Hello

Long time no see! Though I doubt anyone even reads this I still thought it's worth mentioning here.

I'm going to uni in Taiwan!
Tamkang university Lanyang campus to be precise. I'm going to study International tourism management.

I'm not going to keep a blog (I'm lazy) but I'm going to post updates&photos on my facebook page.
There's nothing yet but there will be as I'm leaving for Taiwan on the 18th and my school will start on the 5th of September.

So yeah. That's all i had to say.
See ya.

Adventures in Finland

Everyone who has been reading my blog before probably knows who Gillian is.

For those who don't know, she is my Canadian exchange student friend from my Taiwan year. We went to the same school and had some pretty awesome adventures together throughout the year.

♥

She is currently studying in Uppsala, Sweden, (which happens to be kinda close to Finland) and decided to come for a visit during Easter. We had an amazing week together and visited many places, cooked Taiwanese food and skyped some old friends. It was kinda amazing to meet after almost three years and think back to our time in Taiwan. I thought it would be nice to write a post about our Finland adventures here on my blog.

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Her flight was on Wednesday but I still had a lecture in the morning so my dad picked her up from the airport.The first evening kinda went by really fast while talking. We had Taiwanese noodles for evening snack~~

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Thursday was a rainy day and we didn't have any big plans so we decided to drive to Lahti, which is a bigger city next to my home town, and look around. We also watched a movie called You're the apple of my eye, which is a funny Taiwanese movie that came out the same year we were in Taiwan. In the evening we baked a blueberry pie :>

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On Friday we headed for Helsinki. My dad was going to visit my cousin and some friends so before that he gave us a mini tour of the harbor and some famous places and then dropped us of at the flea market that we were planning to visit. We were shocked by the long line they had but luckily it didn't take that long to get in.

We found some pretty great pieces from the market and were quite excited about it haha

Metrilakua! 

(Meter liquorice, a very Finnish candy that they sell on the market usually in the summer and it's one meter long haha)

We took the tram to the center and walked along the riverside. We saw the opera house, the Finlandia house, the parliament house and a lot of other places on our way. We decided to grab something to eat, which turned out to be quite a mission with our budget as Finland is quite expensive foodwise. Also the fact that it was Good Friday and some places were closed made finding a place to eat even harder.

At the end we had to get something from a nice coffee shop first because we were getting so hungry.We had some plans to walk around in the center but it was getting cold and starting to rain so we just decided to go to one of my favorite restaurants and share a pizza. We sat there quite a while talking and eating. The pizza was amazing~

 BBQ chicken with fresh mozzarella, blue cheese, pineapple and pepper~

After eating we had to take a bus to my cousins house to meet my dad as I had promised to drive us back home. It was scary because I wasn't sure which bus to take or where to hop off the bus, but we survived haha. My dad wasn't ready to leave yet so we just sat there and chatted and got to taste some dessert that they had made. (They had had a 'manly cooking day' :D)

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On Saturday we also headed to Helsinki. We first ate some lunch at Japanese restaurant and the visited a few Asian markets in the center with my parents.

拉麵 ♥

We found some snacks that we used to eat in Taiwan

Then my dad dropped us of at the center where we were supposed to go get bubble tea but, unfortunately, the cafe was closed. We visited the Ateljee cafe in the highest building in Helsinki and the view was really nice. (We didn't actually go all the way up because we didn't wanna buy anything :D)

It was a cold day but we still decided to walk to the Temppeliaukio church. It's build into rock.

From there we headed to the opposite direction to go see the Helsinki Cathedral and Senate Square.

It was getting really cold so we decided to take the train to Espoo to go meet my parents (they had gone to a housewarming party of some friends). They had promised to save some food for us and so we got to eat Karelian pies and other yummy stuff haha.

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Sunday was a lazy day because we both had to take some time to do our homework and then we (my dad :D) cooked 牛肉麵 aka beef noodle soup. 

It doesn't look like soup because I don't like the actual soup that much :D

We also skyped Aoi, who was a Japanese exchange student in our school in Taiwan. It was nice to talk to her after three years of not being in contact at all~

In the evening we visited my grandma and ate some bread cheese with cloudberries and cream. 

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On Monday we visited Porvoo with my parents. We walked around the old town and visited some tiny shops along the way. It was a sunny day~

Later that day we cooked Finnish style sukiyaki or hotpot, which ever you wanna call it, and it was delicious.

