Radio Ulaanbaatar

head-shaking

2007-02-18T17:53:00.000Z

a skinny fragile-looking man was selling water at a train station, clenched jaw, shouting, sounding like a beat bop singer of Sal Paradise's description, like he alone was bearing all the pain and agony of the world, a sound i'll never forget.

the grandma in Varca, who looked like she was at least three hundred years old and made of brown thick paper, had incredibly deep penetrating eyes when she glanced at me before continuing with her chores, bent back chicken legs

at the train station of Jaipur a little boy, with an adorable smile which was full of promises and possibilities for the future, was entertaining two Korean girls who in turn were taking pictures that would end up in their homes in Korea, to be shown to their grandchildren 'when grandma went to india'

after his tired sister in a pink sari and a head scarf failed, and refused to acknowledge the disapproving stares, a young boy was feeding his yelling and crying little nephew on the floor of a general class train carriage with incredible patience and care, which together with the soothing movement of the train made everyone feel calm and safe

I was cursed by a hand-clapping, fierce-eyed hijra in a black flower-patterned dress on a train in the afternoon heat, and blessed by a wrinkly, decorated elephant in a temple in Madurai, where the only sound at dawn was the flapping of bare feet on the cold stone floor. I saw dozens of pilgrims bathe, dobi wallahs beat tons of white clothes clean, and a cow die on the bank of the Ganges, I saw the glittering Taj Mahal by sunrise, and a desert full of camels near the Pakistani border by sunset. I scooped lassi from a ceramic jug and ate masala dosa off a banana leaf with my fingers, felt the breeze on my face in the southernmost tip of India, and in the backwaters of Kerala, watching a man climb into a palm tree to milk the coconuts. I bought unidentified spices from big white sacks, political books from a western bookshop, and tunics from a man whose grandfather had sixty years ago bought the tailor shop for fifty rupees.

Now, after a big circle on the sub-continent, I'm a bit tired, confused and uncertain about certain things, and once again trying to adjust to something. Beijing is cold, empty and clean. I'm watching videos of the Yodok camp in North Korea, and the people dressed in brown, working in silence have a weird air around them, like in silent movies, or something from a history book, doesn't feel like it could be happening now.

Save me /

2006-12-18T03:33:00.000Z

so much has happened, again, and i'm ill, again (like Jack said, I have the immune system of a small, little thing with a poor immune system..). now let's see, this is what's been going on:

two weekends ago there were three birthdays. first on friday swiss Chris had his, we all started off in sanlitun and kept running from kai to shooters and back after cheap shots. Ellen and Hukai came to kai as well, although after a bottle of vodka E didn't really feel like joining us in Babyface.. then Del's bag was stolen, and we all felt angry, but continued to babyface anyway. there was a break-beat dj playing (very very good) and me and Dave danced for ages. then on saturday it was Lizzie's and Chris's birthday, they had a house party in Chris's tiny flat, with sangria and all, and afterwards we went to Propaganda for a quick dance with Vas, Kat and Adam, and it reminded me of September when we used to go there more often. On sunday Hukai cooked a massive meal at our place and Dave and one of Hukai's friends came over as well, yam yam, and even though I was the only vegetarian he didnt use any meat, very nice of him.

Last week was very eventful (I'm clearly getting this urge to do everything at the same time now that I'm about leave Beijing for a while). On monday we went to the tea house to study and it was full of soas people, afterwards we went for dinner at a jiaozi place, it was nice seeing Max and Ben after a long time, and Del since she then left to Europe.
on tuesday I went to the gym after a very long break and felt very good about myself. in the evening we went for dinner with dave's guests Jon and Anna, it was interesting seeing them pay attention to all these little things Ive already got completely used to (like getting excited about the spinning tables..), afterwards we went to Dave's place for shisha, beer and chocolate (real chocolate from England, none of the replacement stuff), and although the tobacco smelled of baijiu when in the package, it tasted nice when smoked.
on wednesday me and Vas went impulsive shopping, I bought a camera (yes I finally gave in to digital photography), and together we bought an oven, woohoo all the possibilities that come with it, I no longer have to eat fried food every day!!
on thursday i didnt go to class so Kat came to our place for our thursday tradition, and after a few bottles of China's finest beer we decided to go to the indie night at Kai. we danced for a long time, and saw some people we knew (like Liumiao from 2kolegas who claimed the white-framed sunglasses that Hukai gave to Ellen and Vas was wearing that night were actually his, hm).

last friday we went for a vegetarian (read: fake-meat) meal first with Ellen, Kat, Dave, Mark, Jon, Anna and Robert, and then continued to 2kolegas where we finally saw Hukai's band play and it was surprisingly good (not that I expected it to be bad), and then danced to the reggae/ska jamming afterwards. on saturday me and Vas had a very unsuccessful go at seeing Dashanzi: after spending about an hour and a half in a cab with a lying bastard of a cab driver it was too late to go there (although it was very interesting seeing the scenery outside the city in the north-east, very very different), so then we ended up going to a tiny Turkish coffee shop/restaurant, where we drank proper coffee and I had a falafel sandwich (!!), and had a couple of beers at our house afterwards with Kat, and watched bad chinese tv (oh i guess it could've been good just as well, we didnt really understand what was going on).

yesterday we actually managed to go to Dashanzi, which is an art district in north-eastern Beijing, in an old eastern German designed bauhaus-style factory. the whole area is full of galleries, cafes and little (art) shops, and a lot of the artists also live there. we saw a photography exhibition about Chinese train travellers by Wang FuChun (very powerful and emotional images), a pop art exhibition about Mao by Pop Zhao ('Read Chairman Mao's book - Just do it') and a mix of contemporary painting and photography at the Chinese Contemporary gallery, and we went to the opening of 'Someday, Somewhere' by Liu ren which consisted of magical and dream-like photos of the artist herself. i wanted to buy a book about chinese photography for my project but the bookshops were too big, too many options, so I bought a couple of dvds instead, from a little shop that had a very good selection of European art cinema. if it hadn't been that cold I could've stayed for ages, just walking around and popping into a gallery whenever you feel like it..

now im eating fruit and drinking coffee, hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow so I can go to class. i can't believe christmas is in less than a week.

golden brown

2006-12-07T09:56:00.000Z

i just heard our spring holiday is actually SIX weeks long and not 4 like we thought, which is AMAZING because it means i've got two weeks to go south when i come back to china, and dont have to go straight back to school, woohoo. i know i keep saying this but time flies past so quickly i dont usually even remember what month it is, soon (too soon) half of our time in bj is behind and living in london seems like this distant dream or a movie, rather than real life, arrg i feel weird.

another funny story from the alcohol-filled life of the Gaoliangqiaoxiejie crew (plus del): last friday me Vasiliki Ellen and Del, equipped with sunglasses and unimaginable amounts of energy, took a cab to sanlitun, raced with a chinese couple in the car next to us, found three guys who tagged along and although none of them was called Frankie Chan that's what we called them, danced at shooters for a while, found it boring and decided to move the party to our flat, talked talked and talked, and in the morning found dried blood on the floor and ordered pizza to kill the hangover.

on monday i finally went to check out the famous 'be time for tea house', actually got some work done, and went on to pour everything that was going through my mind on poor Ellen. on tuesday i had dinner at one of the chengdu xiaochis with a bunch of people i havent seen for a while and proceeded to drinking beer at the tea house with Kat. yesterday we had dinner in our flat with a couple of guests and now i'm tired. maybe the fact that i've watched almost the whole season one of the l word in a couple of days has something to do with that.. uh.

je ne t'aime plus

2006-11-26T11:48:00.000Z

My new obsession.

Steady As She Goes

2006-11-22T09:58:00.000Z

Del's pictures from Vasiliki's birthday party:

first the cake at our place

then the beijing duck (and the beer)

our crowd at 2kolegas

apparently there was something really interesting about the brick wall... or at least Matt was very excited about it

soas takes over the dj-ing in the form of James

Vasiliki looking gorgeous and Dave looking funny

Rewolucja

2006-11-19T10:24:00.000Z

... we went to gulou dajie area for some sunday strolling with vasiliki and it was nice nice, a lot of old beijing style courtyards and very street-credible old men, we also found a coffee shop that couldve been in europe (the fuwuyuan didnt even let us smoke there because of a baby, i mean hello! this is china!), nice and careless afternoon. then when we came home and vas made me do this death test in the internet and the result was: I'm gonna die in 2037 (when im 52 that is) with alcoholism as the most likely cause of death!! god, i think i need some serious detoxing...

paper bag/don't leave the light on baby

2006-11-19T02:48:00.000Z

probably the first sunday since i came to china that i got up before 12.. today i got up at nine still feeling a bit shaky from friday's mass alcohol consumption. the mid-term exams are over and i might even have passed them, thursday and friday were spent revising, hanging out at e-station revising, and come to think of it, having 4 exams in 2 days is a bit heavy, especially since they always start at eight in the morning. so on friday we went out to celebrate vasiliki's birthday (nineteenth that is, and i cant even remember what i did on my nineteenth birthday) and the exams being over of course. we started with a cake at our house (the first chinese cake that actually tasted like cake), then went for dinner in the restaurant we went with lee and the agency guy after signing the contract, it was the three of us, kat, del, dave, pat, mark, salome, cathy and joanna, and a lot of good food and the beijing duck pancake thingies were quite good even without the duck. then we met up with a lot of people at shooters which was infiltrated with american teenagers(?), got quite drunk (tequila!) and after a lot of hassle got into four cabs to go to 2kolegas (or 两个好朋友 as its called in chinese). the band was just finishing when we got there and pretty much everyone else but us (which was still a lot of people) left at that point, we did some crazy dancing and they played such a good mix of rock, indie, reggae and other stuff (some paprika korps for example, which I havent heard anywhere else except in finland and now in china) and started jamming again in the end, I didnt even think i was that drunk but the next day vas told me i was, and i felt good about a lot of people having fun although 2kolegas is not really their cup of tea, ellen & adam sang to vasiliki and ellen got a major crush on a chinese rocker guy (so it does work that way as well, not just western guys and chinese girls). yesterday i was pretty hungover, but the tube station pizza and la mala educacion helped with that. now im listening to music i used to listen to in london, feeling happy, were thinking about going somewhere nice to chill out and everybody's dancing in the moonlight.

lighting a fuse might result in a bang with a bang-go!

