Bulgarian Trip #1

Going back to work after holiday is never easy. This time was especially tough 'coz I started working again by doing something completely new, something that I had received some training prior my holiday but never really got any chance to have some real practice yet. I was a bit worried about it, but thankfully my coworkers helped me, so I wasn't completely lost. Still the first day was tough and my body was very sore after the first shift was over ha ha...The second day went better and I'm thankful that today was a free day 'coz I have two weekend shifts. :-D

Anyway, let me share a few photos of our Bulgarian trip. As I had stated before, we were pretty lazy travellers this time, so we didn't really roam too much. Here are some of the things I bought:

1. A fleece jacket.
2. A pair of jeans at around €20 (at least I don't have to shorten them - in Finland I can get them cheap on a discount as well, but more often than not I have to shorten them and shortening a pair of jeans the last time around cost €10/pair).
3. A pair of relaxing pants.
4. A few types of body butter that cost double in Finland. I LOVE body butter!!!
5. A pair of polarized sunglasses at €18. 
6. Half a dozen bottles of chili sauce (local and Indonesian brand LOL!!!), emperor's rice AKA ketan hitam, Indomie (Indonesian instant noodles), and chocolate. 

We had a full-body massage twice at the hotel we stayed in (it's called Relax Holiday Complex & Spa). It was GREAT. :-D The bad thing was that there was only one masseuse, so we couldn't have the treatment side-by-side, but it's still cheap compared to the same kind of treatment in Finland (in Finland it can cost double). It cost around €30/person/hour.

I also tried billiard for the first time in my life (it cost around €2/game) he he...they had a pool table and a gym and sauna and Turkish bath in the basement floor, but we only tried billiard a few times. I laughed so much the first time I tried billiard 'coz I often miss hitting the white ball ROFL ROFL ROFL...but it was fun anyway!

Here are some pics:

Arttu's first taste of local beer on the beach nearest our hotel. We decided not to stay in a hotel directly across the beach, so in order to reach the beach (esp. the central part of Sunny Beach), we had to walk a few kilometres. I ordered a glass of fresh orange juice in the bar below that cost only €1. :-D VERY cheap!!!

Below is a sneak peek of one of the 5-star hotel along the main part of Sunny Beach. If you wonder why the photo angle is strange, it's because I didn't dare get inside the area 'coz there was a guard standing in front of the gate, so I only took pictures from above the bushes on top of the gate surrounding the hotel.

Me trying billiard for the first time in my life. Yep, that pillar next to me was quite annoying indeed he he he...

This car was parked in the yard of the nearest Zora supermarket. :-D

Found this butterfly while walking towards the beach area...

Posing in front of this Buddha statue in front of the Chinese resto. We tried eating there once and the food was quite good, but rather pricy. No wonder the place never looked full! However, the service was VERY VERY quick!!! We ordered two dishes and in about 5 minutes we could start eating already (even though I did hear the cook prepare the dishes in the kitchen). The fastest service ever in our entire time in Bulgaria!

I just thought the colours looked nice 'coz it's rare to find buildings with this colour in Finland he he...

While walking towards the beach from our hotel, look what happened below!!! We ran out of sidewalk!!! But just keep on walking...the first time around I felt a bit giddy walking there 'coz I was a bit afraid a car might hit me or something he he he...

 

A half moon and a full moon. The first beach photo was taken in the middle of the centre of Sunny Beach, whereas the second one was taken nearer our hotel at the end of Sunny Beach (actually closer to Sveti Vlas area).

We also went to an Indian restaurant once, which was again very empty. Why? I suppose it was quite expensive, as well. In my opinion, the food was OK, even though R2 thought it was great, but I think I've had better Indian food. I can't stop remembering the lovely Indian food we had in Vienna or in a small resto in Helsinki he he...

R2 swimming...the water was cool! :-D

OK, I think this is enough for now. I'll continue sharing some more photos later on. Have a blessed and relaxing weekend, people! I'll have a busy weekend at work ha ha ha...

Welcome 2013!

Happy New Year, everybody! Actually this year I didn't really feel anything much. Perhaps one of the reason was 'coz I had a morning shift on NY Eve and it was rather chaotic at work due to the fact that for two days straight prior to NY Eve, the weather was bad, so people opted to stay home. Therefore, they all came to the stores only on Monday. In the past I'd have time to reflect on things, but this time I was so exhausted that I had to take a nap at MIL's right after we had had a late lunch there ha ha ha...

Anyways, during the night we played cards as usual and then during midnight we went out to look at fireworks (MIL stayed inside, though). I didn't see too many fireworks this year, but this time MIL's neighbour lit two fireworks and I managed to take this pic. They were right on top of MIL's roof and they were SO noisy 'coz of the short distance. I took three other pics, but they didn't come out too well ha ha...One of them should've been good if not for the fact that one of the trees blocked 1/3 of it LOL!!!

It snowed a lot on the first day of the year. And the temperature's been very mild (closer to 0'C). Very surprising. I'm really excited 'coz I'm planning to visit my friend in Rovaniemi sometime this month. We haven't met each other in a few months already, so I'm sure we have a lot of things to talk about ha ha...and I'll also do some shopping while I'm there. 

You see, the last time we went to the cabin in Kelujärvi, I accidentally burnt the bottom parts of my good winter jacket sleeves. It was cold outside, so I was warming up my hands on top of the fireplace, but I didn't realize that I was too close to the heat. Doh!!! Yeah, stupid moi! I managed to fix them temporarily by putting on some black cellotape. It wasn't an expensive winter jacket, though. I bought it on sale at €20 (it was a children's jacket, you see LOL!!), but one time the zipper got broken and I had to fix it. Guess how much I had to pay for it? €20!!! (because it was a two-way zipper). But then again paying €40 for a jacket that has been faithful to me for 4 years is a bloody cheap investment, don't you think? HA HA HA HA HA HA...I can still keep this jacket at home, though, so when I need to shovel the snow outside I can just wear this one. :-D

So maybe it is time to buy myself a new winter jacket and I hope there are still good jackets on sale now that Christmas and New Year are behind us. :-D The hunt is on! :-D Oh, and while I'm in Rovaniemi, I'm also planning to have some Chinese lunch buffet HO HO HO HO HO HO...I'm drooling already! :-D

OK, now I still have tons of house chores to do. I'll blog-hop later in the evening. Today I received some good news. My Mom sent me an SMS and said that my SIL had been a few weeks' late, so it seems I'm gonna be an aunt again sometime this year! Let's hope that the pregnancy is going well until the end, shall we? :-D

Tidbits about Rhodes Trip

1. We saw a black snake crossing the street when we went down the mountain from Profitis Ilias monastery on our ATV. Almost ran over its tail. That was scary!!!

2. The winding road towards Profitis Ilias monastery is pretty narrow and there are no railings on each side of the road (it was a rocky mountain, so if you fall down, then you'll definitely be in HUGE trouble!). Thus my heart was beating fast when we were going up the winding road and a big tourist bus was going down that road. Why? Because I realize that there was little space left for both vehicles when they were side by side.

3. The road signs in Rhodes aren't too good (we found out from some tourist guides that other tourists have been complaining about this problem too) and there aren't any good road maps, either. The problem is that the smaller roads or paths don't even have names (even on the maps), so we got lost a few times. But still it was a fun adventure! :-D Though you'd better prepare some water with you just in case you get lost somewhere in a desert-like place with no people or house in sight.

4. Met two Swedish tourist guides in Filerimos area and one of them asked me, "You're not married, are you?" When I told her the truth, she said, "Oh...I didn't think you were married 'coz you look so young. How old are you, anyway, 20 years old?" She was shocked when I told her the truth HA HA HA HA HA...

5. Strangely enough, it's hard to find a spa in Rhodes. Even before we flew there, I tried browsing for some spas, but there weren't too many that I found. I remember that in Singapore and Bali it's SO easy to find spas.

6. When we were sunbathing at Tsambika Beach, we saw a few people walking around holding a sign: Foot Massage. I didn't ask for the price, though, so I don't know how much it costs.

7. We found many British people either working there or going there as tourists. Strangely enough, there are only a few Asians in Rhodes. The most Asians I met were found in Lindos and I guess they are mostly Japanese tourists.

8. One time we went to a Chinese restaurant and when collecting our empty plates, the waitress (who appeared to be a Thai girl), asked me where I originally came from. When I told her the answer, she said, "I thought so too." I wonder how on earth she could guess that I came from Indo.

9. The first two days I was there, whenever I wanted to say "thank you", I'd instead say "kiitos". It just automatically came out of my mouth. One time this "accidental kiitos" made one waiter talk to us in Finnish. Yep, since there have been many Finnish tourists in Rhodes, most of the people who work in restaurants or souvenir shops can speak a little bit of Finnish. Interesting, isn't it? :-D

10. To answer Burcu's question: The Greek I met there were very friendly people. They loved asking where we came from and if they knew the language, they'd then speak some words or phrases of that language.

Unfortunately I know nothing much about their language other than it sounds funny and they speak SOOOOO fast (even on telly). One interesting thing is that every night on TV there's this weather report girl in BIKINIS!!! Yep...

And we did visit the mosque in the Old Town, Burcu...here're the pics:


And here's the ceiling of the mosque - unfortunately it's a bit blurry.


11. The waitresses and waiters in restaurants and bars in Rhodes liked asking, "Okay?" or "Is everything okay?" after they've served us a meal or drinks (sometimes they asked even while we were still eating or drinking). I find this interesting. :-D

12. Found this Chinese resto in Faliraki area (I think the person who worked there looked like an Indian guy) and I was nicely surprised to see "gado gado" in the menu. I didn't order it, though it's interesting to find an Indo menu there despite the fact that I didn't see too many Asians there he he...

13. At night we can hear crickets in the bushes and in the morning there are birds chirping nearby. Birds love drinking water from our hotel pool. It's just SO cute to see them drink water from the pool (though it's hard to catch them do that on camera).

14. There are some mosquitoes in Rhodes and they managed to suck our blood, too, so we had to buy mosquito repellant and lotion. One of the mosquito lotions we bought smelled SO bad, though it worked quite well. Uuughhhh...

15. When we arrived in Rhodes airport at around 1 am and after we took our luggage, we noticed two gates to get out: one for EU citizens and one for non-EU citizens. I had my passport in my hand, but there was NOBODY there to check it. When we checked in to fly back to Finland, the check-in counter girl did check my passport, but we didn't get any stamp on our passports. They also didn't check whether we brought too much fluid in our handbags or not, so I assume that they're not that strict.

16. We were told that the tap water in Rhodes was drinkable, but the taste might be different due to the high deposit of calcium in it. So we opted to buy bottled water (buying bottled water from our hotel proved to be cheaper, so we bought it from there and stored the bottles in our fridge).

After finding out that bringing just cold water from the fridge to go out wasn't enough ('coz it turned warm SO fast and in the end we had to buy cold drinks from a cafe or resto), we decided to make some ice. So in the evening we'd put about 1/2 of water in a 1.5-litre bottle in the freezer and in the morning we'd add some cold water into it and it stayed cold for a few hours in our backpack. This way we saved a little bit of money 'coz we didn't have to buy drinks all the time.

17. Contrary to Finland, we can't throw tissue into toilet bowls in Rhodes. I'm telling you that after having lived in Finland for a while, it gets hard to get rid of this habit. So everywhere in every toilet in Rhodes, you'll see the sign "Do not throw tissue into the toilet bowl!" (once we even found a sign that said "Do not through tissue into the toilet" and it made us laugh ha ha...). However, every once in a while you'll see some tissue paper floating inside the toilet bowls. I guess old habits die hard he he he...

Trip to Rovaniemi + My Personal Project

Went to Rovaniemi on a whim yesterday since we both had a day off. It wasn't really planned, though, so that means I'm becoming more and more spontaneous HA HA HA HA HA...Anyway, we didn't plan on buying anything EXCEPT I TRULY WANTED to buy Chinese food. *BIG GRIN* After all, the closest Chinese resto from here is one hour away from this village (Rovaniemi is about 1,5 hours away by car from here), but we've never tried eating there yet.

We went to a downtown mall and I found a Wii game that seemed nice (Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party), so I bought it. I looked around in the women's section, too, but didn't find anything too interesting or cheap ha ha...so we were just browsing around and relaxing. Then we moved to a different mall and browsed around some more, but didn't find anything. Soon we were hungry, so we went to a recommended Chinese resto called "Hai Long" in downtown Rovaniemi.

We ordered buffet lunch since it included everything. It was €8.90 per person (plus tax) and we could eat as much as we could and drink anything we wanted to (there were two types of rice, at least 8 types of dishes, CHILI SAUCE!!!, one type of soup, bread, milk, soft drinks, tea, water, and coffee). The resto were full all the time - people kept on coming and going. VERY good business!!! (side note: Well, the food is pretty good, though it's nothing compared to the food in a Chinese resto in Indo, but still it made me HAPPY!!!)

After that we went to a small hypermarket where R2 bought miniskis (because the old ones broke) and found a big lasagna dish. After that we went to a big hypermarket to buy our weekly needs (and R2 bought a cheap Wii game there). Then we got back home and played Wii for HOURS HA HA HA HA HA...We tried the new games right away and couldn't stop. FUN FUN FUN!!! :-D

So that was yesterday. Anyway, remember that I once wrote about my "project"? I decided to submit an article to a local newspaper just because I wanted to practise writing in Finnish and because I wanted to share my thoughts. At first I wanted to write about Indonesia, but the boss said that since it was only a local newspaper, I could only submit an article if it had something to do with my moving to Finland and how I "survive" here and things like that. So I did it and then their photographer came to the library to take my picture. On Thursday my MIL sent me an email, saying that she enjoyed reading my article he he he...I've only seen it today at her place since we don't subscribe to that newspaper he he he he...

Even though you probably don't understand what I'm writing, I'm sure you want to know what it's like, eh? So here goes...you can click on it to see a bigger version of it.



P.S. I don't know why I look SO white in the picture...uuhhhh he he he...And no, I'm not paid to write this, but the experience of writing it is PRICELESS, don't you think? There were SO many things I wanted to say, but I knew I couldn't write too long, so I had to edit it a few times until I felt pretty satisfied with it ha ha ha...

P.P.S. I'm curious what the ladies in the library would say about this article. I hope it's interesting enough to read my POV and my experience as an Asian moving to Sodankylä. :-D

Car Trip #1: Hapaaranta + Lasaretti

So now it's time for me to share some car trip stories and photos. I'm going to separate the sections since I've taken so many photos and some video clips during our trip he he he he...

We left on Monday, July 14th from Sodankylä at around 10 am. Our first stop was Hapaaranta (or Haparanda) in Sweden, near Tornio. There's a huge IKEA store there along with some other stores. People who live there speak both Swedish and Finnish and in the stores there are usually two prices: in Euro and Swedish kronor. Here are some pictures of Hapaaranta:



I think this building below used to be a railway station he he he...


In IKEA's parking lot in Hapaaranta:


We went to another hypermarket nearby and bought some stuff there, then we continued our way to Tornio to have lunch. I told hubby that I wanted to eat in a Chinese restaurant, so we had lunch here:



I ordered Szechuan pork. The price for this dish (€7) includes water and salad. This is pretty cheap. No wonder the resto had many customers!!!

On the way back home, we also tried going to another Chinese resto in Kempele (near Oulu) and I ordered pork garlic and it cost €12 and we had to buy the water (a glass of iced water cost €0,50!). However, I'm pleased that both types of restaurants had pretty spicy dishes, so it was good, though if I'm ever going to eat in a Chinese resto again, I'll choose the cheaper one HA HA HA HA HA HA...


Hubby chose beef. Delicious, too, but not hot at all. I chose the right dish HI HI HI HI...


Next stop was Lasaretti Hotel in Oulu. When we arrived there, the weather was VERY nice. It was around 22'C and it was sunny. We came on the perfect day! It felt like a second honeymoon, you know? And the price of the hotel room isn't too expensive, either. It's only €74 (trust me, that's not too much for a hotel with such a nice location!). Plus the hotel seems new and it doesn't have a tacky interior (I once had lunch in a hotel in Sodankylä and it had such a tacky interior!). And best of all, we got a BEAUTIFUL view! (see the other pics below)

Anyway, here is the hotel lobby and we stayed in the next building on the right. You can see the glass bridge between the lobby and the other building. So if you ever want to visit Oulu, I HIGHLY recommend this hotel!!! ;-D


Here are two pics of the lobby:



And here's the restaurant:


Here's another view of the hotel from the back: our bedroom is located on the third floor of the red building near the tower.


Walking along the glass bridge between the lobby and our room he he he...


Ta daaaaa...here's a view from our hotel room. YUM YUM...It was PURE bliss when we came inside and saw this after being in the car for about 4 hours he he he...


After lying down for a while to rest, we decided to take a walk around the place. There were plenty of people outside, enjoying the sun (walking, playing on the beach across, or riding bicycles). Only after that we realized why. The hotel is located right next to a park called Hupisaaret.


Here are some views from Hupisaaret park...Talk about the perfect day!!! ;-D But okay, I'm going to stop here and continue later. I still have many things to do, including blog-hopping he he he he he he...

But additional info: We took a long walk around the park and the surrounding area (I'll upload more photos later) and Arttu sighed. I said, "What? You don't feel like going home, eh?" He nodded he he he he...It was just such a pleasant day with pleasant weather and surroundings. Mmmmmmm...

Anyway, after that, we decided to go swimming in the hotel's pool. And guess what? We got lucky since nobody was there except us! It felt like we had our own swimming pool HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...And I did wear my bikinis HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO...And then we went to have sauna in separate saunas. It was a big sauna, probably big enough for 10 people and again nobody was there HO HO HO HO HO...WE LOVED IT! ;-D