On a little island in the Pasific :D (Taiwan)

Well, I had been quite busy for the first few weeks because of settling up here and partially because waking up in the morning (7 am!) made me quite slepy in the afternoon. However I guess I should finally write about something here, now that I finally managed to change to afternoon class :D. A lot of thins have happened in these 3-4 months that have passed so I am trying to keep it short about each topics and focus on the basics.

              

The beginning of my exchange student life here was somewhat a shock as the teacher spoke 95% of the time chinese so I had difficulties understanding her (not to mention her fast pace of talking!) and sometimes I still dont get but somehow I have managed since then. From the start we have had an exam every Monday and usually test everyday and homework most of the time, which varies from reviewing the next chapter to 5 writing 300 character story about your home country O_o. However, after some time I got ''used to it'' as far as one with relaxed (lazy) finnish education can, and managed to improve from quite a bit my score from midterm to final term..Oh and did I mention, unless I get at least 80/100 as my final score, they are going to charge me for all the lessons I had. These folks really know how to motivate exchange students as well :D!

Jiaozi with soymilk

In any case, the time I spend in school is relatively limited so I have been eating out at restaurants every meal, which is not that big of a problem as you can get lunch here with 1,5-5 euro depending on the restaurant.  In addition to being cheap, the food is also very tasty :). Korean and Japanese food is also readily available everywhere,  though the variety of restaurants serving chinese food alone is quite impressive.

Bicycling in Taipei around 2 am

Taipei city has excellent biking opportunities, which I used extensive especially during summer, the biking lane goes along the river so it has a nice city view and most importantly, you get away from the constant traffic and noise (SCOOTERS!) that takes place on the streets. Besides, Taipei city has very convinient bike rental system called easybike, and after you register you can rent a bike for maybe 1 hour 20 NTD= 50 Euro cents, and all you have to do is to find a nother bike rental station to return it back. All in all, biking is probably on of the best sport opportunities here.
 

In September my parents and my brother from Japan came to visit me, and we went to a lot of different places, mostly around northern Taiwan since I didnt have vacation that time but my parents did visit the south as well. Below are some pictures as examples of the places we visited, nice time :), even though the weather was a bit rainy. However, nothing quite compares with the scenery of Taroko (futher below)

A house in Jiufen that reportedly gave inspiration to the Movie ''Spirited away''

An absolute must (along with bubble tea :P), this place is basically a huge gorge, and on the bottom of it there is jade carved by the flowing river. In my opinion it's the most beautiful natural wonder in Taiwan, possibly in the world as well. I went there with my mom and dad and walking along the ridges looking to the inner gorge was absolutely a breathtaking experience. This place is constantly under a lock-down because the taifoons, earthquakes and rockfalls that occur throughout the year, so if you have an opportunity to go there, you better go to see it! During the 1960's many people lost their lives when building the highway and still the storms cause considerable damage to the infastructure around here. I shall conclude this post to these pictures, I'll cover the different topics later!

Weeber tells you about: Adventures in appliances

I promised to write you guys, didn’t I? The theme I had in mind about writing my entries was to bring up things that catch my attention, which I hope to imply certain interest in other people as well. The story I have to tell you this time happened to me about two weeks back, actually the day following my short-ish introductory entry. Pretty much next to the campus is a place called Wujiaochang (五角场, I like to translate it as “Five Corners Market”), a quickly rising shopping and business center with lots of bourgeoisie expensive fashion and cosmetics stores and American food chains (Think KFC, Burger King and Pizza Hut, for starters). I like to hang around there because it’s modern, clean and it gives me an impression of the global metropolis Shanghai supposedly is, unlike my home street that’s far more “average”. *No footage available*

Yup, they had floors.

Pretty much next to but still comfortably an arm’s reach away from Wujiaochang’s awesome Shanghai First Food Mall (A place of which food courts I’d like wed in a holy matrimony, can’t wait to let you hear about it more… I mean the mall, not the wedding.) is an electronics and home appliances superstore Suning. It’s basically four or three floors filled with all that you could possibly need in your home, mansion, summer house, bungalow, teepee, prison cell or igloo. 

The floor level is dedicated to cell phones, cameras, tablets, cameras and the required services to get you hitting the information highway like a proper neo-first-world-consumer -monkey (assuming you are Chinese and not European or some other OLD-first-world-consumer-monkey). Nothing interesting there, really, so I didn’t feel like grabbing any pictures from there.

The second floor instead was a miracle of sight and sound and, oddly, baby products. Above the hand-held status symbol fidgets you can more often than not fit in your shoe was a mustering ground for the Big Players. Check out THIS!

