Hong Kong -Espoo

Beautiful scenery is always enjoyable, and green plants make it even more delightful. This landscape trip takes us to two sides of the globe with the rhythm of Chan Wai Fat.

After a busy autumn, the production team finally managed to put together long planned scenery trip to Hong Kong and Espoo. What is surprising, is that even Hong Kong is one of the most crowded cities in the world, there appears to be forests and green areas to the similar extent as in Espoo - which in turn is one of the least crowded cities in the world. The cities may be similar just in appearance, but surely it is easy to agree, that at least the number of people in Hong Kong matches the number of trees in Espoo.

The soundtrack of this episode is published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License

aattu.tv Special: Ambient Water Views

This ambient journey visits Leppävesi lake and Saunalahti bay accompanied by Karoliina Salminen's music.

Finnish lake and sea views are just beautiful, and in this episode we managed to capture a couple of impressive moments by the water front. These views are especially stunning when enjoyed in high definition. Also Karoliina's music requires good stereo sound reproduction to reveal all its subtle finesse.

The episode is shot by the lake Leppävesi in the middle of Finland and by Saunalahti bay west of Helsinki. The soundtrack of this episode is published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License

Reindeer and Lettuce

Eating is an essential part of every hobby, and every Finn loves good food. The best food is often made with the simplest ingredients, fresh from the clean nature.

The fillet of reindeer is so small peace of meat, that only a few years back it was not taken separately, but sold as a bulk meat for the food industry. Luckily nowadays there is few places where this small but the most delicious part of the Lappland's mascot animal is given the attention it deserves. Once managed to get a portion of this superior meat somewhere, the only right way to enjoy it's special flavor and exquisite taste is to sear it briefly and eat it accompanied by fresh season's vegetables.

The salad prepared in this episode really celebrates the Finnish summer and clean nature!

Housing Dreams Realized

Finns just love building houses, or at least dreaming of it. One clear sign of that is the popularity of the annual housing fairs

Somehow it has amazed me for a long time, that these housing fairs are so popular among Finns. There were a few years downturn on the number of visitors, but this year the expectations were indeed exceeded. The organizers were counting on 150 000 sold tickets, instead they sold over 195 000. In addition thousands of the visitors were from abroad, even all the way from China.

The themes were good design, family, community, nature and best ideas. The houses were built respecting the nature around, and the small alley-like streets are bound to promote community and safe environment for the kids.

On the other hand, good design wasn’t that apparent. And what comes to the best ideas, well maybe not al of them really fall under that category. Maybe because of the ever-rising construction costs, not too many houses were just designers wet dreams, but places where one could imagine to live in. Nevertheless, we found only one house which met our high criteria, and could be called well designed.

This episode is also available in a high definition version, the link to the RSS-feed is on the home page.

Ancient Inspirations for Gardening

During the short summer, the gardens flourish in Finland. The inspiration for the set up comes more and more often from far far away.

One of the must visit destinations in China are the numerous gardens and temples. It is quite amazing how the busy and hectic city life is instantly replaced by a peaceful and calm existence when stepping into a garden.

The impression of the gardens is permanent, and some of it was transferred into the local terrace garden. What was accidentally left out of this episode, is the section of stone garden and a small copy of the buddhist pagoda. Really a place of contemplating, with the totally different milieu set by the Finnish winter.

The Town Stuck in the Medieval Era

The oldest town in Finland originates from 13th century. Sometimes it seems, it can not get past its history.

While visiting Turku, there happened to be the Medieval Market event. The atmosphere was really genuine, with the dramatic abduction of a woman.

Even though the event goes back to the year 1412, for example the folk dance is still pretty much similar to the folk dance nowadays. Only the contemporary music is a bit more melodic.

More information about the Medieval Market in Turku can be found here.

From a Deserted City Center to a Crowded Market Place

The density of population in Finland is quite low. There are times, when you have to travel abroad to see other people.

There is one moment every year, when all the big cities look like a neutron bomb had gone off. During the midsummer Finns tend to migrate to the country side. The footage is shot in the afternoon of the Midsummer eve, just after the shops are closed and people started their travel to the lake sides.

The goal was to shoot the same street after the midsummer, when there is significantly more life on the streets. Unfortunately the schedule didn’t allow us to do it, so we had to use Stockholm as a second best choice.

However, taking boat trips is still fairly popular. Cheap alcohol used to be the main motivator for such trips, but after the EU membership and some taxation changes, people take boats mainly to party and relax.

Midsummer Special

There is nothing more beautiful than Finland during Midsummer. This time we will have a look at the Finnish Midsummer festivities and customs.

We wanted not only to tell something about Midsummer activities, but also deliver the feeling and atmosphere of the event. The peaceful haven between work and summer holiday - which for many of Finns - starts right after the Midsummer.

Bathing in Sauna is of absolute necessity, and the bonfire is a central place, where people gather to feel together - and very Finn.

Even though violence is mentioned, it is not so much violence towards other people, than to one self. With the excessive use of alcohol, the voice level goes easily very high and the ability to consider the consequences goes very low. So during the midsummer night, the calm lakes can be quite noisy. And usually at some point, guys want to take the boat to the lake. The midsummer weekend has the highest drowning rate of the whole summer. And usually the drowned men have their flies open.

It Could Be Beach Ball, And It Definitely Is Close To Water

This short podcast reveals one of the most common and fun Finnish summer hobby.

These people really are walking on water, in a very Finnish way, for that matter. Not everything is as it seems, of course. Even though this podcast was published in the mid summer, the actual shooting took place a bit earlier, around January.

The moment, when there was thin layer of water on top of the ice is fairly rare. Luckily this time we were able to capture this unusual moment, and share it with you.

This whole episode is shot with Nokia Nseries phones, and the resulting picture quality is surprisingly good. The downside is, since the recorded media is Mpeg4, for editing it must be decompressed and compressed again. Which is both time consuming and very bad for the quality.