Zoo- and amusement park days + announcement

Last week was pretty exciting, I went to visit Korkeasaari zoo and Linnanmäki amusement park in Helsinki because they had events. I haven't visited Korkeasaari in about 8 years and in Linnanmäki I haven't tried any rides in about 4 years.

So what was going on?

Korkeasaari Zoo event

In tuesday Korkeasaari Zoo held an event that you got in for free. I couldn't let this chance slip since I hadn't visited there in many years. My friend Annina went gladly with me.

We were a bit lost at first since we thought to take waterbus but it had finished for this season so we ended up taking the only option to the zoo aka bus. It was reeeeally full of people but it was short ride so it was ok.

When we arrived we just started to walk towards top of hill (Korkeasaari is actually a hill island), there we encountered peacocks. They could move freely and didn't mind people as long as people didn't chase them.

We popped to visit a cafe and then left to search for big cats area. We found it quickly but most of the cats were sleeping or resting lol. But at least I saw a lion and cute tiger cubs <3

Then we just headed forward passing some animal cages like Reindeers. Korkeasaari also had fun small nature trail representing how trails usually are in finnish forests.

We continued to wander around and saw goats, wild horses and bears. One bear was really cute, it didn't care about anyone and just comfortably sat inside it's cage.
We started to think if it would be time to go home or if we missed something. We looked zoo map and noticed we totally missed tropic animals. So we headed to tropical house where we saw alot of lizards, turtles, frogs and snakes. Also some beautiful parrots~

Then it was already approaching 3.30pm and zoo would close at 4pm so we decided to leave. We had fun day seeing all different kinds of animals.

Linnanmäki light carnival event

At friday me and Annina went to Linnanmäki light carnival which is a yearly event in Linnanmäki amusement park. It was private occasion on friday actually, organized by Nuorisosäätiö. Officially light carnival opened last saturday. The event is open until 22nd October so if you're interested you still have time :) Lights this year were fantastic and amusement park looked wonderful!

There were many people, about 5000 in this private event so we had to queue for popular rides for quite some time. Because of it we didn't have time to try every ride (event lasted from 4pm to 9pm).

But we had so much fun anyways! First ride we headed to was of course Rollercoaster. It's a classic and you cannot miss it!

There was a bit cold but we didn't really notice it while we were in rides because we had so much fun! After rollercoaster we decided to take this kind of haunted house ride. After it we queued for Linnunrata eXtra for quite some time; it was a rollercoaster where you put oculus on and it made it kind of virtual at the same time you were moving with rollercoaster so it was exciting.

After it we toured through some rides before we noticed that time had literally flewn and it was nearing 9pm. We said bye to Linnanmäki and headed home.

So this was basically how my last week was. This week I haven't had much to do except my korean lesson.
Before my korean lesson I met my friend Sirja with whom I discussed about travelling to South-Korea next year. And whoops, suddenly at the evening we had flight tickets to Incheon airport and a hostel booked xD
Ok, we had to lose our temper first because we had problems reserving the hostel and then Sirja had some problems booking her flights so both of us were losing our minds. But in the end we got what we wanted and now I have a trip to Korea booked for 18th february to 4th March :D
We have another friend too who may be coming but she has other things to confirm before it so we'll know about in december if she's coming with us~
Anyway, we'll stay in K-Guesthouse Sinchon 2 in Sinchon area (신촌) which is right between Hongdae and Ewha. Basically center of Seoul.
So that was my announcement :D Look forward to my travel posts next year^^

Other things

Cosmetics

Now that winter is coming, I might as well recommend some handcreams~ Beware that your hands don't go dry and dehydrated which will happen fast when we're still not used to cold temperatures. I have atopy so if I don't use handcream everyday my hands will go dry very quickly and I get dry spots to my hands so I have to be very careful. That's why I have tried so many handcreams to find what I like best. Here's couple I have been using this year (I go through small ones seriously fast, in about 2 weeks).

I have tried alot of handcreams but Nature Republic is my number 1 when it comes to affordably priced handcreams that treats your hands well, moisturizes and softens. They are also in convenient small package which don't take up too much space if you want to carry it in your purse. These are must-have handcreams for a skincare lover! Only minus thing is that they are available only in South-Korea and few other countries so if you want to have Nature Republic handcreams, you will have to go to online store.