It's... beautiful!

That Samsung television defies reality. Its definition is better than real life. Its screen is nothing less than 85” big (that’s 2.16 meters from corner to corner for metric-thinking people), although it’s not the biggest the shop has to offer. I can easily say it was the best television I’ve ever witnessed, the minutes I was standing in front of it speak for it. My eyes were crying honey, candy cotton and baby seals just by staring at them pixels, there were so many of them! The price tag made me cry as well, but not because of joy (it also slaughtered all those baby seals). 249 999 RMB/kuai/yuan, however you like. That’s about 30 000 FOKKIN euros for a TV!

Besides that, roaming around that TV heaven gave me an impression I was on another planet or dimension. It was all familiar, but somehow nothing I saw there looked like I had seen it before. Or what do you think?

Yeah, yeah, I know you Chinese like to romanize your brand names into something international, but “Konka”? Seriously? With a font smoothly snatched from Nokia? That’s just… unsettling. Anyway, all those TVs looked like rather solid and good-quality products, something that I could buy to my living room with the money I will not have with me for years.

*hummmmmmmmmmmmmmm*

Third floor was filled with home appliances, you know, that stuff you actually NEED. Washing machines, water boilers, coffee machines, and since we are in China, water HEATERS!

 That’s right, you don’t get hot water from the tap just like that, you need to have a water heater to do that work. It’s maybe the worst bathroom interior decoration element, I can’t think of any interior designer that would not strangle them with his/her cashmere scarf just because of the idea that they had to actually include those monstrosities above the supa-fancy red porcelain toilet seat… Anyway, the mall was electronic one-stop for your whole home, go here and you never need to go anywere else. Here’s some more footage for you with captions that attempt to strike a chord in your sense of humor. If they don’t, forgive me for bad taste. Next time I’m gonna talk something about food. Stay tuned!

Ain't that one sexy washing machine?

Sometimes the brand names
just don't hit the nail in the head.

It's almost like Finnish, except the that
guys who came up with that most likely
don't even know Finnish exists.

From behind The Wall

Weeeeeeber reporting in!

If you've been wondering "What the hell is the guy doing over there in China? We haven't heard about him in AGES!", here's the answer (and plenty of other stuff, for y'all). My major issue of not being able to tell about my drunken odysseias everyday life here in Shanghai has been something called Golden Shield Protect. Colloquially, you may know it as "The Great Wall of the Internet" or "The Great Firewall of China". Basically what I'd been doing was digging a virtual hole in that infernal contraption of censorship that prevented me from watching cat videos sharing my adventures with You, dear reader, and now I'm through. A minor reason and delay was the lack of fancy-pancy pictorial memorabilia attachments that would make my battlefront updates on par with the others'. After prepping up and hitting the tourist mode with my smartphone camera and establishing a VPN on my laptop, I'm all ready to tell how it's like here. Ready? Go!

Instead, they have this.

Though it might sound like a fact too obvious to write down, it needs to be stated right away: CHINA IS NOT EUROPE. You can't stop noticing it every day in your daily actions. Nothing is like you are accustomed to. Personnel at foreign students dormitory don't speak English? This is China. You line up for hours to sign up (though you have a perfectly capable system for that on Internet), no one telling you what you are queuing for? This is China. People speaking to you sound like they were arguing with you? This is China. There are no toilet seats? This is China. Suddenly you are illiterate? This is China. You eat out absolutely incredible 10-course meal with your friends and realise you only paid 3 euros for it? THIS. IS. CHINA.

Oh yes, the food. Oh my God, the food! It's everywhere and it's so cheap that you don't even notice it, unless you start dividing your bill in eight to get the price in euros, then burst in laughter at the fact that with the same amount of money you can't even get the starters in Rosso! (To international readers: Rosso's an Italian food restaurant chain we have in Finland. Particularly affordable option to eat out.). There are so many restaurants and street food stalls that it also makes you wonder whether half of the population here cooks and serves food for living. My meals at the cafeteria generally cost roughly one euro, and this is your bang for the buck:

So far I've learned that best way to order food in the
 caf is to point at something and say 'that'.

Not bad, eh? Currently I eat there almost all the time: breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's just that cheap (and tasty enough considering the price). Writing this introduction also brought to my attention that I'm STILL not tourist enough and taking as much pictures as I should be to bring out this city to you the way I see it. So please, excuse myself, I need to leave now. I have so many things to shoot. Expect to hear about me more soon.

