Today is the independenced day of Finland. Soviet Russia allowed Finland to gain independence on December 6th, 1917 — from Lenin himself…

This day is a bank holiday and the most of the country is closed. We celebrated the occasion by making sushi… Not maybe too traditiona choice, but as parents of a small child we seldom have time to make any complex food. And we haven’t eaten sushi for ages. The regular readers may know already that I’m a huge fan of sushi.

Usually making sushi is really calming experience, but today I had to watch over Aapo and make the food — and I got more tense while preparing sushi. Fortunately eating sushi is always relaxing and Aapo behaved well, so at the end it paid off.

Jalo is a combined jewelry store and goldsmiths working post. The store is conveniently located in the yellow brick buildings next to the belltower in Fiskars village.

There is a plethora of different rings and other jewelry items available, and items can be also custom ordered. Silver and gold are the predominant metals, but probably some others can be available, too. At least if you have enough money to buy platinum jewelry.

As an additional perk, the goldsmith sells also Tivoli Audio radios. Jewelry for her, a good radio for him…

Jalo, Antskogintie 26, Fiskars, Finland, +358 19 237 210

Union Design is a collective workshop for goldsmiths, hidden in a courtyard near the Helsinki market square. The entrance is located opposite the old market hall.

Once inside, you get service from the goldsmiths themselves. There are a lot of readymade jewelry available, and anything can be ordered — if you enough money and time. The smiths have distincts styles, so the selection has a lot of variety. If you are interested in unique items, this is the place to go.

The prices are comparable to normal high street jewelry stores, and you may find also inexpensive alternatives.

www.uniondesign.fi, Eteläranta 14, Helsinki, Finland

As you can see from the latest reviews, I and my family visited Fiskars village on Saturday. Sanna wanted to visit an older place to see a glimpse of a more traditional Christmas settings and maybe buy something unique.

We pondered on going to the Porvoo old town or to Fiskars village. Both are approximately 60-70 kilometers from our flat, and they are considered as havens for craftsmen. I was for Fiskars, as I thought that the design would be more modern there and the village would have more shops that we liked.

The day was almost nice, a bit dull, and the Swedish speaking countryside west to Helsinki is for some odd reason really calming… Curvy roads, happy people and romantic vistas.

The village itself was a bit disappointment… It was smaller than I remembered, and not all shops were open. The shops were also spread to more distant area, and the wind was so chilly that we decided to focus on the central village and leave the rest.

The bigger shops themselves were really nice (see the reviews for Onoma and Kopper), and the smaller ones weren’t bad either. We just didn’t find anything worth buying.

The problem with these places is lack of decent cafés where you can eat and rest for a while in peace and quiet. There was one café that we had to skip, as the buns didn’t look too fresh. The next looked too much a bar and the third was a full-blown restaurant. At the end, we find ourselves sitting on the car and Sanna was feeding Aapo there.

There is another artisan village, Billnäs, nearby. We had sawn a few signs that they are celebrating a Christmas fest for the best part of the day, we decided to go there and grab something to eat.

The first place was a cold barn that served coffee, tea and bratwurst… There were also several stalls selling various gourmet stuff, such as marinated garlic gloves and horse meat, but we decided to move forward. The next place was supposed to have a cafeteria, but in reality it was a small coffee shop installed temporarily in an old school house (or similar) that had also stalls.

It was a disappointment, as the house was dark and a bit too cold for sitting comfortably, but we still savoured coffee and cakes there. Once again, we didn’t buy anything there either.

We also grew a bit tired of going from one place to another in search of eating and decided to go back home, as the fridge was fully loaded for the weekend. On the way home we almost got lost in Karjaa — not a huge town itself, but there were virtually no signs to Helsinki or anywhere else.

Looking back to the trip, we should have gone to Porvoo — at least there are decent cafés.

Kopper is a combined design store and exhibition space located on the same building as restaurant Kuparipaja (copperworks). Their selection contains the bleeding edge of Finnish designers and chances are that you don’t find their works in downtown Helsinki.

There is a wide variety of items, as you can see from the picture. The quality is high, and thus the price is high, too. There are also smaller items for those of us travelling on budget.

There are various exhibitions at the store, usually related to newer Finnish design or crossing between art and industrial design. There is no entrance fee to the exhibitions.

Kopper, Kuparivasarantie 16, Fiskars, Finland, +358 19 277 7502

Craftshop Onoma is located in an old bellhouse that looks like the centre of Fiskars village. The shop has a bigger room for the store and a few smaller rooms for exhibitions. There is also a caf? in the building.

If you don’t want to browse through all craftshops that are spread around the village, go to Onoma. It has a wide variety of different items, and most of the notable designers in Fiskars seem to have their products on the shelves.

Be warned that Finnish crafts are not that cheap, but fortunately the items sold here are of good quality and will last a lifetime or more.

www.onoma.org, Tornikellorakennus, Fiskars, Finland, +358 19 277 7500

The last two weeks have been really busy, as there have been several separate incidents in my life that have caused me to run from place to place to get things straightened out. Fortunately, the incidents have nothing to do with my family, but otherwise they have been drastic.

Thus I haven’t had enough time or energy to write anything on Nomadig.com, but I’m not planning on abandoning the site.

On other fronts, I’ve just reserved hotel room for me and my family in Oulu. I’ll stay there for a couple days in business, and Sanna meets her friends together with Aapo. Then we’ll go to celebrate Christmas in Taivalkoski, 150 km to northeast from Oulu.

The price of the hotel room was amazing: mere 85€ per night for two in a room with a sauna. The hotel is really nice, I’ve been there a couple of times before, so I’m looking forward to that trip.

The cold weather has finally find its way to Finland, and the Sunday morning was already biting cold. The ground on the park nearby our new flat was all frosty, and it was impossible to resist its calling.

I spent half an hour with Sanna and Aapo on the cliffs, I photographing the details on the ground and in trees, and Sanna carrying Aapo in a chestbag.

We all had really good time, and now I’ve handpicked the best shots to a new gallery, aptly titled Crispy Finnish autumn pictures. Hopefully you enjoy viewing the images as much as I enjoyed making them.