Vähiin käy ennen kuin loppuu

Viiden päivän päästä vanhempani saapuvat Thunder Bayhin. Se tarkoittaa että olen ihan oikeasti viettänyt tässä pikkukylässä melkein neljä kuukautta. Pikkukylässä, jossa asumista inhosin alkuun niin paljon että ihan oikeasti laskin päiviä lähtöön. Elämällä on kuitenkin tapana järjestää asiat niin mukavasti että Thunder Baystä lähtö tuntuu oikeastaan vaikeammalta kuin Hongkongista ja Kiinasta lähtö yhteensä.

Hanhia. On muuten aggressiivisia.

 Vaikka lähdön vaikeus johtuu pitkälti henkilökohtaisista syistä, sitä vaikeuttaa myös tieto siitä, että Thunder Bayn jälkeen edessä se on ihan oikeasti Suomeen paluu. Lähtiessäni melkein vuosi sitten Hongkongiin en todellakaan ajatellut päätyväni Kanadaan. Vuoden sisällä olen asunut kolmessa eri maassa, totutellut kolmeen täysin uuteen kulttuuriin ja rakentanut ystäväpiirini uudestaan ne samat kolme kertaa. Ehkä sen takia Suomeen palaaminen on niin vaikeaa. En varmaan koskaan pysty palaamaan siihen elämään, jonka jätin taakseni vuosi sitten - enkä ehkä haluakaan, mutta tavallaan edessä on jälleen totuttelu uuteen (tai vanhaan) kulttuuriin ja elämäntyyliin. Ystäväpiiri on onneksi tällä kertaa jo valmiiksi olemassa:)

Kesän ensimmäinen jäätelö ♥

Sunnuntaista jatkuneesta sateesta huolimatta Thunder Bayn sää on kyllä parantunut huomattavasti viimeisen parin viikon aikana. Kanadalaiset tosin ovat sortseissa ja topeissa jo lämpötilan noustessa +5 asteeseen joten ulos katsomalla ei kannata tehdä johtopäätöksiä lämpötilasta mutta mittarin mukaan lämpimin päivä taisi olla jopa +22 astetta!

Enää ei tarvita kumisaappaita:)

Lämpimän sään ansiosta olen pidentänyt myös lenkkien pituutta, sillä kadut ja lenkkipolut ovat vihdoin siinä kunnossa että lenkkikengiksi käyvät normaalit lenkkarit kumisaappaiden sijasta. Viime viikolla päädyin yli 18 kilometrin lenkille aina Mount McKaylle asti:)

Tässä vaiheessa oli 10 kilometriä takana - onneksi löysin oikoreitin kotiin:D

Pitäisi varmaan alkaa pikkuhiljaa pakatakin, sillä muutan asuntolasta hotelliin viiden päivän päästä. Vaikka jäänkin kaipaamaan montaa asiaa täältä Thunder Baysta niin tähän vankilaa muistuttavaan opiskelija-asuntolaan ei kyllä tule tippaakaan ikävä:D

♥

From: Hong Kong International To: Helsinki - Vantaa

About three months ago, during one of the many sleepless nights I had before going to Hong Kong I was playing with different scenarios about Hong Kong. What if I don't like my job? What if I start to miss home? What if I don't meet any nice people? Knowing myself (or so I thought) I was 100% sure that I would cry myself to sleep for at least 10 times while embracing a Finnish book and looking at pictures of reindeer and hills.

If only I had known how wrong I was. What if I don't like my job? I can't remember a single day that I actually wouldn't have wanted to go to work. What if I start to miss home? I can't remember myself wishing I was in Finland. Except once - as I was walking home in this deadly heat - I think I wished I could be in the middle of a Finnish winter.

What if I don't meet any nice people? And here's where I went really wrong. During these three months I've built my social life up again from a scratch. I've met people with whom I can be myself . People, that I want to keep in touch with in the future.

Before I left Finland, I read through (more like memorised by heart) around three Hong Kong guide books and marked all the things that I wanted to do during my three months. I wanted to...

....Visit Macao

....Go to at least one hike

....See Big Buddha

...Visit Disneyland

 ...See Lan Kwai Fong ("once")

...See Infinity Pool

 ...Spend time on the beach 

 ...if possible, visit an Asian convention

...and of course Victoria Peak

...and Afternoon tea

...and first and foremost - learn how to enjoy life.

