another commercial break from the holiday posts. visited a silk weaving mill which is not really functional anymore. silk used to be a popular material to make clothes, scarves, ties, etc, and this mill makes them by hand, so its expensive and for those who can afford luxury.
some 'modern' invention, that uses punch cards to create patterns, its the first computer, sort of coz the holes means 1 and no hole is 0 so its a binary system, like today's computers.
wind wind wind the bobbin
small loom for making sashes. this one makes 6 at a go
big one that makes 60cm width cloth
this was their most famous product, black scarves for ladies to go church on sundays. they used to sell these by the tens of thousands each year.
all the royal ribbons that the royal family wears as well as those of politicians in sweden comes exclusively from this mill
some other products
the only lady remaining in the mill. whatever she makes she can sell off for herself, one meter of hand woven silk costs 3750sek, thats 360€ or 750sgd or about RM1700. its really very beautiful but i wont put my money into this.
visited a mine facility in kiruna. the public open place is about 540 meters below ground. so you take a bus down slopes thats dark and dusty for a long time, and end up here. the infomine of LKAB mine in Kiruna
very well versed tour guide tells us of the different minerals found in this area.
watch a short clip on the mine and its products. im guessing this is one of the deepest theatres in the world. the sound accoustics was not bad to my surprise.
live size scooper. its radio controlled from the 7th storey of the HQ building above ground. because the mining has gone down lower than 1km deep, its important to minimize the number of people underground and use automation in all possible situations.
what a real mine tunnel looks like. its pitch black by the way, just trying to say that my camera flash is very good. (self praise)
boring machine. yeah, yawn*
borers. the thing that bores. and its not cheap, i think 2000 euro per piece or something
hmmm, what would happen if i push this big red button?
a real scouper, check out the tire size. its so large that they use water in the tires instead of air. and the rubber is super hard
one shovel can lift 5 tons of rocks
some other bit, forgot for what
they blast the rockface and chunks like this come out
after more crushing and powder-ing, it is formed into balls, called iron pellets.
because its iron and soem of it is magnetised, the compass goes crazy in here
theres a museum that displays olden day mining equiptment
drilling used to be by hand
they used to have trams that go into the mine. discontinued.
catching the last tram out
very nice experience.
the mine used to be an open mine, so they dig and dump the waste at the back, after many many many years, the openmine was closed and they started digging tunnels but the waste from the open mine was so much that it formed a hill at the back of the mine, its a three tiered hill, the one the rabbit was staring at in on of my previous posts.
we also went to feed reindeers. they are a really hungry lot and its a good thing they are vegetarians.
so one bag of lichen for 20sek and you have the whole heard coming your way. they know food when they see it.
double team
those antlers will look good hanging on my wall...
a young one
adult
ooohhh. reindeer checking out my butt.
harrasment
they are actually very gentle, and will run away the moment you try to touch them.
after the whole thing, we realized how dirty our gloves were with reindeer saliva. and because of the cold, it froze, so we had reindeer saliva popsicles on our gloves. hahaha
the herd belongs to some Sami people who set up shop near the Ice Hotel.
