28. Visitors and travelling (+fucking many pictures)

Hullo, can't believe it's November already!!

Once again, I've been buuuusy (well most of the time, at least XD). I had Kukka visiting me for two whole weeks, so the time I wasn't in school I had better things to do than being on computer :D even once it's this way heha. Most of the days we just sat in my flat doing nothing much (I got her hooked in Supernatural so we watched like two seasons of that), ate a looooooot, and I had rehearsals basically every day last week, so the nights went for those.

This week, however, we're having an 'Enrichment Week' at Uni, which means no lectures yeyy. So I do actually have something to blog about~ On Saturday we made this school trip to Oxford, a simple one-day bus trip for our Understanding Britain course. Then on Monday we went to London, did some shopping and visited AQUARIUM *ww* This was first time for me, like ever ever ever, in a proper aquarium (strange i never visited one in jpn o.o"), so i reaaally was looking forward to it!!

And then the next day, yesterday it is, we went to Camden Town for some more shopping, and at night to the London Dungeons! So something halloweenish~

Tho we went shopping in the central london, it actually became clear the best place to shop was..... tyndyndyyyyyy.... in kingston, right next to the uni :_D it was much less ppl there and no such a rush that we had in london. The shops were all in the same area and we have quite a big selection of different stores there, so from this day on i might prefer buying my stuff there..!! If you visit london it definitely is worth checking.

Then, after having done some morning shopping this morning, we headed back home and started packing for this night's flight. Meaning, I'm BACK IN FINLAND NOW! 

It feels just amazing to be back. It's strange, i've never been one of those who become homesick or prefer home country to living abroad, but this time i'm just really glad to be back for these few days. Or maybe living abroad makes me appreciate things here more, dunno. I'll be back on Sunday already, so now I just make the best of these 3,5 days i'll have here! Most of my hours are already booked, so i'll get to meet many friends and do a lot of things :3 more about that later.

Now, for it's late already, i'll just post here some random photos from last weeks with some words written under them. Hope you guys like, here we gooo!

Souvenirs from finland ;;<3

A breakfast at kingston mmm

going ooout

Our bad ass hotel on the first weekend, the five star place next to St. Paul's church B)

Oh yeah.

I wish i could live like this every day....

Going out for a drink with Elina&Mikko, who were visiting london at the same time~

Rndm idyllic midnight in london pic

omnomnom this was great<3 tho it was raining so much we had to walk in wet shoes even the next day

hahaha the lunch of the following day :_D see the contrast? in candem you can eat various foods like chinese, mexican, jpnese, pizza etc nearly free, lets say 3 pounds for meal.

One just have to love these!!

Candem.

More omnoms.

Mmmmmm. some of our own cookings.

Oxfordddd (god it's a horrible pic, i just added it without looking probably so now here you are..)

Kukka being a tourist

The city was soooo beautiful, i'd go and live there any day. Seriously. 

The wind was fucking cold tho >,< we, transforming into grannies in order to survive.

Our not-so-great guide.

Aa i fell in love with this one!

It was this scenery everywhere in the city. amazing.

The university we visited. It seems to be the home for the students too o.o" just.. wow.

They said the building had influenced harry potter movies, and yeah, it was like the same..!

Felt like being in the movie!!!

The Great Hall.

Great Tourists.

Aaah i wanna study there ;; see they had a wedding!

One bad ass clock.

Kit Kat milkshake ;;<3

Back in London.

Here something British for u.

Mmmmmmm.

Disney store at oxford street!!

Kukka bought me a cool simba cup :DD cant open it before christmas tho

A RAY!!! aaah i just love these creatures!! The highlight of the day without a doubt! It just kept coming to me~

Outside the aquariummm.

omnom breakfast at home.

The dungeons. The place was SO COOL! not that scary, nothing like the scaring-the-crap-out-of-you-hospital-thing in fujikyu, but it was just a great deal of fun! The actors, the music and the props, everything was great! Highly recommend.

Being a tourist.

A cool building for suski, thought you'd like it!

Omnomnom crepe at Candem.

WE FOUND SOME NIKUMAN IN CANDEM ;; I WAS LIKE SADJHLSDJLKSJ THEY SELL NIKUMAN AAA. but it wasnt tasty at all D:: still, a warm memory for that and a small moment of appreciation to nikumans.

Candem. So far, it's the coolest place i've been to in london.

Picadilly tourist pic.

Airport foooood tonight.

Yeah, that's it then. The last one's my Finnish room the way it was when i entered. It's kinda strange to be here again o.o" strange but great.

I'll be back once i've returned to london and tell how this turned out to be!! Oh, and have a great halloween u all!

25. Exploring the world: Korea and Kansai

note: i wrote this on the 4th May, and am back to japan right now, staying at my friend Jenni's in oosaka. im not having my laptop connected to the internet so im using her friend Ansku's one, and am therefore not able to add any more pics D;; but now that im back to japan i promise more posts soon!! and more specific posts of the things i've been doing lately


May 4th, Blu Guest House, Hongdae, Seoul
Absolutely too long time after the last post passed, but i've really been very busy. My little sister came for a week's visit, and 4 days after she'd left two of my friends came to tokyo too, and during the whole time i've also been seeing my japanese friends and planning next year and huhh it's just been busy times. After the two of them went back to Finland, i only had couple of days left before this trip and every day was full-booked. So yeah, sorry. Since i've been doing that much it's hard to decide what to write too.. and to be honest, lately i've just not been in the mood of writing, or at least in the blog-writing mood. I think the blog should be a thing you cant wait for getting to write, and normally i feel like that but now i just had to force myself to do this >,<"