We skyped with Minyun and her family ♥

And made some bubble tea with tiny pink bubbles :D

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On Tuesday I had classes so we had to drive to Joutseno, where my school is, and back. The day was rainy so we didn't do much else. On Wednesday we drove Gillian back to the airport really early and send her off back to Sweden. 

It was an amazing week and I was so glad to see Gillian again ♥

Hopefully we will have some new adventures together in the future too (maybe even in Taiwan :D)

P.s.

After I got home from the airport and took a nap someone took over Gillian's bed :D

Taiwan 2014

I promised that I'd write here if I ever went back to Taiwan. I kind of did not keep the promise I'm sorry. Because guess what, I did go to Taiwan in April of last year but I did not write about it. I spent two weeks traveling in Taiwan with my parents. And they were an amazing two weeks I have to say. I know it's already December February (seriously I started writing this in September ><) but I somehow got lost on my computer and went through the photos that we took and got an urge to share them here. So that's it I'm fulfilling my promise now and sharing our trip with the world.

I started planning our trip already back in November 2013 when we bought the flight tickets which meant that I had five months before the trip and yes the plan changed at least five times. We didn't use any travel agent but planned, booked and bought all the tickets by ourselves. We stayed in Taipei for a week and then traveled around for another week.

I had so many places I wanted to show my parents and so many foods they just had to taste that our daily plans were pretty full. (No I did not make a minute schedule but quite close). We also had my old Rotary club there and they had made some plans for us too haha. 

The week before the trip I got the flu so I was very afraid of the long flight and other traveling but luckily I got better in time. The flights were okay and they felt really short compared to the last time haha. It was funny how the climate could be felt already at the airport ~hot and sticky.

Whole bunch of people were waiting for us at the airport when we arrived.

We got a ride from the airport to the hotel from my first host papa and dropped our luggage there and went straight out to explore Ximending with my second host family and some friends. Our hotel was at very nice location in Ximending and the hotel was really nice overall. Hotel Puri ~ recommended!

On Monday my second host parents took us to Jiufen gold mining museum and Jiufen old street.

It was cold haha

The old street was very crowded but we still walked the whole street and ate some delicious stuff on the way. Our next stop was Pingxi the town of lanterns.

We wrote our own huge paper lantern...

...and sent it off to the sky

In the evening we had dinner with my old Rotary club

Tuesday was for basic sights and famous places of Taipei like ChiangKaiShek memorial hall and its surroundings. It was a really hot day.

228 memorial park

Longshan temple

We also visited a tiny book store near NTNU before heading to Keelung.

Keelung night market is one of my favorites food wise, they have such a variety of dishes and the tempura there is the best ever. It is also nicely organized compared to many other night markets. The harbor looked very nice in the evening too ^^

On Wednesday we started early with Taipei 101. It was one of those places that I did not get to visit when I was on my exchange year. Because we were there early the line was not that long and it went by very fast. Up there the sights were amazing.

SunYatSen memorial hall

Shilin night market! Oh how I waited for that. We went there with my friend Minyun and just walked around mostly. We did not buy much for some reason haha.

On Thursday  we had made plans to go visit my old school Mingder ♥ It was really nice to meet my old teachers and show my parents where I had studied for a year.The principal was very generous and even gave my dad a bottle of Kinmen liquor haha.

After visiting the school we went to walk around in Sanxia old street

Stinky tofu! :D

♥♥♥

And we had a lunch (a long one) with some rotary uncles and my Chinese teacher and the principal. The food was okay but it took a long time to eat haha.

My first host parents took us to Yingge ceramics museum after the lunch. The day was longer than we expected and it was already evening when we got back to our hotel.

Friday morning we went to visit my friend who has a clothing store in Xinpu morning market. I was not even sure if she was still there or moved somewhere else but luckily she was there and remembered me ^^

From Xinpu we went to the Taipei Zoo as I wanted to see giraffes and my parents wanted to see the baby panda. Again the day was freaking hot.

♥

After the zoo we had plans to go to have lunch at Cindy's house. She was the Taiwanese exchange student that lived at my house in Finland when I was in Taiwan. It was nice to see her parents again and it was really nice that our parents got to meet for the first time. After eating we took the Maokong gondola up to Maokong and had some traditional Taiwanese tea.

Saturday morning we took off for our week long trip around Taiwan. And our first stop was Hualien where our hotel Classic City Resort had arranged an English speaking guide for us for our trip to Taroko. He took us for lunch first and then to qingshui cliff.

