WJC: 2016 WJC in Finland. When? and How? | General talk (tickets, hotels, etc)

[llwyd]

I would absolutely recommend Kallio for recreation time - a much more bohemian area than the centre, pints much cheaper, more young people and students around (admittedly more addicts and drunkards too).You can take several tram lines there plus the metro, it's basically next to the centre with easy connections to both venues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kallio

 

[OHLTG]

What kind of places are there in Kallio?

 

[Loffer]

What kind of places are there in Kallio?

Anything between this:

and this:

and this:

and this:

yet again this:

 

[llwyd]

Yeah, it certainly doesn't have a shortage of bars - some quite small and eccentric and then more mainstream places, most rather cheap. This article is bit gushing but has good links:

http://www.visitfinland.com/article/vibrant-helsinki-district-kallio/

 

[llwyd]

And then there's this (technically I guess Alppila, but everyone thinks it's a Kallio place):

http://www.hel.fi/www/helsinki/en/c...-rinks/brahe-sports-field-artificial-ice-rink

You could rent skates and sticks from the kiosk and have a fan match...

 

[OHLTG]

That looks like a lot of fun!!

 

[CPFC]

I've got plane an game tickets locked up now, but I'm wondering what makes a good hotel for 4 Canadians going to see the games? I've also been checking airbnb, but most rooms aren't available around that time.

Anybody have any good hotel advice?

Don't know if you're still looking for a place, but Hellsten Helsinki Senate is a good apartment hotel in a fairly central but quiet location. They also have another hotel near the Parliament, which is quite close to the Ice Hall.

 

[Periwinkle]

It's not the nicest way to find accommodation, but if you are on a budget Omena Hotels (they have two locations in central Helsinki) might be a good option. It's based on self-service so there is no live reception, you enter the hotel via a pin code given to you.

The cheap prices especially around New Year's time probably will attract a "party crowd", so probably not for those travelling with families, but still, affordable option for those willing to look beyond the possible negatives for sure. It's probably a better alternative to Finns than foreigners as in the case of a problem (door code doesn't work etc) it's easier to communicate with a person on the phone when you share the language.

Two times I've stayed (not in Helsinki though) rooms were clean. I didn't stay the night, though, but I didn't hear any later complaints of noise from those who stayed the night.

http://www.omenahotels.com/

 

[llwyd]

You can also consider smaller towns along the northern railroad like Kerava, Järvenpää and Hyvinkää - not many hotels but generally cheaper and all those places are less than an hour from the centre on the local trains. Finland is generally quite expensive but if you know your way around you can often find cheaper options also. (The country itself is madly safe, I would say to any North American - it would be a considerable achievement to find a bad, or well, mildly bad neighbourhood in Helsinki.)

 

[OHLTG]

Adding into that last part about bad neighbourhoods, I stayed in Ruoholahti last time (April '14) and never felt even nervous, let alone threatened. People seemed to generally do their own thing and not look at others. The only time I was yelled at was by a guy on a bicycle on my first day as I didn't realize walkers/cyclists had different lanes on the sidewalk THAT was an eye-opener (and something to look for if you've never been).

 

[Hockeycast]

As a finn who's lived his entire life in Helsinki, I'd recommend all foreigners to visit the newly renovated "Old Market Hall" next to the market square.
Eating in the old market hall is a bit expensive but I'd recommend going for a coffe at least.
And if the weather's nice then I'd also recommend going to the top Kaivopuisto, from where you'll get a nice view of the sea.

And do visit Ravintola Torni to get a 360 panorama view of Helsinki, but don't stay there for more than one beer. It's expensive.

Then avoid the O'leary's sports bars unless you're on an unlimited budget. The food tends to be below average, the beer is really expensive and the staff is usualluy really rude.
Try SportsAcademy instead if looking for a sportsbar.

What comes to eating at the games, don't.
Both arenas serve terrible food at really high prizes.

Enjoy Helsinki!
Can't wait for these WJC's

 

[Lepardi]

What kind of places are there in Kallio?

Hipster places. Kallio and Punavuori are the hipster capitals of Finland. They used to be working class neighborhoods, but gentrification has altered their ethos completely. Young people from rural Finland move in there and it doesn't take long before they feel totally superior to rural Finns, because with their ironic mustaches and fixie bikes they're so much trendier and more eco-conscious than people in smaller towns.

The inhabitants of Kallio are educated people, so their English is usually fairly fluent, but if you try to talk about ice hockey with them, I wouldn't be surprised if they tell you that they're not interested in such a brutal and brainless hillbilly sport. Watching hockey is also way too mainstream here in Finland. They follow football (or soccer as you North Americans call it) instead. It's way more suitable for the intelligentsia. These people are not unlike the trendsetters in Brooklyn who have started to prefer the Barclays Premier League over the NFL and the NBA.

This music video is British, but it will sum up Kallio for you pretty concisely:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmmYMwFj1I

If you think it's offensive to use the term "hipster" when talking about hipsters, you can use the euphemism "bohemian" like llwyd did.

