Day 6

http://summerinkorea.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/day-6/

Day 5

http://summerinkorea.wordpress.com/2012/06/15/day-5/

Day 4

http://summerinkorea.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/day-4/

Some pictures from day 3

Day 3

http://summerinkorea.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/day-3/

Pictures later.

Day 2

http://summerinkorea.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/day-2/

 Streets of Myeongdong

Aa -50-90% family sale gathered a long queue in front of the store

 A 4-story coffee house

Side-by-side skincare shops

Sogong Underground Shopping Center

 Blingbling-store

 Blingbling-skull/phone

 All the freebies we got from visiting the skincare stores

All of the boxes were filled with cotton or something like that

to make it feel like there was something inside.

All my skincare products thus far. The dark grey thing in the topleft is hair wax.

We visited a 5-story Forever21

Some pictures from day 1

 Our plane

 Me at the airport, on my laptop as usual...

 The route maps for the different KAL Limousine Bus lines

A huge building (at least compared to Finland)

 Our living room

Paparazzi

 The view from our living room

 Our lovely bath tub

Our bedroom

The view from our bedroom

Our very first meal in Korea

Dongdaemun (Great East Gate)

Day 1

http://summerinkorea.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/day-1/

Pictures later.

6 hours to go!

As I'm writing this, we're just about to leave the house to Sara's mom's house to fix their digibox, and from there we'll continue to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport! We've got everything packed, but unfortunately I forgot to get me a tripod/monopod for my camera for good photographs during the night....

This one will be a short post since we're just about to leave, the next time I'll be posting here will be from Korea, so see you then!

There'll also be a huge suprise for you in the very near future....!

0 days 'til Korea~!

Byebye PC, hello laptop~!

I finally sent my PC back to the place that sold it to me because it wouldn't start properly. It's been like that for about 9 months or something, but I couldn't be bothered to send it back to the company. Now I'm writing on a laptop and this keyboard feels really awkward when I'm used to the huge buttons on my regular keyboard.. And I didn't manage to stay awake last night. I went to bed at like 1.45am or something like that, and, to my surprise, Vanessa woke up at like 1am to eat! She hasn't done that in a good while now, good thing I was awake though so I got a full nights sleep after feeding her.

I've also set my laptop up so that it has all the required stuff installed so I can actually upload stuff here and to my travel blog where I'll be writing during our trip instead of here: http://summerinkorea.wordpress.com/.

I've been wondering whether I should really stay awake the whole night so I could get better sleep in the airplane or not, because I'm really bad in sleeping in anything that moves where it's not possible to lie down on a flat surface. Anyhow, I'll cut this post here because I've still some last minute check-ups to do so I won't forget anything important back home like my friend did the other day; she forgot her travel insurance papers back home and she remembered it just as she was in the airport and it was too late to get anyone to bring her the documents!

Song of the Day

Heard about this one for the first time today and instantly fell in love with it!

Big Bang - Feeling

1 day 'til Korea~!

Busy!

Like I said earlier, I've been busy this entire day with stuff concerning the trip. Busy enough to FORGET about writing in the blog! Currently I'm studying korean since I've been slacking with it a lot lately, now I'm trying to catch up with all these classes that I have left before our trip, and it will be a gruesome task since it'll take me about 14 hours in total to get through all the rest... This is also the main reason why this blog post will be so short today.

I (finally) got new insoles to my (favorite non-high top) shoes, the last ones were in a horrible condition... It was bad enough to be uncomfortable to walk with the old insoles since they were so twisted and broken! I also decided to buy some Ben & Jerry's for myself when Sara asked me to go by the store on my way home, it's good but after eating around 2/3rds of the entire cup in about an hour it left me feeling nautious. It's good, but it's so sweet that it will kick back eventually and leave you feeling nautious, unless you can tolerate the sweet taste of raw cookie dough...

Also earlier today, when I was going to get some cash from my mom because she wants me to get something for her from Korea, I had a nice little brunch for 4.80e at Robert's Coffee in Kamppi.

A croissant and a large cup of Japan Sencha green tea~ ♥

Song of the Day

I just randomly ran into this just now. I've been looking for a full version of this intro and now I finally found it!

Big Bang - Still Alive

Now, back to my korean studies, I'm trying to accommodate my body to the korean timezone so I'll probably stay awake the entire night and go to bed tomorrow after feeding Vanessa her supper at around seven o'clock in the evening.