In the lower photo is also two Mamonde handcreams; Jasmine cashmere and camellia petal. I have tested about four Mamonde handcreams and only Jasmine cashmere I would buy again, it softens your hands instantly and is only mild scented. Other Mamonde handcreams had really strong scent and my nose wasn't comfortable with that..

Good second place in my favorite handcreams goes to L'Occitane shea butter handcream. I just love shea butter handcreams but this smells soooo good and is gentle to your hands. It's on a pricy side especially since tube is small but I recommend this to everyone who wants to have soft feeling hands instantly. Plus most of the bigger shops in Finland at least carry this so you can just go to store and grab yours without having to go to online and wait for your order for days (though if you're not living in an area where there's L'Occitane available, they have online store).

If you need heavy cream then this is your pick. Biotherm Biomains is thick but very moisturizing. Only thing I didn't quite like about it is that it leaves that sticky feeling to your hands for a long time.

 Innisfree handcreams are too thick for me but someone who has extremely dry hands might like them and they are really affordable too. They are available for example in online stores concentrating on korean cosmetics.

This Nature republic aloe vera handcream was very good but it's light so it's more suitable for summer use. So, it's very lightweight and absorbs fast leaving cooling and soft feeling to your hands. I don't know if this is available in any online stores because I bought this while I was in Korea.

This Clinique even better handcream was very good night handcream! I use two different handcreams for day use and night use. This was on heavy side but it was caring and softening so I put it in the evening and in the morning my hands were soft~ Side note; this has quite heavy scent so if you're not used to heavy smells then I don't recommend buying this.

 This The body shop Vanilla Chai handcream I bought last week, I tried it in body shop store and ended up liking it instantly! It has nice scent and very suitable for especially christmas season :)



That's all for now~ Next post is up after next week propably. I will attend I love me beauty fair in Helsinki next week's friday and in saturday I will go to this one Korean culture event in Gloria.
Thanks for reading, see you soon^^

Sightseeing and other events

Hi everyone :)

I'll start my post from last week's thursday, I went to watch korean movie Train to Busan with my friends. There was this movie festival in Helsinki where our biggest movie distributor company showed movies they don't normally take to their program. And there was Train to Busan which was box hit in Korea even though it's a zombie movie :,D I don't normally like horror at all but it was ok because it was more on the action side than scary horror.

On Saturday I went to Linda's birthday and had fun time there~ Linda had baked cheesecake for the first time and it was delicious! If I would try the same I would propably burn it xD

Then on Sunday and Monday I met with my korean friend who I know from one online app, he was visiting Finland for couple days before continuing his trip to Sweden. I enjoyed going around Helsinki even though it was a bit tiring because we walked alot lol. First we visited Suomenlinna (fortress of Finland). I haven't visited there for the longest time so it was nice for me too to see if it has changed or not. It actually had a bit, there were alot of construction work going on. I didn't remember that it was sunday so museums were all closed in the morning or either opening very late.. so a little disappointment but anyways we enjoyed going around and exploring.

After arriving back to mainland in Helsinki, we went to Senaatintori (Senate Square) and after my friend was done taking photos there we were so hungry we went to eat. It's a shame there was only either veeeeery expensive finnish restaurants or asian restaurants near... or mcdonalds lol. We decided to go to one japanese restaurant and ate kind of fried rice dish. I'm horrible host lmao I took an asian person to eat asian food in Finland when I should have introduced our food culture xD but we were so hungry xD

After eating big lunch at Momotoko we went to rest a little to Esplanade park. Coincidentally there happened to be food festival.. but we had just eaten lol so we just looked around and sat on a bench.

Then we were wondering where we should go next and decided to go to Sibelius monument. My friend wanted to visit there, I guess it's very popular among asians because almost every asian knows it. It's not so popular among finnish people because it's just ordinary park for us where just happens to be a big monument :P

We were starting to get a bit tired but still went to Temppeliaukio church xD After it we just sat down in one bar in Kamppi, just talked awhile and then I had to leave. My friend stayed in Kamppi.

