Giedre tyttö Leijonakaupungista

Mattress saga continues...

We went to Botanical Gardens on Saturday and as our "doings something together" often go, Kaj is showing me his back. Can't recall now what it all was about, was he angry here or was I, but the orchards turned out nice.

Although many people claim that Leijonakaupunki is a very sterile, artificial and overly "cultured" place, we've been enjoying our quick getaways to nature quite a lot. It it extremely easy to find a spot of "wilderness", where you can see how Leijonakaupunki would look like if the concrete and asphalt would be removed. So far we really can not complain that Leijonakaupunki is boring (many claim so). It is not true that you can only shop or go eating in here. There's all kinds of things to do. There were birds and squirels among the trees and you could barely hear the trafic.. :)

However our idylic weekend has been tainted by the trouble with our mattress purchase. Kaj is very serious about his sleeping. Since we came to Leijonakaupunki he has bought 3 pillows already and I think deep in his heart he's still looking for "a proper pillow"... The same went for the mattress - ours is a bit plasticky and not too comfortable. Since last week's Thursday we had 2 mattresses delivered and both of them had wrong kind of material on them. First I thought I should praise Leijonakaupunkilainen customer service, because they replaced the "wrong" mattress without any whining, but after I think about it again, they'd do a better job knowing what kind of goods they have in their storage rather than "sorting it out" afterwards. After all we canceled the whole deal and went for another shop. We'll see what they deliver tomorrow.

In general, customer service is perfect in here - the call centers answer, the shops change stuff for you if you're unhappy.. I remember hanging on the phone in Finland, calling HTV or Sampo or, worse, police or "alien" immigration offices... I guess it all comes down to labour costs, but first I was shocked to see how easy it is to solve things in here...

Walking in Little India I was yet another time amazed how culturally rich, beautiful and diverse this place is.

This is in Little India too. I'm sure this shop was crammed with stuff till the back wall. I've seen truck loads of computer monitors and old computers around in Little India. Do they sell them? Where do they put them? Do they check them before selling, do these machines work? I don't know. What if you want something that is 3 meters deep in this shop? No wonder there's so many computer talents coming from India. It is IN the culture!

Consuming and consuming arts

Yesterday I went to Takashimaya shopping center for lunch and was completely amazed with the magnificence of it all. I can not really comprehend how much money is circulating around everyday in Leijonakaupunki - crowds, thousands of people wholeheartedly consuming any time fo the day, any place on the island! Takashimaya conveys so beautifully the essence of it all - the greatness, the pleasure, the overwhelming grandeur of money. It is a temple of consumption and its full of devoted worhipers... wow...

One more feeding picture, just because we eat so often... And it is really an event in itself.. :) The most difficult part is to choose what you want... Because just everything is available. I saw ads for some investment firm - a crowd of people in suits and only one thing in their minds - "lunch", and there's one, who things differently - he thinks about money and benefits for the client. He's from that particular investment firm. I think you can really understand this ad only after spending some time in Leijonakaupunki... Lunch and food is holy... I read somewhere that when the taxi drivers don't stop and show some signal, like imitating eating, it means that they haven't had lunch and are just driving to some feeding place. So you have to understand and excuse them.. It is a serious matter!

Today I also made a pilgrimage trip to some multimedia arts exibition and arts museum. The museum itself is a really cool old colonial building, very beautifully renovated. Most of the old Leijonakaupunki has that kind of terrace houses. The great colonizer Raffles had an idea that you should be able to walk all across the town without having to step out into the sun. Great idea! Although most of the time the passageways are crammed with stuff from the shops, it still works somehow. Living in Leijonakaupunki you don't risk too much developing a proper suntan...

There wasn't much of arts in the museum, some paintings and few sculptures, nothing too impressive, but just hanging out in that environment I think I start breathing differently. It is so peaceful and you have time to think and look at things, see what kind of feelings and ideas you get. Its great!

Some things from the papers after a debate about maternity leave benefits - somebody asked why unwed single mothers do not get full benefits. The minister said: "the state can not become a surogate father. We can not give the impression that we support that kind of family. That would be a wrong message to the society. We strongly believe that a child is happier in a nuclear family. We have to understand that there's a break in the relationship. It is different from widows and divorced mothers.. In their case becoming a single mother doesn't happen because of their fault." More or less in these words. Jesus Crist! What kind of thinking! What a country! I always thought that single mothers are the most vulnerable members of the society, aparently not here.. Aparently they are single because of their fault! Next thing I'm going to find out about abortion legislation here and the statistics...

