Splendid China ...

I have just returned from a longer than expected trip to China and Hong Kong. The trip has given me material for a few blog posts, so this first one will cover my trip to Shenzhen, for meetings of the Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF) as I am the chair of their Communications Working Group.

We travelled to Shenzhen from Hong Kong by bus, crossing Shenzhen Bay and seeing hundreds of these rafts, apparently a pearl farm. After crossing the bay, we crossed through Chinese immigration and were soon at our home for the next few days, the Intercontinental, inexplicably a Spanish themed hotel in China. The sight of the porters, dressed as gauchos complete with pink long socks and cowboy homes, seemed rather incongruous.

Our hosts in Shenzhen were one of the MMF member companies, TCT mobile, a joint venture between Alcatel and TCL, who are based in Shenzhen. After our work was concluded, they kindly organised a visit to Splendid China, a "folk culture village", or theme park, showcasing the different regions and cultures of that vast country.

Unfortunately, rain prevented us from walking around the park, but we got to enjoy the show, which featured a range of dancing and singing acts. After the show we enjoyed the second of the two Chinese meals on our trip, which were quite different from those I've experience in the UK or USA.

The scale of Shenzhen was staggering. A population around twice the total of Finland and with massive manufacturing facilities. One employer has a factory complex with a workforce of around 300,000 people; more than half the population of Helsinki, with dormitories, cafeterias, shops; in fact everything that an average town would have on one campus.

It was a fascinating trip, but by the time we were due to return to Hong Kong, we were already aware of the Icelandic volcano and that our flights back, mainly to Europe, might be a little disrupted.

My travelcard ...

February 14 is Valentine's Day. Of course, I realise that as reminders go, this is pretty dreadful as it is now March 11. If you had forgotten to send a card to your beloved, or admired, it is now woefully late.

No, I mention this fact, because, ever since I joined the telecommunications industry, Valentine's Day has usually fallen during Mobile World Congress, probably the biggest tradeshow for our industry.

Of course, it used to be called GSM World Congress and happened in Cannes, then the name evolved to 3GSM World Congress to reflect changes in technology and now, avoiding any partisan suggestions from the name, we have Mobile World Congress, or MWC to the cognoscente. And for the last few years it has been held in Barcelona.

But such detail is not essential for this tale. All you really need to know is that, for the last few years, I have not been at home to swap Valentine's cards or affections on the day. My darling wife has made a point of sneaking a card into my luggage before I travelled and I looked forward to finding and opening it on the day. But this year, unusually, I was not at home before MWC and so instead she mailed it to my apartment.

For my part, I had arranged for a card to be delivered through Moonpig (thoroughly recommended) as well as roses and chocolates from Marks & Spencer (also recommended). But when I called home that evening, my beloved was somewhat distressed to hear that her card had not arrived in time for me to take it with me. Of course, I don't need a card to know that she loves me (though I recommend to male readers they they don't try the same line if they forget to send such tokens to their beloved). But, we both assumed that the card had been lost in the post and thought no more about it.

So, I was a little surprised to find this card on my doormat this evening when I got home from work. I guessed at once from the colour of the envelope that it was the missing Valentine's greeting. But what I hadn't expected was the inked stamp above the address (parts of which I have masked for reasons of privacy). It says "MISSENT TO THAILAND".

My wife trained as a teacher and has, at least to my eyes, clear and atttractive handwriting. But someone, presumably in the Royal Mail sorting office in Southampton where the card was franked on February 8, decided that my card was intended for Thailand, rather than Finland.

Though I am rather jealous that the card had a rather more exotic journey than I did in February, I would not want to be the postal worker now facing the wrath of my Mrs!

A sight for thaw eyes...

This is the scene in Senaatoori this afternoon. I've been walking through the square for weeks enjoying the snowmen's playground. This is all that remains - almost all of the carrot noses and other decorations are gone.

I particularly enjoyed the alternative snow art, on the steps up to the cathedral, you can see that someone has carefully swept the snow away to form a question mark. Was this intended to have a deeper meaning, calling in to question the very nature of belief at the foot of this monument to religious observance? Or just a bit of a laugh after one Koff too many? I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

As I walked home, the idea of a nap to sleep off the wonderful brunch at Crustum was becoming more appealing, until I saw the workmen outside my building. I could't get in through the front door because of their work, this was the scene from my balcony. The one on the left has a jackhammer, breaking up the frozen snow and ice from the pavement, his colleague is moving it to a pile on the road. They have stopped now, but I have no doubt that the digger and truck will be along later to take it away to wherever they take the snow from the city. From discussion over brunch, it appears that none of us know where that is. Stay tuned for the next episode of my investigations!

Normal service will be resumed ...

First, an apology. It has been a month or so since my last post and I can only plead a lack of time. The last few weeks have been among the busiest of my time in Nokia, but hopefully things will ease up now, as we have publicly announced the plans to create a new mobile software platform and it was the planning for that announcement which was dominating my life since the start of the year.

The announcement was made at Mobile World Congress, one of the largest events in the mobile communications calendar, in Barcelona, which gave me a chance to escape the Helsinki snow and sub zero temperatures for a while.