Stay at home GreenBitch

  

I had planned to first wait for the greetings of our Asian explorers, but since they have assimilated to the local culture so well they are busy (or, are stuck with Chinese censorship like Weeber. Can you feel the… irony? :D) I decided it’s time for GreenBitch to show up.
So, I’m the anti-itinerant of us, the one who truly was left behind. In fact, most of my friends have fled from Finland by now, to study abroad or just to chase the sun with a backpack on. When I explain the situation to some people, they always ask me “so why did you stay?” It seems like staying at home, not adventuring the world, has become a statement too.

 So, Why did I stay indeed?

Hmm.

*Thinking*

 

Well looking out of the window doesn’t help much…

Why did I?

I didn’t feel ready to leave. I had just settled down in my new home in Tampere when everybody started applying for foreign universities. The idea of changing place and people around me felt too distant, too soon. Before studying international relations I was traveling around from place to place, from continent to continent, feeling greedy to see and experience as much as possible, and it was awesome!

 

…At the time. But after two years I started to get sick of constant hellos and goodbyes, language barriers, culture shocks, packing and unpacking, the sense of rootlessness, which is often the reverse side of the feel of freedom while travels.

 

 I wanted to feel home again. I missed my Shire. And that was Finland, with all its trees, sauna, lakes, fresh air, grumpy and shy people, my own weird language, and of course family and friends too. And, at times, life has treated me well up here. I try to appreciate the little things that make life beautiful. As one of my friends once said, you can travel to the end of the world but you can never escape from yourself. You have to learn to feel comfortable in your skin, walking in your shoes, wherever you are.

 

Okay, after all this beautiful blah blah philosophy I have to admit that sometimes I really miss traveling! I can’t help getting jealous to my traveling friends, throwing longing glances to the World’s map on my wall, or feeling guilty about neglecting my backpack under the dust in the corner of my room. And when I’m copying the words of my professor to my notebook “Learning diary deadline: no avant-garde, no creativity, dull and formal = good”, the little traveller inside me screams: “Let’s go to India!!!”

On the other hand, I think I should feel a little embarrassed about having existential anxiety that most of the people can’t afford. As a member of the privileged Western fat-ass generation, I can circle around the questions like ‘to see or not to see the world’, because I have so many choices what to do with my life. My passport works as a VIP ticket to anywhere. And what I do with this lucky position? Whine and make an issue out of it!

A little more whining now when I got the taste of it: I often miss my friends abroad, Finns and non-Finns. My dear posse of itinerants! Where’s Sportesse when I have to make foam out of eggs and sugar by hand? Where is TeroGilbert to make parties more eventful by spiking the punch with her deadly 80% vodka from the east, and where’s.. how the hell I’m supposed to write his name anyhoo the guy from Lapland getting intoxicated and funny by it? Where’s Lassemon when there’s something politically incorrect to be said? Where’s Weeber taking us to some hipster activities?

It’s not all about complaining. In the middle of the yearning, petty existential crisis and “something bad happened”-phone calls, I’m happy to have a lovely someone bringing me Ben&Jerry’s from the darkness and coldness, reminding me that ice-cream still tastes delicious and all in all,

life is good.

Infinite reading lists, beer and catification.

Hej alle sammen!

Seems that me and Sportesse are invading this blog completely, because our Asian explorers are conforming to the local efficient culture quite well. In the end of this year I'm looking forward to see that guys have published texts in a peer-reviewed papers and completed three studies about political events of the Far East or such. Luckily someone of us are really studying, because I can't really say I should got a smiley faces and goldens stars for my achievements...

My face when we had a surprise quiz in a Politics of Political Islam- lecture

Although, studying in here differs a lot from the way I'm used to in Finland. One reason might be that I'm completing the master level courses even though I'm on my second year in university. Still my noobiness is not that much a problem compared to my laziness. When it comes to studying I like to be independent and have time to do my readings and tasks properly. I also like to use and apply the new information I have got. In here we got those damn reading lists! In every week (or on one course, twice a week) I gotta seek around the web the articles for the next lessons and read them. It would be okay if: 1) Articles would be easily accessible AND 2) There would be a convenient amount of reading. BUT NO! At first, we got here something similar to Nelliportaali in Finland - which is a database for articles - but even after a uncountable efforts I haven't managed to get acces to articles. So I gotta google every article and hope for the best.