Media, zoo, shopping and enjoying

Finally Kaj got his Employment Pass, so we're entitled to many cool things, such as a bank account, mobile phone contract, electricity bill. Until now we could only use Internet and Cable TV.. It is amazing how many binding contracts we've been signing lately - apartment, Internet, mobile phone for 2 years, bank account for 1 year (can not be less than 500$ in the account), well, cable TV for 4 months only.. If you break any of the contracts, you get fined. I'm sure there's no such thing as consumer rights authority. Seems that the businesses compete among each other ferociously ("buy mattress, phone free" type of), but there's very little real concern about what is better for the people.

Last week's Friday the surprise news (again, didn't see any signs of this brewing) about the 2 main Leijonakaupunkilaiset media companies merger came out. It was a huge disappointment for everybody: the employees, the citizens, the government. Leijonakaupunki liberalized media market and introduced competition only 4 years ago (!). During that time media quality improved significantly, there were 2 freely distributed newspapers and several new TV channels appearing. However, (as the analysts say), the competition was destructive, the companies were "bleeding" - not really facing serious problems, but loosing some money all the time. So now they just decided to merge and there will be one company owning all the local TV channels and newspapers. Quitting 2 TV channels and 1 newspaper completely. Somehow feels completely sad. Oh yes, the market is open if somebody still wants to try, but no foreign companies allowed..

Otherwise we were really enjoying our new apartment, it feels so good to come home. Kaitsu has bought a very good (and expensive) sound system.

When in comes to the boys and their toys, I learned to "let if flow" (basically shut up), because when the shopping fever hits them, there's no voice of reason that could persuade them to think things over once again. Anyway, its really great to listen to music at home and Kaitsu is very proud of it. Otherwise we were spending money like crazy, all kinds of "deposits", "initial investments", simple things like wind fan, bed sheets, towel knobs, we just buy and buy and buy. But I guess (I hope) it will stop soon, once we've equiped the home.. But I know that there will be many new ideas for some necessary things.. And Kaj so far is the only one earning money... I hope something will come up for me too, yesterday I went to 2 job interviews, one with a headhunter, so she promised to send me to some 5 places. The job market looks quite hopeful, but sometimes I find it hard to explain what kind of stuff I've been doing in Finland. Anyway, there may be also some teaching jobs oportunities and in general, I'm quite hopeful.

There's a famous Newton Circle foodcourt not far from our home and we tested it on Sunday night. I've been there during the day and had 2$ lunch, it looked completely run down and dirty, but at night it was magnificent! The daytime places have closed and the new ones opened during the night - there was so much superb seafood!

We had chili crab and some fish and it was great and (kinda) affordable! We haven't cooked at home since we came here, it is so cheap eating out and there is unehaustable amount of places to go, all possible imaginable chinese, indian, vietnamese, thai, malay, western, pizzas, italian, greek, anything you could think of, you can find it here. We haven't come accross rye bread, but somehow I don't miss it at all (yet?).

Last weekend we also went to Night Safari next to Leijonakaupunki zoo together with a German couple (Monica is a graphic designer and in a very similar situation here as I am, so we call and complain to each other a lot..). As you can see, Nokia has adopted an oriental otter in the Night Safari. There's a show where these little otters collect and sort out plastic bottels and cans. Funny, the animals are doing that, but so far I haven't figured out how to recycle here. There's virtually no visible signs that any of the garbage could be sorted and collected. At home we just have a chute, you don't even have to leave the house, just dump the garbage down the pipe, I don't know where it continues from there. I should find out as soon as possible. This island is very small, I'm sure they'll have massive problems very soon. Still I wonder, do they dump garbage into the sea? To Malaysia?

The Night Safari itself was a very nice electric tram ride + walking in the forest. Some of the animals were roaming completely freely, the guide had to ask not to stick out hands out fo the tram, because there were all sorts animals trying to cross the road. The picture on the left is of flying foxes, they're some kind of fruit eating bats that hang on the trees most of the time, but from time to time fly over people's heads (almost touching their hair) and make them gasp and scream. The big cats were behind the glass, but trying to eat something, so they're all the time visible, for some reason staying in the lit up area (Kaj says that there were probably some kinds of electric wires around the place, but I'm not sure, the animals looked very healthy, happy and muscular. Especially the leaopard. It looked like water, so full of power, smooth and kind of "flowing", really beautiful!