Yah. So i've been running around the city, trying to show all the greatest thing of my dear tokyo to the visitors. so much has happened it kinda feels i could tell nothing without leaving something 'important' out... or actually, it's mostly been drinking three times a week during the whole month, so nothing too interesting i think XD rndm pics here

another kapibara i happened to won when i bought some food in konbini ;w;<3 welcome to the family!!1

in a ghost bar in kichijoji

in our schools new university building ft mami

hachiko and cherry blossoms!!

in odaiba ft irisssss

statue of liberty

more sakura

umm... just some jpnese men in harajuku.. in school uniforms.. with stocking in their heads...

tidiiiiiii found this on my jpn phone when i looked the pics through

purikura ft salla and emmi

we went to the fujikyuu high land near mt. fuji! it has many world record roller coasters and was a looooot of fun!! tho it was clody so we couldnt see the fuji D:

haunted hospital that left me some serious traumas D::

Eeerm so I already tried writing this post once, the day before I left my apartment and came here via night bus and Osaka, so I just post the thing i wrote back then and continue after that!! yoroshiku.

April 28th
Actually i'm leaving tomorrow night (the night bus to osaka), so today i have to pack all the stuff and clean the room etcetc choose what to take with me for the trip since i'll be away for over 11 days (i dont have that much stuff anymore since my sister was kind and took 12kg with her back to finland XD) and more importantly, to get a new insurance for my luggage since the one i had when i came here has expired. And i still havent looked for any places to stay in kansai, nor figured out which days ill be in which city, nor which cities ill visit nor the bus ill come back with :____D leave alone the korea part, i havent even checked how to get to the hostel from the airport XD so its kinda a big mess, and today will be busy! but i like it that way, im seriously thinking of not booking any hostels before hand at all, and trying to just go with the flow.... to stay where i feel like! but well, always better late than never we say in  finland, that could be my life motto...


There's something i have done for preparation, tho XD yesterday i downloaded a hangul application into my iphone and learned the korean alphabet, so now i'll know i can read the names of places and not get lost at least :_D i've always thought korean is a fucking hot language and sounds intriguing, so maybe it would be nice to learn it some day!! i heard that it is very similar to japanese too, so i think it wouldnt be too hard ;3 no kanjis at least!!

back to May 4th:
Well, I ended up packing in the next morning before the Nekotalo-scary-woman came to check my room out, the last ten minutes before her coming were stressful, i had to vacuum and do the dishes and pack some small stuff and clean the toilet but i made it haha! And my friend Jenni promised i can sleep at her place in Osaka, ill be staying the whole time there and do day tours to kyoto and nara etc~ thank you thank you thank you (o^,^o) have already bought some candy for u yey. problems tend to solve themselves so i always think like that and stop stressing too much :D

Also, i booked the bus ticket just before leaving the house (i went back to my host family's and left my stuff there before the trip, i'll also stay there for the last few days of my stay in tokyo ;_; so soooooooon..!!). Have to admit i was kinda terrified of taking the bus, since in the same morning there had been two accidents caused by sleeping bus drivers, many ppl were dead and so on, so i couldnt sleep well during the ride lol. well, here i am, alive. at least before the next ride >,<"

So about Korea, then?

I love this fucking place!! Seoul is nothing i had thought it would be, it's a lot more western than tokyo o.o" not many high buildings or big crowds and the city is full of green, it could be an european city..!! inside the city there's a very beutiful river that you can walk along, many parks and FREE SEOUL WI-FI in many areas and streets. Then the prices....!!!! 15 minutes taxi ride costs about 3 euros. 3 euros!! one morning i bought a bottle of water, an onigiri and a cinnamon roll and it was about 1,2 euros lol. Some of the shops are open till 5 am, so you can do shopping very late at markets, but even the shops that close earlier are open like til 10pm. So ppl live at nights too!! goes for me :DD

What else...?
Oh, the ppl. imo koreans are much more stylish than japanese. So it's horrible to walk around, cuz every second person on the street draws your attention with their good looks :_D They're also taller and have bigger shoulders etc, look more 'western' by bodies. Also the atmosphere is more lively, ppl show their feelings more open (many couples for example, and these guys do more small talk). So actually there are many unexpected differences between Japan and Korea, as far as i've noticed during these couple of days.

For the negative side i have to say it smells like kimchi in here. The smell comes to you and stays in your clothes for the whole day, I didnt like myeongdong, the youth shopping paradise, at all cuz the stink was unbearable there >,<"

That's the only negative thing coming to my mind! but basically, seoul's stolen my heart. i would come and live here any time. seriously. the city isnt big, but it's so amazingly energetic, beautiful and classy at the same time, that i just cant not-like it in here! if it was a person i'd be in love by now.

Now that i've got this hard first-post-after-a-longer-while done (and ppl this was written on 4th, i just couldnt get myself to press the post button...), i can probably post again soon and tell all the things i've been doing here~ i can say the weather has been amazing (slightly too warm with humid 30 degrees on some of the days) and continues sunny until monday when i'll head back to japan :D i just have to wonder why i did took my mittens with me.....

Anyway, this night ill go out and grab a drink somewhere, just came back for a couple of hours since the morning was early and i havent slept too much. So that's about it, i'll give you the detailed report when i'll be back in japan after few days! aaaaa i just love my life right in this moment, i really have been happy during the recent weeks and enjoying every second. Life should be like this, you should take your stuff and head off much more often to some city where you know nobody knows your name and just walk the streets and eat. ah.

note: a little bit jumpy, ecxuse me. hope you got even some joy of it lolol