2006-11-12T04:18:00.000Z

my energy levels have been frighteningly high the last couple of days, i just cant stay still for very long, and yesterday after I asked if vasiliki's tired she said: the whole world doesn't have to be on speed although you are, hm m, we've been going out a lot (despite the mid-term exams next week) but it's all good, i havent been in this good mood for ages. oh, and last night in my dream we went to Särkänniemi, which is an amusement park in finland, but they had chinese style no-door-no-toilet-paper-piss-everywhere-squatting toilets!

so. last saturday after crashing jamie's dinner party and some misunderstandings about a club night, we -me, Ellen, Vas and Matt- ended up going to 2kolegas (because everybody kept recommending it to us) which is a tiny pub/club inside a drive-in cinema somewhere north of chaoyang park, but what kind of a place (!!), it reminded me of some places in Kallio Helsinki, very scruffy, and the crowd reminded me of band nights in Annis in my hometown, and they played all kinds of punk, grunge, indie, rock, and people were jamming on the stage as well. so, after experiencing millions of nights in horrible cheesy clubs in sanlitun where everyone is constantly scrutinizing you and the shorter your skirt the better, the no-one-gives-a-fuck attitude was great, so we went crazy & all aggressive, and were moshing drinking smoking and playing table football until late. and we were happy.

the day before yesterday Kat had a national dish dinner, and i would've never thought people would make such an effort, we had at least french, italian, greek, finnish, british, korean, hong kong(er) food, and it was all soooo good, and afterwards we proceeded to the drinking, which included beer (both the from a glas and the from a shot glas power hour version), great wall red wine, fake jack daniels, chinese champagne that tasted like normal apple cider, baijiu from bags and the korean version of baijiu.. then two cab-fuls of us continued to fusion to a drum'n'bass party with dj logistics and it was seriously the best party and dancing i've been to in beijing, and lasted until four thirty with me, Vas, Dave and Mark the last ones standing, then after some horrible dumplings i went to bed at six.

yesterday although my thighs were aching from all the d'n'b style jumping it was good pain you know, i got some studying done and then we -me, Vas, Ellen and Del- started at our place, i even put some lipstick on, and then we went to another leeds house party, this time a more chilled out one, although that didnt stop us at all, so i guess now our reputation among the leeds people is "the drunken girls who crash parties and get even more drunk and dance funnily and laugh all the time" which isnt really that bad.

now im hungover but the energy's still there, we just ordered pizza and were going to a tibetan restaurant later tonight. with my energy levels this high, its starting to ressemble autumn 05 in london except that i bike slower because of the weak quality of my (chinese) bike, i think im gonna have to start directing it to something, like going to the gym more often. and here's a couple fo pictures from Kat's party:

(and vasiliki wants everyone to know she's not a lesbian)

pressure point

2006-11-03T06:13:00.000Z

(me and ellen at the beijing pop festival)

november that feels like finnish august (especially now that i hear finland is pretty much covered in snow), and i'm ill again, luckily this time its an ordinary flu/cold. last night i had a nightmare including my duxie teacher telling me ive missed too many classes so i cant take the exams and have to go back to england, and i keep wondering if this is normal.. but to the important stuff: whats happened besides classes.

me and vasiliki went to an indie night, yes theres indie in china, at kaibar and danced like mad, we were the first and last ones on the dancefloor, which the dj appreciated at least and told us about some other places where you can hear proper music and not just the 'wo ai ni, wo xiang ni' crap. and my finnishness was proven again, wanting to get me drunk vas made me have three vodka shots (which i havent done for a while, and baijiu barely makes up for it, missing you l & m) and after that i was just as drunk as she was after one..

we went to a fetish halloween party at dashanzi, and the party itself was ok, good music, a lot of people and interesting outfits, except that my heels broke down in the beginning so i couldnt really walk with them, so i walked barefoot but it kind of took the edge of my costume.. but what was even funnier was the preparation for the party. i mean, if you go to a fetish party you might as well do it properly, no?

You all everybody/

2006-11-03T05:40:00.000Z

Pictures from where it's hot.

viivakoodi

2006-10-22T08:15:00.001+01:00

it's almost november but it feels like the end of summer in finland, it's only been getting a bit cold recently and we dont know how to turn the heating on in our flat (in fact theres a lot we dont know, for example how to pay the water bill that came one day, any ideas anyone?). Ive been spending a lot of time watching dvds in the flat lately (masterpieces like 'the devil wears prada' and 'butterfly effect 2'...) because i was very ill for a while and missed almost an entire week of classes, and took antibiotics for the first time in 21 years, but hey at least i got to experience a chinese hospital.. the amount of studying is still a pain in the ass but ive changed my attitude so im not that worried/stressed anymore. now that im feeling better again we went out on friday to shooters (of course its the only bar in beijing no?) and it was so nice to see people again, and dance and eat some of that mm so delicious nan bread from the little stall outside shooters, and yesterday we went to a house party which was full of NEW (western) people and it just made me so so happy, now i know that it is actually possible to meet people in beijing without going to those horrible flashy clubs in sanlitun, and they were interesting people as well.

for a week we had (2) guests over from finland and it was so much fun having guests again, its such a big house that it just feels so much more homely when theres people around. we taught the boys to drink baijiu and to bargain for everything (what else do you really need to know in china?), and went to see some chinese rock bands with them, and had a massive party for ellen's birthday (seriously, were talking about approx 50 people) allthough i spent most of the night on the phone directing people to our flat (and its not THAT difficult to find), the climax of the night was definitely when ellen sat on her birthday cake.. it was very sad when the guys left, and I admit im extremely jealous for them travelling for at least half a year, i wanna go to places and not be stuck here studying all the time, for a split second i seriously thought about just going with them and forgetting all the pressure and studying, but then i decided that i do want to learn chinese after all.

recently ive been thinking about sweden and that i really want to live in stockholm at some point, and about india, and about all my friends all over the world (spain, finland, the us, israel, ghana, england, scotland, austria...) and how i would like to go and see all of them feeling at home in very different environments/on the road, but now i have to stop thinking about that and start studying for tomorrow.

oh and theres pictures of our trip to guanxi on dave's page, just click 'dave is chilling out in beijing'

the pink invasion

2006-10-09T10:59:00.000+01:00

it's monday and i feel like a completely new phase has started somehow, so very revitalised, for which i blame the overdose of fresh air we all got out of the city last week, we went to Guanxi province in southern China (quite close to Vietnam) with the intention to see extraordinary rock formations and rice terraces both something you kind of have to see when in china right? although this is only our fourth school week it was a needed break and hopefully with the energy reserves collected last week I can go until the next holiday (which is in JANUARY no mercy for the spoiled international students) which i already even doubt myself (sigh)

me, ellen, vasiliki and dave started off from beijing west train station a week and a half ago with a million chinese people all crammed into a hard sleeper compartment (although it seemed more like a cattle cart), which by the end of the journey was filled with sleeping, eating and socialising people spread all over the floor, seats and each other (its crazy in what kind of positions chinese people can sleep), it was really one of those things that when you see it, you think no one's ever going to believe you if you explain what you saw in detail. from Guilin we continued straight to Yangshuo (a 'laidback backpackers mecca' according to lonely planet, but in reality a very touristy middle-sized town with a very westernised main street - West Street, of course - and millions of rich tourists spending a fortune on 'authentic minority handicrafts'), and active holiday -activities started on day one with a mountain biking trip, and it was amazing, really really amazing (you know when seeing something extremely grand and beautiful you start crying because it's just too much to take in at once?), although after 32km of constant up-and-down-up-and-down my thighs gave up, but then there was the last down-hill which lasted for a very long while and was worth every single up-hill before it. on the way we saw tiny tiny villages with rough and wise-looking people; a lot of kids who all shouted 'hello, hello' to us when we passed with our fancy shiny bikes except for the older kids who shouted 'money, money' instead; an old grandma who smiled at us from the other side of the road for the whole time we sat in a little shop drinking pineapple juice that tasted like soap; a man who had a dead pig on the backrack of his bike; and cows slowly descending to a little river with big satisfied smiles on their black faces..