Secondly, we're supposed to buy books in here. And yes, we have a library, but it's nothing compared to Tampere. If you are lucky, you can borrow the book in need for a day and it's definitely not enough time for me. Unfortunately I'm not born the silver spoon pointing out from my rectum (plus I'm quite a stingy) that I could buy the academic books, whose prices are normally notorious. And thirdly: I really wanna focus on what I'm reading and it's not possible to do when you got pain in your ass to finding all the articles and finish all the 120 pages before the next lecture. And the same thing in all three courses. Not nice. So normally, I read those articles I get and improvise the rest and hope it's allright.

Courses here are built all in a same pattern. In every course you get 10 ETCS if you are genie enough to get it though. You got those darn reading lists, the delightful 1200 pages per course. Then you have the lectures once a week in time of the one semester and do your readings. At the end of the course you have either oral or written exam. My bad I got only written exam which means I'm gonna write three lovely 15-page essays to charm my professors and lecturers. 45 pages  with my academic english would be funny to read... Waiting for them... But the end of my studying whine I gotta say that courses are damn interesting and in such subjects I never gonna get in Tampere. Just noticed that Finnish way of studying suits me better.

About the another side of life in Copenhagen; I've had helluva lot of fun! The last friday I had an epic night with my gang (which name is not announced to the public) and I laughed from 1 am to 3 am continually. Therefore yesterday I got a slight hangover and tender abs. The most of the people here are awesome, especially international students!

The inside joke. Brrrr, Psssst!

This is a long post but I gotta tell the one more piece of news. The sidekick of my life and me are now cat owners! Our lovely princess called Pernille Nielssen -Nille for friends- showed up to our lives about a week ago. We had a stroll on thursday night in our neighbourhood and suddenly heard a sad meowing nearby. We petted a cat for while and continued our walk and noticed that Nille was following us home. We tried to find owners from web and spreading some notifications to the neighbourhood. Nobody contacted us, so Nille seems to be ours now. I'm happy! She's very cute and has a wonderful personality. It's awesome to have a little kitty cat at home who wants to interrupt your reading or surfing because of playtime :)

Pernille "Nille" Nielssen

Me and my charming kitty-cat

TeroGilbert checks out for now! I'm really waiting those Asian texts, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

TeroGilbert's great venture to invade Copenhagen

Hej mine venner og veninder!

Here's TeroGilbert writing, the first one who flew away from our dearest Tampere. I've been already getting lost around København since the beginning of August. At the time I've earned 7,5 ETCS, some new international friends, and certainty that danish is impossible language to pronounce. Unless you happen to be drunk and still able to speak swedish.

Two good reasons visit Denmark 

I'm living in a cozy apartment with the sidekick of my life, who bravely shares my adventures here in the promised land of "hygge". His superpower is ability to speak norwegian and even understand the hellish mumbling what the locals call their mother tongue. Rents here are higher than folks in Christiania, so our budget is targeted for the pasta-based nutrition. My current aim is to become more or less herbivore during this year. By now it seems that complete veganism is a some kind of curse word in a country which is inhabited by more swines than humans. More of this topic in the following posts!

Yea, you can afford electronic price tags but not a single tofu in a hypermarket!

For the summary, last weeks have been going with danish lessons, chilling out at the Amager beach and in the Rosenborg garden, watching millions of Futurama episodes, practicing the awesome bike riding culture, getting the street wisdom and the normal stuff you do when moving to new place. My style of writing is more topic-based, so I'm sorry I didn't make the introduction very thorough. At the end I would like to share a poster from our nearest S-train station which looked very current for us Itinerants.

...And I'm making the most of it!

PS. All u pettifoggers, inkhorns, nitpickers, and grammarnazies I know I make u cry blood, but no can do. I'm not going to use my precious year correcting my English grammar. Sowwy. 

The itinerants is a blog about six Political science students, adventurers, and fellow hippie douchebags, located in 6 different corners of the globe for one year. 

TeroGilbert: Happy, hippie douchebag from eastern Finland located currently in Köpenhagen.

Sportesse: a sporty city girl from the heart of Tampere experiencing the sex and the city of Oxford.

Weeber: a hardcore hipster who is skilled in martial arts that even the Asians do not know of. Looks for new strange hobbies in Shanghai, China.

Lassemon: A man from the rivers who has spent countless of  hours mastering the sacred art of writing traditional Chinese characters. Also knows pretty much everything about East Asia. Relocated himself in Taipei, Taiwan. Ohho.

에로: A nomad from the vast wilderness of Lapland. Carries reindeer flesh and blueberry tea in his back bag. Lives in Seoul, Korea.

GreenBitch: a sad tree hugger that was left behind in the coldness of Finland. This blond part+time party animal reports about the life in our common stronghold, Tampere Finlandia.