Back from Hong Kong, and a new knee...

Yes, I must be the most lethargic blogger on this Blogger thing... My lovely girlfriend keeps kicking me every two months about updating my blog, and she's absolutely right. I really don't know if anyone really reads these, but I still feel I should do a better job at this. Anyway, after this short confessional, moving on to the point...
I spent another amazing vacation in HK, residing in Yuen Long, as usual. I really have to come up with a way to pay Mama some kind of rent, seeing as I have already lived in her other apartment for about two months altogether..she just won't let me pay for anything.
This time around we visited China, twice. Once to Eric's (C's dad) toy factory in Qishi, and once to Panyu with a group of friends; Su, Kit-cha, Alan, Kimmy, and of course me and C. Fun times, except I was a real wimp, I didn't have the guts to ride the tallest roller coaster in the world (80m high...). Other than that, it was great, though. Good food, bad jokes, fun people. I met so many good people this time around, a lot of Colina's colleagues, friends and schoolmates. Meeting Jenga was fun too, as I didn't get to meet this C'olina's good schoolmate last time. As usual, my Cantonese is still rather limited, which meant I offered amusement to everyone else with my clumsy comments and a few diry words in my vocab. But I'm getting there...you wait and see.
Especially cute aqcuaintance was Colina's friend Jade's little baby boy Lincoln, who we had tea with once. Cute baby, probably going to be active, nice and talkative like his mom. I guess seeing a mixed-blood baby in my arms made me think about what our babies with Ms. C might look like. New, weird thoughts.
Now every time I go back to 852 I feel more and more like returning to a second home. We'll see if next year Paris will be my third home, then...
Had a knee surgery three weeks ago, really good job by the doc. Everything ran smoothly, and the leg isn't painful, and most importantly, it is beginning to look like a leg again. Thank you, Suomen Terveystalo staff. Now, it's rehab for 6 months until I can play basketball again, but at least there's light at the end of the tunnel, and as always, I got my better half looking after me, making sure I don't break my knee again. Thanks boo, ngo chung yi nei ar.
And that's it for this blog. Peace.
PS. I really need to start listening to C and making these entries shorter...

Going back to Cali

Going back to Hong Kong, again. That's my life right now; school, work, and Colina. Which means that while I'm in Finland, I basically just work my behind off, and study, and as soon as I get the money, I'm off to 852. Next time I'll stay about three weeks..gotta fix the water heater in Colina's grandma's other apartment in Yuen Long, because it broke down last time we were there. We're doing just great with my better half..hehe, never called any girl my better half before. I really like this one. I guess it's pretty obvious to everyone else too, considering the fact that I am returning to Hong Kong for my third trip there..and I plan to go there again in September.
On a more negative note, I broke my knee three weeks ago..this is the first time in 13 years i needed the sports insurance. Good thing I have it. I tore my ACL completely, which means a few months of rehab, surgery after I return from HK, and about six months more rehab.. Not too cheerful about that..but I got my better half supporting me. It's very nice, even her dad and mom are asking me every now and then about how I'm coming along with the injury. The good thing about this injury is that I really have to do excercise by myself everyday, whether it's the fitness bike or just lifting weights.
I've been working so much this month, my thesis has not progressed much..but I'll crank up the pace before I get to Hong Kong. I'm trying to finish anywhere between 20 to 30 pages before the "Spring break".
Anyway, that's what's up. Life is good. Colina is sweet. I'm happy. Peace.