then kat and kristen joined us and the next day we all went to a town called Fuli by bus, and while the others where eating (chicken i think although the town was filled with little stalls selling dog meat) me and ellen explored the back alleys which looked somewhat like beijing hutongs but with a more southern atmosphere and a lot of fan workshops (and all the doors had new year's decorations above them). then after a bit of frustration and hassle we managed to rent a boat and a driver to Puyi, on the way we couldnt really talk about what we saw (=a lot of the same black cows, people on rafts collecting sea weed and interestingly shaped mountains) because of the loud engine, but sometimes you need noise to create silence and its good to be silent sometimes, Puyi was getting dark when we got there (a lot of tiny little maos/cats, and in a cornershop a toothpaste called Li Tong like me), then a very bumpy minibus ride back to Yangshuo on improvised wooden seats. soon after this i got ill (the combination of a food poisoning or something along those lines, a splinter in my foot and a neck cramp DOES affect your ability to enjoy an ACTIVE holiday) and I wasn't the only one, in fact dave and kat were the only ones completely uninjured and healthy, so a couple of days we spent taking it easy, we for example vastly improved our bargaining skills (only me and ellen though as we were the only ones with practically none before the trip) (no longer afraid of the silk market!!), walked along the river, drank a lot of coffee, and continued to Ping'an which is a village with no roads (just stone paths that go up and down all the time) in the middle of the rice-terraced mountains.

in Ping'an we stayed in a hotel with cranky wooden floors and no name, and ate more western food than in a month in beijing. after our jingshen got well again we did a little hike up to the terraces, and walked onwards to a little - but very deep - lake to swim and oh oh it was brilliant, so brilliant that next day when it was only me vasiliki and ellen left we went there again, this time we finished swimming just when a massive tour group of westerners showed up from around the corner. the second time we also continued hiking further, to a smaller village called Zhongliu which was very picturesque but full of women from the long-hair-minority dressed in pink, and no one would give us directions without money (if in Russia everything was for sale, in here nothing was for free). in the end we got so frustrated that we just left the village with one pink woman following us a long way, and accidentally ended on the right path and just after the village high up on the mountain there was complete silence and i couldve just stayed there, so peaceful. in the evening we spent some time with the family in the guesthouse eating mooncakes (since it was moon festival) and drinking beer, and the next day we took a bus to Longsheng, where we ended up being herded around like animals by a stupid American woman, who had no idea about Chinese (bargaining) culture, was completely ripped-off (and still she thought she got a good deal) and treated all Chinese people who didnt speak English like a piece of shit, but at least we got to Guilin and made it in time to our train. this time we had beds so the 28-hour trip was actually quite pleasant, and its ok to be back in Beijing although its cold and theres no time to do anything interesting, at least im kind of enjoying studying now (since I can understand most of whats going on in the classes all of a sudden..), am spending very little money (more for travelling) and am becoming a gym addict again.
(pictures will follow at some point in the distant future)

2006-09-19T13:10:00.000+01:00

MIELIPIDE
Hyväksytkö mielenosoitukset?

Kyllä (24)%
Ei (76)%

(76% of the people in my beloved hometown do not approve of demonstrations)

Santeria / My Hump

2006-09-17T10:16:00.000+01:00

I feel like I have to write every day in order to write about at least the most important and interesting stuff, so much is happening all the time, and I keep forgetting what we did three days ago, theres only a certain amount of information my brain can uphold at any given time. well, what has happened then:

* Uni has started, we have less classes than we did at soas, but the workload is twice as much. Conversation, listening and reading are ok, but Baokan, newspaper reading, just seems like a big waste of time with me understanding about 15% of whats going on. Its very interesting that Chinese is the only common language we have with our teachers and studious korean coursemates, how to explain in chinese that I dont even understand the second explanation of a grammar point I dont understand?

* Ive been ill, which meant I missed a full day of classes (luckily one of them was the threaded baokan), and now I have to catch up and learn approx two hundred characters in two days. And when I actually went to class on Friday, I felt so dizzy and didnt understand what was going on and the teacher asked me if I found it very hard, and no I didnt, I was fucking ill

* We went to Beijing pop festival, which was very interesting, we have to get some europeans here to show them how to organise a festival. placebo was good, although it was a bit weird because a) seeing my teenage dream perform in china just is weird b) there was a very big vip area right in front of the stage which meant that although there were only 2000 people at the whole festival we couldnt get very close. also, they didnt sell alcohol anywhere in the area, the dance tent closed before placebo stopped, so it was bit of an anti-climax when we wanted to continue partying but couldnt.

Added to that weve just been going to new places (for example a restaurant where they showed us a live fish in a bag but it didnt want to be eaten by us so it jumped out of the bag and rolled all over the restaurant floor before they cooked it for us), this morning me and vasiliki (she in high heels) stumbled home at 6.30 after a weird night that started at Shooters (of course, its developed into a general soas hanging out place), a lot of time spent in taxis, a quick stint at Latinos, then to Destination where they stopped playing music half an hour after we got there, bad food near kingdom garden and walking home after all this. whooh
and now i have to go back to studying

New Slang / cheesy r'n'b

2006-09-06T17:09:00.000+01:00

its late at night and I have my stupid placement test tomorrow so I should be sleeping but I cant. today we registered at uni and its funny how a human being is capable of adjusting to completely new surroundings so quickly, you see xizhimen is already starting to feel like home to me: on the hutong next to our building there is the same old grandma sitting on her chair with a fan in her hand every single day, as well as the men playing mahjong and smoking big cigars, and the man at the milk shake shop window smiling at us, and the gold fish and plant vendors when its dark. and today we found a shortcut to beishida uni, its past the fish restaurant where you buy fish by kilograms and it comes to the table with a little gas heater underneath, across the unused traintracks (where you have to carry your bike), through a crazy little market hutong where at one point only one person fits at a time, next to a sweet little canal and a park where men practise taiji, and then on the big roads until uni. even the registration was ok (all the rubbish about chinese bureacracy, and then its easier and less frustrating to register than in london!), and now i have a student card that looks like a tiny passport, a t-shirt and a badge that both say beijing shifan daxue on them, and as soon as this test is done im all set for studying and hopefully even brave and energetic enough to explore this crazy city more. its been a good week of being lazy and balancing the hard core travelling we did, but now that hanna and eva are gone (feels like they were my family for a month, and now its just me and vas left, and all the other soas people) i actually have to change the travelling mode to the routine studying one which is just plain weird. this is whats happened since we settled down:

*we found a street with loads of small clothes shops and I bought four (very girly) tops for three and a half euro woohoo, although I dont think dave was enjoying it as much as me, ellen and vas were. then we got all fancy and dressed up and listened to loads of very cheesy chart music before we had another crazy nigth of dancing at that place in wudaokou (it was eva's birthday)

us getting ready for another night at propaganda, with all our new fancy cheap clothes

*we had a little housewarming party and it was good to see all these soas people like carlos, lisa, oda, jamie, and a few I didnt really know too well in london, and we made sangria into a frozen watermelon out of cheap red wine, orange drink (not juice, drink), melon and the cheap fake tequila tasting strong alcohol dave brought us.
*we watched Lost, Mission Impossible three and Scrubs
*ellen found another area nearby with small hutongs and vegetable stalls and we cycled through it and bought ingredients for a meal for five people that ended up costing about 25 cents per head
*vas experienced lots of bad luck within a small period of time: her internet connection isnt working, the sim card she bought didnt work, her camera broke down, the axle of the first bike she bought was broken and the back tyre of the second one was punctured, poor vas
*we ate ice cream from half a watermelon

The housewarming party, with Jamie, Tida (Carlos's friend), Patrick, Carlos and Mark in the back row, and me, Hanna, Vasiliki, Andrea, Lisa and Dave in the front, woohoo it was good fun.

bittersweet symphony

2006-08-31T10:18:00.000+01:00

Ive been in beijing for over a week now and am slowly starting to get used to the idea of spending an entire year here. Me, Ellen and Vasiliki are quite settled in our three-bedrooms-massive-livingroom-kitchen-two-bathrooms flat, and the area where we live is fascinating, were the only westerners which makes us a bit of an attraction, and theres a street with little shops and restaurants and cafes, and old men playing mahjong late at night, and a lovely little vegetable market and a bicycle shop, which we already visited. Lately weve been cycling around northwestern beijing (which is our area), eating cheap (both home and out), drinking cheap (last night we went to a club where the cover was 3€ for girls and included limitless free drinks, and surprisingly there were even chinese people there), trying to start studying, and using every opportunity to speak chinese. Dawei is staying with us now, and on saturday Hanna and Eva will return from their trip in southern china, its nice to have guests, hopefully well have a big party before they go back to europe. Everythings a bit mad, and im loving it, looking forward to the day when i can have a proper conversation in chinese, and im even getting used to the staring.