I also got a haircut for 10$ for 10min. I think it is a great concept (Japanese actually), I've seen people queing there all the time. You don't have to go to salon, spend hours there, chat to the hairdresser, read magazines, have coffee, if you need a haircut, you can get it in 10min. The guy in the barber shop didn't allow to take pictures from inside the shop (protecting the concept?), but was otherwise very kind and nice, he said that somebody should start this kind of business in Finland and Lithuania. He said especially men enjoy it. Great startup idea?

Some days are a bit more sad than the others..

Yesterday we moved to our new apartment and slept in there for the first time. The view is to the street through our window (you can get a glimpse of our 0.5m-1.4m deep pool on the right) . It is quite a livable place afterall! We can hear frongs and crickets through our window and a bit of distant city hum. The only problem is that there's no food stores nearby, only Shell gas station (that we'll definitely visit frequently), neither any feeding places. We have to come up with some new routines - it used to be so easy before - just walk down the stairs, stroll along the street, find a place of your liking and eat! Now we either have to plan meetings elsewhere or then start cooking at home (how barbarian!..:)

Otherwise, got not so good news from my mother, she's ill and in hospital, the seriousness of it all is difficult to know, hopefully she'll recover soon.. This is really the first time I have to worry about the health of my parents.. Wish I'd never have to...

I've found a funny interactive graphics website from Sunday Straights online newspaper. See how Israeli helicopters killed the spiritual leader of Hamas. Or browse around yourself, see if you find something for your liking. I think Hesari has a long way to go with its visualizations.. Although I can not imagine anyone really exploring where the victims of some disaster were when the accident happened, except, of course, for people like myself who're fascinated about the peculiarity of it all.

Our getaway weekend

After our getaway weekend we made one clear decision - to throw away (or better burn) our "independant traveler's Bible" aka LP aka Lonely Planet book (more about it later). This dreamy fog in Malaysia on the way from Johor Bahru to Mersing is actually smoke from the forest fire. Malaysians don't seem to be fuzzy about the way they handle their nature. It felt that people are still fighting the nature there, protecting may come later, when a lot more is destroyed...

For our short getaway (2 nights, 3 days), we decided to go to Tioman island that is one of the closest and most popular beach destinations for hard working Leijonakaupungilaiser. We relied on developed infrastructure, buses and boats and hoped our trip would be easy, because there's so many people traveling that way every weekend. Oh how mistaken we were - we spent 6 hours for the bus and the boat trip only to get to the island (it reminded of our wekend trips to Kristiinakaupunki... where most of the time we were just driving...)

Coming back to burning the LP book - after reading it we decided to go to one of the beaches, called ABC. The book gives "unbiased" info about places to go and places to be avoided for backpackers all around the world. It said that there quite many budget places to stay, but forgot to mention that the beach is completely rocky. When we were there, there were couple of fisherman boats close to the beach pooring come kind of crap to the water. Everything was so run down that you could just sit down and cry in there.

It's virtually impossible to walk from place to place in Tioman, because most of the island is huge rocky hills (reaching 1038m) covered with forest. The villagers (and tourists) travel around by boats and later in the afternoon you're completely at the mercy of local fishermen - how much will they charge for taking you somewhere else and if they will take you anywhere.. After dragging our heavy bags for few hours we ended up paying really a lot for a short ride and arrived to Salang village. This doesn't end here.. The resort was full, there weren't many places to sleep left...

After 12 hours from leaving Leijonakaupunki we had a (overpriced) place to stay and finally could relax. This flag above Kaitsu's head is not American (although if you ask me, it looks very much like it), but Malaysian. Instead of stars, there's half a moon and one star in the blue rectangle.

I liked the place, because there was such a mixture of people of all kinds of races from all kinds of places. The nice thing was that you couldn't tell right away who's the tourist and who's working there (in many other places on earth its very straightforward - the plumpy westerners are on holiday and everybody else just serving them..) There were all kinds of of Leijonakaupunkilaiset, Indian, Malaysian and, of course, western people on holiday (and at work)...

Later at night we were just sitting on the beach, looking at the stars, I think we saw a Scorpion in the sky (don't know for sure, but we both agreed that one of the stars constelations looks very much like a scorpion) and 1 shooting star. It was too late to come up with a wish...

