Stay there 'cause I'll be coming over

HAPPINESS STRIKES!

Reasons, many. The most important -> Hyeyeon is probably moving to Finland for working here. Now it all depends on the company, but I have a good feeling about that. They can't decide not to hire someone who has special knowledge about LG and Asian markets. I'm just so happy I could explode! Then we can have tea evenings and Sirpa's fatburning on Saturdays and just talk talk talk talk talk :)

My job is also so great. I've had meetings with so nice people and we're planning on making library much more immigrant-friendly. There really is need for that! I'm planning on workshops, art exhibitions, library guidances for immigrants, leaflets about library in different languages etc. What could be better?

I'm studying Korean, I bought Korean keyboard stickers, I ordered Korean language books from Gmarket (finally in English and available international shipping!) and it all just makes more sense now when Hyeyeon is coming. She can correct my horrible pronounciation, especially the letter ㅓ...

My extreme favourite song at the moment. HERE. I've been listening to it for 3 hours now.

I can't take any new photos because I forgot the loader of my camera battery in Korea. So just boring texts and old photos until I get my wire back. More soon!

Just some photos and explanations.

I'm still not recovered after Korea. It's some kind of reverse cultural shock...When I arrived in Incheon airport, everything was somehow familiar although I had never been there before. It was new but at the same time it was very easy to adapt and I didn't experience any cultural shock. Or at least if I think about that time now, nothing was a big surprise for me there.

Incheon airport, sunny and cold day. Hyeyeon, Hejin and Kitak came to take us from the aiport, I continued to Hyeyeon's place by airport limousine bus, other went by car to the guesthouse where Juha's brother and sister were staying.


2 photos from Gyeongbokgung, the biggest palace in Seoul. Snow was melting and it felt like Finnish spring. The palace area was very big so it took us couple of hours to walk around there. Then we were so hungry that we continued to the best food place in Insadong (my opinion!) -> Sanchon!

This was a vegetarian restaurant, whose owner is an ex-monk and the food is based on Buddhist traditional dishes. Floor was warm, food was full of surprises and good and the atmosphere was serene.


Our one-day-trip to DMZ was kind of sad because of the fog. When we visited 3rd tunnel, it didn't bother at all (what was bothering me was the small tunnel so deep underground, ugh!) but we didn't go to Dorasan Observatory, because there was just too much fog and we wouldn't have been able to see anything. These 2 photos are showing my best attempts to look inside North Korea. First one is from Dorasan Station, which is the closes railway station to the border (and there was a spooky feeling, because there are no-one travelling to North Korea and the station was almost empty except the tourists who were walking around). In the second photo you see a North Korean building and we might have seen a soldier there too!


Myeongdong, local department stores (we went in and came out as soon as possible, because everything looked so expensive there!) and the best shopping streets are to the left. So many cars, so big buildings...But it didn't feel uncomfortable, I'd rather say it was kind of cosy!

View from Namsan mountain, where the local Puijo tower (called Seoul tower) is located. Nice views over the city, which just continued and continued and continued to every direction. But I'm not so comfortable in high places, so I was mainly looking at people and wondering about things. Yellow bus number 2 which took us to the mountain was an interesting experience, we saw so many foreigners! During that trip there were days when we didn't see any. We didn't go to Itaewon (district with western shops and people), so that might be one reason.

Oh my sweet Seongkwan and Hyeyeon! I hadn't seen Seongkwan in 5 years and he looked just the same as then! My fall 2004 was very special because of these 2, we went to Ruka to try snowboarding and spent the christmas together at my mom's place. Here we are in Starbucks, drinking coffee and tea, talking about our lives. It felt so heartwarming!

Shopping street in Gwangju. Most of the signs were only in Korean there, in Seoul it was easier to find the places you wanted to go. But getting lost is also fun! (We didn't go to MacDonalds in Korea, not even once! Pizzas and other western food was very expensive there, for example a small pizza from Domino's was around 11 euros...)

Rice cakes, Gwangju. When I say something about rice cakes in Finland, people always imagine western style rice cakes which get stuck in your mouth and which have no taste. Korean rice cakes come in so many different shapes and tastes! I loved rainbow rice cake but also sesame rice cakes were awesome.