Vasiliki, me and Dave in our living room

loud loud loudspeakers

2006-08-24T04:27:00.000+01:00

we're finally in beijing, and based on two days of intense eyes-open-exploring, its crazy and amazing and i think it'll take the whole year to settle in. chinese people are easy to communicate with and extremely helpful and nice, and i feel the chinese is slowly coming back to my mind (after 3 months of no studying), well its kind of automatic since its so loud all the time, everybody's shouting and spitting and selling and haggling and just living

the rest of our stay in mongolia was great, we spent three days in terelj, in a little camp of a few ger tents with a family, hiking and horseriding and taking it easy after city life in russia and ulaanbaatar. yes, about the horseriding. being very scared since id never ridden before, and since the circumstances (10-year old giggling boys who didnt speak english as guides) werent the most assuring, when my horse started jumping all over piles of planks and decided it doesnt want to do what some stupid foreign beginner tourist wants it to do, i was shit-scared. but then, after half an hour of being on a leash, we got our act together, and bartholomew (as i named the horse since the mongolian names were rather impossible to pronounce and involved a lot of saliva output) decided that im ok after all. so i ended up very happy being able to control such a big and scary animal at least a little bit, and the experience was even worth the blister on my ass. and the whole three days was just great, with only nature sounds surrounding us, and for example cows, horses, dogs and a camel using the front of our tent as a highway, and me making a lot of new furry friends, like fluffy, who looked like a combination of a dog and a sheep.

after a couple more days in ulaanbaatar we took a train to the chinese border, and a sleeper bus from there to beijing. and now were here, me, ellen and vas are moving to our flat near xizhimen station tomorrow (and hanna and eva are continuing to southern china), and after that we can really start thinking about actually staying here for a year.

chilling out in the buzzing city centre of ulaanbaatar

our home for three days in the national park of terelj

me looking all professional on a horse (shit scared)

our whole group having breakfast

aura and the house camel

eva's mastershot of a local boy riding without a saddle

me and two dogs (the other one is fluffy, the half sheep half dog with a very strong need for affection)

chill out, no headache

2006-08-16T08:00:00.000+01:00

hola, we've now arrived in Mongolia, where we'll be spending the next six days before leaving to China. It felt good to leave Russia (the country where everything is for sale, and a lot of things still work like they used to in Soviet times = a lot of bureacracy) after two weeks there, and come to a more chilled out (and especially more warm, after the Siberian rain and fog) place, the hostel owner Kim immediately told us to chill out and have no headache, so he's taking good care of us. And once again it was established that the (backpacker) world is a small place: two Finnish girls that I met in the metro on my first day in St.Petersburg are in the same hostel. Today it is our chill-out day then, after some hard-core sightseeing around lake Baikal (the deepest lake in the world at 1637 metres, how cool is that), shopping Soviet memorabilia badges (one that says made in USSR on the back), exploring Ulan-Ude (the point where Buddhist, Mongolian and Soviet cultures mix in a very interesting way), visiting the centre of Buddhism in Russia (Ivolginsk Datsan) and spending 13 hours on a VERY bumpy bus ride to Ulaanbaatar. Tomorrow were leaving for a three-day trip in the countryside, where we'll be living in a ger camp with nomadic people, horse-riding and hiking on the mountains, so pictures of me on horse-back, desperately trying not to fall, will soon follow.

girls posing, lake baikal in the background

hanna, me and the famous fish named carlos (dont ask me why)

on the streets of ulan ude

in russia's biggest buddhist monastery

buying ice cream

us and the world's biggest lenin head

up the bracket (wish i was on cally road)

2006-08-12T01:49:00.000+01:00

after a four-day train ride were finally in irkutsk (in the middle of siberia, near lake baikal), and it feels surreal walking on solid ground again, the whole world is swaying back and forth. on the train we befriended andrei the provodnits (carriage attendant) who provided us with hot water and (relatively) clean toilet the whole 4 days, and the old lady at the restaurant car who provided us with warm meals for 4 days. from platforms along the way we bought fresh berries which tasted like the best thing ive ever eaten, yoghurt and ice cream (eva also wanted to buy a fur hat but they only sold them at one station and we missed it). i especially liked the feeling of having no time, as we went through five time zones it didnt really matter what time it was, eat sleep and drink whenever you feel like it. now were trying to get back to life after sleeping on the train station floor, and then go see lake baikal tomorrow.

a view from the train window

buying berries from a platform somewhere along the way

and this is where we lived for four days, using every possible means of spending time in a 4 sq meter compartment

after several days in the train we all started wearing head scarfs because of the terrible condition of our hair..

and now what everyones been waiting for: the train toilet!

woohoo wo'o'oo (with love from russia)

2006-08-05T16:34:00.000+01:00

moscow is bigger (more massive tube network) and visibly wealthier than st.petersburg, and less european too. the train trip here was interesting, the provodnitsas on the train were like flight stewardesses with high heels and offering us tea and coffee, we shared the cabin with two russian men so not much communication happened. were living at a 'hostel' thats more like a house, its a proper apartment with a kitchen and our hostess is an artist who's taking very good care of us.

yesterday we went to a bar with pete from the flat, it was surely a mafia place because of all the rich men with pretty blondes, smoking cuban cigars and flashing their dollar notes, and drinking ten cocktails in a row. the band played old rock covers but the dj played horrible euro-trance/latino music, and the beer was the most expensive so far (about 3 euros).

today was museum day (its raining) and tonight our sweet xila pengyou vaso is arriving. now were also a step closer to siberia since we got our tickets to irkutsk today. woot. oh in st.petersburg i found cow sweets, which are the same ones my grandma used to bring me from karelia and they tasted just as good.

us on the Red Square being all touristy

drinking the most expensive coffee in my life (6,5€), and it was just normal coffee

at the train station waiting for the train to siberia (and I thought we had a lot of stuff..)

Irkutsk here we come woohoo

hei sotamies aja ojaan se tankki, tankki..

2006-08-03T14:51:00.000+01:00

hola from st. petersburg, me and eva have now spent three days in this city and walked millions of kilometres/miles, along nevsky prospect especially. observations made so far:

+ all young russian girls wear short skirts but dont shave their legs
+ some underground clubs here are so underground that theyre closed
+ old soviet style women are in the same position here as cows in india - blocking roads
+ every car is a taxi in here, and some illegal taxi drivers are so nice that they wait for you to get inside the building before driving away
+ all the young people weve met are travelling to siberia (or coming from there)
+ there are five black people in this city of 5 million (ok one of them was south asian), no wonder there's a lot of racism (and i thought finland was bad!)
+ one of the 5 black people is leafletting for the chocolate museum
+ it's actually a small city, weve ran into the same danish girls three times now
+ cyrillic letters are easy to read and this makes life here a lot easier

more will follow from moscow (were taking our first russian train tonight!).

one: Me and one of the canals in the 'Venice of the north'

two: Eva and me in front of the pop art cathedral, or thats what it looks like at least

santeria

2006-07-30T14:41:00.000+01:00

(Aura and Lilli hanging out at south bank after finishing exams.)

excuse me for the lack of updates, Ive been busy doing summer things, such as drinking rum and dancing in a park from 4am to 8am last friday with the london girls lilli and mona (who by the way are on their way to thailand). finland's been surprisingly summery and nice for the 6 weeks ive spent here, ive also been working a lot which is nice if you have the best work mates and employer in the world.

we had a big setting a boat free -party a couple of weeks ago in Reposaari which is an old fishing village near my hometown. jarkko decided to call the boat Pikinä which is funny if you happen to speak finnish (it combines the name of their dog 'Piki' and the word spark 'kipinä'). this was also an extraordinary party because of the huge amount of leftover alcohol, were getting old.. the ecmc happened in helsinki at the same time, which felt like london came to finland for a while, lots of crazy couriers and even more of them comparing their injuries. then a couple of weeks ago i was at a rock festival called Ilosaarirock in eastern finland and saw a lot of reggae and ska bands (Paprika Korps for example, i recommend) plus an amazing dj called Kid Koala. after that ive been trying to get organised and party as much as possible before leaving, in which ive been quite successful, and now im getting ready to leave, woohooo

Bron-Y-Aur Stomp

2006-06-26T19:22:00.000+01:00

Im bak in finland just recovering from travelling for over 60 hours to get here. the last days in london were great, although i said goodbye to my bike and a lot of people, and had less than 6 hours of sleep a night for a long time, i also took lilli to the airport, watched a lot of films, chilled out in kennington, took a shower in notting hill and then i took a bus from victoria on wednesday to amsterdam. the bus driver had some personal problems but luckily there were many nice people, esp the ferry from dover to calais was nice and i didnt have to drink my beer alone (or even pay for it). i continued with another bus from amsterdam to stockholm, where i spent most of the night talking politics with a japanese boy and a swedish woman, and missed the ferry to finland the next morning, which resulted in the most boring day of my life spent in the lobby of the ferry terminal drinking blueberry soup and watching idiots talk shit. on the ferry i learned its not a good idea to take that ferry when its midsummer's festival and youre a)alone b)a woman. then i took a bus to säkylä where i spent a day with a lot of people drinking and talking, went to the beach (although i didnt actually swim hm) and to the sauna, and had the biggest and best meal for ages, and slept well. yesterday i came to my hometown Pori and saw some more people, and now i think i should go unpack and do laundry.

this is a picture taken by jarkko on the day finland won the eurovision.

