First Morning in Helsinki - exploring Kallio and the area around Hakaniemi Market Square

Woke up the morning of Thursday the 9th with a few hours to use before I had to move into my booking.com apartment rental. Weather was not great, but it wasn't raining. Just kind of wet, gray, and a little cool.

I learned that the Citybox had another entrance / exit that gives a better perspective on its great location. The hotel lies along the main avenue coming up from downtown Helsinki. It is steps away from Hakaniemi Market Square, and as I learned in my previous evening's walkabout, it is only a few minutes walk up to the bars, cafes, and restaurants of Fleminginkatu and then the Harju area. When you step out that back (main?) entrance you have a direct view in one direction toward the intersection with a variety of transportation connections, and then the Kallio Church stands as the main landmark in the other direction. (Note - learned later that you can climb the top of the tower on weekends - some nice pics in that Google Maps link).

I grabbed a scooter and wandered a bit. For what it's worth dott appears to be the scooter of choice in Helsinki. Might have seen some Bolts around. And there is also RYDE. But I saw dott everywhere so that's the app I installed and went with for my Finland scooting.

The plan was to cover more of the Kallio area. Maybe some side streets, maybe some of what I had seen the night before. For the most part it was mission accomplished. I don't know how precise the 'my routes' feature of Google Maps is, but this seems generally representative of the ping-ponging around I did.

Initial impressions were that it's a nice, residential area of the city. Quiet streets. Some local schools with kids enjoying the playgrounds and parks (saw a lot of this in the few days I was there).

Also was fascinated by the geometry of some medium-sized apartment buildings.

This mural was impossible to miss. Looked it up and see that it's by a Polish street artist. Some more backstory here.

I also snapped my first of many pictures featuring the fall foilage. After this year's October trip and last year's November trip to Bulgaria I have decided that I should prioritize traveling this time of year. While we have some version of seasons in la CDMX, we do not have the same kind of color changing in the trees. I do enjoy seeing that. Nostalgia? Maybe. Regardless, it's a nice visual element when touring around somewhere new. Adds to the charm of these residential areas of Helsinki, which, I imagine would appear a bit less inviting in March with bare trees, grey skies, more slush than snow. September / October does seem like a solid time to visit.

I hopped off the scooter and then covered some ground by foot. Plan was to check out the area around Hakaniemi Market Square. The area is pretty cool. However I have to confess that I failed completely to actually enter the Market Hall. I think I tried to approach it from the wrong side and then got distracted / forgot about it / needed to get back to check out of my hotel room. But based on what I'm seeing in the Google Maps listing photos it looks a lot more interesting / local / pleasant than the more famous Old Market Hall downtown. Next time I'm in Helsinki I will make sure I figure out how to visit. I think it might be the building in the first picture below. As you can see, it was pretty quiet when I was there (Thursday morning, 10:30 ish).

Places I did notice while walking around included Dos Tecolotes. I just caught the papel picado and the calavera in the window. But looks like it has strong reviews.

Hippie Shake Records looks worth a browse if I had more time. Again, nice reviews.

And then the Asian cafe and grocery right next to each other and just down the block from yet another. I popped in for a quick look. Would be nice to have in the neighborhood.
KIM Cafe

JK Shop

Last thing I'll include in this post are a couple of shots where I saw a little boat heading out on the water just south of Hakaniemi.

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.

Helsinki trip part II - how not to use public transportation from the airport

Despite best intentions I fumbled the ball in getting myself from the Helsinki airport to my hotel (Citybox Helsinki). I had installed the HSL app. I had watched a few YouTube videos on how to navigate the process. Thought I was ready. Maybe I was semi-delirious from being 21+ hours in transit by the time I arrived. Maybe I panicked. But I'll explain below what I did and what I should have done. I mean, I did obviously get myself to the hotel. It just wasn't as clean as it should have been.

First, some nice pics of the train station connected to the Helsinki airport.

You start with a minimalist escalator setting that takes you to the platforms. Playing opera on the screen. (On the departure ride it was ballet. Classy.)

Took a vertical perspective, too, for some sense of the descent.

First part was easy enough. Paid for my ticket at one of the machines.

Got myself on the train. Signage was clear enough ...

And the train car itself was clean, quiet, pleasant.

Once on the train is where things got squirrely. In retrospect maybe I could have prepped a bit better. After spending 5 days using the HSL app it's easy to see what I should have done. What I clearly should not have done is reflexively open up Google Maps and try to figure it out from there. That led me down the path of getting off at Pasila / Mall of Tripla (which is nice; some pics toward the bottom). And that involved walking around in the rain for a few minutes trying to figure out what my next connection was before I bailed and called a Bolt.

There is a learning curve in understanding exactly what you're looking at in the app. I'll try to explain it a bit below.

First, open up the app and enter your start / finish points. In this case, the airport and the Citybox hotel.

You are then presented with a variety of options. All of these show all the info you need to make your choice, once you understand what it is you're looking at. There is the walk time between connections. There is the type of transit you're looking at for each leg. Purple is the train. Blue is the bus. Red is the Metro (unless it's the red bus, which I don't fully understand tbh). And Green is the tram. You can decide if you want to minimize walking time. Or maybe you're okay walking if that means you're not waiting outside for a bus. Whatever your preference. Here are a couple of screenshots of the options I would have had to get to the hotel from the airport.

One thing that is not super obvious is that much of the walking time may be undeground. Like the walk at the airport assumes leaving from baggage claim or something. But it's all covered and simple. Similarly the walk time from the train to the metro is also mostly if not entirely covered.

You can then click into the step by step details of each option, which show you the direction of the train / tram / bus, the stops you go through, and a handy map integration so you know exactly how to get between legs of your journey. That map tool became super handy as I learned my way taking the trams over the next few days.

So my trip should have been dead simple. Take the I or P train all the way to Helsinki Central. Then grab the metro one stop and finish with an easy walk. But then I never would have had the opportunity to take these pics of the Mall of Tripla around rush hour. Another Burger King!