Summer photos...

...not in any order.

It was hot. The hottest place to be was a tram. I could feel the sweat running down my face in there.

Most of the time I was experiencing new places. Museums, libraries, restaurants. Streets, forests, beaches.

Now +10 celsius feels so cold.

Kuopio

This is my Kuopio. First of all, the marvellous Anttila building, which still exists next to the marketplace. Hopefully one day someone blows it up in the air! Making the scene more beautiful are Hanna and Michael said in a German way.


I spent time with Nea and Moona, they're singing Moomin songs and creating nice outfits. We were also eating ice creams, eating good food and cheering up Katja, who had her 3 wisdom teeth removed at the same time. How is that even possible?!?








These two ice cream eaters wanted to spend time with me on the market place too. Too bad they're leaving Kuopio behind but coming hopefully for a visit often!




Rest of my Kuopio days I spent with this boy called Mika. First time for him to visit eastern Finland (how is THAT possible??) and I hope he didn't get too traumatised because of the mosquitos, my family and the dialect ;)


The views from Puijo tower amaze me every time. I know the city by heart but on a sunny day I love to see the lake and the small islands and where I used to live when I was small and young. "My brother is working in that building, my mom used to work at the university, see that red one over there, that used to be my school..."




I also met this glorious Jesus looking guy.




One evening the boat took us to a small island, where it was too hot to do anything except lie down. And listen to the iskelmäradio and eat soy sausages. I also saw swans.


No photos from juhannus, I forgot to take any :D Just at the cottage, eating, playing, eating, playing etc. At night everyone woke up because of the horrible lightning which struck really close and broke my uncles computer...I also cut my finger with a knife, but that happens to me every summer.

More summer photos soon :)

Somewhere in Canada

Just to let you know about Juha's Montréal-blog!

I'm staying in Kuopio, taking lots of photos, meeting people, enjoying sunshine and just being. Can't upload any photos here now, but soon :)

Everywhere you are

Birds are singing outside and finally a tiny amount of sunshine. Maybe the warm weathers are waiting for my holidays to begin in July?

I had a fastish weekend in Helsinki. Both of my older cousins graduated from the same high school at the same time and of course I wanted to be there :) Meet Vili and Valdís (and me)!



I've always disliked Helsinki a lot. I don't feel comfortable there, too many people and the atmosphere makes me feel sad everytime. Or in fact it must be just the atmosphere, because I felt extremely comfortable in the 3rd biggest city in the world, Seoul :)

But this time I went to Seurasaari just for a walk and it was special! It was so amazing that I forgot the time and missed my train back to Joensuu...Too bad I forgot to take my camera with me, I saw lots of birds, a girl fishing, old houses, sunshine, green shades, nice small paths, tourists, the most expensive cafe ever (tea 4 euros??? wtf?????) and interesting "art".

I want to thank Mika for letting us to stay at his tiny place for the weekend. First time to meet him and he feels like a close friend already :)

New friends, old friends. Saori, Sora, Chiaki and Hyeonjae left. I miss you all!



These summer nights are the ones I'm waiting for. This summer with Minttu, because Juha is leaving for Canada for 2 months :) I truly hope he's going to bring me lots and lots and lots of tea when he comes back in August!

Tidal

Thursday evening, Shanghai. Dark photos, I don't like the flashlight. My Vote Bush -cards are still THE cards for Shanghai, I got them couple of years ago from the USA. My other cards are from Kennedy Space Center, my friend Teemu brought them this year. I like different kinds of card decks and my newest deck is going to be Tarot cards :) Soon! Next week we're going to play again before Sora goes back to Japan.


On Friday I enjoyed a brunch, I was meeting other people, who are working with multicultural stuff. There were too many forks and knives, so I didn't know which ones to use ;) Anyway I got the food in my mouth and a glass of white wine down my throat. Nice discussions, nice people, sunny day, what else can you ask!


When I came home, there were 2 firetrucks heading the same way as my bus. Of course I was worrying if it's our house in flames, but it was not...It was the tiny forest next to this building! I had my camera with me, so I HAD to go and take a photo.





Thank you brave firemen!

Right now

My new camera is here! Pink and beautiful. When I received the package yesterday, there was one Snickers inside. Oh, it made me so glad! Just a small Snickers, but the amount of surprise and happiness of eating chocolate while walking outside.

Today I was showing an immigrant group around the library. People were interested, asking questions, borrowing books, smiling. Also I found something I didn't know I was looking for: Rise by Samantha James :)

More later, today card games with Sora and Minttu :)

"Oh you could tell me how you're feeling right now"

New camera incoming!

So,

soon something new :)

Saturday

Forget about the time just close your eyes

This is where I work. Yesterday I could use the camera of the library and of course I had to use my chance and take some extra photos as well ;) I love how the light comes through the windows and roof, white surfaces and shadows. And this week I found out that I can continue working after my project finishes in September. I'm happy! Something always comes if you just let it flow.