Cicatriz Esp

2006-06-14T17:45:00.001+01:00

(Jack and Lilli at clockwork)

Its wednesday, im drinking coffee and having a break from packing, its so exhausting luckily i dont have that much stuff. Ive been having a great time recently with over 25 degrees for a while and nothing to do. was at the last soas party of the year last week (which wouldve been fun if i hadnt been hungover), and jack had a leaving party at clockwork, which involved a lot of ass-metal and crazy couriers. the day before vas, hanna and jack left we went for a drink in a posh bar and lima drew a penis on jack's arm while some conservative old chaps (lao xiong) stared at us. then we proceeded to a roundabout to perform the song lilli and me (and al) made for jack (it goes like this:

jack, always dressed in black, with your messenger bag on your back.
jack, now you're out of this tarmac, and everyone's gonna start using crack.

(chorus:)
jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, jack, when you leave you gotta come back,
it's only a fucking pound so don't be a twat.

jack, when you leave and you come back, please come back as a cat and sit on my lap.
jack, wax your ball sack, no we really don't want you to do that.

(chorus)

jack, please come back, otherwise there'll be a lack of afrodisiac.

(the jack song)

and some aggressive young man shouted from the window of the international halls and called us motherfuckers (its all going downhill there now that vas is gone). then at dinwiddy there was a lot of emotion and tears, and in the morning we all (me, jack, lilli, lima, theresa, sarah, ilena) ate falafel on the courtyard and it was too hot to say goodbye. one night me and lima saw a performance at the roundhouse called Fuerzabruta and it was amazing, lots of beautiful imagery and loud bumping music and i almost started crying --> recommend, and then after getting more pissed we watched a movie called the devil's rejects --> don't recommend. there was the festival de cuba on in the weekend, but although the sitting-in-the-sun-sipping-sangria part was good, the music was a bit disappointing. me theresa and lilli went to see Titus Andronikus at the globe as well, and although after walking from kx to bloomsbury and to south bank the three hours of standing was a bit too much, it was definitely worth it, very energetic and especially cos the guy from Human Traffic was in it (and in the end lilli was dancing around the theatre holding his hand). theres also been a lot of lying in a park (getting burned), walking around (eg in hyde park watching dogs that are too energetic), starting organising everything for leaving and watching other people go (like theresa the day before yesterday, fireblowing is a magnificent way to leave though).

(Mona and Lilli on The Bench)

now im back to packing have to get stuff moved tomorrow. tired.

Cast No Shadow

2006-06-05T20:43:00.000+01:00

I finished my exams on friday and have just floated around since. before i finished i didnt do pretty much anything worth mentioning for at least a week, a couple of good parties at the square and good dancing at the islington academy with lilli jack and george one night. on saturday me and lilli walked aimlessly on south bank for a good few hours and then after a sudden desire to drink sangria ended up sitting on a small alleyway in london bridge making sangria into plastic cups and sitting in various places along the river drinking. yesterday was a regents park hanging out day (boys were playing football but we just read and ate organic yogurt-nuts-honey) and there was the green fayre as well which meant that we bumped into a lot of soas people and had tea with them. then we went to london bridge for a drink with a lot of people and everyone went crazy and started speaking in chinese and then we drank even more and im so an alcoholic. bu hao.

oh yea you can go and watch my photos from the first link on the link list (visual space). you need an msn password though.

A Moment Of Silence (scramble the baby!)

2006-05-24T22:35:00.000+01:00

Its autumn all over again in London, rain, sun, rain, cloudy, sun, rain, cloudy.. and it keeps me from realising its almost june, and us poor chinese students are one of the few who still have exams left, which keeps me from realising the term is ending. I have three exams left and hope the weather will get better for my three weeks worth of london-hanging-out-not-doing-anything which starts next weeks friday.

(Eva, Hanna and me in Berlin looking all so pretty!)

after i came back from finland a month ago ive been trying to study and get everything organised for next year, another year somewhere new for me (yei!). i read a book called adventure divas which i recommend to everyone who requires some inspiration and hope, although it has a little bit of that patronising observer 'were just making a tv show here too bad you're not doing so well' kind of an attitude. when it still seemed like the summer was approaching i was reading it and getting tanned (ok burned as well ive got a scandinavian skin) on our courtyard, and we were also studying at russell square with loads of people trying to appear studious but really just lying on their books their skins absorbing the sun.

the drinking scene has been as vibrant as before for us (though we've had to watch people coming home from the library at twelve after 12 hours of reading or so), with one mad bike messenger party on mayday where jack was dj:ing and we thought the courier people ressembled central/northern europeans much more than the average london crowd which is quite interesting, and one night when lilli dared us all to go to the offy without socks/shoes on when it was raining, and to run to the courtyard topless declaring our love to david hasselhof (that one also involved an orange african-style gown appearing on lilli but thats another story).

(me on chinese new year right at the front of a dragon dance happening)

on a lot of our drinking nights the senior residents and security people at dinwiddy have imposed the new 'the courtyard closes at eleven' rules on us and one especially bitchy individual has picked me and lilli as her enemies so once we even resorted to sitting on the pavement in front of d finishing our drinks with 'the red wine drinking crazy funny guys' (you see me and lilli are 'the cigarette smoking finns sitting on the bench' and they are 'the red wine drinking funny boys sitting on the other bench'). i also got an official warning in our library for eating half a cadbury cream egg inside the gates, because apparently someone had peed in the poor womans cereal in the morning, as the finnish saying goes. so theres a little bit of frustration towards stupid unreasonable authoritarian rules circulating in the air.

at work ive still been able to curb this kind of frustration although when i attended a training a week ago our staffing manager told me to 'do something about my hair' (and it wasnt even that bad!). and something to tell 11-year-olds in mid-nineties: ive served peter 'mysterious girl' andre ice cream (and yes i do own his album but hey i was eleven).

(Playing on the beach in Suffolk)

now i seem again to be entering the phase which occurs between living somewhere properly and actually leaving, it lasts for about a month or a couple of weeks and the sole purpose is to feel melancholic about leaving a place and a bunch of people behind and getting ready for something new. its when you feel excited about the new bit and want to be on your way already, and at the same time feel like you havent done everything you wanted to and then you quickly try and catch up with everything, and thats why you usually meet the most exciting new people just before leaving. but enough of that sad undertone (and besides its my chosen way of life so shouldnt be complaining), now im listening to ska with my window open and i can hear the wind, and theres an orange peel on my wall and some pretty flowers on my window sill.

L'Via L'Viaguez

2006-05-16T10:25:00.000+01:00

(Vas, Dom, Jarkko and me ice swimming at Suomenlinna in April)

I should be studying for my oral Chinese exam which is taking place in about two hours, but just felt the need to write something quickly, quite a lot has happened since the last post, but i'll leave that for the next time. i'm very happy, because it's nearly summer here, there are only two and a half weeks of exams left (and i love studying anyway), and after that i have some time to explore London again with everyone here before embarking on my adventure (ie through Finland, Russia and Mongolia to China and onwards). there's a very loud bird singing outside my window.

pasilasta kallioon

2006-04-10T13:14:00.001+01:00

I had possibly the best days of my life in london, and this is because of ‘the liberation’ on the last Friday of uni. I handed in my politics essay and did the Chinese exam, and felt like in a (bad) dream because of sleeping for only three hours. then we had a couple of pints at the soas bar, and after I had slept a little bit more we went to a new place near our halls with jamie, lilli, george, lisa, oda and others. Afterwards we partied at dinwiddy with a big bottle of vodka, which was so much better than scala (which was the original plan). Everyone was wasted and it was quite funny at the beach-themed party downstairs, some weird things happened too, and we were threatened with the police which hasn’t happened at D for a long time.

Then I decided not to do anything thats not fun or nice anymore, which has resulted in the most relaxed week ever. This is what I did

- drank a lot of coffee with lilli downstairs at our bench at dinwiddy, and saw millions of people passing by
- watched Closer in the morning and almost cried (!!! was hung over though)
- felt like eating nachos and then ate so much of them with dawei with home-made guacamole and salsa that i didnt eat anything else the whole day
- saw Tsotsi with dave and zen and had a discussion afterwards about everything thats wrong in the world…
- made some delicious pasta with lilli
- had a meeting with eva and hanna about our trans-siberian trip and got very excited
- went to a new bar and an old bar (the good mixer) in Camden and saw some horrible (seriously horrible) essex girls being thrown out by the police. hrrr!
- watched the edukators with lilli, hanna and jack in the common room
- saw juha at kings cross in the morning and had a very nice breakfast
- had a drink at the soas bar with juha, helka, lilli, al and jack and then proceeded to drink more at dinwiddy and the chapel bar at angel
- made curry for lilli and george
- made poems with lilli with a poem generator, mostly about america. you can read one of these in the previous post
- drank beer with jack and lilli, and we then went to drink more with dave and his friends, and me and lilli were shocked by the masculine energy circulating in the air, not least because of jack putting fucking ribena in my beer!
- felt weird on wednesday morning, drank coffee and packed, then went to stansted with lilli and ran around with lilli’s backpack playing music on its own

then I arrived in finland the first time in half a year but more about that in the next post.