One evening Hyeyeon came home from work early and we decided walk 5 minutes to the closest Starbucks. She's wearing a scarf I knitted for her :) We were just talking and drinking coffee + tea (Hyeyeon is a coffee addict, but she tries to quit!) and after that we went to Domino's to buy that small, damn expensive pizza. And how impossible it was to get a vegetarian pizza! It took 10 minutes to explain what we want to have in it and what we don't want to have in it. Most extreme ingredient in that pizza was sweet potato mousse :D

Coex mall was one of the biggest shopping centres. I especially loved one huge bookshop and I bought 3 "Learn Korean" books from there. And in the end we found a cafe, where we could get something vegetarian! Despite of opposite beliefs, it's quite impossible to find vegetarian food from Korea. Many side dishes are vegetarian of course, but main foods usually have some seafood, fish or meat in them. Twice we ordered what we thought was vegetarian (and also our korean friends thought so) but there was seafood in both of the foods. So I just picked them out and ate the rest :)



Coex Aquarium was full of families, but I didn't pay any attention to them...There were too many interesting creatures to look at!

Our friend Kitak's parents have an octopus restaurant and the food looked like this. It felt so bad when they put these octopuses to boiling water alive and they were squirming under the vegetables! I didn't try (sometimes I'm happy to be a vegetarian), but Juha tried and said it feels weird in his mouth. All the others (koreans and japanese) loved the food!

Yetchatjip (old tea house) in Insadong. Birds were flying around us when we sipped our excellent teas (Quince tea = heaven). I want to have a teahouse like this in Finland please.


Just some basic photos from Seoul, taken by Juha because I was at Hyeyeon's place having nice fever (39 degrees).

Time for weekly quiz now. Hopefully soon I'm going to feel more normal. And I didn't buy a new camera, I really hated haggling and couldn't trust the salespeople. Maybe next time :)

Bye!

So, I've been busy doing nothing. Completely nothing except knitting and sleeping and aerobiccing.

But tomorrow I'm leaving to South Korea for 2 weeks.

Photos coming later, maybe also new camera and lots of stories!

(Luckily my plane is a bit bigger than Moona's)

Catsmas

Please meet Irmeli, the curious cat, who found a hole in the wall and crawled in there. Too bad the hole was full of sawdust. The story ends in the shower.

Irmeli also liked to play with all kinds of things, especially with the string of my camera. My mother got so excited because of Irmeli that she said she's dreaming about owning a cat one day. Thank you Helena and Aliisa for bringing Irmeli to Kuopio with you!

And then meet Urpo, the huge cat, which spends a lot of time outside although it's extremely cold. When he wants to come inside, he just jumps on the door handle to make a sound and we open the door. My brother's family bought Urpo from local animal shelter and he has been a big part of their life ever since.

So my catsmas was fine and this is how a christmas tree looks like when you watch it through a glögi mug...Interesting. I met my friends, visited all relatives and ate vegan ham as well as casseroles and pizza. And chocolate. The most memorable moment must have been when I played Iskelmä (Finnish schlagers) board game against my mother and her husband. It's like Trivial Pursuit but all questions are about iskelmä music. It was so absurd, but in a weird way it was fun as well. Except when we had to listen to the music. TORTURE! (luckily the clips were less than 15 seconds!)

I also spent some time in the trunk of my brother's car with lots of bags and the greatest suitcase I borrowed from my grandmother. Sometimes you need to travel in challenging surroundings to appreciate the pure comfortableness of a basic car, bus or train seat.

Tomorrow it's going to be the last day of work. Kind of sad, kind of happy :) It takes time to get used to the fact that I don't have to wait for the (too often late) bus number 202 in the cold ever (?) again. Last week I also experienced how it feels like to be in a cold, dark bus for half an hour. The bus broke down on the road and the driver wanted to save battery (although the fault had nothing to do with it) and so he turned out the lights and heating (and of course it was -20 celsius outside). So it was me and 9 other people sitting in the dark bus in total silence...And I was thinking "this is all so Finnish" :D

2 weeks -> Korea.

This month in pictures

Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to begin.

First there was no snow and it was warm. So much rain and no minus degrees! There was a forgotten shovel on the yard one morning when I went to pick up the mail.

Then I was going to Jyväskylä to have a small xmas party with my mudder friends. This weird fellow traveller wanted to show off in a bus stop.

