First (brief) night in Helsinki

It was around 530 or 6pm by the time I go to my hotel. It was also dark, kinda chilly, and raining. So not the ideal set up for a lot of exploring. But I still rallied a bit to see what I could of the Kallio neighborhood where I was staying the first night. My original plan was to arrive on the 9th and spend 4 nights in the proper downtown area of Helsinki. But the unexpected flight cancellation from Finnair forced my hand to arrive one night earlier. The apartment I booked for the 9th - 13th was not open on the 8th, so I looked around and found Citybox Helsinki in the southern section of Kallio. Turned out to be a nice curveball that gave me the chance to see an area of the city I might otherwise have skipped over.

I walked around much of this area seen in the screenshot below. More precisely, the corridor stretching north/south between Citybox Helsinki in the bottom of the view and Boneless Flemario near the top of the view.

Since the weather was not cooperating, I didn't spend much time snapping pictures. Just a few here and there. Like this vibe shot.

Or this shot of the exterior of Green Hippo, which was just one of handful of great looking spots in this subslice of Kallio, along with The Alley and Wino.

Continuing north into Kallio and then ducking down some of the east-west streets like Vaasankatu you can find a stretch of restaurants and bars, like Mamas Empanadas and Hilpea Hauki.

Over the next few evenings I would see a number of neighborhood bars like Hilpea Hauki. Reminded me of the neighborhood bars back in Chicago. Understated, cozy, and a great place to have a few beers with friends, especially when it's cold or otherwise unpleasant outside.

Getting hungry, I decided to try Boneless. The Asian bowl options caught my eye. While I was hoping to sit down and relax with my Spicy Korean Bowl, the friendly dude working a closing shift solo informed me that I'd have to take it to go as he wanted to clean up, close up, and beat it. Fair enough. I can remember how the closing shift is. Snapped a few pics of the interior and hoofed it back to Citybox to eat up.

Bowl was pretty tasty. Probably would have been fine with half of it. But I wolfed the whole thing down. Then decided to head out one more time for a spin through the local K-Market that I had passed by in my earlier walkabout. Just browsing the snacks, like all these, which I wanted to try, but did not.

Also took note of the Glogg display (another reminder of Chicago days living in Andersonville). For some reason they also offer a variation that includes cola, with packaging elements that are mostly Christmas-y in nature, but with a Dia de Muertos calavera, too. Huh.

I left without any Glogg or Domino cookies. But I did try the Salmiakki black licorice ice cream. Count me in the 'it's delicious' camp.