Blue wings

So I've booked tickets to Korea now! And suddenly tiny excitement is starting to grow inside me, this time I'm really going there for 2 weeks! One travel guide came in the post on Friday and I've been reading it all the time, I also have some (old) books about Korea from the library at home. I'm trying to absorb all the information I can get before going there!

But that's all from my plans. Except that I'm going to watch Lost in translation this evening, just to enjoy the sceneries, which are similar to Korea :) My 4th time to watch the movie, which gets better every time.

(and I was cleaning today, also washed sauna for the first time. I never want to do that again, please give me just public sauna where I can go once a week and I never have to wash it!)

I keep my blog so that my friends and relatives can keep up what's going on in my life. But which blogs are my favourite ones that I read often? Or which pages I check almost every day?

1) Grand Narrative tells about Korean pop culture in an interesting way. I accidentally found this blog in summer and I've been reading it since. I like especially the writer's bloggings about Korean women and the world they're living in.

2) Liivian Talossa (in Finnish), just because I like the photos :)

3) Ravelry is for knitting addicts, countless amounts of patterns that are just waiting to be made for someone or for yourself. I go there and dream that I had more time to knit.

4) The Ecologist was a magazine which came to me until this summer, but the paper version was turned into e-magazine so I have to take my daily dose of Ecologist from the net these days. My favourite part of the magazine is "Behind the label", which explains everything you need but don't want to know about basic products, which are not good for you or the environment.

5) Blogilista (in Finnish) is for those days, when I don't have anything to read. Then I check for some fashion blogs (and it just can't stop amazing me how some young girls are so interested in fashion!) or any blog that has been updated that moment.

and finally

6) Osmo Soininvaara 's blog (in Finnish) is one of my favourite's because I like his books and most of the new ideas he has. The best part is the lively conversation which brings lots of different perspectives to the things he's writing about.

and

7) Kemikaalicocktail (in Finnish), which is just basic stuff for people, who are interested in environment and their own health.

Tomorrow there might be snow on the ground, so maybe these are the final times of taking this kind of colourful, stormy and leafy photos :) I'm waiting for snow SOOOO much, so let's hope I'm surrounded by white in the morning...

Fate or faith

Just some photos out of focus. After total cleanover of my flat I've earned lots of tea and time for knitting. New Novita Puro yarn just sends me telepathic signals from my yarn box, "come here, come here, come here"...One hat is almost finished, another one is being planned :)

Have a beautiful week, I know I will!

Waiting for

My first tiny small flax flower! My other plants don't seem to be comfortable in my terrace (but I can't blame them, I also don't feel comfortable there!) so they are not making any flowers. I had to take a photo of this beauty, though!

This week is nice. First of all, my much loved friend Hyeyeon is coming to Finland next week! In fact she arrives to Helsinki on Sunday and spends the night at my uncle's place, but on Monday she'll be here! So happy so happy so happy so happy! I took 3 days off next week, so I can spend time with her and all our common friends. Warning, lots of photos incoming...

I also don't have to wait for the bus to get to work this week, because I can get a ride from our summer worker, my friend Tuula. Yay!

And my evening meal is (hmmm...was...) the best ever! Bread with avocado paste, organic pear, mysli, liquorice and sweet coconut chai tea :)

Also today at work I got one visitor I didn't expect; my ex-boss! She just wanted to know how I'm doing and we talked almost half an hour about life. What else is there to talk about :) It was so nice surprise, I felt warm the rest of the day. I also carried and removed so many books that my hands are hurting...

There is one nice girl who always comes to the library just before closing time almost every day. She likes to be the last customer and talk with me about birthdays, books, friends. I can somehow see myself in her, I was just like that when I was in elementary school :)


A bit of mudding and never-ending undead turning now, my beloved Conquer (also known as) Ivan from Canada is also coming to visit me in the end of August. Last time I caught him before he fainted on the floor after too much sauna, maybe this time I'll finally save his whole life! Und meinen Gurth (also known as) Vladimir treffe ich auch im August :) Wunderbar!

Animals in the wild

Yesterday morning I decided to take photos of the animals I see every day. I came up with the idea because I didn't want to spend time with a man, who comes to me every morning at the bus stop and starts to talk about jesus. Some mornings it's ok, but not always :) Snowy wolf and woody fish can be found from the centre of my city and the rest of the animals from the library where I work. I love especially that big bear, stroking it makes me feel relaxed and when you climb on its back, everything looks small and you feel like you can conquer the library!