..............

Or maybe not..we'll see after a few more korean classes if I can stay awake or not..!

2 days 'til Korea~!

I'm a millionaire!

We spent the whole day shopping in the city center today and exchanged most of our travel cash to korean won. When we combine both mine and Sara's cash we have a bit over 2.000.000won altogether! And as all the cash is in 10.000won bills, that means that the stack is as thick as my wallet..! How the hell am I supposed to carry around enough cash to last for the entire day!? We've also started packing today just so we don't forget anything important back here, so unfortunately Style of the Day portion will be left out again until we arrive to Korea.

Now onto the bad news, a week-long strike started today among the Finnair tech people, which causes cancellations in flights during the next 7 days. Let's hope our flight doesn't get cancelled as well! We're lucky enough as it is though, since Finnair has already cancelled flights from Helsinki to Seoul on the 12th and 13th of June, and from Seoul to Helsinki on the 13th and 14th of June, and also all future flights on wednesday from Helsinki to Seoul and on thursday from Seoul to Helsinki from the 18th of June until the 31st of October... Good thing we fly on friday and saturday!

Song of the Day

Girl's Generation - Gee

3 days 'til Korea~!

Swimming vol. 2!

Today I had a "day off" when Sara and Vanessa left to visit Sara's grandmother, so for some crazy, masochistic reason I decided to go swimming for a change. I spent 2h 20min in the indoor pool, and swam 3km in 3x1km sets with 2x15min sauna/watermassage breaks. I ended up ripping up something in my left shoulder, and it's really sore right now, I can't even lift a 1 liter juice box with my arm bent at a 90 degree angle without feeling pain! Good thing I've some leftover muscle relaxant pain killers from the days when I had issues with my lower back at the start of this year.

My korean studies haven't gone so well either, I'm currently at class 9, and there are a total of 24 classes, which I was supposed to go through before our trip... Each class lasts about an hour or so, so I'm going to be quite busy the next few days. That's why there will probably be either no updates at all, or some really short ones. What's even worse when it comes to my studies, is that we're supposed to go shopping tomorrow since Sara got 70e from her grandmother, and that I'm supposed to go to my mom's place on wednesday, so that leaves me with a single full day when it's possible for me to study the entire day... I've a feeling that I won't reach my goal to for even a few basic sentences in korean when we go there, but you never know! I might be able to absorb at least some the lessons taught in the classes...

No Style of the Day today either. I wore just a pair of black college pants and a black t-shirt combined with black shoes when I went swimming and I don't think that there's anything to show with those clothes. Oh yes, black is my color of choice when I can't think of anything else!

Song of the Day

Some Skrillex for you today!

La Roux - In For The Kill (Skrillex remix)

I also got a few roses yesterday:

And my mom got me this nice marzipan ornament for my graduation cake!

Now, I'm waaay too tired to be even awake at this hour because of todays earlier excercise, so I'm off to bed now, g'night everyone!

4 days 'til Korea~!

A day of celebration and panic

Apologies for the late update, I was busy doing a 3½ hour D3 speedrun!

Today I had a graduation party for my relatives, it all went smooth and I got enough cash as presents to double our original travel budget of around 1.200e! The fun stopped after almost all guests had left and I tried to show my godmother my travel bag when I told her about our upcoming trip. It was then that I realized something was wrong...the combination for the numeric lock wasn't working! At first I started to look for the company's retail stores in Helsinki because I was certain that the code was correct, and then I started working on the lock when I realized that it would be a faster way. 3 scrolls with numbers from 0 to 9. I went through about 450 combinations before I got it right, just to notice that I was right about the code, but the first number had, for some reason unknown to me, changed from 1 to 4..! Now that I got it right I changed it back to the original number, let's hope it doesn't change again! 

And before you start, I'm 100% sure that the code started with that 1 because I even showed it to Sara when we changed the codes from the factory preset 000 to our own codes.

Style of the Day was the same as saturday because of the party, so no pictures for sunday!

Song of the Day will also be skipped today since it's so late and I haven't picked any song in advance unfortunately!

I'm off to bed, thank god I've a vacation already!

5 days 'til Korea~!

Graduation!