Lilli: Aura

2006-03-28T17:48:00.000+01:00

jump Tokyo
lone your head to some food, gloomy spring
a glow rolls
a hoodie is blue in a very particular way

I wish if I rattle

somebody happy hippie
pagan you.

Qu'Elle Est Bleue

2006-03-17T14:30:00.000Z

(Hanna, Vasiliki, Eva and me (in my homeless person look) at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.)

Oh so much has happened:
Last Friday we were in Scala dancing like mad for hours with Eva, her German pengyou Lena, Vasiliki, Alex and a bunch of his friends, which was exactly what i needed. But after a classic banana leaf fall-down (without a banana leaf though, just a slippery floor and my relatively-high-heeled shoes), my right arm has been somewhat immobilised since, and theres the biggest bruise ive ever seen on anyone (very very cool). Luckily ive had a very good excuse to not study at all (i really cant write still), not go to work (how could i do waitressing, ie carrrying big magnum bottles of wine and trendy heavy dinner bowls around, when i cant even open the tap), and not cook myself (Lilli acted as my personal nurse on saturday and cooked some delicious goat cheese pasta, plus tied my arm with her hippie scarf which made me look even cooler).

Monday was the first night in ages i didnt drink any alcohol so i dont have anything to say about it.

On Tuesday we went to a very interesting talk about Feminism today, which made me think about identity in general, as they also talked a lot about 'whiteness' at the talk. Afterwards we sat at ulu bar and talked about being a woman (me, Lilli, Hanna, Eva and Lena), about feminism as a label, and about how people of the opposite sex would never really understand the conversation we were having. And, contrary to certain things said at jamiehudson.blogspot.com ('She also has been a little upset lately after suddenly come to the realisation that feminism is dead....poor girl') Ive rather come to the realisation that the label feminism needs to be revised, and that people in the western/northern world need to get over the 'theres no racism/sexism/gay-hate derived violence/discrimination' rubbish Ha.

On Wednesday I attended my 9 o'clock Chris grammar lecture the first time in weeks (which is weird because its the only morning this week i have attended), and at lunch had an upsetting discussion about the feminism lecture with Vasiliki, Jamie, Dave, Rory and Song Ting. Huh I felt like its a hopeless attempt to try to explain to men why i feel like i feel, its the same thing as trying to explain to a rich person what it is like to be poor.
In the evening me and Lilli bought a bottle of Glens finest and got drunk in my kitchen and the laundry room (now mysteriously it says on the bench: 'boy and girl didnt bet on race horses here' and 'have u eva bin drunk in da londry room, we have' and '真不好').

(Eva looking like a trendy book cover.)

On Thursday I slept until three and did a tiny little bit of studying (hooray!) and in the evening we went to a support/fundraising party in a squat at russell square for two ugandan girls who are in danger of being deported. It was probably the best atmosphere party since freshers week because of the combination of being a bar (ie you could buy beer and there was loud live music), and a house party with a lot of people you know and a good chilling vibe, and it all happening for a good cause. which brings me to the point that at least half of dinwiddy were there, and it felt like one of those freshers parties, except that now steve didnt come to shut the party and there were other people too. good things were:
*good fair trade coffee
*cheap beer with all the profits going somewhere worthwhile
*Aria playing his guitar and singing (http://www.myspace.com/barishmusic)
*a couple of indie bands in the backround (with one really good song that was sth like 'oh so boring')
*videos about immigration
*dahl and rice
*Olivier and the others with their drums in the back room
*seeing people I havent seen for a while (like Ben, Gary, John, Danni, Sofia, Athene...)
*the bar room with ska
*drum'n'bass beats in the end.
Then we walked to dinwiddy with Lilli, Rory and Zen and sang 'Im a hippopotamus and ive got noodles in my back', 'Milk and Cereal', 'I just want bang bang bang', 'Everyone else has had more sex than me' and other classics, and finished our leftover vodkas with L while entertaining Rory and Dave with little stories about finland.

K, when come back bring pie!

(Hanna and Vas at the Holocaust Memorial.)

Castelvetro

2006-03-10T15:15:00.000Z

A Parisian water fountain and bottle post in Shetland.

During the past 3 weeks I have:
* seen a very emotional lecture given by two Tibetan nuns who were imprisoned and tortured for a decade because of organizing a peaceful demo. (every time it just amazes me how much a human being can take and still remain intact)
* participated in a psychology study at UCL for money (£6 an hour for reacting to different images on a computer screen, quite good huh)
* seen a movie called Shooting Dogs about the Rwandan genocide which everybody should see
* been to a very tacky Caribbean cocktail bar in Farringdon because we (me, Jamie and Lilli) wanted to go somewhere new
* got into the wonderful world of instant messaging
* been to a bar in West Kensington watching the olympic ice hockey final with two hundred Finns (and about a hundred Swedes), and listening to the Finnish commentaries from YLE
* been drunk for 12 hours that same day with Lilli and Mona, and doing a seal impersonation on the floor of Dinwiddy common room
* had a study evening on Wednesday with Jamie, Vasiliki and Dave for our classical Chinese test, involving wonderful couscous and a lot of flashcards (Tsze-Kung asked, saying: 'Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?' The Master said: 'Is not Reciprocity such a word? What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.' Yep, this is what I spend my time with now)
* did a Jack fan club day with Lilli, which meant dressing up as him and observing whether people noticed. ha

Now I'm listening to Portico and thinking about reading a little about communitarianism.

The View From The Afternoon

2006-02-19T19:58:00.000Z

Back in London.

Last Thursday I boarded a bus at Victoria station with Hanna, and we travelled northwest to a place called Suffolk. On the bus there were mainly pensioners and I did some flashcarding. We arrived at the bus station of Diss which was really only a tarmac yard and a bench. Jamie picked us up and we drove to their house called Yaxley Hall where a lovely dog and an even lovelier cat were waiting for us. Jamie taught me to use the coffee machine. After touring around the house we did a little walk with Brunswick the Dog and met a horse. Then in the evening we drank some champagne, Dave arrived and I started connecting with Nimbin the Cat.

On Friday morning Dave got highly street credible scratch marks on his neck and we all went to Diss to feed ducks and pigeons who almost ate Jamie's hand, and to do some shopping (vegetables and cheese from the market, juice and crisps from Tesco). In the afternoon Eva came, I got a headache and talked with Jarkko in Finland who just returned from Chile. Then Dave cooked (almost on his own) a massive roast for us, and after finishing eating we started a cocktail party and played Taboo with Peter and Harriet. We ended up getting quite drunk with all the different cocktails, playing all kinds of teenage drunken games and running outside without shoes,

and so I had quite a hangover the next morning, when Jamie cooked a huge English breakfast for us. Then we went for a trip by the sea. There we played in the sand, half swam in the freezing sea and did some cartwheels and sand angels. Then we ate some chips (I ate exactly three) and drove back. At this point we were all quite tired so we took a nap, and played some Monopoly after waking up. In the evening we ate pasta and watched Legally Blonde, which was highly entertaining. Then Jamie went to bed, we made some tea with the others and watched Calendar Girls. Then Brunswick entertained us with all of his dog behaviour and sock stealing, and we went to bed.

This morning we had breakfast, then Peter drove us to the Diss "bus station" and we took the bus back to London. We filled in a sudoku and read Tuesday's newspaper. Now I'm at home, feeling a bit sad about going back to uni tomorrow.

Ps. You can read Jamie's version of the weekend at http://jamiehudson.blogspot.com/

2006-02-10T17:36:00.000Z

and he did it with chalk!

on wednesday I was working guess where: at the winter gala of the Conservative Party. yes, me. yök! it was all very fancy but boring despite the amount of alcohol and the (conservative) celebrities, and quite easy work because the plates were smaller than usually.

yesterday we saw the Ark at barfly and it was really good (although 90% of london's swedish au pairs were there), it was weird seeing them here, except in the end when everybody started shouting En gång till! Before the gig a funny thing happened: Jamie, who normally wears quite conservative clothes (just one word: tweed) has been wondering why he's never offered drugs in camden although everyone else is. yesterday he tried to blend in with the gig crowd and was wearing TORN JEANS and SNEAKERS, and he was offered skunk twice near the tube station! ha.

today I woke up at 8.56 and still made it to my nine o'clock class at 9.13 which I think is pretty good. today reading week started and a lot of people are going home (except for me, I'm going dancing to scala instead). I was just at tesco and bought toothpaste for £0.33. 33 pence, thats virtually free!!

Turn the Page: 'I think war might be God's way of teaching us Geography.'

