Tests Tell the Truth

You Should Learn Japanese

You're cutting edge, and you are ready to delve into wacky Japanese culture. From Engrish to eating contests, you're born to be a crazy gaijin. Saiko!

What Language Should You Learn?

Other than doing useless on-line tests today I have hosted a meeting of Finnish mothers and their kids, invited a neighbour for a cup of coffee and done some joyriding on Yurikamome. What else would a woman want from her wednesday?

Tokyo Elvis is smiling at a sporty tourist

If you should clean the ever increasing mess at home, you suddenly may have an urge to make a mouse drawing of some touching subject - like Tokyo Elvis.

Another Art Exhibition

I saw 'Collection of the Foundation Cartier' exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art today. It was good.

Some works were very impressive and beautiful. Like Liza Lou's installation 'Backyard' which obviously had taken years to make (a scene covered with beads) and Ron Mueck's 'In bed' (a giant woman sculpture).

Animal Prison and Euro Fun

Yesterday I took Vimme to Tama Zoo. It was a nice zoo - I don't like zoos that much to begin with, but this was one of the nicest I've seen. Vimme enjoyed watching animals and I enjoyed being in a place where he can't end up driven over by a truck, when he starts aimlessly running away from me. Usually he does that at some point anyway.

Today we watched Eurovision Song Contest with three other fellow Europeans. Boy it was fun. And not least because we won! When I was little, I used to watch the contest every year and I eagerly waited for Finnish covers of the best songs to be released. When I got older I didn't watch the show for years until I discovered its fantastic camp factor. So, since Dana International's victory I have watched the show when ever I'd had a chance to see it.

Quiet Front and Series

I wondered why it is so quiet on Finnish front on the internet. Then I remembered, it's a national holiday in Finland.

I have started to watch Lost. M has downloaded episodes from the internet (we don't have a TV) and now we have watched an episode or two per night. Another series I'm hooked on, is Star Trek Enterprise. It isn't really as good as previous Star Trek series I've seen and the theme song is utterly irritating, but it's good enough for me to want more.

The picture is taken today. I asked Vimme to look at the camera and smile. This is his interpretation of my instructions. I think he is cute, but I am his mother.

A Documentary

Last night I went to see a Finnish documentary 'About a Farm', which was part of EU Film Days program. I enjoyed the film with all my heart.

Before I saw the film I had no idea that it took place in that area of Finland where I grew up. It was a pleasant surprise to see sceneries I was so used to seeing when I was a kid and to hear people speak slowly with few words and long pauses.

Kaurismäki's dialogue style isn't that fictionary after all.

Another Night Out

I totally forgot how old I am and danced like a maniac with everyone on the dance floor of a gay bar/club last night. I even danced on a stage - I dragged bunch of guys with me there avoiding to meet the public humiliation alone. And no, I didn't strip, so I have some of my dignity left, if I ever had any to begin with.

All the same, it was a fun night out and the hang-over wasn't as bad as I expected it to be.

Now Anything Is Possible

When Finland wins the Eurovision Song Contest... I used to use fraze instead of 'when hell freezes over'. Now it has happened. Lordi won the contest. Therefore anything else can happen too. I wonder if I can win now in Lottery without buying a ticket?

Design Festa

I was at Design Festa today with two other Finnish mothers. It was at Tokyo Big Sight, which is a huge exhibition center quite near to where we live. We didn't manage to see all of it, though we walked around for a long while.

I expected it to be an art exhibition, but it was more like a fair where people sold their own products, mostly T-shirts and postcards. I did find something nice there and I even bought myself a pair of action figure paperdolls. I didn't know I missed anything like that from my life before I saw them.

Monsters - other than mine

I wrote long story of this and that and was about to publish the post when I misshit a button and lost the whole master piece. Oh god I hate when it happens. And only time I write real english instead of finglish is when the big fish swims away with my hook - quite a terrible metaphora by the way.

Anyway, Finnish Lordi is making history and took Finland to the second round on this years Eurovision Song Contest. Finland is usually not very popular on that scene. Now that we've(yes, we!) sent a team of monsters, no one dares to do other give their votes to Lordi in a fear of a curse. And we do know that Finnish curses are the most powerful on this planet.

I haven't heard the song (Hard Rock Hallelujah) but I think Lordi should to win.

Bread and Bows

Good thing about Tokyo is that you can find almost anything in here - if you know where to look for what you are after.

Today I went to buy a Finnish Bread at Kinokuniya (I must have mentioned the place and the bread before). The shop is in Shibuya like the Children's Hall and when ever I take the kid to have fun at the hall, I pop into the shop and get some real bread too.

We entered the department store that sells the bread right at the opening time and as we walked to the lift all the members of the staff bowed us politely and said 'irasshaimase' (welcome). I still find that way of greeting hard to handle without wearing a tiara and an evening gown (I am the Queen of the World, but don't tell anyone - I want to remain incognito until the time is right).

