually have Ayam Brand chilli sauce over there in Kiruna?!

Tea after lunch;

Plus some lemon wafers for a lil dessert.

Our hotel on our 3rd night omg we were uberrr happy when we saw the BATHROOM!

The heater apparently wasn't working for us that night, and so I suggested that we boil some water to either towel clean ourselves or neutralise the cold water from the shower. When it was my turn to shower I realised it wasn't that cold after all, so the shower tap itself worked fine for me (:

Day 47;

The ICE HOTEL.

Sent this postcard back home;

It was received 5 days later, with two non-working days in between.

Ahaha contrary to our mildly wild imagination, the WC wasn't made of ice;

Bryan commented that our butts were just stick to it if it were. Lol.

My dinner which I prepared, for the night train back.

There also wasn't the sleeping cabin for us, so we sat and slept those 19 hours back.

The entire trip was rather tolerable, but it was really no joke when I caught a fever from almost the beginning. I thought I wasn't able to survive the dog sleighride (to go back to the van and to head towards our proper hotel room on the third day) cause I literally had uberrrr cold feet! Apparently the ski shoes we tried on that morning weren't waterproof, so the ice went into our socks and feet, and after we wore back our shoes we were in for the chill across the ocean of arctic ice.

Walking from the town centre to the train station (of around 15 minutes by foot) left me even more down from my already half-alive state. The wind (Arctic Wind please) kept blowing towards our direction and I was dragging my hand luggage while walking across those you-slip-at-every-few-steps icy snow.

Nonetheless, I was glad I managed to ride the snow mobile! Only the three of us - Xinyu Bryan and I - got the chance to drive it (yessss there was like only one?!) cause we owned a driving licence, and Henrik (the guy in charge) said that it'd be dangerous for non-drivers to steer it. And so the rest were seated at the back, in tow, as we drove it. in. our. own. way. We couldn't go like beyond 30km/h cause Henrik was carefully riding his snow mobile in front of us (with all our baggages in tow), so after Bryan had his turn we decided from my turn that we'd slow down/stop for a bit to give some more distance in front, before we accelerated for that lil distance. Just some thrill.

It was also great that we got the experience of living in both types of "apartments" in those two nights in Kiruna. Pretty extreme I must say; one was in The Wilderness without proper bathing facilities! But somehow we suspect that Henrik, his daughter and his partner, Stig, being full-time residents over there, might actually have some decent sort of shower room for themselves.

And as again, we savoured the feeling of returning back to Lund, and to our own rooms (: