Warm February

This month has been exceptionally warm, with temperatures close to 0'C or even reaching 1'C. However, the sun hasn't been showing up for days on end. Usually at this time of the year I don't need to use my light box anymore (because daylight time is supposed to be 7-8 hours a day already), but these days I still use it a few times a week. It's going to feel REALLY great when the sun's finally up again (it's been cloudy and snowing).

Oh yeah, I've finally secured my summer holiday to go back to Indo with R2. The boss has told me that it won't be a problem. Phew! We haven't bought the tickets yet, but I've been browsing for hotels in Singapore because we're going to stay there 2 nights in order to rest our bodies. Glad to know these days there are several direct flights from Singapore to my hometown, so we don't have to take the bus from Jakarta airport to Bandung. It saves so much time this way and I'm also glad that Finnair has direct flights from Helsinki to Singapore. YYYEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!

Anyway, I've been joining a Google+ online community where the members get weekly challenges. They can either post a photo, a text, or both and I must say it's been very beneficial for me to tap into my creative side.

Here's my latest post. This week's challenge is LOVE. I posted this photo along with the poem below.

You took a big piece of my heart with you
when you never came...
Yet people think that because you never came,
I have nothing to lose.
How wrong!

I had loved you even before you could have been,
I love you still even when you're not here,
And I shall love you until my last breath
Because you're mine.
Yes, you're mine...
Even when you never came...

7th Wedding Anniversary

Tomorrow is our 7th wedding anniversary. I'm thankful for all the years that we've had together and I hope to God we still have many more years and memories to come. Marrying Arttu is one of the BEST decisions that I've ever done in my entire life. Moving here and starting life all over again has been worth it. :-)

Because all the stores are closed today due to it being All Saints' Day, I went to the supermarket yesterday already to buy our anniversary cake. We went to MIL's place today and BIL and SIL came, as well, so we shared our cake with them ha ha...there's one song that's been echoing in my mind ever since I started thinking of our wedding anniversary. This is the song: 



OK, so Arttu doesn't take a shower that long (nor do I), but I do love the way he loves me he he he he he he he...One of the things that makes him different from many other guys is that he never gives me unsolicited advice and my life has been made easier because of that. Plus the fact that he's so easy to live with makes me adore him even more. And he's funny! :-D And he makes me feel that I'm funny. I love being able to be my wild, crazy, fun self in front of him and still feel that I'm loved. 

In honour of our anniversary, I tinkered with one of our wedding pictures. Here goes:

Today we also went to visit FIL's grave to light a few candles...here's the picture...Some of the candles had been put there by MIL.

One Photo Only

Was going to share some hare pics that came by to our yard a few days ago, but they turned out blurry. :-((( So I just want to share with you this pic I found in Facebook. An acquaintance's name was tagged on the photo, so I could see it via her wall even though I didn't know the photographer himself. I contacted him to ask for permission to publish the pic here and he's graciously given me the permission. THANK YOU!!!!  

I hope you enjoyed the pic as much as I did...and here's the Facebook link to the photographer himself: Jose Hamra. The photo is entitled: Over The Bridge of Kuta Lombok. Click the pic to see a bigger size.

Photos + A Short Convo

Yesterday went to visit R2's cousin and his 6-year-old daughter wanted me to play with her right away. When they visited us a few days ago, she asked me to play hide and seek in our place and when it was time to go home, she cried 'coz she wanted to keep playing hi hi...Anyway, here are some bits of our convo in between playing:

Her: How old are you? I'm 6 years old (holding up her fingers).
Me : 31 (holding up 10 fingers and explaining to her that it's three times that much plus 1)

She imitated me a few times, but I don't think she realized just how much older I am compared to her hi hi hi...After all, the last time we spoke last month, she asked me if I was a "big" girl or an adult (even though she herself pinpointed to me our wedding picture in her living room) he he he he he he...

Her: I'm a Finnish girl. What are you? English?
Me : No.
Her: Finnish?
Me : (laugh) No.
Her: Then what nationality are you???
Me : Indonesian.
Her: Really? But to me, you look Chinese.
Me : Well, I am Chinese, but I was born in Indonesia, so I'm Chinese-Indonesian.

Dang...it's SO hard to try to explain things to kids. You've gotta be really creative hi hi hi...And it's funny that now she seems to understand "races". When I first met her about 3 years ago, she didn't realize that I was different (she didn't stare at me like I was some sort of alien) and she didn't understand why I didn't speak at all (that I didn't speak Finnish to her).

Her: I have a picture of you and R2 on your wedding day. It was summer.
Me : Yes, well, in Indonesia it's always summer. There's no snow there.
Her: Really? No winter?
Me : Yes. (although on the peak of Jaya there is apparently still some snow, but it's just too hard for me to explain it to her, 'coz I don't think she realizes yet just how far away Indonesia is from Finland)

Okay, now some more photos from our Helsinki Trip:

1st pic: the train station.


2nd pic: Zooming in on the figures there. Brrr...they look cold, don't they? HI HI HI...


3rd pic: The newest shopping mall called Kamppi. At least I never heard about that when I went to Helsinki in 2004. All I knew back then was Stockmann.


4th pic: Love this clock. The writing on the clock means: "Helsingin Sanomat Office". Helsingin Sanomat is the national newspaper.

5th pic: LOVE this building, though dunno what it is ha ha ha...Helsinki people, care to enlighten me?


6th pic: A cartoonized pic of us in our hotel room. I'm just bored taking pics while we're sitting down nicely, so that was why we posed like that ha ha ha ha...

GAAAHHHHH!!!!

I don't know why I feel that there have been SO many things to do lately that I don't even know anymore which I should do first he he he...

To make a new passport, I need some photos. I did go to a photo studio in Bandung, but I wasn't sure that the Indo Embassy would accept those photos 'coz they're the standardized Indonesian passport photos and the Indo Embassy told me that they wanted the kind of photos that the Finnish government accepts as passport photos. Good thing was that I got a CD with my photo in it, so I only had to print out some photos according to the Finnish passport photo guideline.

The problem was printing them. First of all, here there are no studios where you can print passport photos from a CD. So I had to measure the photo carefully and then make several copies and then send them online to be printed by a photo company. The first time I sent them a jpg file, I realized I had made a mistake 'coz I ordered the wrong photo size. So I had to redo the whole thing and then picked the right photo size.

glitter-graphics.com

Why did I go to such length just to print some photos? Of course there is a local photo service where I can get 4 passport photos right away, but they cost at least €15 (yep, for just 4 bloody pieces of passport photos).

Anyway, enough about the photos...soon I'll have to type up a letter, asking the Indo Embassy to renew my passport and then I have to bring a copy of our marriage certificate, too. Today I ordered Helsinki Card online (only for one day) - we can pick up the card from one of their agents (I think we'll just pick them up from the airport) and we can go take the airport bus to our hotel (fortunately the airport bus passes through the hotel 'coz there's a bus stop behind it). We have to pay €5,90 per person.

So these days I've also been browsing through the kinds of museums or attractions that we can visit 'coz by having Helsinki Card, we can get discounts to many tourist attractions - sometimes we don't even have to pay to get inside many museums. :-)))) The only museum I've been to when I was in Helsinki was Ateneum Museum . Back in 2004 there were modern art collections in the museum.

Photo taken from here

I almost got lost when I tried to find the museum back then, you know? I'm such a lousy map reader hi hi hi...I actually went to the opposite direction to where the museum was supposed to be. I kept walking and walking until I realized I was in an area where there couldn't possibly be museums hi hi hi hi hi...it's hard to describe, but I just knew I was far away from where a museum could be, so I went back and I kept walking and walking and finally I found it hi hi hi...

That was also why I let R2 read the map when we went to Singapore. I just followed him wherever he told me to go HA HA HA HA HA...like a good sheep following its shepherd HI HI HI HI HI...

Ahem...OK, enough rambling, time to blog-hop a bit.

P.S. We'll be staying in Scandic Continental Helsinki. The hotel has a swimming pool, so I'm gonna bring my swimsuit with me HO HO HO HO HO HO...I wanna swim 'coz I swam only once when I was in Bandung ('coz it rained a lot after the first week).

Sugar Cube

Found out a while ago that our apartment building is called "Sugar Cube" or "Sokeripala" in Finnish. I read one of hubby's gaming buddy's message to him about "sokeripala" and I asked him what he meant. Imagine my surprise when I realized that he meant our apartment building. But it does make some sense, though. Take a look at this pic!

What do you think? Do you agree that it looks like sugar cube? HE HE HE HE HE HE HE...

Our Group Photo

Haven't had time to do anything much in the blogosphere, but just wanna share one quick picture with you. Our group picture. :-))))


Our teacher's the one at the back on the left, with short hair and blue sweater. :-))))

We've only got about one month left to learn Finnish, then we'll start learning some bits of computer for 2 weeks, then my training starts in mid June. I don't really know what we're going to learn during the computer session, but it seems that it's connected to how to find a job online ha ha ha ha...

We're moving on to the second thick book now, but I don't think we'll have enough time to cover everything. It doesn't matter, though, since at least we have the book for ourselves, so we can study it further later. ;-D Free books are always appreciated HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE...