Crossing a little bridge over a canal to our cottage we saw something swimming in the dark and dirty water. It was a lizard!!! About 1.5m long!! Certainly a bit like a crocodile!!! We thought there's 1 lizard that is always swimming towards the same direction, always when you cross the bridge, but later we saw that there's at least some 7-10 of them living in the canal!!! And they get out of the water too!!! We saw one (a bit smaller) in the cottage owner's yard! I wonder, if these lizards are a little bit bloodthirsty, they may easily bite of your thumb, or even a whole hand if they only want to!!!

Next day we went diving and saw, sure, lots of fish and beautiful coral, couple of turtles, at the end I got really cold (of course, water was just +29C degrees!!!) It was nice to be under water again and I hope we'll do more of that soon. After a break it is always a bit awkward to have all the equipment on, to remember how to breath, how to sink and how to stay at the same level.

Later in the afternoon we decided to walk a little bit to the jungle to the next uninhabited beach. After climbing for 30min a steep path straight up the hill, I almost got a heart attack and couldn't understand how it is possible that the path is still leading up. After walking downwards for another 20min, we turned back, although we didn't reach the beach. The night was falling and the bats were already hunting for Kaitsu.. Trecking in tropics is something I still need to get used to. It is a sweatty, scratchy (there's superfast and supersilent moskitos) and sticky business..

The next day we had to leave. That left us wondering whether it is a smart idea at all to travel that far to have one full day off... The boat trip was really bumpy. The sea was rough, the people were puking all around us, one muslim woman was praying the whole trip and through the windows it looked as if we were in a submarine rather than on a boat..

It was a really long and tiring trip. Coming back to Leijonakaupunki felt so good - like coming home! Everything was familiar and everything worked perfectly, the roads were clean and the island seemed to be full of trees and nature.. It was great, to have this feeling of coming home... We came home tired... :)

Cenzura / sensuuri

Cotinuing the last post - this is the view from the coridor in our new home. I get vertigo when I look down, Kaitsu holds to the wall when he's walking along it. It is 10th floor and the balcony rail is waist-high... In any other place in the world, there would be glass or some kind of protection. Not here... No wonder falling is a favorite way to die...

And now because of a special occassion in Lithuanian: Siandien apturejom diskusija su Kaitsu - jis prasitare kolegoms, kad ash rashau dienorashti Internete ir visi labai uzhsimane ji paskaityti. O.. o... Kaitsu teko suktis ir irodineti, kad tai skirta tik musu sheimynoms ir draugams namie.. (chia tiek prirashyta dalyku apie Kaitsu darba, musu nuotaikas, etc, kad Kaitsu tikrai butu ne kas, jei kas nors ish jo bendradarbiu perskaitytu...) Tada Kaitsu pradejo jaudintis, o kas bus, jei jie suras shita dienorashti per Google ar pan.. Vienu zhodzhiu, dilema tokia - kaip rashyti pakankamai diplomatishkai, kad niekas neisizheistu ir niekam nepakenkchiau, bet kartu papasakochiau istorijas, kurios shiuo metu vyksta... Priesh tai jau teko cenzuruoti viena irasha apie vienu draugu draugu siaubinga kolonialistini elgesi, nes, ka daryt, jei draugai ras? hmm.. Gal kas turit ideju?

And in Finnish: Tannan keskusteltiin kaitsun kansa - han kerroi tyokavereille etta ma olen kirjoitamassa verkko paivakirjan, kaikki, tietenkin, heti halui lukea sen. Kaitsu joutui selittamaan etta se on tarkoitettu vain kotivaelle. (Sehan on tayna epatoivoisia ja tosi kriitisia juttuja Kaitsun tyosta. Olisi tosi paha jos joku hanen toista lukisi sen). Mutta. Dilemma on se, etta mitenhan ma kirjoitan tarpeeksi diplomatisesti, nain etta ei kuka suutuisi, mutta kuitenkin kerroisin rehelisesti kaikki tarinat. Mitahan pitaisi tehda? Kirjoita liettuaksi ja suomeksi, mutta se kesta aikaa ja miten kaikki muut kaverit jotka ei puhu niita kielia? Vielakin on asia etta mulla ei oo mitaan special charactersia tassa konessa.. Ideoita?

Today we ate mooncake. It is a pastry filled (traditionally) with lotus paste and egg yolk, but currently you can all kinds of fillings: nuts, red bean, yam, no egg yolk, etc. This is the only season in a year when you can get them. It symbolises the end of the Hungry Ghost month. There's special stories about these cakes, one love, another prisoner story. In the old days some famous rebels were exchanging notes hidden in the cakes and that brough about revolution in China (one explanation) or then just some couple was writing love notes to each other (don't know about the end of this story). Anyway, it makes a perfect sales item. Now all the bakeries and shops make a little extra money by selling these delicacies to all the sweetteeth (just like during Valentines, Christmass, etc...) I remember that back in Finland I used to remember that "oh, the Father's day is approaching" when the papers were filled with ads of bathrobes and checkerboard slippers. Nice that something reminds about the change of seasons... Its easy to forget about that here - it's been steady 30C-32C degrees for 3 weeks.