I forgot to write about the visit to the Korean restaurant in Helsinki. It was the first time for me to go there and I'm definitely going to go there again. Kimchi was as spicy as I remembered, my japchae was excellent (mmm, sweet potato noodles and lots of sesame oil!) and the atmosphere was authentic, because just before we got in, a bus full of koreans arrived and came to eat, too :)

In the end I wanted to show off my Korean skills and of course it turned into an epic fail. I said
"잡채가 제일 맛있어요" (Japchae is the most delicious food) and the amazed waiter started to ask questions from me IN KOREAN. Of course I didn't understand and he tried to pronounce the questions as slowly as possible couple of times and I just looked at him and felt so stupid! In the end he said in Finnish that "I just wanted to know how long you've been living in Korea" and I said "2 weeks" :D Before my next visit to Korea House I'm going to practice a bit more...........

Another funny incident happened after the Batmud gala. One person mixed my character's name with my bf's character and after he saw me in the gala, he has been harassing my bf telling him "how cute you are, just my type of a girl" etc. I wonder when we should let him know that he has been whispering sweet words of love to my bf instead of me...But I don't mind, that guy was kind of creepy!

Wet snow coming from the sky, but I'll go to the quiz anyway.

(My favourite song atm, by Samantha James. Chilled and slow.)

No stories without a camera

There's nothing to say without nice photos.

Plain text is boring.


Lately:

*I've been teaching young and old people how to write their names in Korean, Japanese and Russian. I got lots of help from my friends, my Persian and Chinese skills are not so well developed yet...

*I was in Helsinki and attended Batmud gala. Photos can be found from here, I represent myself in a couple of them. In the party I met another LIBRARIAN MUDDER! I was so surprised! I also got to know many people RL, who I've only known in the game before. I really liked all of them :)

*My love goes out to Ivan and Jon, they brought me amazing teas and maple syrup stuff from Canada.

*Now I feel like I'm getting sick. Maybe it has something to do with yesterday taxi line, I was standing in the rain for over 1 hour after 3 am. I'll try to fight!

Korean style decorations

Big white stone walls and nothing to put there, that was the problem of this apartment for a long time. But once again Gmarket came to rescue and it doesn't look so white anymore :)


In Finland decorative wall stickers are extremely expensive (20 euros or more for big ones) and the selection is quite bad. Luckily in Korea the variety is much better and prices are very low compared to Finnish costs. For example the costs of my stickers were about 3 euros each! Of course some of the Korean stickers are quite funny with lots of writing mistakes (Bon Boyage?!?) and treacly love messages...But because there's hundreds of different stickers to choose from, it's easy to find something nice, too.

In fact I ordered the key stickers (above) accidentally, I wanted to have something green and leafy, but when the package arrived I noticed that I had put the wrong code into the shopping list...Fortunately I didn't get anything too romantic and pink and I was quite satisfied with the key stickers too (except there were also kind of note papers in addition to the key stickers and it says "am 2:00 beauty shop, pm 10:00 grace" in one of them...Grace? Beauty shop at 2 am? WTF?)

These telephone poles were something I ordered intentionally and now they're covering one wall in the living room.

I also joined Heiaheia. What's that? If you like exercising and want to follow your progress, you can join heiaheia and list all your activities there. It's kind of Facebook, but it doesn't have the same features yet, probably in the future though. I've never followed my training or the changes of my weight, maybe this gives me enough boost to start observing them :)

I'm waiting for Batmud's 20th birthday, which is held in Kaivohuone on 17th of April. To celebrate that I reinced out of a sudden and I'm playing a nuntarma librarian gnome at the moment :D My previous reinc was a nuntemplar ent and I made it to avoid any parties, but now I wouldn't mind having some...

Music of the moment: Marcus Schossow pres. 1985 - London especially from 2:30 :)

Puijo on my mind.

Explosions! Once again we had amazing time in Puijo ski jumping competition :) This time our team consisted of me, Barun, Juha, Nea and Moona. It was the first time for the girls to experience the competition and I'm sure they'll join me again next year. Warm sausage (the only time of the year when I want to eat any meat!) with mustard and ketchup, people applauding and jumpers jumping, long liquorice strings, fireworks, snow, lights, flags...I remember the first time I saw the fireworks and ski jumping, I was in kindergarden and standing in the snow and how the biggest of the fireworks seemed to make a huge cage on top of me by spreading lights all over the sky :)


Next day we climbed up the stairs to Puijo (so beautiful view!) and finally up to the tower. Last time I was in the tower maybe 5 years ago? It was so funny to watch people ski on the tracks where I used to ski 20 years ago (!) and I could also spot Julkula, the city district where I used to live for 10 years.




I'm trying to save the battery of my camera (I loaded it at my mom's place) so I can take photos of Barun for the library photo manual. That's why I didn't take my camera with me to Latolankatu on Saturday = lots of good food and company, stories about first time skiing + evolving languages, Shanghai (of course!) and snow fighting.

The song of this week: Kpop. (After my visit to Korea I started to have special feelings towards kpop. Can't explain why, this music is not very original...)

다음에 또 봐요!