Busy Bee

Hello people. After returning to Oulu, I kept myself superbusy by working about 5 diaz a week, going to school, and playing basketball, while dedicating almost all of my free time to skyping with my better half. Needless to say, days and weeks went by really fast. Had I not had all these preoccupations, my head would have inevitably imploded from the exessive boredom that my dear old city exudes. Nevertheless, by early November, as days began to grow darker, I knew i had to escape the darkness.
And so I did. On Nov. 4th, around 16:40, I hopped on the plane to Hong Kong. After spending the previous night on a train, accompanied by an old drunkard and three annoying manga-crazy teenage girls who kept blathering constantly for eight and a half hours in a fairly high pitch and volume, I had no trouble sleeping on the plane.
So, on Nov. 5th, around 08:00 Hong Kong time, my nice little autumn break begun as Colina picked me up from the Airport. I didn't have time to get nervous about meeting her family members, because we had lunch AND dinner at her granma's place the same day I arrived. The Tangs are very nice, sincere people. No extra courtesy or fake smiles for the white guy, but a warm, real, welcome. And the food was excellent. I think grandma cooked us food about five times, and she always made me eat too much. And even though my Cantonese is limited to phrases like "thank you very much" and "how are you?", we got along just fine. I also learned the phrase "go ahead and eat"...hehe.
The trip went as planned and we had a great time. In the first week, we stayed a couple of days on an island called Cheng Chau. We had a nice, recently renovated little room at a B&B (which did not actually include the other B...). Cheng Chau was ok. It's a nice little island, but not nearly as nice and laid-back as Lamma Island. Lamma is very nice, the whole island is oozing with a relaxed ambience that is really infectious. One of my favorite establishments in the whole Hong Kong peninsula has to be Bookworm Café, a small restaurant with nice bright-coloured interior and a long bookshelf filled with copies of national geography and travel literature, offering fresh salads and various other forms of veggie food made from organic products. Lamma is also full of dogs, which is nice. Dogs are cool.
I also got used to picking Colina up from her workplace, a Quicksilver store in the bustling Mong Kok, and I met many of her colleagues and schoolmates, and friends aswell, of course.
Hong Kong people love to dine out, so we met many of these aforementioned people at various restaurants. We had Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, and of course various forms of Chinese food, and we somehow managed to fit in European cuisine as well. It was a very nourishing trip to say the least, although I did suffer a slight case of diarrhea at one point, which marked the first time my stomach got upset in a foreign country. The funny thing is that it was a fairly domestic and familiar product that caused this abdominal malfunction: an IKEA shrimp sandwich. Having eaten menu items such as fish stomach and duck feet, the IKEA quality delicacy really caught me (and obviously my digestive system) off guard.
Notwithstanding the rectal explosion episode, my second trip to the autonomous region of Hong Kong was, in a word, GREAT. I will definitely be back there, hopefully during the springtime of 2008.
Since I returned to the dark, cold Finlandia, as could be expected, I continued working and studying, the usual routine. Luckily, time goes by very fast, and soon my better half will fly here, accompanied by her lovely friend Hazel, to experience snow, Santa, and Aurora Borealis for the first time. Kinda cool. Anywho, that's the latest from this little piggy. Peace. I'm out like democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe (for example).

Reality Check

Yeah..It's been a while. I've been working 5-6 days a week since I got back home, getting back my groove (money). Nothing really interesting has happened here during my exile in Japan, except for that monstrosity of a movie theater/hotel complex that blocks the sun from our pub's patio..After a year of rather useless, obligatory Japanese culture courses, getting back to my actual English studies is quite refreshing. I feel more motivated than ever before, and I am actually attending some of the first year basic linguistics lectures, which is something I've tried to do ever since I began my studies in 2001...
Work is good, I feel good. Getting money is good for traveling. I.e. traveling to 852. Still about a month to go, but that's not much..Working and playing basketball and studying takes up so much time, days and weeks go by super fast, which is nice. We lost our Olli, my little brother, the coolest dog ever, in June due to a virus.. I still get sad thinking about him, and how I never got to say goodbye. I cried for a couple of days when I found out from my parents that he was going to go soon..Luckily I had Colina next to me, so I had a shoulder to cry on. Ng goi.
Last week, my parents got a new puppy. Bono. He is Olli's great grandson, so we're hoping he would grow as big as his great grandfather. Bono's pretty cool, light-coloured eyes and a white spot on his chest, and a great personality. I think he'll be alright.
So that's pretty much what's going on in my life. I'll check back in a couple of months..maybe. Next time I should have something to tell you about my second trip to Hong Kong. Until then, I'm out like Shinzo Abe and Myanmar's human rights. Peace.

Time Flies Bye...