From there we continued to the Swallow Grotto trail where you can walk in a tunnel and see the remains of an ancient river channel.

And then the guide took us to Lushui trail which is one of the shorter hiking trails in Taroko.

I'm not so familiar with Hualien as a city so we did not do much in the evening but just ate sushi and walked around.

On Sunday we took a train to Yilan and visited the Kavalan whiskey distillery.

We took a train back to Taipei and then the HSR train to Taichung where we stayed the next night. That evening I finally got to eat ramen and we shopped around near our hotel CityInn Plus.


It was my first time in Taichung so on Monday morning we  took a walk around and went to see the confucius temple and a buddhist temple.

Then after eating lunch we took a train to Chiayi.

We took a bus up to Alishan national park and the trip was a bit scary with the narrow roads and a lot of traffic. We were so late that we did not get to buy the tickets to see the sunrise in the evening so we had to hope they had some tickets left for the morning. We took a little walk around the park in the evening and ate a very nice dinner. We had to wake up really early so we went to sleep early.

So Tuesday morning we were really lucky to get the tickets because after my dad got the tickets there were only eight tickets left.

The sunrise

It was cold even for us Finns who are used to it haha. We took the bus back to Chiayi and shopped around while waiting for our train to Kaohsiung.

That evening we walked around near our hotel which was Legend hotel (Probably my favorite hotel of all the hotels we stayed at). We visited Liouhe night market and ate dinner at Yoshinoya ♥

We stayed in Kaohsiung for two nights so we would have more time to experience the city. On Wednesday morning we went to the famous Lotus lake. There are a lot of temples there.

Dragon and Tiger Pagodas

Pei Chi Pavilion which is around 70 meters high.

From the lake we went to Dream mall to shop and we ate teppanyaki for lunch. We also walked around some shopping districts but I cannot recall the names anymore. In the evening we decided to go for a boat ride along the love river.

Thursday morning we went to the HSR Zuoying station to rent a car so we could drive to Kenting.

The center of Formosa Boulevard KRT station is pretty.

yaay~

First we drove to Foguangshan buddha memorial center.

And then to...

The last time I visited the aquarium there was a huge shark in one of the tanks but apparently it had died the year before.

After stopping by at the hotel we were gonna stay Howard Beach Resort we drove to the most southern point of Taiwan. Actually we had to walk a bit through the "jungle" to get there.

Slow down crabs on the road

That evening we ate at a really good western restaurant called Smokey Joe's. They had pasta and burgers and the restaurant looked really nice too. After dinner we walked along the night market street.

On Friday we went to the beach(no we did not swim haha) and then drove back to Kaohsiung and took the HSR train back to Taipei. We stayed the last two nights at Cosmos hotel which is a bit fancier hotel right next to Taipei Main Sation. 

In the evening I had made plans to go have dinner with my friend and his mom so my parents headed to Beitou without me. Now they have seen something in Taiwan that I have not ;D After dinner I met up with them and we did some souvenir shopping in Ximending.

Saturday morning we spend at the Guanghua electronics market before heading to Yingge to meet Minyun.

Shaved ice with Minyun. We had a lovely lunch at her house and then walked around Yingge old street while waiting for the train back to Taipei. We went to eat dinner with my old classmates at a hotpot restaurant that the family of one of my classmates owned. It was awesome to see so many of my old classmates again. They have all spread all over Taiwan to study but made some time to gather together ^^

♥

The last day we just walked around and did some last minute shopping near the hotel. We had lunch with the Rotary club again and got too many presents so we had to do some repacking at the airport. (Did I mention that we already had bought a new huge luggage to get all the stuff back home)

Funny thing was that our flight from Taipei to Hong Kong was late so we had to run to catch the connecting flight and oops our luggage was not fast enough so we were home a day before them. (It was actually a good thing because the three huge pieces of luggage would not have fitted in our car and they brought them straight home for us the next day)

And finally the best thing about whole of Taiwan(just kidding.. or maybe not)

BUBBLETEA

We have bubbletea in Finland too but it's so pricey that I don't wanna buy it. But in Taiwan I drank it almost everyday and I actually took a photo of almost every time I bought it but here are just two of my favorite brands. The first one is chingshin and the second one is my host mama's tea shop presotea ♥

That was our trip. Hoping to make another soon. 
Either I have to wait a few years to gather money or win in a lottery ^^