And tomorrow we're going to Malaysia afterall!!! Getting up at 5am... Good night!

Modern Slavery

Since the beginning of the year 2004 there were over 100 cases of Indonesian maids dying by falling out through the windows while cleaning them. The official explanation goes that these women usually come from rural areas, so they are unfamiliar with the dangers of city living. Nobody questions their employers that ask them to clean the windows from outside. The solution for this problem is to put minimal age requirements for foreigh maids to 25 years, also require them to have some kind of schooling.

While we were looking for an apartment, I was shocked to see, lets say, 3 bedroom and 1 maid room apartments, where the "maid room" was 2m x 1.5m dark room with no windows. Was a living person supposed to be crammed in this storage place?

There are stories all over in the papers and elsewhere about employers that treat their maids completely inhumanly. There's a heated discussion in Expat Leijonakaupunki website, whether maids should be allowed to read or watch TV, since that may affect their desire to work. These women get maybe 400-600 SD (200-300 eur) a month, they have no holiday, no time off, no evenings out, nothing...

There's 2 security guys that sit downstairs of our apartment house. They push the door opening button and make "face-control" in general. One of them works at night, another during the day. 6.30am to 6.30 pm or 6.30pm to 6.30 am. No weekends off (don't know about holiday..), they're there all the time.

Kaitsu has been working 3 weekends in a row (last weekend also on Sunday, don't even mention the weekend when he worked 22 hours in one go) and it starts to be likely that he'll have to work this Saturday too. Although we started planning our trip to Malaysia and Kaitsu started talking about having this weekend off 2 weeks ago. The job comes first, the customer is right... There's basically no way we can plan any of our free time. It s..ks.

There's another guy coming with whom Kaitsu will share work from next week on. I hope it will start being more humane... So disappointing about the weekend if we have to cancel our trip...

Constructions, chicken and the like

I just realized, that I should make little stories more often, there's too many things happening, so if I wait too long, there's just too much (or nothing really) to tell... This picture was taken in our street and it is somehow related to the Hungry Ghost month. The festival, prayers and burning of offerings still continue. These people were very proud that I asked to take pictures of the pig and all the decorations... Still practising my "touristy" ways of being kind...

The picture above is of our street (Kaitsu's company is in the corner building on the left), but it will not be "our street" for long - we'll be moving to our "very designed home" in Robin Regalia (that's a condominium name) this week. Yesterday we went there again and all of a sudden it felt too designed, cold, hotel-like. There's too many glass surfaces, mirrors and if it is not just some cheap copy, there's Philip Starck chair in our bedroom. Could it be?

The contrasts in Leijonakaupunki may be breathtaking - especially the "old-new"... Just 40 years ago it was pretty much an ordinary city under the British rule and look at all the skyscrapers and development now! (I remember ranting about Leijonakaupunki being a major trade harbor in the old days, but it is not true. It was quite marginal and unsignificant until lately).

Its unbelievable how many places are under construction here. There's cranes and excavations everywhere.. Finding a quiet spot where there wouldn't be major reconstruction under way is really difficult. Now they build a circular MRT road underground that will connect all the existing train lines, so there's construction really everywhere. There has been a major cave-in at one excavation point few months ago where several people died. Now there's a very publicized trial where all the enginers and bosses are putting the blame on each other and nobody really knows who was responsible for the security on the site.

Otherwise, we didn't have much of the weekend, Kaitsu went to work and I was busy with my little work assignment. I managed to go to the Yoga fair, anyway, but it was almost closing down once I got there. I don't know what these people dressed in orange represent. Would assume that some budhist something... It has been raining last couple of days, so the weather was really fresh and mild, some 28C-29C, maybe. Perfect walking weather! There's reports about ilegal deforestation in Indonesia, they just burn trees to get some land for agricultural purposes, so they say that haze in the sky is caused by that. Can not be very healthy...