It is ridiculous, really. This whole program, since December 2006, has gone so fast. A little too fast, perhaps. It's funny to think about actually going back to finland in a couple of weeks. And sad, too. I t
hink Sapporo, and my friends I made here, really grew on me. I feel at home. I feel at home with the bright dawns and early dusks, the energetic, bustling scene in the commercial district, the all-you-can-drink soirées in various izakayas, the extremely annoying routine of getting up for 8.45 classes three to five times a week, getting bentoo for lunch, marusei or starbucks coffee.. So, it feels weird, leaving this set of routines, not to mention my friends, behind me. And as nice as it feels to think about meeting my old friends in Finland again, it makes me wonder how well I will get used to my old home, even with all the old, familiar routines? Of course, having my friends there helps, and school, and work.. It's a comforting thought to have all these nice things waiting for me there when i get back. Yet somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel this strange feeling, a certain unrestful feeling. I feel I won't be living in my old city for long, or my country. That feeling is nothing new, but I feel it more now, of course, going back home. I have no intention to move back to Japan, though. Don't get me wrong, I like the country in many ways, but I just do not see myself living in this type of "group-oriented" (Word to Stapleton!) society. I will be back though, probably many times, and I am interested in improving my Japanese and some day maybe do translation work in Japanese..But that's later. My sight is set on Europe, probably Germany or France, though I am not excluding any options, I am not that well informed yet. But time will tell, I bet it'll be cool, wherever I end up. These last couple of months went by extremely fast. First, in early June, Anna and Matias came here. It was a very nice week, and it was probably nice for them to get a break from all the studying and working. Also, it was a good excuse for me to take it easy at school here too, and forget about homework for a while. We mostly just walked around Sapporo, seeing funny shops and nice parks and such. A shopping vacation while trying to keep it as low-end as possible. We actually managed to find nice things for both, though to my sister's surprise, she was too skinny even for Asian standards. Anyhow, it was fun Thanks you two:) I'll see you soon:) Right after my sister and Matias departed, my girlfriend arrived here. To put it short, we had 18 amazing days here. There's no other way to explain it. Ng goi, lui pang yau:) The first few days, we walked around Sapporo, shopping and sight-seeing. We made salad, and ate it in the university park almost every day. We cooked a lot too. Very nice, just living together, doing normal, everyday things. We also managed to travel a little, going to Furano to see lavender, and other flower fields. The trip was very nice, even if we missed one train by three minutes, and we ended up coming back home almost three hours later.. But if we hadn't missed that train, we wouldn't have found a nice soba-noodle restaurant where we had a delicious, BIG, meal. Another trip we did was to Otaru, the small port town 30 minutes away from Sapporo by train. The weather was amazing, and the pictures we took on the Ungadoori-canal were so beautiful the background looks fake:D We enjoyed every single moment so much, it was hard to say goodbye on July 4th. I miss everything we did together here, and it took a while to get used to being without my better half.. But it's ok, I'm going back to 852 in October:) Can't wait! -Which brings us to the topic of returning to Finland. I am feeling much better now about going back home. First of all, seeing my old friends and family. Secondly, having a job and a steady income again really eases my mind. But most importantly, I am happy about having the exit door in sight again; going back to Hong Kong and seeing my Colina:) Peace, I'm out like Shinzo Abe.

