Snowing in Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki Cathedral with Christmas tree.

After a weekend in Luxembourg, I've completely changed climates to the quick path to winter. The first snow fell on Helsinki the day of our arrival. The taxi driver said it wasn't yet "real" snow because it was a bit wet. We are here to film an opera star, Renee Fleming, who we met yesterday for an interview (Programme Musica on Euronews the first of December). The concert is this evening and we filmed the city most of the day today. But there is very little daytime now and the sun only makes sporadic apparitions. In the architecture, you can see both scandinavian and slavic influence. At times, I feel like I'm in St. Petersburg and others firmly planted in Scandinavia. I guess it's this mix that makes Finland.

On our first day here, we had reindeer soup and swordfish, both of which were delicious and kept us warm for filming. I wanted to get a shot of the sea as water is a big part of Finland. The country is really a bit of land around thousands of lakes. This bird was resting, huddled against the wind at the port of Helsinki where the big tourist cruise ships dock.

G20 Summit, Seoul, Korea

The first day of the summit, we got to witness what may be interesting new tactics in crowd control... intense staring. As we were in front of the entrance to the G20, a young man dressed in a nice suit walks up to the stairs and pulls out a big protest sign. Somehow he got by security, maybe being so well-dressed. He was immediately surrounded by five police to hide his message. I got this shot just at the beginning before they had a chance to close in on him. He was protesting a development project. He stood stoically as the police surrounded him, but not touching him. One man, I think also from the police, but in civil clothes, yelled at him to leave and that he shouldn't be there.

The lone protester yelled back that this is not North Korea and he has the democratic right to protest. The police got very close to him, probably 20cm from his face and stared at him without even blinking. I wonder if this is what they have trained for. I could sense the protester losing his stature as he began to blink rapidly. After maybe 15-20 minutes, more police came and with a bit of a push and shove, the protester finally got in a police car on his own. I don't know what happened to him. But he must have known what he was doing, because he was media savy enough to know that with not much else happening yet, he would get air. And he did as I saw another maybe 10 cameras filming the incident.

The big protest was in the afternoon with some 10,000 demonstrators. It too, went smoothly and there were many foreign speakers. There were also probably more police controlling the situation as they met at the main train station and marched through the streets. When they arrived at a police barrage, there was a slight scuffle, but nothing serious. 

Today, much of the action is inside the G20 site with press conferences and live shots. At right, a friend, Elmy Lung from Xinhua News Agency does her live shot. I don't know how many televisions have filmed me editing on my laptop. Brazilian TV ask me to say hello in Luxembourgish! I have even met a couple of friends I haven't seen in a long time! So even if the leaders don't agree on anything, I've had fun!

Press Dinner, History and Fuel Cell Cars.

In the days leading up to the G20, a series of Press Tours have been organised to introduce journalists to high tech, eco-friendly or historical Seoul. We chose historical. If it hadn't been for the tour, we might not have found such interesting places, visiting palaces with our own tour guide and the old district of Bukchon where old traditional houses are subsidised by the city to conserve its history. People actually live here, but the ones we met seem to have made restoration and art their livelihoods. Since the effort to preserve these houses began, prices have skyrocketed. Our guide estimated the price of a three-room, one-storey house at over one million dollars!


I may have found a bit of interesting trivia as to why coffee is so popular in Korea. It may not be the reason, but it is a cool explanation.

In the 19th Century King Kujong was living at the Russian delegations quarters, seeking refuge from the Japanese colonialists after they assassinated his wife. There, he was introduced to coffee and when he finally came back to power he brought the new drink into the lives of all Koreans. Today, cafés are absolutely all over the place in an Asia where tea is the most popular drink on the table.

There are some 10,000 journalists accredited to the G20 and Seoul is really pulling out the red carpet to impress them. What impressed me was the new 4x4 fuel cell vehicles used to pick up some journalists. I didn't get to ride in one, but one colleague who did said she didn't even realise the car was anything different until reading the writing on the side of the vehicle. The vehicles are silent and emit only water. When the driver turns the motor off, it makes a sound like a space craft's air-tight seal releasing. Sounds very cool! As I was watching the car come to a stop, I caught a glimpse of an electric moped speeding by, just the noise of its tires on the asphalt. Maybe a futuristic moment with clean, eco-friendly vehicles everywhere!

Dinner, vacuums and toilet paper.

Tried a different culinary experience this evening. After shooting at the Lantern Festival, we dropped in a restaurant where you cook your own meal right on the table. There are these metal vacuums hung over each table to evacuate the smoke, but you leave smelling like your dinner anyway. This guy at the right takes on the duties of chef while his girlfriend is probably checking her e-mails. It's a Monday evening in Seoul!

They put everything raw on the table and you take the pinchers and scissors to cut the pork in pieces which you wrap in a lettuce leaf with rice, kimchi (very spicy fermented cabbage) and garlic. Yumm!! It really wasn't bad all mixed together although I don't really like the ingredients by themselves. 


Smoking is forbidden almost everywhere in Korea, but in these restaurants, many seem to be smoking because the smoke is sucked up in the vacuums and it doesn't smell smokey there.

Last bit of interesting tidbits... Here at the left you see innovative napkins... toilet paper hung on the wall. Pretty handy, I guess.

24-hour Seoul

Seoul is a mega-city and its population seems to work hard. They play hard, too. Seoul is a 24-hour city as we have explored for our report on nightlife in Seoul for Euronews. All day, there are historical parades around the palace and small events happening for tourists. The lantern festival illuminates the night sky as families, couples and tourists walk along a river taking pictures of the big lanterns reflecting on the water. There was even an impromptu flute concert under a bridge.

We get to do a lot of interesting things to be able to show what is available to do at night. We do it all in one night... theatre, concerts, plays! Just a little, in and out. We saw the first production of "Billy Elliot" in Asia and not in English. They were so nice, they invited us back just to come and see the whole production on Sunday. We saw "En Attendant Godot" also in Korean.

Next stop, a concert of Worldbeat, a Korean percussion group. They were fantastic. At the end of the concert, they led the whole audience out to a courtyard and had everyone clapping and dancing. Then they took pictures with everyone, including your's truly.

Cafés, yellow lines and Green Food Zones

With friends at one of the 2000 café chains in Seoul.

Seoul must be on a permanent caffeine fix because there are cafés every 10 meters! Most are big chains, but mostly Korean. Some seem to be individual because the themes vary. Some can have big couches or books all around. I have even read about a cat café, full of cats and a Charlie Brown café. But the people don't seem so wired. Although, I have read that Korea has one of the longest work weeks in the world, not official work hours, but those actually worked.


Another interesting find is that almost all the sidewalks have a raised yellow band going down the middle. It changed texture at a crosswalk. I haven't got to the bottom of this, but I suspect it is for the blind. Maybe raised lines can guide a cane or you can even feel the difference walking on them with shoes. I haven't seen but one handicapped person in Seoul, but the city seems well-equipped to help them get around without difficulties.

Seoul is very clean and has a good no smoking law. Even some streets and parks are smoke-free. This sign below was on a street near a school and meant that all restaurants had healthy food with no harmful preservatives.