Anyway, that morning-department-store-welcoming would be something I'd recommend as an authentic experience for an accidental western tourist who is spending a day or two in Tokyo.

One of those days...

Me and Vimme started our brand new week in a good mood, went out and sun was shining.

After a while we ended up to a situation where the kid is screaming his lungs out and wanting it all & now, while I am refusing to give him anything, because giving in to someone who is screaming at me isn't in my nature. Then we are both unhappy. Then the kid falls asleep and I go on feeling unhappy and guilty because I wasn't able to handle the situation in a more mature way.

A friend of mine told me that it'll get easier once the kid is three and half years old. That'll be next autumn. I hope I won't cause too much permanent damage to kids developing personality before that by being a baaaaaad mother.

And to other matters: I did buy that silvery 'Hello Kitty'-wallet after all, though it's not really my style. I blame Tokyo. If you spend enough time here, you start openly liking things you wouldn't have dared to admit liking when you lived your life in Europe.

I Scream

We stayed over-night at friends this weekend. It was fun.

Here in this picture Vimme is having an icecream (here I'm telling the obvious). He told me once that my mother prepared really really good food while we were staying at my parent's home before christmas. I asked him, what did she serve. Icecream, he said.

Vimme has got the icecream gene straight from M.

I Hate You Eraserhead

I haven't done this picture, though I wish I had. It's from 'Toothpaste for dinner'-site. I found it by chance and had a good laugh while browsing the drawings.

There must be a legion of good on-line comics I've never read or heard of. Like there are millions and millions of people I have never met and I will never meet and that's only Tokyo-jins. Everyone of them has their own inner life with their thoughts, desires, miseries, complexes, weirdness and hopes.

Still we are all alone in ourselves.

I feel dizzy and too shallow to go on with this subject.

Poppies

I was very close to buy a silvery 'Hello Kitty' wallet today. Scary isn't it.

Other than that, we have very nice poppy and cornflower fields here in Odaiba at the moment. While admiring the flowers, I realised that Maija Isola's 'Unikko' (poppy in Finnish) prints aren't that far away from their original example in nature.

Beautiful.

Hosting

Nine mothers and their lively under 5 years old kids were here at my home this morning to have our weekly Finnish gathering. The noice kids made was so loud that it was difficult to have a conversation with someone who sat further than a half a meter away from you. Kids seemed to be happy and in the afternoon those who hadn't gone home yet went to a park by the sea shore. Me and Vimme included.

Before a Mess

I have worked hard to find all loose, small objects in Vimme's room and put them away on a shelf high above the floor level, out of little people's reach - tomorrow we'll have number of toddlers and kids running loose in here and I try to make sure that the mess, which is inevitable, will be as easy to clear as possible.

A Film, Food and Places

I had lovely day/evening out with my Japanese friend yesterday. We saw a Japanese film that was filmed in my beloved Helsinki. Then we had a nice dinner in a restaurant that I wouldn't have dared to enter without a Japanese companion. I ate raw jellyfish, among other things. Very exotic.

Evenings out every now and then make me feel like a human being instead of feeling like I was just a plain home appliance.

Here is a picture of an Italian Piazza that is in a mall close to our house. I have both a Statue of Liberty and a Piazza with a shifting blue sky within 500 meters from my home. Why would I want to travel anywhere?

3,738 Mothers

My bet is that they just wanted to see bare boobs. Not that I wasn't pro breast feeding. I did it for a year myself and also in public places. It was the right thing to do - the breast feeding, not particularly doing it in public places. That just sort of took place sometimes. And in Sweden, where I then lived, public breast feeding is accepted almost everywhere.

A Screamer's Mother

I met my Japanese friend and her family today.

It took a while to get to our meeting place in Yokohama and the kid wasn't a happy camper on our way there. If we hadn't planned that meeting for such a long time, I would have turned on my heels and returned home to let the kid scream without getting into innocent fellow people's nerves. But I am glad I went through that hell. It was such a nice meeting.

The way home was piece of cake. Vimme slept.

Jo & Tim

I had a drink with Jo and Tim last night. It was fun. I should do that more often.

Today Odaiba has been crowded. I thought I would take Yurikamome train home from the food store, just to make the kid happy - he likes that train - but lines to ticket machines were so long that had no patience to wait for my turn and walked home instead. I bribed the kid with shrimp snacks.

Summer's Coming

This is my three headed monster.

We had a nice day out in a park today, though Vimme was his usual three years old self - meaning, we had a few discussion on a side of scenes about topics like "don't scream at people", "don't hit anyone with a stick" and "don't take things from people's hands". Which is actually a sign of him getting bigger - he can take some reasoning and he sometimes even listens to what I say.