So it's finally over! After 2 years of waiting I've finally graduated! I didn't have any fancy parties today, but tomorrow I'll be hosting a small party for my relatives...the crib is still like an aftermath of a nuclear disaster though.. Oh well, 13½ hours left until the party so I'll probably get to clean up a LOT tomorrow..

As it's late, again, I'll save all the celebrations and writing for tomorrow and continue with

Style of the Day!

God I hate that bulging vein on my left hand....

The copyright for all the above pictures belongs to Apirat Nomnavi from Studio Elite.

I pulled off the white suit quite well in my opinion! What do you think?

Song of the Day

Big Bang - Monster

Now I'm off to watch the Jeff Dunham Show from JIM and then I'm off to bed!

Vacation!

My summer vacation started already! My boss let me take next monday and tuesday off probably because I'm graduating tomorrow.. I also got this huge flower arrangement from my co-workers as a graduation gift!

We barely had a pot large enough to hold this!

Tomorrow's graduation day and I'm excited! I'm finally eligible for bachelor's degree studies! It's been 2 years since I should've originally graduated, but I had other stuff to do such as the mandatory military service and finding a job and an apartment for myself, Sara and Vanessa. Now that we've finally settled in the new place I could relax and start studying again. My grades on the matriculation exam weren't the best possible ones, and really the only grade that keeps haunting me is the E from english. I was 1 point, 1 single goddamn point off from getting an L (the best possible grade)! Other than that I'm glad that I managed to pass the exams, since I wasn't too keen into studying during the last year for some reason..

I also got out bags from the basement because Sara wants to start packing already for the trip! As usual I'll probably just take it easy and start packing on wednesday or thursday, as the only thing different from my last trips on this trip is that I'm the one handling all the tickets and all other important papers such as travel insurance and our food/accommodation/transport cash.

Now, I must be off to bed now so that I'm not too tired tomorrow for the party! The only unfortunate thing about tomorrow is that the weather forecast has promised some rain for the morning, and I was supposed to take my graduation photos outside with my friend! Let's just hope that the rain has stopped by midday tomorrow so my photoshoot won't be completely ruined!

Song of the Day:

This is a good motivator for those days when I'm feeling a bit lazy or down.

B.A.P - Unbreakable

Pancakes!

It was wonderful to come home from work today and be greeted with a scent of fresh pancakes!

♥yummy♥

We had the practice for the graduation party today, and after that I went to pick up my suit and buy myself a graduation cap. The cap was the last one in the entire store, and luckily it was exactly the right size for me! Talk about a good luck, don't you think?

Oh yea, the press have finally caught up with the story about Tuuli's new music video being plagiarized from Kyary Pamuy Pamuy, and even the record label has admitted to that! The power of the press triumphs yet again..!

And as a sidenote, a pint of water with half of the juice of a lime squeezed into it tastes gooooooood~ ...!

As you can tell by my excitement, graduation day is slowly approaching, soon I can send my applications to the reserve-NCO-training course! And there's exactly a week to go until my vacation starts. That means only 4 working days left for me until we leave for Korea!

 Song of the Day

OK I really need to start making a list of the songs I've used in the blog thus far...

This is a great song by a great japanese guitarist, Miyavi.

Miyavi - Tom and Jerry (Tome to Jurii)

Short posts are fun to make, especially when you're tired!

"Popstar" in the making

Today I heard a song from the newest teenpop"star" from Finland. And I have to admit -- it was probably the worst autotune crap I've heard coming from Finland in ages!

Tuuli - Salaisuudet

Kinda reminds you of PONPONPON by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu doesn't it?

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - PONPONPON

While taking a closer look, it looks like the entire set of Tuuli's song was copied from PONPONPON, albeit minor changes had been made such as changing the color of the wall.

Too bad they didn't go all the way and change the pattern as well to make it a less obvious copy.

Moving on from the obvious copying of the set, I find it funny how 20-year-olds, with actual talent and skill, get turned down by record labels because they think that those people won't "fit the industry" because they "don't understand what it really takes to make it" and suddenly a 13-year-old girl is their newest star..what the fuck does a 13-year-old know about the industry or about how much work it really takes to make it?! I wonder what they have planned for this "future star"..prehaps a movie just like with Robin about "how much work it was to get that one hit single and a crappy album riding on that one song out"? What about a musical? The options are endless, and these teens are really just the cashcows of the music industry, they and their parents think they get the best possible contracts and other stuff, when in reality the labels try to pull off all the stops to make as much money in their own pocket as possible. When these teens reach puberty, all of their sheen will be gone because they've been overpromoted and overworked. Their voices will change, period. And what happens to them after that? The industry will just find some new teens with some looks and a decent voice that they can fix up with autotune to burn out and throw the old ones to trash. And then what? Only time will tell...