And I ended up doing every single thing from my little bucket list, most of them more than once. What surprised me the most was how much better I learned to know myself. I learned that hey, I can actually do things. I learned to smile more and rejoice the little things like my doorman saying hello to me every morning.

I haven't really talked about my job and I won't talk about it in the future either - at least not in this blog - but I've got to say that career wise Hong Kong was definitely the right choice. I learned so much more both about entrepreneurship and marketing and I think I know just a little bit better what I want to do for living in the future.

To conclude, I think I have spent the best summer of my life so far. That summer comes to an end tomorrow as my plane takes off to Finland. Of course, it feels horrible to leave it all behind and I will surely miss this place but right now, it's my time leave for the new adventures!

P.S I still have no clue how to write my name in Chinese although I've added that fancy little picture to all of my posts.

Tai Long Wan beach and my thoughts about leaving

In one week I will be on my way to Helsinki-Vantaa airport. In one week, I will see my dear dog and other family members and breathe the clean and fresh air of Finlan. Even though the whole idea of getting back to Finland makes my head ache, I'm still kind of happy to go back to my "beloved" home country.

I already knew before I left to Hong Kong, that I just don't belong to Finland. And after three months of living here, I'm more than sure that my future is definitely somewhere else than in Finland. Is it in Hong Kong? Maybe, maybe not, no one can know that just yet! I'm 100% sure that I will return to Hong Kong though, at least as a tourist, if not more permanently.

One of the many reasons I love Hong Kong is the fact that even though we all live in a big metropolitan city, the whole area is surrounded by the most amazing nature. On Saturday last week, I managed to go for a hike to Tai Long Wan with my friends -  for once according to plan (instead of spending the whole Saturday morning in bed). The hike was about 1,5 hours and to my mind - it was definitely worth it.

Landscapes

To get to Tai Long Wan, you must first go Sai Kung, which you can either reach by a combination of MTR and a minibus or take the easy way out as we did and take a cab. From Sai Kung we took another cab to the pavilion at the start of the hike towards Tai Long Wan. The cab ride was rather exciting as the road to the pavilion was only broad enough for one car but naturally the cars were going into two different directions. Eep.

Cow? A nice cow?

Stairsssss

The hike itself was very easy to walk but it involved quite a bit of climbing and as it was approximately 40 degrees warm, it didn't feel too nice. There were also quite many free-running cows on the track that (thank god) were all nice and tame because I really wouldn't have wanted to run away from aggressive cows in hot weather and uphill. The beach itself was under a long set of stairs but it was worth climbing them down because the beach was breathtakingly beautiful and silent!

We spent most of the day just floating in the water and laying on the beach until 7.30 PM when we took a speedboat back to Sai Kung. The Speedboat was also quite an experience, because the boat was literally jumping on top of the waves and it had no seatbelts of any kind. Well, at least it was fun;) Although I was tired after spending the whole day at the beach and hikins, I still decided to go with the tradition of my weekends in Hong Kong and after spending an hour in the shower (and still probably finding some sand in my hair..) I headed towards the oh so familiar LKF...

Even after spending three months in Hong Kong, I hadn't had a chance to try Hot Pot, and when I noticed that there would be a hot pot meetup next Tuesday, I couldn't help but join in. Hot pot is basically a boiling kettle in the middle of the table where you cook all kinds of meat and vegetables. My favourite was definitely tofu, as I don't really fancy the Hong Kong kind of meet because it's mainly bones and tissue.

So much food..

An an experience, hot pot was rather exciting, but if I'm being completely honest, I was happy with trying it only once. I just didn't find the idea of mixing beef, chicken and fish in the same kettle too appealing and without the Beijing style Satay sauce the food hadn't probably tasted much of anything. Well, at least I've tried it now! :)

Yesterday I went to Granville road that is an amazing street for shopping (guess who just found it after living right next to it for 2 months..) I spent way too much money on cosmetics and shoes, but while shopping, I discovered this "delicacy" in Paisanos...I didn't have enough courage to taste it.

Diabetes in pizza form..yum??

I've got only 7 days left and those days include way too much boring stuff like packing, way too much shopping and goodbyes because many of my friends are also going back home this month. I'm just running out of time:(

Maybe it's actually the right time for me to come home - At least for a week or two as I received quite exciting news from Beijing and so far it looks like I'm going to BTBU after all! Yay! Waiting for more information...:)