This was a journey to be remembered. We played the nicest golf courses around Hua Hin and as an icing on the cake Thai Country Club in Bangkok as the last round before departure to Nordics. That course suited the best for my skills and played there my personal best round so far.
All together 9 teams from different Nordic countries attended to the challenge. Each of the teams had a pro as captain and the rest were amateurs with various skills. Some days were better than the others and we were unfortenatelly punished with some heavy rain on most of the days.
View from Seapine´s club towards the 18th hole and the sea.
Seapine was an interesting course. Build for the military officials, it is the only course in Thailand, that actually runs next to the sea. 16th green is just metes away from the beach. And the 18th hole runs along the shore and of course ends up at the club house.
Banyan has a really nice layout and from the clubhouse, you can see most of the holes. The fairways are quite narrow and the lifted, totally uneven greens gives headache. At least to amateur like me. Nevertheless definitely one of the finest courses I have played.
Black Mountain was magnificent! Many uphill and downhill holes with loads of water, but more player friendly than Banyan. During the round I wittinessed how Toni Karjalainen played the round with 67 shots. He made it look so easy... I need more practice.
Hua Hin by night
In Hua Hin we stayed at the Hilton. Nice location in the center of the city and by the sea. Despite the location this time I did not mange to go for a swim. The schedule was too tight for relaxing. The bar on the top floor of the hotel was really nice.
Viisi penniä is an exellent restaurant beer house combination. The restaurant has been at location since 1956 and the beer house year and a half. Owned and run by friends it makes a nice place to spend time.
Huge variation on beer and whiskey with food on a side. What else does one need? They also have Früh for sale. Sometimes on tap, but very often in bottle.
Penni is also the perfect spot after IFK's home game.
I spend a week in Łódź for business. It was the fifth or so time there. With its 800 000 inhabitants it is actually quite large and luckily survived the wars quite well. Old architecture is available in the city center.
The hotel is built in an old textile mill, so there is a lot of open space inside the building. The architecture and design is really cool! Red brick façade and a rooftop pool complete the beautiful image. The rooms are spacious and really comfortable. Room service works really well and the restaurant & bar are good. Try their Alaskan Iced Tea. We call it as Eskimo drink. Gets you hammered pretty fast.
The surrounding Manufaktura with shopping, entertainment and restaurants completes the stay in Lodz.
Here are a few tips for the stay:
Marcello´s Italian style restaurant makes unbelievable good steaks and pastas.
The lovely Agata special
Hana sushi is good. Do order Agata special for a great variety of different sushi.
Paparazzi is the place to go for the drinks. PornStar Martini is tha shit!
The highway A2 is now opened can you can get from Warsaw Airport quite quickly. Well the A2 is not officially opened yet, but you can get on and off the highway on most of the exits.
I cruised on my rental Jetta 1.2 TSI on 170 km/h and the trip went pretty nice. Couple of Beamers and Mercs were overtaking me on a fairly high speed, but I could not push much faster with my car. No idea, what the official speed limit is and actually, I did not care. The last kilometers before the Airport we not opened and navigation did not know the route. It tried to make me take and exit that was not build yet and no road signs were available. I was saved by Google Maps navigation and had plenty of time to enjoy a cold beer at the Airport lounge.
Today was not a suberb day. The round of golf @ St. Lawrence did not suck, but we could have done much better. Playing at Tissot invitational the prices were good and we managed to win a bottle of Jägermeister for each in the team. A unique Swatch or Tissot would have been better. :) The weather was quite rough with wind, rain, hail an occasional sunshine. The organizer has luckily foreseen this and we got some coffee with Jaloviina during the round.
After the round a quick shower at home and food at Cella. Cella is a nice neighborhood restaurant. A little bit run down, but the food is excellent! Blini with whitefish caviar for a starter and a nice sirloin steak with pepper sauce with a glass of Jema to complete the day. ;) Jema is currently one of my favorite wines in the market. I think a trip to Italy is needed in the near future...
On 1.9.2012 Suomenlinnan Rannikkotykistökilta ry celebrated it's 50th birthday at Kuivasaari fortress. To honor the day some 400 guest did arrive to witness the shots from 12" double pattern gun Obuhov.
I visited this beast for the first time a a young kid and then couple of times during the military service. This was the third I've seen the shot, but the first time I was actually at the location. The sound and the preassurewave on site was incredible! 500 kilos water and 200 kilos explosive sounds like this:
I really do not understand why the Russian build these guns for naval battle ships over 100 years ago.
We had a really nice afternoon sailing with my colleagues in the final days of August. Who would have thought that It would have been such a nice sunny day!
Couple of hours of relaxing travel in light winds with bubbly in glass. Life could not have been much better!
After a refreshing salmon soup the boat took us back to shore and the trip continued to Kappeli. I wish all Thursdays could be the same....
More information about Zangra. She is a lovely schooner to sail with.
The company preferred mobilephone just got a new name: iPaska (Finnish for iShit). It has been stating "No Service" for the whole day. Well, actually I could not give shit. It is better to be off-line for the day and not knowing what has happened today within the company. I spend the day anyway in several meetings can now enjoy a cold beer at SAS Lounge before taking off towards Helsinki.
I was without a working phone for over a day and the only help I got from the service desk was to reset the phone. Well, that helped in a way...now I can talk and text and go online via Wi-Fi with it. That is really advanced and mobile! The whole piece of shit will now be replaced and luckily I have a Samsung SIII as my private phone. It looks and functions better. And btw, I use it as a Wi-Fi hotspot, so my company phone is also up to date.
A beer (read many) before taking off has been a tradition for a quite a long time. Now some travel has been limited, so these occasions are quite rare. I just have a flight at least once every two weeks and now it is more like once every two months. Flying is one thing, but I miss seeing the colleagues face to face and have addition chats with them during the breaks. Having a day off from the daily work is also quite refreshing. Not to mention the whole ambiance around the day. Copenhagen is a nice city to spend your time. Now some snacks (with beer) before finding the right gate.
Die Toten Hosen are probably one of the biggest band in my life. I've never done music by myself, but this band's music has been part of my life since 1990. That is a freaking long time! I have seen them couple of times live and been privileged to be invited to after party with the band.
The greatest moment was after their show at Tanzbrunnen in Cologne back in 2009, where the VIP after party show took place on one of the boats along the river Rhine. The boat was converted to a beach with a direct view on the Dome. I was so not worthy to been there! :) But been there, done that and hopefully can do it sometime again!
The song "Wort zum Sonntag" brings a lot of memories from the youth and will probably be played on my 59th birthday.
