I’ll visit Tallinn, once again. The Estonian city is so conveniently reachable by ferries leaving every hour, and there is plethora of good restaurants, historic places, and things to do and buy in the city.

This trip is mostly for the family, we’ll probably spend some time in our hotel’s spa and then visit Tallinn Zoo. Some good food and maybe a pair of shoes or a shirt would be the icing of the cake.

The trips to London and Japan / South Korea have now been booked. The process was slow and tedious, but we managed to get decent prices for flights and good / very good prices for hotels. We’ve visited the London hotel (No. 5 Maddox Street) before, and it was awesome — prime location next to Oxford Circus, big rooms in London standards, and very nice service. The hotels in Osaka and Seoul are unknown territory, but at least they seem to be of excellent standard based on their websites and Tripadvisor ratings. Reports will follow after the trips.

In the meanwhile, I’ve reserved a couple of other trips in Finland. Early October, I’ll go with the boys to North Carelia for an extended weekend. First the weekend, and then on Monday the boys will give run for the money for my parents while I’ll be teaching in local university of applied science in Joensuu. Two weeks after that trip, I, Aapo, my brother-in-law, and Aapo’s cousin Onni will visit Lego building fair in Ilmajoki, some 300 kilometers up north from Helsinki. I’ve been busy building our entry to the fair, and the three story old town hotel is now in final phases. I’ll try to provide report and pictures from the fair.

Besided these, I’m also planning a trip to Tallinn for a few days in early September, but my plans are completely open still. I’d like to go to US for a while, but it is still a long shot. Maybe early next year, depending how well the Far East trip went.

We have been working on our travel schedules for the fall, and currently it looks very promising. There should be one trip to London during September, combining business and pleasure, and another trip to Osaka and Seoul in November.

Both of the trips have been somewhat hard to plan — I can’t exactly pin down why, but it is probably related to Niilo getting older than two years and requiring his own seat in the airplane and a normal bed at the hotel. This hikes up all costs, and suddenly seemingly affordable hotel rooms or flights become pretty expensive.

I’ve also learned to hate every and all booking system that does not show the final prices, but you add a variable number of taxes, costs, and what-not to the final bill. In Japan, for example, some hotels are like 33% more expensive when the obligatory extras are calculated in. In the UK, some hotels have 12.5% “service charge” that is to be added to the invoice at the hotel, not in the web.

Despite these woes, we’ve got decent options and should finalise the trips this week.

My holidays for the summer are now over, as there are no planned trips and work has already started. The end of July is typically silent time in Finland, so I’ve got plenty of time to work on the items that didn’t receive that much attention during winter. The pace will quicken early August, so there are two weeks to clean the desk.

In fact, I’ve been working for the previous week while Sanna was having her turn with kids in Taivalkoski. Last weekend we had a family reunion in Kuopio, I arrived by train to the city and Sanna drove from Taivalkoski. We spent some quality time in the annual housing fair (Asuntomessut) and found a good BBQ restaurant called Ravintola Hiili. All in all, very relaxing weekend.

Ravintola Hiili is a pretty new restaurant in Kuopio, located on a small and quiet street near the market square. The house itself looks drab, but the restaurant has been fully refurbished lately and designed with style. There is also a small terrace on the inner yard.

As the name implies (Hiili = coal), the restaurant focuses on grilled food. The most of the menu is about various meats, but there are also good salads. The wine list is short, but our wine was excellent — as was the food. The service was good and pretty fast.

www.ravintolahiili.fi, Käsityökatu 25, Kuopio, Finland, +358 50 441 9445

We’ve been on holiday for a few days in Northern Carelia, in my parents cabin by the lake. The weather has been fantastic, constant sunshine from cloudless sky. Temperature is hovering constantly above 25C. Yes, pretty good times.

Our boys have got company from their cousins, and there are five kids five years or less of age. They are somewhat disturbing the peace and quietness of our holidays… Fortunately, they have been able to play together without too much adult supervision.

It is our last full in München, and fortunately there is not that much of things to do anymore. I need to go and pick up a shirt that has been altered to fit me — typically all collared shirts have too long arms for me. Also there is a couple of items that I need to show to Sanna to get her opinion.

Then we maybe visit the English Gardens and stroll around the city. The weather has been nice for a couple of days, a welcome change from the constant rain of the previous week.

The last thing on our list is to finalise packing. We have already sent one big suitcase full of stuff (mostly Legos from Legoland) with my parents to Finland last week. They brought the suitcase empty — in fact, it contained two smaller bags — so there should be enough space for the stuff we’ve bought here. As there are four ticket holders in family, we can bring up to 80 kilos with us. That should be plenty.

Moderna Museet is the leading modern art museum in the Nordic Countries, and it is worth the walk from the city if you have a few hours to spend with culture. The museum is located a couple of kilometers out of the city centre, on a beautiful Skeppsholm island that is a destination itself. It is easy walk and takes about 20 minutes from T-Centralen, but there are also public transports available (ferry and bus), and you can always take a taxi.

The collections themselves are pretty standard fare, you can find Picassos, Dalís, and Matisses there among with the local modernists. The exhibitions can be outstanding or then about someone that you’ve never heard ever before (and chances are that you won’t hear again…).

www.modernamuseet.se, Slupskjulsvägen 7-9, Stockholm, Sweden, +46 8 5195 5200