Adding into that last part about bad neighbourhoods, I stayed in Ruoholahti last time (April '14) and never felt even nervous

If you want to see the rougher side of Helsinki, go visit Jakomäki. Ofcourse it's probably not that rough by American standards, but I bet there aren't many people in Ruoholahti who would be willing to live there.

 

[OHLTG]

As a finn who's lived his entire life in Helsinki, I'd recommend all foreigners to visit the newly renovated "Old Market Hall" next to the market square.

That's the one place (other than a Sauna) I was frustrated I didn't visit the last time I went. I went to Market Square and Hakaniemi, which was neat for a couple of hours, but not Old Market Hall. Assuming there's nice weather one day, I'm going to make a point to go.

Young people from rural Finland move in there and it doesn't take long before they feel totally superior to rural Finns, because with their ironic mustaches and fixie bikes they're so much trendier and more eco-conscious than people in smaller towns.

It's a pretty common trend in my city, too, at least in the downtown core. Haha, maybe it's prepared me for what I'm going to walk into.

 

[Henri M]

Wohoo. Got my tickets for rus - Fin and the quarter finals at Hartwall. Finland would play their finals at Hartwall, right?

 

[BigRangy]

It's not the nicest way to find accommodation, but if you are on a budget Omena Hotels (they have two locations in central Helsinki) might be a good option. It's based on self-service so there is no live reception, you enter the hotel via a pin code given to you.

The cheap prices especially around New Year's time probably will attract a "party crowd", so probably not for those travelling with families, but still, affordable option for those willing to look beyond the possible negatives for sure. It's probably a better alternative to Finns than foreigners as in the case of a problem (door code doesn't work etc) it's easier to communicate with a person on the phone when you share the language.

Two times I've stayed (not in Helsinki though) rooms were clean. I didn't stay the night, though, but I didn't hear any later complaints of noise from those who stayed the night.

http://www.omenahotels.com/

I booked at the Yrjonkatu location. Cheap and central, but I'm not expecting too much. Hopefully it all goes well.

 

[CPFC]

One option for bigger groups is Rastila Camping in eastern Helsinki, with cottages for 4 to 8 persons, some with their own sauna. It's about 13 kilometers from the downtown, but there is a metro station just next to the camping ground and it takes only 20 minutes to the downtown with the metro.

 

[llwyd]

If you think it's offensive to use the term "hipster" when talking about hipsters, you can use the euphemism "bohemian" like llwyd did.

Well, I think the difference is that the price of housing is not yet totally ridiculous, so you still get rather poor students there as well as the older working class people mixing with the new comer hipsters. "Piritori" ("Speed Square") has still some rather wild unhipsterish scenes and Kallio is a regular port of call for the police. That will quite soon be history, so one should enjoy while the going is still rather colourful... For me it beats the Centre 60-0.

 

[Lepardi]

"Piritori" ("Speed Square") has still some rather wild unhipsterish scenes

In case that wasn't clear for all the readers who don't know Finnish, that's "speed" as in "amphetamine". So if some of our Canadian visitors are into that kind of thing, they can find it on Google Maps by the name "Vaasanpuistikko".

 

[QnebO]

I booked at the Yrjonkatu location. Cheap and central, but I'm not expecting too much. Hopefully it all goes well.

Did you book omenahotelli? It has no breakfast or luxuries at all, but the rooms are solid and clean. Legit room (don't think its preium, just legit), no food, bar, sauna's ect, nothing extra. Omena hotelli is something else in Finland, normally even motels have Sauna+breakfast+reception.

 

[Finnpin]

Over 70.000 tickets sold atm.

 

[Finnpin]

IMO best night life/music place in Helsinki.

Not in downtown though, it's close to Kallio

https://www.facebook.com/Aaniwalli

 

[OHLTG]

I was looking on the WJC Twitter page and came across a bit of a promotional video for the tournament. One thing it showed was a "referee hotel." It got me wondering - do all teams and officials stay in the same hotel, or are they spread out throughout the city?

 

[llwyd]

I have to say that this time of the year is rather dismal: Helsinki is likely to be snowless, wet and windy and very dark (we are about as far up north as Anchorage). The so called daylight lasts about 6hrs and the sun is likely to be very rare (last December we got all of 15hrs of sunlight for the whole month).

 

[OHLTG]

I'm expecting really short days (sunlight-wise) and sunlight to be few-and-far between. Hopefully it'll be a reasonable temp and a bit of snow on the ground. Drastically cold and feet of snow, while fun, isn't easy to get around in.

 

[llwyd]

I'm expecting really short days (sunlight-wise) and sunlight to be few-and-far between. Hopefully it'll be a reasonable temp and a bit of snow on the ground. Drastically cold and feet of snow, while fun, isn't easy to get around in.

Almost everyone would love to have some snow and some degrees below freezing. The city can look quite magical with snow on the ground and more slowly falling with all the Christmas lights on. Though mostly at this time of the year it's just as likely to be rain which is not fun in December...