Asian Express

Sorry for the negligence. I'm back. Back in Sapporo. Back from what or where? Well, a trip. Or rather, a journey. Yeah. Journey sounds more grand. Let's stick with that. This journey began on the 28th of February, 2007, and ended exactly three weeks later, 21st of March. Not even arguably, undeniably one of the best journeys of my life.
This enormous excursion included strange and wonderful coincidences, new acquaintances, old friends, good luck, bad luck, beautiful scenery and of course even more beautiful women, as I navigated my way through various Japanese cities, and ended up in Hong Kong. The trip was as excellent as it was eventually emotionally draining. As shallow as my plunge might have been, for two weeks I submerged into Japanese culture and art in its past and present forms very intensively, accompanied by my friend from Finland, Kenttu. Thanks, it was fun, YM4E.
Having slept around 0 hours the previous night, I stumbled on to the Skymark flight bound for Tokyo. The morning was cold, bright and beautiful, a nice way to start a journey. As I was trying to find my seat, I was greeted by a bright smile and a handwave. It was my friend Kaori. A nice coincidence. But the funny thing was that my seat was next to hers. Now that's a coincidence. Because of this funny coincidence we hung out in Tokyo after Kaori's job interviews had ended. The location was Shibuya, one of the busiest districts of Tokyo, but somehow we managed to find each other in the sea of people. After hanging out with Kaori, I returned to the Tokyo Station, where I met a boy from the States, looking for a job as an English teacher, and a Japanese girl, who was very interested in especially Finnish design. So, while waiting for the nightbus from Tokyo to Nagoya, I got a free lesson in Japanese oral communication, as the girl talked almost nonstop for 2,5 hours about Finnish design and Japanese design and styles and anything even loosely related to the topic. After that, I met a guy sitting next to me on the bus, Takayuki, who had been in Tokyo for job interviews, like many other soon-to-graduate-Japanese. More Japanese practice, and English as well, since Taka had been in Spain as an exchange student, and could speak better Japanese than most young Japanese can. On that note, Kaori speaks excellent English, the best English speaker among any of the Japanese people I've met. She did one year of exchange in the States, which of course contributes to her proficiency to great extent. Sry, straying...
I met my friend Kenttu at Nagoya airport, or Centrair, or something like that. The airport is built on an artificial island. Cool. For that day in Nagoya, we were joined by Suvi and Tessi, two Finnish girls who my friend had met on the flight. While the girs were resting in their hotel room, we went to check out Nagoya castle. The castle was beautiful on the outside, but it had been rebuilt in the 1950s after it had been bombed to the ground during WWII, like most Japanese castles, so there was nothing original looking or really interesting inside, except if u consider an elevator in a medieval castle to be interesting.
After another nightbus ride, we were in Tokyo, again. The first day was basically resting after a bad night's sleep, and visiting Shibuya for some shopping. Tokyo is nice, and busy. Always. There's hardly a place where u can feel isolated or alone in that monster of a metropolis. The city is just a massive concrete jungle, spreading everywhere until it is stopped by the sea or the mountains. You can find anything in this city, from old, earth-tone temples to massive, metallic, shiny skyscrapers; from rockabilly people to goths or anime characters; from fresh food markets to vending machines serving noodles. For games, electronics, or manga cafés, just take the Yamanote Line to Akihabara, the electric town. If you want to do some garment shopping, almost regardless of your taste, or if you just want to see interesting looking Tokyoites, just go to Harajuku. In the mysterious case that you find you haven't seen enough people while in Tokyo, go to Shibuya and witness the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world, right in front of Shibuya station. You just have to see it to believe it. Like any guidebook would tell you, for entertainment and nightlife, hit the streets of Roppongi Hills, but don't be surprised if you won't see that many locals there. After staying three nights, and hanging out for a day with my Alaskan friend Will, we left Tokyo and headed for Kansai area.
In Kyoto, we stayed at a very nice youth hostel, five minutes on foot from the main station. The bad part was that check-in was at 16.00, and we arrived in Kyoto around 10.00..On top of that, the whole night train trip from Tokyo on the slowest possible local trains turned out to be a not very good idea. We didnt have any seats on the overnight-8-hour-trip..so we basically rested by sitting on our backpacks, while the train seemed to be spending more time on every little station, rather than actually getting us somewhere. In any case, being too tired to enjoy any actual sightseeing in the morning, we checked out only one world heritage site (there arent many sites in kyoto that Aren't world heritage sites), and spent the rest of the waiting time by sleeping at the station and some parks. In fact we continued to do personal maintenance for the rest of the day, doing laundry, bathing and just taking it easy.