Yesterday we went for diner with Kaj's colleagues, most of the people at the table either work in his company or have worked there before. Anuar, a bit bigger guy on the right side of the table had his 35th birthday. It is unbelievable, how funny, kind and curious these people are! Kaitsu was telling me that they are nice, but couldn't have imagined that they are that nice!!!

We were laughing a lot, I had a roti prata (that is Indian bread), Anuar wants to meet a "Finland girl", but he will not marry till he's 60... So there's still time. They all work in some post-production houses, one of them does Discovery TV graphics, I'm sure they're all super talented (and all boys - why?) It was good to hang around with these people, because before that I have encountered mostly housing agents or then people that sell things, not so much of real funny, friendly human contact. I hope I'll have more of that soon!

We're shocked by the shoot-out in Russia, it has been covered quite extensively by the local media, I guess, just like everywhere else in the world. Just can not believe that some people can make so much pain for the others, whatever is the cause... Well, some parts of the world don't get much of attention, no matter how many millions are swept away from the surface of Earth... In the Leijonakaupunkilainen media there's also a lot of attention paid to the deadly storms in China, Japan and Taiwan, also Florida.

Seems to be completely safe here, apart from the chicken flue in Malaysia (the one that may transmit to humans). They have banned all poultry products from Malaysia for 3 weeks and it seems to have extreme effects on the economy and every day life of people. Chicken is essential meal here and people really feel the lack of these products - people are stocking up eggs, worrying about egg prices going up 5 cents per egg.. And just today there were news that there was a new chicken flue outbreak in Malaysia, so the ban continues...

On media and decision making in Leijonakaupunki

This is Nike ads in the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, pretty creative and quite impressive. Sorry, taken with low batery and shaky hands.

Not much has been happening lately, Kaitsu was at work and I was strugling with my creativity problems.. So.. More or less staring at the computer screen last couple of days. Also planning the Malaysia trip for next weekend, wondering whether we should make our lives easy and go with a package tour or go on our own and find that "special place"...

Reading papers - I still wonder how the decisions are done here in Leijonakaupunki, it seems that the papers just announce about changes in laws and regulations that come into action immediately. There's no sign of debate in the media, more reactions to somebody elses decisions. Extra maternity holiday - Yeah great! No holiday for the father - Uuuh.. bad.. But extra few days for the mother - yeah, great! Are you going to make babies now when you get attractive tax benefits? - yes, sure, we were just waiting for this. Now we can do it!

As if nobody really knows about these things before they are out in the papers. David, Kaj's friend says that Leijonakaupunki is an attempt to live an utopia. And somehow it works. It has elements of deep leftist socialism (cheap HDB apartments for people of certain age, young families can buy 4 room and more, singles up to 3 room apartments, but for 99 years only, you can not transfer the houses inside the family), far rightist (tax 5%, all oportunities for business, finding employment oportunities for retired people, for example 76 year olds - no kidding! it was in the paper!) and complete racial and cultural tolerance (in a town area or apartment house, the population has to be represented as it is in Leijonakaupunki: 70% chinese, 14% malay, 6% indian origin (tamil). So if there's too many indians living in one place, they don't sell or don't rent apartments for them anymore. In this way they try to avoid cultural segregation and ghettos. Amazing!

We got our home!!!

That's it! We found it! Our lovely new home! I still can not believe and understand how we got it - it is way better and nicer than anything that we saw within our price range. It is in a very peaceful residential location, high up, with great views from every room (!), with 3 bedrooms (that makes 4 rooms alltogether!), extremely nicely designed... We're still considering what may be wrong with the place - is there a massive construction coming next week that will keep us awake at nights and obscure the view? Will the agent do a runner with the deposit money? (David, Kaj's friend says it is very unlikely, people get hanged for lesser crimes here.. :) Well, maybe it was time for us to get lucky!

That is the view through the bedroom window.. It is pretty exceptional in Leijonakaupunki, believe me, I've seen some 40-50 apartments here.. We're still staying in the old house, although changed to another room. It feels good that in the morning I can wake up and do something, not call or be called by the agents all the time. I got a small asignment for the Senior Interactive Designer job application that I have sent out few days ago, so it keeps me busy right now. Next week they will see if I'm creative enough.. Finally things start happening for me too.

Kaj will be working on Saturday and Sunday this weekend, but next weekend we'll have to do a "visa run" for me, probably (my 30 days entry permission is expiring and because I was clever enough to forget my MA papers in Finland, we're late fixing imigration papers for me). Which is a good thing, it gives us an oportunity to go to Malaysia to the beach and most likely diving too!!

Finally things start going somewhere!!!