Visited Ideapark

Ideapark is a huge shopping mall built about 20 kilometers south from Tampere, the second biggest urban area in Finland. So we travelled about 150 kilometers one way to visit a shopping mall. The trip didn’t start that well, as a rock hit our windscreen on Kehä I, leaving a permanent scratch to the glass…

Anyhow, Finns tend to have these crazy ideas of building shopping complexes in middle of nowhere. We’ve visited in Tuuri, so Ideapark was just a must to see. And it didn’t let us down. We entered the building from the rear entrance, so it didn’t look much of anything there — just cheapish stores — but fortunately the shops got better towards the main entrance.

Unlike most other malls in Finland, Ideapark has been divided into different types of surroundings. Most of the fashion shops are collected on Catwalk, and restaurants, galleries and bakeries are to be found in the old town. There’s even a central park with fake trees. This all sounds corny, but the idea is executed well enough to change the atmosphere. We find it quite nice to sit in the old town restaurants and cafés — it beat normal mall eating and drinking experience hands down.

There were surprisingly many shoe stores, and Sanna found a pair of sneakers. I bought seven books plus one colouring book for Aapo. We spent five hours there, spending a couple hundred euros. The mall seems to be working…

On our way home, a bird hit our car on the highway. I was overtaking slower traffic and suddenly the bird darts across the lanes and hits the bumper of the car. No damage to the bumper, but the bird was probably in very sorry state. Despite the shortcomings with the car, the trip was positive.