2006-02-04T16:40:00.000Z

The roofs of paris.

on thursday i had FUN at work the first time and one of those surreal movie moments while distributing menus, and it was really freaking cold when i biked back at night. Yesterday I finally saw Portico Quartet and it was AMAZING even though i realised that i had actually seen them before in front of the national theatre on south bank (where you can by the way see them every saturday noon-6pm <-advertisement). Uhhuh. and i dont even know what the instrument that looks like a wok pan is called. then we went to ulu to drink (a little bit too much maybe) and anna and doris came and its surprisingly easy to be with them (this is really the first time since september i see people from my life before london, if you dont count my mum and Emma, so i was quite scared), and i stayed at the camden flat and had a good breakfast. today we went to the chinese new year party at soas and saw for example the play by my course mates, and An Laoshi performing taiqi. anna asked about my relationship life and i thought how could i think about being with someone when i cant even be with myself a lot of the time? now i'm supposed to be studying before going to frog later. and im eating fazer's chocolate and i have rye bread and lingonberry jam in my cupboard for the spinach pancakes. ONE MORE WEEK BEFORE READING WEEK.

Clamour for Glamour.

2006-02-02T00:21:00.000Z

uh its been avery good few days this week, and tomorrow we have the big exam, then im working for a night and then doris and anna are coming yei (its like having scotland in london for a few days, jättebra since i miss it alot)! today i studied heaps of chinese (i know thats an australianism but its james's fault) for the classical test and then had a pint with flatmate jared at the g-lion and thought a little bit about going to finland, i still find it very scary and try to push it to the back of my mind.

last thursday i had a very interesting conversation with james and hanna, and didnt go to see a documentary because we just couldnt stop.

on friday i was going to see portico at soas but the whole building was closed because of a burst water pipe so we had to go and drink in a bar (ulu first) and then i told a boy from new york mean things and then felt bad because he was so nice he fixed my bike saddle.

on saturday we had tapas and then went to elektrowerkz (why are reggae boys universally very desperate?) to dance.

sunday was the chinese new year and we saw a dragon dance from very close (which was a scary experience i cant wait to see the real thing next year) and had an afternoon pint in soho.

monday morning dave told me a thing that happened to me once last year in aberdeen happened to him too: he fell asleep on the floor on his way to bed after a night with too much alcohol.

tuesday i had my first ever experience of seeing someone who just listened to my issues for a while and told me what she thought of them, which was very soothing and Im very much looking forward to the next session.

--John was a scientist he was hooked on lsd, interested in mind control and how the monkey held the key--

easy listening

2006-01-28T13:08:00.000Z

This is me eating a tomato in the Jardin du Luxembourg last november. Susannah took the picture.

I was lost for a moment but now im here again, still very tired, but slowly getting a grasp of things. I dont know what i would've done without hanna and jamie (probably just flown to see mum in finland). Ive got this big stress reducing programme now, and its actually quite funny, but it makes me try. and ive got food in my cupboard and clean clothes, and someone to talk to, and that kind of things are really the important ones.

we were in berlin last weekend and it was all very hip, but a little bit too cold (our poor xiao greek friend was on the verge of dying of coldness). we went to this club which was the best drum'n'bass party ive been to, and it was fun being in a more european atmosphere again, with all of its hippies and cool different youth, and it really is a lot more on your face kind of attitude, than the more subtle version of (my) london. it almost made me feel like finland. then we took this extremely tacky picture of us in a train station and it was printed on a post card with all of berlins famous sights and sent it to susannah. in potsdam we went to a lovely little cafe to eat soup and to drink latte with baileys yum, and saw schloss sanssouci in a deserted park.

today i have to study a lot and then in the evening we're going to this tapas place in angel and to elektrowerks to dance. dont you just every time hate to see the "easy listening" section in record stores?

new slang

2006-01-13T13:39:00.000Z

uhhuh slow down

on wednesday i had the best night ever, we were at the soas pub quiz first, had some leftover samosas and then went to cheapskates (we obviously had to celebrate because we beat the advanced people in our Big Test number 2, oh im friends with such intelligent people). It was me, James, Dave, Leah, Lilli plus others and then AGAIN we accidentally bumped into people, this time it was Carlos etc. dancing dancing and boys who all look the same in stripy shirts, huh was it fun, and the next day 10am in the classical chinese class we were all just smiling like little mongooses and feeling dehydrated. By the end of that course im going to know a million ways of saying 'farmer' and 'plough'.

yesterday we went for A pint at the g-lion and ended up being all hyper and explaining to George what it is thats just fundamentally wrong in finland. then we wanted to find a new party and invented one at dinwiddy and scared some boys who are more of the chilling type than the energetic-lets-go-dance one. they were very receptive though and Lilli played some piano to us.

now Im drinking water from an instant coffee jar and soon going to my politics lecture, and my hands are shaking a little.

a future skateboarding hit by the pompidou centre in paris last october.

hey boy hey girl

2006-01-10T15:55:00.000Z

these are the things that are different now from the autumn:
* I'm studying classical Chinese which is like a completely different language, has no practical relevancy and is grammatically very difficult (well what can you expect from a language that was developed almost three thousand years ago).
* anita and neena in our flat have been replaced by jared and nora
* our Chinese teachers switched again and the new one can actually speak English (horay!) unlike an laoshi
* a lot of people's hair is very different: vasiliki's and jamie's hairs seem longer than before, harry's is curly all of a sudden (he says its the humidity), nick has a beard, aria has almost no hair, eva had hers cut too, and lilli has two dreads.
* the flashcard pile on my window is getting bigger
* the walls in the soas bar were painted so it looks almost a bit too classy now

in seven months we're in a train on our way to beijing.

this is an anarchist pony from shetland.

raisins and almonds

2006-01-06T20:38:00.000Z

there is a place in liverpool next to the chinatown which is just full of wall paintings.

on wednesday we went to cheapskates and danced our feet sore, and got very drunk, but you cant really blame me if all the drinks are 80p/£1. then we accidentally met dave and kate there, how small is london! and i feel i should add that theyre both from my chinese group.

dubsession / Mando Diao

2006-01-04T19:40:00.001Z

slowly everythings starting to liven up again, theres many more sounds and lights at dinwiddy and people are starting to return (like vasiliki who should be here soon, and hanna who came yesterday, and were going to cheapskates tonight uh-uh). on the other hand, anita left today and apparently someones filling her room already tomorrow (but I know I'll see her again one day because I promised to go to new york before I'm 40). and now two important things are also functioning again: the library and the gym, so its getting busy. hrrr! right now i feel like im taking a really deep breath in order to prepare for another 12 weeks of madness (like the first 12 felt like). probably in the beginning of the spring holiday I'll be just as exhausted as i was in the beginning of winter holiday (except that supposedly i dont have to say any goodbyes).

i couldnt imagine how good biking would feel again after a week of none. today it was quite windy too, so you could just slide forward. i really have to get a new lock though.
today i also started practising chinese after two and a half weeks (!!), and i felt like i had lost the ability to write characters, just like in the beginning it felt impossible to make your hand work in a totally new way. but it only took a little time to get used to it again, and now i even know how to write 'soviet union' and 'comfortable' which were the hardest characters in chapter 10. (and if anyones wondering why we have to know how to say 'soviet union', its because our book is written just after the cultural revolution so i also know how to say production team, iron factory, commune, comrade and People's Liberation Army)
today i was reading some of the essays our politics tutor (zafer the womanizer) recommended us, instead of the stuff the course convenor has put in the studypack, and it really widens the perspective (from a rather narrow view pretty much conforming to the liberal orthodoxy). so now im enlightened.

and the bicycle is (was, rather) situated in liverpool.

Edinburgh 01/04/05

2006-01-02T17:50:00.000Z

on a ferry from shetland last spring (i think we look like ghosts)

2006-01-01T20:27:00.000Z

DM: Welcome to Jamrock.

