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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 4 (going north in Finland)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 4 (going north in Finland)

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The Fin5 competitions started at Rautavaara airfield and I have signed up for all except the last day competitions. I thought I had enough time to make my way from France after the race Saturday evening there as the race started in afternoon for the first day. My intention was to fly from Geneva from Helsinki Saturday late evening, then do a morning flight to Kuopio where I could take a bus to the competition before noon, however, this plan…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 3 (LGSA Classic)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 3 (LGSA Classic)

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This day I did my first race in my trip – LGSA Classic. It is a 13 km lake swimming race from 🇨🇭 Lausanne to 🇫🇷 Évian-les-Bains. The start was divided into 4 waves based on the expected finishing time, from slowest to fastest, and I was assigned wave 2. The course was a simple straight line, therefore I expected to aim for the destination directly. However it was impossible to see the exact finish beach 13 km away so…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 2 (Geneva to Lausanne)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 2 (Geneva to Lausanne)

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I didn’t plan to visit any attraction on this day as, apart from the international organisation, I was not particular interested in anything. What I had on this day was only a supersaver train ticket from Geneva to Lausanne, and a hostel reservation there. I made a mistake of buying a non-stop train ticket to Lausanne, which was about 2.5 km past the hostel I was staying in rather than the nearest station which was only 1 km from the…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 1 (tour of Geneva)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 1 (tour of Geneva)

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Geneva is a metropolitan city which is the home of many international organisations, among them the most famous ones are the UN and Red Cross which we can visit. Therefore I planned to visit both, just next to each other, on the day. However because of the baggage and accommodation trouble the day before, I visited the Red Cross and Red Crescent museum first, then took a bus to the airport to get back my baggage, returned to the city…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 0 (departure)

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – day 0 (departure)

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My trip started on 2019-07-10, leaving Hong Kong by taking flights SU 213 to Moscow Sheremetyevo and transferring to SU 2382 to Geneva. I tried to pack to a carry-on only but failed to do that, because I wanted to bring my laptop in the trip and it contributed a lot to the weight, so I ended up having a 45 L backpack as checked luggage, taking the risk of baggage misconnect. (Aeroflot is notorious of baggage misconnect especially in…

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Trip to Europe summer 2019 – introduction & preparation

Trip to Europe summer 2019 – introduction & preparation

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When the event calendar of TrailO world ranking events was published last year, I started planning the events and trips that I would go this year. One of the events that I would definitely go was FinTrailO, as I had good experience participating in the 2018 event, and this year there were 3 instead of 2 world ranking races, also I grabbed a cheap air ticket well before. However, doing 3 in a year was not enough, as the best…

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Nordic trip 2019 – conclusion

Nordic trip 2019 – conclusion

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I visited 5 cities in this trip, Stockholm on the west, then Porvoo on the east, then Tampere on the north, then Tallinn on the south, with Helsinki as the centre. I did 5 orienteering competitions in total, with 4 of them having WRE status. However, I got the last place in both FootO competitions in Sweden, in both middle distance and sprint distance. My places in the 3 FinTrailO competitions weren’t good too, not reaching the median in all…

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Nordic trip 2019 – crossing the Gulf of Finland

Nordic trip 2019 – crossing the Gulf of Finland

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On the last day of my trip, I took a day trip across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn. I took the M/S Finlandia, Eckerö Line cruise-ferry between Helsinki and Tallinn. That day was a sunny day like my initial days in Stockholm and I couldn’t resist my temptation to go swimming in 5°C water at the long Pirita Beach. That beach is a long sandy beach, typical of the beaches in Baltic countries, with blue flag certification but it…

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Nordic trip 2019 – sauna trip went wrong

Nordic trip 2019 – sauna trip went wrong

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After FinTrailO day 2 in Tampere, I went to a sauna. I had read from tourist websites that people normally use sauna in combination with swimming, for example, swim – sauna, or sauna – swim, or even alternate between them. After I changed my clothes, I first went swimming for about 28 minutes. The lake temperature was 5°C at that time. Afterwards, I entered the sauna. However, not long after I entered the sauna, people thought that I was in…

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Nordic trip 2019 – orienteering in snow

Nordic trip 2019 – orienteering in snow

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On 4/5, day 5 of my trip, I went to Porvoo for doing FinTrailO. TempO and PreO were held in that day. However, the terrain was too difficult for me, mainly rock and cliff hidden in forest. I scored 790 seconds for 30 controls in TempO, where the winning time was only 237 seconds, and 15 out of 28 in PreO. It was snowing in May! However, the preceding days in the end of April were very warm, like in…

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