Last week as well as this week I attended different meetings. This kind of meeting culture is very new to me and for example I didn't understand to take blank paper with me to the first meeting. And of course because I'm so newbie in my work, some things the others are discussing are just not familiar to me and I feel like an outsider. But as the time passes, I'll get hang of it, hopefully!

It's also a bit difficult to understand that there's always tea and coffee and something to eat for free. When I was unemployed, I didn't have money to buy cakes or pies - at least not often. When I went to a cafe with my friends, I usually took just tea. I don't know if I want to get used to this kind of change - it's a small thing, but for me it tells about the way of the world these days.

Sun is shining, music is playing (Rubik - Dada bandits!), new Ecologist is still waiting to be read, too many books to be read. Off I go!

The things I see when I wait for the bus, part 1:

Puijo. Cards. Tea.

Puijo Ski Jumping World Cup took place in Puijo on Tuesday. It's my annual tradition to go there and this year was no exception. I love the atmosphere, people shouting and screaming, colourful flags, everything! And my grandparents live right next to the hill, so I always go there and drink tea between rounds ;) Finnish didn't do so well this year and the winner was a big surprise (Takanobu Okabe!). My favourite jumper is Matti Hautamäki, because he looks just like my brother (very rational reason to like some skijumper :D) and he was in same high school and took same classes with me.

After the competition we came to my mother's place, had sauna and played Shanghai (one of my favourite card games!). We also drank tea Liang brought with him :) He was very lucky in the card game - second time ever to play it and already a winner!



This morning I tried a new tea called Matcha. It's green tea powder from Japan and I had never found it from any shop in Finland until now I accidentally bumped in it in Kuopio's market hall. The taste was very strong, but I love strong tasting teas :)

The day was very sunny and I bought some yarn and a calendar from Kuopio before heading in the bus to Joensuu. I spent my time knitting and looking at the white fields. Now I'll just wait for tomorrow morning...First day as a library boss. Scary.

China in my mind

When I wait for the bus in the bus stop, I always have company -> birds. There's always lots of them flying around, stopping for a while and then flying, landing on some bushes and eating berries and then flying again.

Yesterday was an evening dedicated for China. I invited couple of friends to play Shanghai (one of my favourite card games!) and for my surprise, my chinese friend Liang brought some very special and expensive chinese green tea with him. His parents own teahouse in China and that's why also he knows so much about tea. We even had a true Kung Fu tea ceremony (without all the real "tools") and the taste of the tea was unearthly! The best tea I've ever tried! We drank the tea from small shot glasses, because I didn't have "real" small tea cups. Maybe because of the brilliant taste of tea, I didn't concentrate on playing and I lost all games...



I'm going to be too busy tomorrow, there are so many things I have to do and so many places to visit because I got the job. But before that, I want to wish everyone a good womens day with the photo below -> me between huge boobs! This snow woman can be found from Joensuu :)

Whiteness and warmth

Today I went to the shop and it was so white all around me. I hope the snow would last forever, but next week it will be +degrees again.

Today I made quite tasty couscous salad. My relatives often tell me it's really hard to come up with something to make for vegetarian people to eat. This salad is a very good example how vegetarian foods can be the most easiest foods to prepare! I used only couscous, tomatoes, cucumber, onions, fetacheese, cabbage and basilika, mixed all and...that was it! Dessert was delicious and simple too, blue- and raspberries with vegan vanilla sauce :)




Like always, I love to drink green tea after eating. I've felt that green tea somehow helps your digestion, because if you've been eating too much, green tea makes you feel a lot better. In the mornings I drink black tea to wake myself up, daytime I prefer green tea and in the evenings my cup is filled with herb teas. My favourites are for example Clipper teas, Celestial Seasonings -teas and a special healthy favourite is Sonnentor's Pu Erh tea, which tastes and smells like horse shit :D

I got Taika mug as a christmas present this year and I absolutely love it! It's big enough for tea, because I love to drink big amounts at a time. I guess everyone has their special mugs for drinking tea or coffee :)




I also started aerobic season yesterday. I bought old Fitness-magazines from the library on wednesday and I've been reading them, watching TV and knitting yesterday and today. One thing annoys me though -> those magazines constantly offer new "programs" for readers, like "how to get flat stomach in 3 months" or "you can run even faster if you follow this program". Is it so, that people really need to program exercising too? Why not exercise just because you like it? And when you don't feel like it, then just stay at home :)