In Jyväskylä we spent our time with Rock Band, when I got the microphone I didn't want to give it to anyone else. I also learnt to play the drums. Also sauna, extremely powerful versions of Enter Sandman and big scary guys.

I went back to work, it was finally sunny and got colder. Sunshiiiiiine! Beautiful trees around the library.

We had an amazing console game day in the library, 100 people visited and almost everyone was happy. I liked especially ski jumping but also Guitar Hero and Buzz :)

It was "a bit" crowded next to the doors, luckily only one backpack got mixed with someone elses and we took care of the problem.

Last weekend was time for our own pikkujoulut (xmas party) and I baked these gingerbreads for the event. I also made potato and carrot casseroles and rosolli (traditional finnish christmas salad). Thank you guests for your company and foods!

This week it got colder, around -20 celsius every day. I heard so much complaining, but I was feeling so great. Finally real winter, white trees, freezing nose and stars at night. The most beautiful time of the year :)

Thursday morning I had my last shift in the mobile library, it was so cold that my breath came out as a white steam. All my photos looked like this :D

The view from the front seat is nice and I liked to wave at the other bus or truck drivers :)

Today, cold wind. We had 2 Korean friends (Kitak & Hejin) staying at our place for one week and today we all woke up before 1pm and decided to go to the shop. Notice red faces and ultimate protection!

I want to wish everyone a happy xmas and see you next year :) I'm going to spend my xmas in Kuopio and have my last work week before New Year's eve. Then it's time to just wait for our flight to the land of hangeul and kamsahamnida!

Come Play Perfect

It's finally cold here and in the morning, after waiting 20 minutes for the bus outside my fingers were totally frozen. But who cares! Anyway it's much better to have cold outside than never-ending rain and dark clouds hanging above your head. On this kind of days I specially enjoy crispy plants under my shoes and the sound they make when I stomp around. I had plenty of time to do that while I was waiting for the bus again in the afternoon for 20 minutes. Waiting is nice if your mind is full of thoughts and you have crunchy plants near you. (it's all about the attitude)

Today morning was crowded in the mobile library. Imagine a bus completely full of elementary schoolers. Most of them are pushing each other and giggling at sex books. There are 2 long queues and rising voices are demanding us to first make reservations for Simpsons comics, then renew all loans, borrow new books and show where are Goosebumps and Ella books.

So hectic, but so great.

Rest of my day I leafed through books of local school library. So cute old editions of Winnie the Pooh or Robinson Crusoe! Also (too) many religious stories made to look like proper adventure or fairytale books...In my opinion it's not appropriate to have "secretly" religious books in the library for young children to read, especially if the stories are full of preaching against nonbelievers. I just wonder who on earth decided to have those books in the elementary school library in the first place?


Lately I've been enjoying knitting, baking, aerobic, singing, games and sleeping. It's amazing how couple of free days can revive your body and mind completely! Tomorrow I'm going to sleep until 10 and pack my stuff and have a tiny journey.

Bis bald! (gr8 german l33t skillz!)

Why don't you let it happen

We HAD snow. For a winter person like me it felt so good to be surrounded by white snowdrifts and the calming atmosphere that makes you want to light candles.


Now there's rain every day, black evenings and how it all makes you tired! I've been sleeping 12 hours during the weekends and I have no power to do anything efficient/diligent/sensible.

To put some colour in my life and to get me through these black days I bought red rubber boots.

I've always had the passion for jumping in the small water puddles and now I can do it without getting my socks wet. Why people are not using rubber boots more? They're the most practical shoes in rainy times like these.

I've also knitted colourful things like scarfs and dishcloths. I have big plans about knitting a vest, but I don't have time before christmas.


And one thing that gave me energy during these weeks was school children. I was teaching library skills to 12 classes of 7th graders and most of the youngsters were awesome! I rarely feel comfortable with babies or really small children, but when they get older, they start to have their own thoughts and they start asking difficult questions. Is there a better way to challenge often so stale and stable thoughts of older people? (I also read an interesting book about parenting, Tom Hodgkinson's The Idle Parent, which was excellent! Less work, more play!)

6 weeks left of work. 54 days left in my Korea Countdown. Snow has plenty of time to fall before I leave.