2006-01-01T19:52:00.000Z

so its 2006 which means I'll be 22 next year and that this year women in finland have been eligible for voting for hundred years.

this is how my holidays went:
my mum was here for a week and we had the bestest time. she brought me so much chocolate that i had to start giving it away and also i got some porkkanalaatikko from one of my aunts and mushroom pie from annemari and a-p. we discovered two things ive been wondering about: 1) an english karaoke bar and 2) an engligh translation of Taikurin hattu (its called Finn Family Moomintroll in english) from the bookshop in tate modern. the former was quite horrendous, pretty much like in finland except that the people singing were all REALLY old, but the latter is very nice, its got all the original drawings by tove jansson and now i also know that Nipsu is Sniff, Nuuskamuikkunen is Snufkin, Hemuli is Hemulen, Niisku is Snork and Tiuhti&Viuhti are Thingumy and Bob. i finally saw st paul's as well, and we did a long walk along the canal and through regents park, and saw a play at kings head.

on new years eve i first had dinner at eva's, we had all kinds of german things like two different fondues, and something a bit like glühwein but with oranges & rum thats first put all over a sugar hut (that lookes like a candle), then set on fire and then it melts into the wine. then we came down town by bus and it took ages because of the traffic and by the time we got to oxford st everybody else was tired and decided to go back and see the fireworks from primrose hill, and i decided to find danni but misunderstood her over the phone and walked to russell square while they were waiting for me at leicester square. then i decided to take the tube because it was already 23.20, but discovered that the russell sq station was closed. then i walked to holborn station with a japanese girl who was going to trafalgar sq on her own (but she seemed quite boring so i didnt invite her to come with me. i did offer her some beer though) and at least got into the tube for free. then at leicester sq first i couldnt reach danni (it was 23.45) but then she called and i met them at five to twelve. then we had to run to the bar where the others were waiting (mainly danni's friends but also yusuf and the two guys who were with us at the streetlight manifesto gig) and right when we got in the dj started: "ten, nine, eight, seven...!" I think i looked like i was suffering because the toilet attendant gave me sweets for free (and asked money from others). but it was fun in the end, and someone kept buying us drinks and we figured out that the entrance fee was £25, luckily someone new the famous james who owned the place and we were all in for free.

uhhuh.

africano clandestino

2005-12-23T02:25:00.000Z

"Do NOT contact me offering services or anything of a commercial nature"

ei vitsi että tämä kaupunki on kaunis talvella (vaikkei ole edes lunta), varsinkin kun kävelee joen rannalla ja näkee kaikki ne valot. tänään tuli hyvä mieli töissä kun floor managerit tuntuivat ekan kerran ihan ihmisiltä, oli niidenkin vika työpäivä ennen joulua, ja helppo sellainen (lapsia ja itsepalveluruokaa), ja meidän annettiin jopa syödä keksejä ja juoda kahvit (!!), ja lopuksi saimme kylmät oluet. kerrankin lähdin töistä oikeasti iloisena (vaikka minua ei buukattukaan elton johnin häihin ja jouduin kuuntelemaan koko päivän jonkun tytön tilitystä siitä miten siihen vaan turtuu kun kaikki mahdolliset julkisuuden henkilöt on samaan aikaan ympärillä). tänään ajattelin yhtäkkiä emmaa ja tuomasta. hassua miten joskus yhtäkkiä tulee sellainen olo että haluan tuon ihmisen tähän juuri nyt, vaikka sellaisenkin jota ei ole nähnyt pitkään aikaan. äsken jouduin avaamaan olutpullon ling xin isolla lihaveitsellä kun en löytänyt avaajaa mistään (älkää huoliko, en ole alkoholisti, olut on vaan ainoa unettomuuslääke joka minulla on nyt käsillä), se on silti niin ylitsepääsemättömän ystävällinen ettei ikinä sanoisi mitään, vaikka usein olisi aihettakin koska olen varmasti tämän asunnon äänekkäin (tai sitten anita joka laulaa koko ajan) vaikken olekaan täällä kovin paljoa.

("the kindness of strangers", uh uh)

acwardness is probably the characteristic that puts me off the most in new people. it makes me feel like Im maybe too unacward or familiar myself, and that cant really be true. I dont think I know any people that are TOO familiar, usually familiarness (is the word actually familiarity?) just makes me feel strangely like home (Im still a beginner in this kind of lifestyle that involves so much of saying goodbye and being sentimental..). it must be so much easier for all those rich kids in my university whove used to moving around and have members of family in at least 6 different countries and have attended international schools in at least 12 countries. its so strange when change itself becomes routine. I wont be doing a complete change like the few last ones in a couple of years though, which is actually refreshing, I think Im looking forward to going to china with all these other people (especially my B2 groupmates which reminds me of having to email dr. song about not separating us).

("I predict a riot", this song reminds me of a very extraordinary night back in aberdeen in the spring that involved all kinds of activities like an australian guy committing a jealosy crime, hih)

I have a tiny tiny bruise in my calf but whats weird is that its really black. its not even dark blue or brown but black.

The Christmas lights at Harrod's.

2005-12-20T21:53:00.000Z

Today I realised why I prefer living in a big city to living in a town:

Big cities actually contain many parallel cities, whereas small towns are just one thing at a time. Today when I was biking all over and in many places Ive never been to before, it made me think that instead of London just having many different kind of neighbourhoods, its really many Londons, because there are definitely people who only ever understand one or two of these realities, and live their whole lives without realising what they could experience just behind the corner. Maybe it has got something to do with this that during the last month Ive been able to peak into a very different reality through my job, so added to student's London and tourist's London, Ive seen bits of the rich person's London now (and Im not saying that Ive liked what Ive seen, but that its been a mind-opening experience). In small towns, on the other hand, you know that even though there might be neighbourhoods youve never been to, you still know that the overarching mentality is not going to drastically change (and I personally think that is what makes a place boring). I wonder if I'd like small place (or if it could even exist) that was multi-layered.

Today I also saw the exhibition Revelations by Diane Arbus at the V&A, which I highly recommend, and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, which I dont think was as good as Nightmare Before Christmas (and I know Im not supposed to but I just cant help comparing them).

因為我今天喝的咖非不夠，我真累，所以我得去。

Sunday Madness

2005-12-18T14:40:00.001Z

(Snow Patrol)

Things that have happened to me lately:

* spent 11 hours at university on Thursday, mostly sitting in the bar and studying (its true).
* had a lovly dinner (which cost £2.95) in a place that had "What do Miss Afro-Caribbean, Miss Africa and Miss Asia have in common? They've all dined at Indian Veg!" written on the wall, alongside with pictures of these events.
* had a multilingual day, with a lot of studying Chinese, a French test and some one-sided conversations in German.
* said goodbye to one of the most wicked people Ive met in my life (in An Laoshi's words: "Suzan I love you")
* achieved my goal of being drunk before 5pm on Friday (the night started with drinking Jack Daniels and hot chocolate at 1.30pm and ended with TRYING to watch million dollar baby at 4am).
* got a new free phone (that works!!!), and a bag full of stuff that didnt fit in the aeroplane (including a Shy Fx record, olive oil and hangers).
* listened to Scatman while drinking brandy with coke (which is not good idea if you hate a) brandy b) coke).

Then Ive been sleeping sleeping sleeping and now Im slowly starting to feel alive again. in january university is starting again, and were starting with classical chinese and my politics course is turning more interesting (I can almost feel it). Meanwhile I'll try to read some books just for fun.

I predict a riot!!!

2005-12-11T22:01:00.000Z

Aura's Weekend of Pure Excitement.

Headphones: Goodnight Goodnight.

Part One: How to live in London with very little money? On Friday I got the following things for free:
*lunch: the Hare Krishnas come to my university three times a week to distribute free (also nutritious and tasty) food.
*three bus rides because you dont have to pay on the London buses that can be entered from the back door.
*an abandoned scarf from the bar at SOAS.
*a drink in a boring bar because my friend returned a girl her ring, which we found on the floor.
*a tiny bottle of vodka from a hotel where we went to pee while standing in the queue to Fabric.
*a lot of nuts and crackers from the same place.
*a tie from the floor of the boring bar.
See? You dont have to be wealthy at all to be able to live in London.

Part two: Tales from Brick Lane
today morning I left dinwiddy at nine and it was dead silent. I was probably the first person to go pass the security guy for hours because he said a very friendly Good Morning to me, even though he's not even the nice one (steve). It was all misty and sunny at the same time and I couldnt see anything while I biked to shoreditch (which was a nice ride cause its down hill all the way. on my way back i almost died).
at Brick Lane they were only setting up the stalls when we got there and Eva wanted to know why I wanted to go there so early. Eva told me she had seen the girl (I think she was called barbara which is quite hilarious) from the illegal german bar, which made me want to go there again, and I bought a coffee from a very happy italian man.
our bargain-hunters' skills were proved since in the end we owned all kinds of new cheap things, like shirts, chocolate, batteries, a "Make your own truck" -kit (dont worry its for my little brother), pencils (10 for a quid), a DVD player and a badge that says "Ninjas are awesome". these londoners who i bought my shirt from told us we were "such nice customers" and introduced us to a band called American Analogue Set. a korean girl and a british boy at the sunday indoor market were really nice (but its probably only because we were their first customers today). then we lunched at the trendiest place ever and felt oh so trendy ourselves.

my plan for the immediate future is this: go to camden, eat Sunday Roast Jamie has cooked for us, revise everything
Ive learned in Chinese the past four weeks (weve got another big test this friday), come home and watch Hero, read more about Isaiah Berlin's theory on two types of liberty, go to bed, Goodnight Goodnight (thats from a Hot Hot Heat song if you didnt recognize).

Radio 1, 2, 3, 4...

2005-12-07T00:28:00.000Z

Hm I wonder if this will even work.

Manu Chao: Radio Bemba Sound System.

My life was not very exiting today since I worked all evening. But in the weekend I
1) almost egged an innocent fellow-resident
2) saw a Japanese Buddhist chanting/court dance performance
3) wrote 1600 words about whether civil disobedience violates political obligation

Now I have to go to sleep, tomorrow I'm starting at 9 with Chinese grammar. But we'll see if this'll work out or not.