Kyoto is a very nice and peaceful city, home to about 1,4 million people. The former capital of Japan was the capital of "peace and tranquility" and it still continues to live up to that name. Buddhist and Shintoo temples are scattered in and around the city and the surrounding hills. A little bit to the South of Kyoto, lies Nara, an old centre of power itself, home to arguably most famous temple in Japan; the Todaiji, or "Great Eastern Temple". In the middle of the massive temple complex, you can find the largest wooden structure in the world, the Daibutsuden, which houses a massive statue of Buddha. While in Kyoto, places worthwile visiting are especially the Golden Pavilion (kinkakuji) and Kyomizudera.
After getting an overdose of temples (reminding me of the time we got really sick of churches in Rome and Venice, Italy), we hopped on the train towards Himeji, a city that got it's name from the beautiful castle that lies in the middle of it. Himeji is one of the rare Japanese fortresses that have survived the mayhem of WWII. The castle is truly a thing of beauty, with every little detail designed and honed to perfection. The beauty of Himeji is matched with it's ingenuity and lethality; the beautiful white walls lead intruders to mazes of cul-de-sacs and various machiavellian defence contraptions. Walking through the gates and the yards, it is no wonder this castle was never conquered by enemies - you feel bad even thinking about the poor samurais trying to do so.After succesfully navigating our way through the labyrinth-like Himeji in about 2hours, we hopped on the next train to Hiroshima.
The next morning, waking up at J-hoppers Hostel in Hiroshima, we headed out to see the A-bomb dome and museum. A lot of the world leaders have visited this site in the recent history, but i fear that the current ones are forgetting what a weapon of mass destruction can really do. It's sad. Just as sad as nazis and the holocaust, the Red Khmer, or any other genocidal piece of history. The a-bomb just does it a little quicker, but the result is just as sad. Anyone feeling bad about their lives can visit places like this that stand as a testament to human suffering, and get a reality check. So, apperciate what you have, people.
On a more positive note, Hiroshima has risen from the ashes like a phoenix, and is today a very positive, energetic, prosperous and beautiful city of about 2 million people. On the other hand, the Hiroshima card has been played by the Japanese government too much for making the Japanese people seem like victims of WWII, while completely ignoring their own atrocities against many peoples during the war.
But let's not talk politics and bs anymore.
Hiroshima's other recommendable piece of history that is very worthwile to get to know is the Itsukushima shrine, located on Miyajima Island. One of the best three views of Japan, the shrine is famous for the massive red torii, a gate, in the sea in front of the shrine. The mountaneus little island and the shrine are very beautiful, but I recommend you to synchronize your visit with the high tide, if you want to see the shrine at it's most beautiful.
The same day as we visited the most memorable sites of Hiroshima, we got on a bullet train bound for Hakata/Fukuoka, and we arrived on the capital of Kyushu Island a couple of hours later. Bullet trains are fast. Really fast.
The last part of the trip was just about taking it easy after almost two weeks of trains and city hopping. We even took our own hotel room. Luxury. The same night we met Yama-san and his friend, also Yama-san. I got acquainted to Yama through my oral communication teacher, Honma-sensei, as she found out i was going to go all the way to Fukuoka on my Japanese excursion. As it turned out, we were of the same age, which always makes it easier, especially since we mostly spoke in Japanese. So, no need for humble or honorific expressions. We had a nice evening of drinking, and since Yama's friend could speak a little English, all four of us could communicate rather easily. The beer probably helped a little, too.
The following day we went through downtown fukuoka, and walked a couple of hours to the other side of the city, the seaside, got up on the 30something floor of the SeaHawk Hotel and got a really beautiful (free) view of the city.
The last day of ther trip was just about getting back to Kansai, and we did it in style, with the bullet train, again. I said thanks and bye to Kenttu as I got of the train in Kyoto. It was fun. Good memories and a ton of pics.
However, as Kenttu went back to Nagoya to wait for his flight back to Finland, my excursion was only 2/3 done.
The following day I visited Osaka, and got a glimpse of the town by going around on foot for a few hours. I didn't see much, but Osaka seems very nice, active, big city. One of the biggest cities of Japan, Osaka is an important commercial centre, a port city of 2,5 million people, famous for the Osaka Tigers baseball team, the Osaka-jo castle, and it's entertainment district Namba.
After returning for the last night in Kyoto, I felt the travel fever rising again. It's weird to have travel fever while traveling, but then again, I was about to go to a different country and a location far away from where i was now, so I guess it's natural to have a few butterflies in the stomach. This blog is never going to end...

