STILL alive and kicking! – EI haetaeae :)

Greetings from Bali

We came here already on Monday (from Jakarta where those unfortunate bombings happened yesterday) but just for your information, we are still having blast here, we’re not dead yet and planning further destinations. Hopefully before those crazy fundamentalists make up anything here. Actually, I was planning to return Jakarta at some point of my trip (Hiski is anyway going back to Malaysia on Monday, so it’s all up to me now where I want to go) but on second thoughts, Jakarta might be a bit hazardous destination right now.

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Tergguja Balilta

Eli juttuhan menee nyt niin, etta en vielakaan oo vahingoittunut yhtaan naissa maalimalla tapahtuvissa pommirajahdyksissa, vaan karkasin juuri taktisesti Jakartalta (missa siis turisteja listittiin) Balin paratiisisaarelle.

Kaytiin snorklaamassa Hiskin kans tanaan, sit ollaan surffattu netissa ja katellaan tuolle miehekkeelle lentolippuja Malesiaan. Taa hullu haluaa menna riisifarmille raatamaan Keluariin, kun taas ma ajattelin organisoida suomenretkeani, ja vaantaa kompograffaa Assyille Balin leutojen merituulten puhallellessa bungalowin terassille. Settiin kuuluu luonnollisesti ilmainen hedelmasalaattiaamiainen paikallisista herkkujapapaijoista ja ananaksista, ja toivottavasti pian myos internetti kotikoneelle.

Pidan vaan kadet kasivarsia myoten ristissa (ja varpaat kanssa) etta Balilla ei rajahda mikaan, ei tulivuoret, eika pommit, eika tsunamit iske (valtin Aussejen tsunamit ja NZ:n jaristykset aika taktisesti kanssa ja nautiskelen hyvasta saasta! Tulee ehka himpun verran ikava Hiskia, kun se lahtee ylihuomenna tai maanantaina sinne Malesiaan takas, mutta taa tarkoittaa vaan sita, etta uudet seikkailut kutsuvat allekirjoittanutta…

Indonesia!

Wow, we forgot ourselves in Malaysia (a place called Port Dickson) for a week or so and spent all days chilling and adapting on that low budget traveler life again.

After that we went to Melaka, tried to catch a bus to Johan Barut in Southern Malaysia but accidentally didn’t understand early enough to get off so we finally found ourselves going through Singapore. The most wealthy city I’ve ever seen (and full of mosquitoes spreading dengue fever) In the evening we jumped aboard on a catamaran to Batam, which is an island in Northern Indonesia, and arriving around 12PM and being tired to death ended up sleeping in a local love motel.

Fyi, I’m still alive and kicking – returning Finland 5. August, that’s right before Assembly ‘09. Hopefully playing records there, too, but I haven’t asked for that yet…

Off to Oz very soon!

Hiya, two days left in Auckland. Hiski already left to Malaysia earlier today. So, here I am. alone in our nice penthouse hostel room with my laptop and huge piles of things I should pack. I’m feeling a bit blue to leave New Zealand but already getting goosebumps from new adventures waiting for me!

I tried to find a boat to go sailing around pacific islands but as you can imagine, that’s easier said than done so I ended up booking flight tickets from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur via Melbourne. Both flights are amazing deals: the Auckland – Melbourne flight was only 64 EUR (I was lucky enough to grab it with Pacific Blue’s GO! Fare) and AirAsia promised me a ride from Melburne to Kuala Lumpur with 160 Eur.

I’ll be off to Australia very early on Friday morning, then I’ll spent the next week in Oz boxing with kangaroos and picking oranges (or something like that, still wondering what to do there) and then flying to Kuala Lumpur on 6th July. And that city is THE PLACE to be – a hub for all indonesia-bali-philippines-whatever flights, an islamic metropolitan with a twisted tought of a beach party life (see the muslim swimming suit I saw there on my last visit)

Moreover, KL is just a lively, exciting city with infamous two towers, clean and safe public transport and even cleaner and safer public toilets… A perfect place to make up further plans to go on, I would say.

Last day at AIANZ

My last day at work was luckily short, and I was tired to death from talking about life with Hiski the whole previous night. On Wednesday my work mates arranged me a huge surprise by taking me to the Auckland Zoo(!) to see kiwi birds and after that they brought me back to the office and we all had some wine and snacks and later that evening we had the Environmental Defenders Network meeting with a lot of local active Amnesty members and other people interested in environmental affairs getting together and having nibbles and wine. Even Hiski came over (even though he was a bit dodgy about the event at first) and apparently had a good time, too.