OK, time to get prepareddddddd!!! I'll blog hop tonight, OK? Hope you're doing well. ;-D

Prewedding Photography Trend in Indo

The above trend must've started sometime after 2001. I remember it as one of my ex uni friend got married that year and she didn't have a prewedding semi-candid photo session. If you wonder why there's such a trend, let me break down an example of the "regular" Chinese wedding day schedule.

05.00 The bride goes to the bridal salon to get her hair and make up done (usually that's also where she puts on her wedding gown) - usually a photographer follows her around and takes candid pics. (If there are LOTS of weddings that day and your beauty salon is booked fully, then sometimes you have to go there at 4 am)
06.30 The groom goes to the bridal salon to get his hair done (and they powder his face, too!) Yeah, go figure!!!
07.15 The groom goes back to his own house to have a photo session there (the mother "pretends" to put on his suit and then they take more pics together) - usually another photographer of the same company goes to his house to take the pics.
08.00 The bride goes back to her own house or a hotel room (if she lives in a small alley, it'll be inconvenient to go back to her own house, so normally she rents a hotel room).
09.00 The groom comes to pick up the bride in the hotel room, escorted by his two bestmen. They have more photo sessions, then the bestmen leave.
10.00 They may all go to a photo studio to take family pics.
11.30 If the wedding ceremony at church is held in the morning, then they go to church.
13.00 They go back to the hotel to relax and have lunch.
14.30 The bride and groom go back to the bridal salon to get a make-up retouch.
15.30 They go back to the hotel to have a tea-pai ceremony. Some people choose not to do this kind of ceremony, so they'll just go somewhere to have an outdoor photo session or they'll take more pics around the hotel. What's a tea-pai ceremony? It's a kind of ceremony where the siblings of the bride and grooms' parents come to a certain room and then the bride and groom will serve them tea/wine and then they'll give angpao (a red envelope containing money) to the bride and groom as a present. Sometimes they can also give jewelleries if they want to. It's a symbol of giving "financial capital" for the newlyweds. However, nowadays some people don't like doing this kind of ceremony as there will be a kind of "moral" burden afterwards, as they will feel "obligated" to give as much to the sons and daughters of the givers when they're married later on.
17.30 They go to the restaurant/hotel to have the wedding party.
18.00 Wedding party begins and usually ends at around 9 pm.

So, now at least you understand why there's a need for a prewedding photo session, right? Especially since it's usually a semi-candid photo session. Well, to give you a glimpse of what prewedding photography session is like, let me just give links to two such photographers.

Photo by Sondhiar
The Moment Photography

Normally they offer packages (prewedding photo session plus the photo session on the D-day plus gorgeous albums of both photo session). There are SO MANY packages that such photographers offer. Prices range from affordable to "only for well-to-do people". The couple can choose where and when the prewedding photo session would be done. If they choose to do it in another city/place, then they have to pay for the photographer's accomodation and other expenses as well. If they choose to do it in their own city, then they only have to pay the fee to go into the certain locations that they choose (yeah, the owners of those locations have now commercialized everything!!!).

Normally couples choose to have the prewedding photo session a few months before their D-day. Why? Because normally they choose an outdoor theme and they'd get sunburned because of that. Since most Indo people LOVE having fair skin (as opposed to westerners who'd die to get bronze skin), especially the brides would normally want to have as fair and smooth skin as possible on D-day (no suntan lines, please).

I think the cheapest prewedding photo session (only, without the D-day photo session) in Bandung in 2006 would cost around €330 or $400. I think the last time I checked, the most expensive prewedding photo session only would cost around €830 or $1020. Yep, the marriage business is a HUGE thing in Indo. I think the average TOTAL wedding cost in Indo (if you get married in a restaurant, which is MUCH cheaper than getting married in a rented building or a hotel ballroom and if you invite only around 400 people and you pick the cheapest of everything - the gown, the suit, the beauty salon, etc.) would cost at least €4,500 or $5,550. Shocked?

Well, if the bride and groom are lucky, they'd get back almost all the total cost from the angpao given by the guests. I think back in the 90's, almost all bride and grooms would get back all the total cost of the party (well, back then the cost of everything wasn't as expensive anyway and there was no prewedding photo session thingie). However, since the economic depression a few years back, people's ability to give has decreased greatly. I can say that these days there are more people who feel "relieved" if they're not invited to a wedding party, as it can be a HUGE burden if you're invited to 4 wedding parties a month or even more --- it DOES happen sometimes, you know??? So, these days I think brides and grooms can't expect too much from the guests.