On the morning of March 14th, I flew to Hong Kong on India Airlines. Cheap airliner, but good food and service.
On arrival to Hong Kong, the humidity sucked the lifeforce out of me..23 degrees celsius, and like a greenhouse. Never experienced climate like that. It took me a few days to get used to it; feeling sticky and dirty and sweating constantly.
I met my beautiful friend Colina the same night i arrived, at 22. The sweetest, cutest, and funniest girl in Hong Kong, if you ask me. I was a little nervous about meeting her, wondering how well we would get along after only chatting and skyping before. Luckily, all the nervousness disappeared the moment we met, and we had a nice dinner, Shanghai cuisine. The heat really kills your appetite, but the food was good, nevertheless. It was a very cool first encounter with this beautiful being.
The following day, I went to walk around the city on the Hong Kong Island side, as I was staying at Causeway Bay. The humidity really made the walking uncomfortable, as I was sweating like a pig, but the I really enjoyed the interesting sights, and got some really nice flicks of the interesting architecture and infrastructure of Hong Kong. In the evening we had some thai food with Colina and her friends. I also met her best friend Hazel that night, a very nice person herself. After dinner, we went clubbing. Me and three cute Hong Kong girls going clubbing? I had no objections. The club was too packed, we had to wait for the drinks forever, and there was no room to dance, but it was fun anyway.
Next day, it was the Cat st. antique shops and Man Mo Temple. Cat street antique shops are full of various interesting items, but they are mainly for rich western tourists, and often not very authentic nor very old. However, for wonderful socialist paraphenalia and collectibles of the great chairman Mao, this is a good place to check out. A good measure of contrast to the Japanese temples i had visited during the past couple of weeks was provided by Man Mo Temple, a more typical Chinese temple, made of concrete, coloured with bright green, gold and red, and filled with incense smoke. That night, we ate really good Indian food. Delicious. The weird part was following these indian guys through a crowd of various nationalities trying to pull us to their restaurants, arriving at an elevator, going up to a shady apartement building, and knocking on some doors to find a restaurant. But the food was excellent, so it's all good.
The following day we visited Lamma Island, 30 minutes by ferry from Hong Kong Central. Lamma Island is a beautiful little island known for it's seafood and tranquility. A nice little, fairly international, community in which everyone seems to own a dog. A nice place to consider living in for a while. The salad was really good, fresh. Nice.
One of the many highlights of the trip was the Big Buddha on Lantau Island. The tallest seated outdoor Buddha in the world, the Tian Tan Buddha stands at 34 meters high, weighs in around 250 tons, and can be seen even as far as Macau on a clear day. The beautiful statue is located near Po Lin monastery, standing as a representation of the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and religion.
The final night (sigh) in Hong Kong was beautiful. We visited Victoria Peak, and got a beautiful nightview of the city (if you don't believe me, check the pictures). A very romantic spot, I can recommend this to all you lovers out there. But don't worry, the view provides enough beauty to enjoy even if you happen to go solo. Enough of the joking, though. As nice as the view and spot was, I couldn't stop the blues creeping up on me as I realised this is the last night of my grand journey. Enhancing the feeling was the fact that I had an amazing week in Hong Kong thanks to the wonderful guidance and company provided by Miss Tang.
The following morning, as I was sitting on the airplane heading towards Japan, I felt bittersweet; on one hand I had an amazing three week trip, crowned by the last week in Hong Kong, and i felt satisfied by that, but on the other hand, it was very hard leaving Hong Kong after such a great week. It ain't easy.
So, as I walked out of the Sapporo JR Station and looked at the sky, once again breathing the fresh Hokkaido air, I realized my journey had come to an end, and I was home. The first few days after an emotionally draining excursion like that are always the hardest. Slowly but surely, however, I recovered and got back into my homely routines. That was one good trip. I apologize once again for being too lazy to convert it into a blog in time, but here it is now. I take my hat off for anyone who actually reads this from the beginning to the end. Peace.

ps. the picks are on my flickr site (www.bloggingdesmond.blogspot.com), just click on the Some Photos link on this page;) word to your mother.

Quarter of a Century

And I can honestly say, I've gotten quite far...Japan, to be more articulate. In 25 years on the face of the planet called Earth I've done quite a bit of this and that..Nothing too significant..Nothing revolutionary, just lived and, hopefully, learned.
Einstein had written the Annus Mirabilis Papers by the time he reached 25. Mozart composed his first great opera, Idomeneo, when he was 25. If u want to talk about more trendy figures, Ernesto Guevara received his medical diploma in at the age of 25, after travelling through South and Central America on a motorcycle, after which he decided to become a revolutionary. By 25, Kafka already had received the title "Doctor of Law" in Charles University of Prague.
So, big up to historic figures. I've got one more report to finish before heading down South to see some beautiful places that I can maybe look back on someday and smile. It would be cool to live three more of these 25 year sets, that is, if the world is still an inhabitable and humane place to be. Remember to drink plenty of water, and a little red wine too. Peace.