Then, people being so fantastic and organizing something for me, I felt that I should do something nice, too. So I got a yammy chocolate log, decorated it with ripe supersweet kiwi fruits and brought it to the office.

We were also planning to attend a house warming party later that night with Hiski but unfortunately I was too tired for that and fell asleep well soon after coming home from work. Still sorry for that, it was a party I was really waiting for and I feel I let a lot of people down that night

Last week @ work

Whoa! My last week at AIANZ just started and despite the hard beginning, things got good very soon and I’ve been loving my time in New Zealand. All I want that I could stay longer!

We’re going to have the launch party(?) for the Freedom Challenge Website (http://freedomchallenge.org.nz) tomorrow afternoon and have the afterparty at the Auckland Zoo (alright, we’re just going to visit the zoo and finally see kiwi birds!) Hiski is somewhere in East Auckland ghetto training so I haven’t asked him yet, but I hope he ll be free to come, too.

The future still remains blurred at the moment and most of the people I’ve talked with were shocked to hear that I have actually no plans after next Friday. Maybe I’m a bit worried myself, too, but I’m not going to let that turn me down. You know, I know the direction I’m going to take – I just haven’t found the right path yet. I’m feeling a bit guilty of booking a flight (I’ve became a lot more environmentally aware here than what I used to be) and I heard a couple of days ago that there’s a Greenpeace vessel going to Cook Islands just before my visa expires. I send them an email haven’t got any reply yet. Anyway, I have still heaps of things to do this week which will keep me busy from worrying about my future yet.

Wharenui, Ohinemutu village, Rotorua

I hadn’t been to marae before our trip to Rotorua where’s a marae that’s open to public. Marae, an enclosed area where maori meeting house, wharenui stands. Wharenui is literally “big house” and it is a communal ceremonial center for maori people where meetings and other ceremonies including weddings and funerals are held.

Hiski could easily be the owner of the house, tangata whenua

Interiors

Sure fire eye-candy. These are just a glance at the amazing wooden decorations outside the wharenui. I’m a bit disappointed that we had no chance to visit inside the building, there must be a lot of awesome stuff waiting for hungry eyes and camera lenses on the walls, too!

On the opposite side of the marae there were a christian church (which was nice, too, but photographing was unfortunately prohibited there) and some other buildings. The whole complex was propably heated with the geothermal water gushing up from the springs all around the place.

Burn feet @ Rotorua

It’s already June now and definitely freezing over here! Last weekend we escaped from cold damp Auckland and headed to Rotorua which is a geothermal haven well-known for its geysers and hot springs.

The city is located right in the middle of the Nort Island. A bus trip through Hamilton took approx. 4 hours with a coach bus company called “Nakedbus”. No perverts on board, though, just a comfy bus trip in a reasonable price – one way, $24. Scenery on the way wasn’t bad at all. Endless moorland spotted by lonely farmhouses begins right outside Auckland…

Monday was Queen’s birthday and a public holiday, so we had still time to have a nice walk around the city and to the lakeside in the morning before hopping on the bus. Even though it was freezing to go to the waterfront it was worth the views.

“Danger! Geothermal area” was provoking enough to made me throw my shoes away and dip my blueish cold toes in the warm water. The ice cold lake water and boiling hot water from the springs made a nice comfy mixture and I played with the warm mud for a while until a group of maori students came there to stare at what I was doing.

@ Work

Hey, just few pics about that live gig I’ve been talking about!

I got my SD card reader finally working on Windows 7 and eventually found heaps of blurry, fuzzy and unrecognizable pics from that live gig we interns arranged about a month ago. Even though the concert is done and gone now, I still think those bright-yellow posters had for advertising are pretty cool.

Posters at the office

Posters pulled up on K-road

pic from the gig

Oh noes.

Hiski came last Friday finally after long long waiting! That’s superkewl :] We went to Hamilton which was ok even though it was Hamilton – there was the annual Hamilton winter festival going on (like fun rides for children, local firms exhibiting their things, medieval-life-role-play-THING including medieval games and people wandering around the whole area in those silly costumes and breakdance battles which was apparently the reason to go there.

Anyway, it was otherwise a nice day but supercold and Hiski got ill few days afterwards. I’m always going on slowmotion so I got that same flu a whole week afterwards. That’s everything but fair, especially because that’s weekend is going to be long (I got Fridays off and next Mon is Queen’s birthday or whatever, so we are free, FREE, FREEE!). Fair enough. I’m just trying my best to relax and take a rest, eat heaps of chili and crushed ginger and hopefully get better. Soon.

Hello world!

and greetings from New Zealand