Next day we met up again and we wanted to visit Seurasaari but it had just been closed last week :,( bad luck.. so we just walked around Hakaniemi and visited Hakaniemi old market (Hakaniemen kauppahalli). Then we just walked around Helsinki center until my friend had to go check-in to Silja Line for his trip to Stockholm. I said bye to him at the terminal. Bye the way, before going to terminal we had lunch at Kauppatori where my friend tasted finnish food but it was soooo expensive for like a plate of couple potatos and little piece of salmon. So if you have foreign friends coming to visit seriously, search restaurants in Helsinki beforehand xD I did a mistake of not searching and we ended up eating expensive lunch. (They have high prices in Kauppatori because there is so many tourists).

Anyway, I had busy monday because right after saying bye to my friend I had to hurry home because I had my korean language lessons in the evening. It was funny, after I said to my friend I study korean and have been trying to study by myself for 4 years, he started speaking more and more korean with me and now he sends me messages only in korean xD much stress though because I'm very slow writing in korean and he writes so faaaast and I'm like slow dooooown xD but he always waits patiently my answer if he asks me something because I usually have to check one or two words from translator.. because even though I know the word, I usually mess up writing it so I have to be sure I'm not writing it wrong... or the sentence might get totally different meaning xD At least now I get to train my korean skills :D

This weekend

Yesterday I met up with Annina and went to autumn market to Tikkurila. It was a big market event and we had nice time just walking around. We also discovered a new cafe; Kahvi Charlotta which was right opposite of dixi. They have one cafe in Kamppi apparently and they will be opening third to esplanade. I liked interior design of this cafe and they make coffee from fresh beans which was totally pleasant surprise~ And customer service was excellent, I'm totally recommending this place :) Also, their carrot cake was yummy :P

Recommending~

So what are the things I have been enjoying these couple weeks?
Well, one is a korean action drama that started last week: The K2. It tells a story of an ex-soldier Kim Jae Ha (played by Ji Chang Wook) who ends up being a bodyguard to one Assemblyman's wife and his illegitimate daughter. Je Ha couldn't care less of anything at first because of his dark past but he has his own reasons which eventually makes him agree to work for Assemblyan's wife. He gets codename K2 and that's why this drama's name is K2. 4 episodes have been aired and it has been very action packed with interesting characters. I'm totally hooked. I'm also recommending The K2's first OST song, it's addictive especially from the chorus:

Also cosmetics I have been liking:

Lancome Hydra Zen neurocalm. This was very moisturizing face cream and it has pleasant texture. I got this with discount but I know it's normally quite pricy. Anyway, I liked this because it spreads well even though it at first seem heavy (it really isn't). And it made my face feel so soft! Repurchasing it if it appears on sale sometime. You can get it almost from everywhere where they sell high-end brands.

The Face Shop x Kakao melting color lip creamer. This has become one of my utmost favorite lipsticks! It's very creamy and hydrating without being too much if you know what I mean. It has very pretty, light peach color which shade is 12. Plus packaging is very cute! You can get this for example in ibuybeauty.


Next post is up in about 2 weeks. This week I'm going to Helsinki zoo free event on tuesday and on friday to Linnanmäki amusement park light carnival (it officially starts on Saturday but I got invitation to private event :P ).

Tracon and other stuff

Last week and the weekend before was a hassle but I'm happy I had something to do~

Tracon

3rd to 4th September I spend in Tampere in Tracon which is a yearly convention. I went there with Linda. We left early morning at Saturday by train, it was funny that we spotted alot of people in there clearly going to Tracon. I didn't cosplay anything as I haven't like in last 8 years but Linda cosplayed Daichi from Hikyuu. After looking at Linda and then other cosplayers I got the feeling I want to cosplay again :P Maybe next year? :D

So we got to Tampere about 9am and went to leave our luggage in big cloakroom. Then we went to get our bracelets, we had e-tickets like everyone else and had to change it to bracelet.

hi there, my look in saturday :P

Then we waited about half an hour and got in. We first went to leave my stuff to flea market (I had lot of stuff this year I wanted to get rid of that I don't use anymore). Funny when the volunteer worker who scanned my stuff to sale spotted some of my kpop stuff started like "OMG I'm a fan too, I have this!" and I was like ok :D

After dropping my stuff there we headed to sales hall where we just checked every table but didn't really buy anything... except Matcha pocky since both of us are green tea lovers :P

We didn't have anything to do before going to one panel so we visited karaoke and sang VIXX On&On lmao. After karaoke and panel we headed to eat because we started to get hungry.