OK I'll just cut it here so I won't end up with a post filling an entire page. And I'll possibly continue with this tomorrow, but now I'm off to bed!

PONPONPON will be the Song of the Day for today since at this hour I can't bother with anything else, besides it's so weird that the chorus can, possibly, in some weird masochistic way get stuck in your head for quite some time.

Heatstroke♥

I didn't post yesterday because I had a heatstroke from hanging out in the sun the whole day with my friends in Kaisaniemi. Now it wasn't as bad as it sounds, I just had a major headache and my eyes hurt like hell, and even this morning I felt a bit sick. I did go to work though, and suprisingly managed to get a lot more done than usual! Wonder if that heatstroke had anything to do with that... Onto some other news, Style of the Day will, unfortunately, be on hold until saturday this week because I'm going to be really busy this week with my graduation party and other stuff.

Aside from working I met my friend Niu for a short while in the city center. I brought him the shoes he ordered through me from Yesstyle.com. Also while I was going home today, some little kids walked in front of me, and one of them bumped to oncoming people, THREE TIMES...IN A ROW, because she wasn't paying any attention at all to where she was going. I mean, c'mon, even if she was like 10 or something, she still should've paid more attention to where she was going and moreso after the first bump. But no, she decides to ignore everything that's in front of her and just walk into 2 more people. Now before you start thinking that "oh the other people could've just dodged her because they saw her walking towards them!", well, no, because they came from behind a corner and one of them even stopped just to avoid the collision because there was no room to move to the side (the corner is right next to a construction site). Oh well, to live and learn...

Oh yea, I got a text from the place I rented my suit from and they told me that the suit was ready to be picked up! And just because I don't want to wear the typical black suit to an event like that, I decided to break the monotonous tradition with a white suit, yes, you read correctly, a white suit. Now where's my tanning lotion...OK I really don't have one..wonder if I should get one though... I seriously need to get at least some color on my face to pull the suit off though, it won't look good if I'm too pale! Which reminds me..I still need to get me a graduation cap! I hope they're not all sold out since there are tens of thousands graduates around Finland..

Freebies

We just finished watching The Men Who Stare At Goats, and to be honest, it was almost as weird as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The plot made almost no sense and some of the acting was just bad, I mean, really bad. I thought it would be better but clearly I was wrong.

We went to Itis today because Sara wanted to eat at McDonald's for some reason, quite possibly because she had a terrible hangover this morning. I ended up getting only a coke and a McFlurry. Sara got herself a Big Mac meal and Vanessa got carrots! After that we went shopping for a short while and as usual, I didn't find anything for myself. I don't know, maybe I'm just too picky, but I simply can't find any good looking clothes in almost any of the stores in Finland! While we were there, there were some girls promoting a new protein yoghurt, and because it was almost 6pm (the time shops close on saturdays here) and because they had loads of the stuff left, they just started handing out 2-packs of the stuff. They gave me 3 2-packs, but Sara managed to get only 1 2-pack. Oh well, at least we won't have to buy that stuff for a few days!

While we were on our way home, we stopped by at a small playground near our house and the squirrels there got the shock of their life when Vanessa was unleashed on them.

Sara trying to catch Vanessa trying to catch a squirrel.

These pictures were taken with a 50mm f/1.8 prime, believe it or not. The squirrels weren't at all timid, and one of them almost climbed up my leg!

Omnomnom~

A good closeup!

Ah damn, I forgot about yesterdays SotD! My bad, you'll get it tomorrow, I promise.

Anyhow, todays Style of the Day:

Cap: Seppälä

Necklace: Yesstyle.com

Long sleeved t-shirt: Yesstyle.com

Belt: Yesstyle.com

Jeans: Jack & Jones

Shoes: Yesstyle.com

No hairstyle today as you can see.

Song of the Day:

Clubbin' K-pop!

 

신화 (Shinhwa) - Venus

Lumipallo wishes all of you a good night!