After that, I flew home for a few days to the UK for some time with the family and the chance to pick up a new (well, new to me) car which we had bought a couple of weekends earlier. This is our second Land Rover Discovery; the first, named Disco Dan, has been fantastically useful for dealing with the large volume of garden rubbish which needs transporting from the house, as well as getting us through the unusual snow and ice during this British winter, when the advantages of a 4x4 were very easy to appreciate. The new one is 10 years younger, built in 2003 and has been named Brian (because the last three letters of his registration are ENO). The differences in 10 years are quite noticeable and he is rather more posh than Dan, most importantly for my darling wife, he has a decent heater and heated seats! We collected him from Milford on Sea, which had the added bonus of having a cream tea in the Needles Eye cafe, which had the view across to the Isle of Wight and the Needles rocks which you can see above.

It was also good while I was home to see how the latest addtions to the family are settling in. The new kittens, Darcy and Willoughby, are developing their characters (most notably along the "little b*gger" dimension) and are getting on well with Zippy, seen on the left in this phot curled up with Darcy (they are both Burmese, Zippy is a lilac and Darcy a brown).

The last week has been spent catching up on work, clearing the email backlog and booking flights home for the first half of the year. I'm hoping to have lots of visitors in Helsinki this year, including my godmother and also our friends from Sweden. And next week, I am hoping to meet up for a beer with my godson, who is in Finland for a few months, studying at Tampere university. Now it's time to get some life back in my work/life balance!

Taking the plunge ...

Tonight marked another milestone in my time here in Finland; I have now been here two years, seven months and two days. That in itself is not a notable fact. Tonight was my third time visiting Saunaseura, the sauna society on Lauttasaari. Again, not a momentous occasion event on its own.

No, tonight was the first time that I have taken a sauna and then dipped into the sea. Believe me, it was an experience I will remember for a while.

The ritual started with the customary shower and  then in to the first of the five smoke saunas for a warm. The atmosphere in a smoke sauna is rather more pleasant than the electrically heated ones and we spent a few minutes getting a good sweat up, before retiring outside to the deck to cool off, in the -8°C air, steaming gently and overlooking the bay. After a few minutes outside we returned to the hottest of the saunas. On entering, I lifted the lid of the stove and slowly ladled water onto the stones to generate the löyly (pronounced low-loo, or thereabouts), the word which means heat, steam, effectively the spirit of the sauna.

My companion then decided it was time for me to stand lifeguard while he took a dip. We walked along the path and then the jetty, both heated with electrical elements to keep the snow and ice clear. Antti descended the steps, took a dip to neck level and then exited the water. Idecided that now was time to show some sisu and do the same. The steps went into the water, with a handful of steps beneath the perfectly clear Baltic water. The first couple of steps were the hardest, once I reached the lowest step, holding onto the frozen handrail, I repeated his maneuvre. I emerged, somewhat surprised to find myself still breathing and climbed back up the wooden steps, noticing for the first time the icicles hanging from their undersides.

Parts of me were more noticeably more affected by the experience than others. Not, as I had expected, those parts roughly halfway between neck and ankle, but mainly my feet, with which I was beginning to lose sensory contact. We walked back up the path and into the third of the smoke saunas to thaw out, noticing as we did the board displaying the water temperature, -0°C. Yes, not a mistake, minus zero. So, not quite minus one, but colder than the freezing point of pure water, because, of course, the Baltic is saline so it takes Mother Nature just a little more effort to turn it solid in winter.

After a thorough heat and a chat with the other sauna mates about the benefits of ice dipping, we showered and retired to the snack bar for a soft drink and a bite to eat. A chat about holiday plans, weekends and the like followed (talk of work, religion and politics is banned in Saunaseura, along with the use of mobile phones), after which we showered again, dressed and left.

Sitting at home, I am feeling just a little pleased with myself for overcoming my anxiety and trying this. Now I can't wait for next Tuesday and another go! Oh, and that's not me in the picture, it is from the Saunaseura website, there are more showing the saunas and other sights (all decent) from the society.

All at sea ...

On Sunday, I finally got to walk on water. Well, strictly speaking it was the solid form, the frozen Baltic, rendered fairly solid by a few weeks of subzero temperatures.

Now, I was brought up never to try walking on frozen lakes, rivers etc. because any fool knows that is certain death. And in any other winter than this in the UK, it probably is. Perhaps at home this year, others will be trying this on bodies of freshwater. But sea water? I remember from school chemistry lessons that salt water freezes at even lower temperatures. So, how could something so wrong feel so right?

The image (you can click on it for a larger version) is actually a 360° degree series of 10 shots, joined using Canon's Photostitch software, which came with my camera. It's the first time I have used the software and it seems pretty straightforward. What I really wanted was to capture the feeling of space I experienced standing away from the island of Seurasaari, which we have visited in warmer weather to feed the squirrels. Just one photo would not have done that.

My native guide also explained some of the etiquette - don't walk on the ski tracks being the most important, though we did also keep plenty of distance between us and the hole in the ice used for the winter bathers.

The most eerie experience was standing on the frozen sea, on a cold but still afternoon and hearing the ships' horns hooting from a few kilometres away in the harbour - they sounded as if they were just around the corner.

Three, as it were, Woozles, and one, as it was, Wizzle...

I suspect my friends and family in the UK will be sick of pictures of snow at the moment, but this scene is one that I think will be rather more rare even there.

I walked out to get a haircut today, normally something done with little thought but when it is -18°C, it took a little more preparation, including the long underwear!

On the way back, I stopped on the bridge between Hakaniemi and Kruununhaka and snapped this picture. This is the sea, frozen and then with a few days snowfall on top. I rather enjoyed working out the tracks, a baby buggy I think and the accompanying adult, separately another couple of sets and then the gentleman you can see walking away.