We walked to near small shopping mall and first visited this kind of asian food store where we bought some snacks. Then we visited asian buffet right next to it although it was funny that it called itself thai restaurant when it had chinese name and partly japanese buffet lol.

Then we walked back to convention place and after awhile left to go to our accommodation which we got through airbnb. Our accommodation was right in center of Tampere, next to Koskikeskus shopping mall and like 300 meters away from convention so, very nice! Only thing disturbing was that our room at first was full of flies like wtf o.O they had disappeared though when we got back in the evening but came back in the morning again o.O

Anyway, at evening we went to one panel but we were sooooo tired that after getting some late night food to eat we walked straight to our accommodation to sleep. Although we took couple photos from Tampere's night before it :P We went sleep like 10.30pm.

Then I woke up 7am lol... and Linda woke up 9am :,D so I had to wait awhile but I was doing my morning routine and watching some random news sites from cellphone so it was all right, didn't get bored xD

my look on sunday~

So after gathering our stuff we left our accommodation about 10am. We went to eat breakfast and have good coffee to Fazer cafe, it was only cafe nearby open at 10am which was ridiculous. Tampere isn't a small city so you would think you could find alot of cafes open even in sunday in early morning but no.. then we left to drop our bigger luggages to big cloakroom and after it planned to go watch one program... but then I noticed I left my bag in the cafe T_T I'm an idiot... this haven't happened to me before, I usually take care of my stuff really well but I guess it was because we were in kinda hurry so... when I went back in panic the staff in fazer cafe was reeeeally friendly and they had taken my bag to safekeeping ;A; I thanked like 4 times because I was thinking that what if someone stole my bag or something from it but staff had noticed it immediately and kept it safe. I couldn't really thank enough because my wallet was in my bag ;A;

So, we walked back to convention place aka Tampere talo again, it was raining but still quite beautiful morning.

scenery from our accommodation

my breakfast :P

When we got back, there was an anime piano concert which we thought would be nice to see so we went to listen that. Weren't disappointed at all. Pianist played music from one of my all-time favorite anime; Inuyasha. I don't watch anime much at all anymore so it was kind of nostalgic feeling to hear some music from a series I watched like 10 years ago :D I have only one clip from concert and it was when pianist played Shingeki no kyojin (Attack on titan) theme song Guren no yumiya. Sorry my cellphone refused to film it properly at first T_T so the picture is blurry at first in the video T_T

After pianoconcert we just hang out. Our day was pretty much like that... because it took too much time for us to find a place to eat at day <_< we didn't want any fast food and it took a long time to find an italian restaurant where we could at least order pasta or something like that. But food was delicious in that italian restaurant we went to eat. Like one of the best pasta's I have ever eaten! Restaurant was in one side road opposite of Stockmann and nearby.

When we left to go home at evening both of us was so tired we barely spoke in train trip at all. But all in all we had fun convention and I'm still thinking that should I do a cosplay for next year :D

Last week

Last week was pretty much a busy week. I went to color my hair and then visited beauty events in Sokos stores. I visited events for Sensai and for Lumene with Annina and we had great time and got lots of tips to different makeup techniques. From Sensai we got a small thank you gift which was blotting papers and couple small samples of their toner and cleansing powder. From Lumene we got their new mask treatment and lip treatment when buying one product from Lumene (I bought their new lip color stick in shade 7, autumn beauty.) Propably going to review some of the products sometime when I have used them a little bit~

Other

Lastly I just want to recommend some things I have been hooked up with~
I watched korean drama Uncontrollably fond which I didn't like at all but it's OST was amazing. I got addicted to so many songs and it was funny because 80% of the music was sung in english~ But I liked all english songs and most of korean songs in the OST and here's couple I can recommend:

I have been addicted to two dramas lately that started recently. One is Moon Lovers Scarlet Heart: Ryeo which is historical drama based on chinese drama (so it's a remake basically). Lee Jun Ki, my favorite korean actor is starring in it <3 and his role is Wang So, a mysterious lone wolf prince with mask covering half of his face because of a scar. I have seen chinese version of it and I have to say it's totally different and for me it's just a positive thing because chinese version was a little boring. But anyway Scarlet Heart is drama number 1 I have been addicted lately:

Other drama I have been following lately is Love in the Moonlight which is also a historical drama starring Park Bo Gum, one of the hottest actors in korea right now. Firstly I didn't get why Park Bo Gum is so hyped in korea but now I totally understand after watching this drama; he's a great actor, he can express many things only with his face without saying anything. His looks wasn't my style at first exactly but now that I follow this drama he has been growing on me and I came to like his looks also besides his acting :P

So this is all for this post~ next post propably in two weeks since I don't have alot going on :,D

Just normal everyday life

Hello everyone~

I have been keeping quiet because I don't have much happening in my life. Well, I have been spending kinda summer holiday throughout July; I went to my mom's side grandparents with my mom for couple days (to Kouvola) and then went to visit my other grandparent and uncle with my brother (to Kajaani). And met some friends in July who I haven't seen in a while ^^ Now in August I have been quite bored lol.

Here's some photos from July~
First two from Kouvola and then the rest from Kajaani trip.

Now through August I have been just watching korean tv dramas :P I have one favorite over others which I'm currently addicted to soooo bad; it's called W - two worlds. Not far behind comes drama Let's fight, Ghost!

W tells a story of surgeon intern Oh Yeon Joo (played by Han Hyo Joo) who's father is famous comic book artist and suddenly strange things start happening and this comic world comes to life. Yeon Joo is pulled to the other dimension and that's where adventure begins. Lee Jong Suk plays Kang Chul, main character of this comic book world. The comic book is called W so that's the origin of this drama's name.

Let's fight, ghost! Tells a story of an exorcist Bong Pal (played by 2PM Taecyeon) who can actually see ghosts and fight them. He forms sort of alliance with one ghost called Hyun Ji (played by Kim So Hyun) to fight other evil ghosts.

Yahhoo, I'm waiting for next week because I finally get to go somewhere :D There's Tracon in Tampere where I go almost every year. It has become kind of tradition~ I will go with my friend Linda and propably will see other friends in there too^^ Tracon is a convention by the way, it concentrates mainly on japanese culture but in these couple years it has brought korean culture more and more to it as well as roleplaying themes and events.

And finally, here's couple other things I have been enjoying this month;

Laneige two tone lipbar:

I just love these! This lipstick has two colors, it gives inside of your lips a darker color and the edge area more lighter color. These moisturizes quite well also. And colors are so pretty^^ I actually bought these from Korea but you can also order them online. I seriously recommend to try~ I wonder when we get same kinds to western markets.
I have been using stylekorean when I order abroads, they deliver straight from Korea with actual physical shop prices so they don't have higher prices like most online shops tend to have. And they usually deliver in about two weeks~

Other thing from cosmetics that I have been loving is this Cathycat Code Glökolor Moomin limited edition cushion. I'm afraid this is only available in Korea. But I noticed it in OliveYoung and I just had to get it, look how cute it is :D I used this up already but I enjoyed it nevertheless. It had very light coverage but with it I felt light from my face and felt like I didn't have any foundation on. So if you happen to be in Korea, stop by OliveYoung to check this out~ (plus point is that cushion is changeable so you can save the cover if you like it^^)

And last but not least; I found an online shop that sells korean cosmetics - in Finland! So listen up guys, if you live in Finland now is your chance to get Korean makeup with cheaper price - no heavy shipping expenses and products are pretty affordably priced too. And when I emailed them to ask some questions, customer service was soooo friendly like I can't even!
The shop is called Bearel. Definetly check them out :)

That's all for now, next time going to post propably my feels from Tracon :D