Kuala Lumpur

8.11.20168.11.2016 / ubteam

Our first stop was the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. We flew with Qatar Airways, which has started its flights from Helsinki this autumn. We can highly recommend them, there was a lot of food and drinks offered, and excellent entertainment, for example you can listen to a book “Toyota and Lean manufacturing” to get the sleep.

There was a stopover in Doha, capital of Qatar. We saw in the tax free shop a whisky bottle worth of 15 000 USD. We should have dropped that and see what the insurance would think…

Tip! As a female, it’s more comfortable for yourself to wear long sleeve clothes, and to have a scarf to put around your shoulders. It’s not necessary or required, but you feel so much more comfortable among the women who REALLY have covered themselves.

We stayed four nights in KL and our hotel was in Chinatown. It’s cheaper and we liked it there, every morning you can check from the door what is the “toy of the day” of the woman selling moving and beeping plastic stuff.

The city is in our opinion quite a mess, there are two rivers meeting, but even the river is somehow covered under the streets in many places, it’s not any sight. There are old mosques, modern shopping centers and offices, and poor and rich people, much to see for every taste.

Our general notices from the city:

There are less people and traffic than in other cities in Asia, you fit in!
The traffic is on left, keep in mind also when walking
Walking around is a bit challenging; there are really no signs, random road works cut your way and free maps are only to illustrate
Don’t take a taxi in rush hour! Otherwise highly recommended!
Basically everybody speaks English

Tip! Check the city with Monorail train!

Petronas twin towers

We took a taxi to Times Square and walked all way from there to Petronas towers, the main sight of the city. On the way there is so called Golden Triangle with lot of street food, and places offering massages. In front of the towers there is a really nice park with running track and children’s pool and playground.

Running?

We wanted to have at least one morning for some sports. And that was some task! There is a Lake Garden park, which basically is the botanical garden with one little lake and some paths (http://www.klbotanicalgarden.gov.my/) . It was really hard to find there by feet, finally after one hour we reached it (maybe 2 km distance), it was already noon and the day getting its hottest. So, the running itself was quite demanding, but we made 4 km. Also there were few outdoor gym systems to train some push-ups etc. There were really no others in the park and the paths were nice and the park itself very pretty.

Batu Caves

13 km from the center of Kuala Lumpur there are the Batu Caves. It was a really nice half a day trip there with a train (running only every 45 min!). It’s a temple for Hindi, and there are lot of Indian restaurants around. The long stairs take you to the temple, and it’s free to go there. Unfortunately the big statue in front of the cave was under construction. Next to the Hindi cave, there are the “Dark Caves” (http://www.darkcavemalaysia.com/next/). We took the “educational tour” and learned how the whole ecosystem in this darkness is based on the shit from the bats (guano). If you are afraid of the darks, don’t go, as the guide puts the lights of for some time, and that’s pretty scary. If you are around the caves, definitely take the tour, the guide was so sympathetic and had really nice humour.

Shopping

Many say KL is a shopping paradise. Well, we were surprised over the price level, as it’s not that cheap. We visited Midvalley’s Megamall, but preferred Berjaya Times Square (https://www.berjayatimessquarekl.com/) shopping center better. Under the twin towers there is KLCC Mall, a very sophisticated and expensive shopping center. All the brand clothes and products anyway cost at least the same as back at home.

In China Town you can see which products are “hot” by being the most copied. Generally visiting the shops is very pleasant, personnel do notice the customer and help to search options, and are even just fine if you leave without buying! In China Town they are more pushing, but they don’t touch you and you don’t have to be afraid. Our favorite was Central Market, and old traditional market hall with many small shops. There were clothes, food and fortune teller too (didn’t try, even he promoted himself of creating the 10 richest Chinese and Australians…)! The massages and nail artists are really good and cheap.

All in all, 4-5 days in Kuala Lumpur is enough to get only a rough view over the city.

Our best points:

Happy and helpful people (they feel genuine!)
Cool, often tuned, cars (Proton, their own car brand!)
Easy communication and some kind of common humor
Lovely fruit juices
Good and clean hotels (even ours was quite cheap)
Many people knew “Kiitos” and “mitä kuuluu”, on the other hand some didn’t know Finland existing

Next, we take the AirAsia flight to Coolangatta on Cold Coast, Australia!

The planning

27.10.2016 / ubteam

Ursprungsland Biathlon Team is expanding their activities to “down under”! The dream of having a longer break has been back of Marja’s and Jukka’s heads already few years. We’ve been inspired by our branch in Czech Republic, the family with two small boys is ready to leave for a longer holiday. So why not us as well? Meeting the cross country skiers from Australia and New Zealand has always been really nice, what they have told us about their home countries has been waking up our curiosity! Last June we had Jarrah from Tasmania in our place for some time, he was training for Junior World Orienteering Championships. What would it be to try orienteering in the jungle among koalas and snakes? Or is it purely surfing there? And aren’t they anyway upside down?

So, we will take a break of about three months to travel to Australia and New Zealand, starting in November 2016. We are aware the time is too short, and there would be things to see for years. However, we would like to be back in Finland for the real winter (it’s not possible to skip the whole skiing season!). The autumn is quite desperate in Finland, rainy and very dark, so the timing is perfect! The final decision wasn’t done too much before the departure, and it in the end came with simple thinking: “It’s now or never!”. It’s good that there is not too much time, as more time there is, the more nervous we would be with the practical issues.

When planning a longer trip, our tips:

Do you have the time? What is your time frame?
Do you have money? How much you can save (selling things is sometimes quite profitable!)? Are you ok with the fact that it will be all gone?
Do you have friends? To travel with? To meet there?
Are there some milestones on the way? Some happenings you want to join? Competitions?
What are your goals? And do you share this with your companion?

Our trip starts in few days, guess we can give real tips after the departure, now it all seems to be a mess… And instead of hard planning and packing, we’ve been just normally working and training during the weeks, and enjoying meeting friends during the weekends.

Oh yeah, the actual plan: Helsinki – Kuala Lumpur – Gold Coast – Brisbane – Coff’s Harbour – Sydney – Cairns – Tasmania – Melbourne – Auckland – ?. Stay tuned!

Snowflakes Adventure 2016

11.9.2016 / ubteam

Adventure sport is a great combination of different sports. The target is to find all the marks as fast as possible with the help of maps and means of running, canoeing, cycling, climbing and whatever the organizers come up with! The competition can take from few hours up to days and it’s usually done in pairs.

This year Snowflakes Adventure was held near Lahti, in Vierumäki sport center. There were three different categories, from the beginners up to pro teams, who spend the whole day solving the tasks.

Ursprungsland Biathlon Team was taking part in the middle series with a team of Juhani and Janne. The first task (prolog) was to find marks around the Vierumäki area with only little pieces of map. After that there was canoeing on a windy lake. Orienteering with running took about two hours, and after that it was the time to change to bikes.

The nicest parts in the competition are the “Quest”-tasks. This year the pro series needed to orienteer with 32 years old map! Besides there were: a task to move a balloon without carrying it on hands, a climbing task, and in the end jump to the cold lake (with the clothes on).

Ursprungsland Biathlon Team was in the end fourth, with the time of 3:31:03. Nice!

Marja and Kenny were representing team “Hiiltomiehet 2” ending up on the second position in the easiest series (2:11:04). The race was relatively easy and orienteering not so challenging. Johanna and Maria were the toughest of us all, their “Team Harhanäky” won the female series in pro class with doing hard sports for 6:55:48!