Starting New Blog

We decided to start a new blog, which should be easier to use than our old blog. Posting something in our old blog always required HTML
tweeking by Samuli, but what we really need is something where even Aura can send an email and THAT'S IT!

Email title = blog post title
Attached pictures = nice picture gallery
url = embedded video
etc.

And Posterous is just that!

We also transferred Oskari's blog to posterous so he can send his cool stuff there.

And this even should automatically be published on Facebook - all just by pressing send from selected email addresses.

Our old blog served us well, but it bacame too hard to maintain when we are temporarily living in different timezones. Now we need to figure out a way how to get our old blog saved and printed as a book of our adventures in Tokyo.

Hiking at Yatsugatake

After admiring the mountains for four years from Finland Village, I finally did the hike I had been dreaming of - go to the highest peak and stay overnight at one of the cabins at the top (at 2750 meters) . It was better than I could have ever expected! Total elevation 1200 meters from start to Akadake + quite a lot of climbming and descending along the way. 5 hours on Saturday, 10 hours on Sunday. GPS tracked 45 km, on amap would be less but the paths do go zig zag up the mountains.



Thanks to Michael for joining and making the hike even more memorable!

After the typhoon

A powerful typhoon passed by Tokyo last night and I was walking the streets with my camera this morning (and during lunch time). The typhoon did not hit Tokyo, but caused damage elsewhere in Japan.

Autumn is here (in Helsinki)

Maple outside our balcony in autumn colors.

Hertta and fallen leaves

October 1st - 1st frost during the night

"They should fix our garage door pretty fast!"

Kamakura

I escaped the endless concrete jungle and crowds of Tokyo, and spent 7 hours walking 33 kilometers on the outskirts of Kamakura visiting several remote Buddhist temples.

Mt Fuji 21.9.2009

Samuli had a fantastic hike to Mt Fuji - sunrise was nice, clear blue skies all the way down where great, but the night sky was absolutely breathtaking - Saturday was new moon, so there was no moon light, just perfectly clear black sky with thousands and thousands of stars,... which I was admiring for hours and hours.



Samuli koki aivan mielettömän vaelluksen Mt Fujilla - auringonnousu oli hieno, kirkkaan sininen taivas alas tullessa mahtava, mutta yötaivas oli kerrassaan henkeäsalpaava - lauantaina oli ollit uusi kuu, joten taivaalla ei ollut kuuta eikä kuunvaloa, vain täysin kirkas musta yötaivas, jossa tuikki tuhansia ja tuhansia tähtiä ... joista sain nauttia usean tunnin ajan.

Two sides of Tokyo

Samuli is just getting ready for another day in Tokyo - Riikka and the kids are sound asleep in Helsinki getting ready for another schoolday in 6 hours.

This video captures the duality of Tokyo, it was this duality that made me love Tokyo since my very first visit in 2004.

Beautiful and ugly, old and new, back streets and high streets, calm and busy, shiny and rusty, commercial and zen ... and the sound of semi at the very end - urban nature.

Samu takaisin Tokiossa

Huomaan usein samaistuvani oudolla tavalla Ismo Alangon teksteihin. Tähän päivään sopii parhaiten pätkä Hassisen Koneen ajoilta:

Ja mä kävelen tätä tyhjää tietä
taloon, jota kodiksi kutsutaan
vaikka siellä ei ole minulle ketään
olen yksin tällä tyhjällä tiellä
olen yksin tällä tyhjällä tiellä
tällä tiellä
tällä tiellä

Tällä Tiellä

Nagoya castle

I have been in Nagota today and visited the Nagoya castle. I met a 6 year old Japanese boy Tamon, who started interviewing me in fluent English. He was interested on where I came from and wanted to make friends. He is going to an international kindergarden, and already now speaks better English than most Japanese I have met.

The Nagoya castle was built in 1610, around the time when Togukawa shogunate took control of the whole of Japan, isolated the country from the world and demanded absolute harmony.

The first Tokugawa shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu, built the castle. His family controlled Japan for almost 300 years on top of the strict class hierarchy followed by the warrior-caste of samurai.

"Ironically, many of the traditional values attributed to the Japanese today originate from this heritage." says Professor Akihiro Chiba in this article on pages 8-9 (pages numbered 16-17).

History is interesting: ...a country with closed borders, one family controlling all the riches, ruling with the help of the military, and building mausoleums to show their wealth...

The shogunate was abolished during the Meiji Restoration which was a chain of events that led to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure in the 1860s. Luckily.

Tomorrow I will visit Toyota Techno Museum to understand Toyota's history, and it's effect on their philosophy today.

A tribute to MST

I just watched this amazing video and want to dedicate it to the people at MST who provided great education to our children during the past 3,5 years. A BIG THANK YOU to Pete & Mariko, Lynn, Jere & Lynn, James, Minako, Naoko & Nadine, Zach, Patrick, Laurie, Miho, Shukuko, Emi and others who supported them!



See also:
Square root of 646416 and counting 4132+4325 (in Finnish)
Birthday Story: Aura
Logic break
Aura concentrating (see May image)
Book review
Model of MST Upper EL 2006-2007 (special feature: the making of)
Finland class
Periodic table of Elements (by a fourth grader - third grader in Finnish system)

Koira tuli taloon! - Dog in the house!

Perjantaina haimme Mihan Pirttihirmun Porvoon Mihalasta Porin "varakotiin". Annoimme hänelle kutsumanimen Hertta (Heart, Hjärta) ettei olisi ihan liian hirmuinen nimi karvaisella vauvalla... Hertta on syntynyt 17.4.2009.

Hakupäivä oli kasvattajan Saimi Niemisen nimipäivä, joten Saimi ja Ahti tarjosivat meille ihanaa mustikkapiirakkaa. Kahvittelun lomassa keskustelimme koiraan liityvistä asioista ja muutenkin rupattelimme. Koirat juoksivat pihalla, joten kun lähdimme matkaan, Hertta oli sopivasti väsähtänyt ja rauhoittui autossa heti ja kävi nukkumaan. Unta riitti aina Tampereen ohi ja pidimme yhden tauon ennen kuin jatkoimme matkaa Poriin. Kun käännyimme Kullaalta mutkittelevalle Harjunpääntielle Hertta voi pahoin, mutta muuten matka sujui rauhallisissa merkeissä.

Pentu on todella rohkea ja reipas, ja on hyvin sopeutunut uuteen kotiin. Hampaita pitää tosin kokeilla vähän kaikkeen, mutta muuten tavat ovat jo aika hyvin hallussa. Panta menee kaulaan ilman kummempia mutinoita ja pissat jäävät melkein aina jo ulos. Toki pari pientä vahinkoa on tullut sisällekin, mutta todella hienosti Hertta menee ulos ja hoitaa hommat nopeasti. Yöt hän nukkuu omassa pesässään makkarin lattialla, Auran ja Riikan kanssa samassa huoneessa. Päivisin leikin ja levon ajat vaihtelevat ja välillä pentu yltyy tosi riehakkaaksi! Onneksi yöt ovat rauhallisia.


Dog in the house!

On Friday we went to pick up our puppy Hertta. She was born April 17, 2009. Hertta is a Finnish female name coming from "heart" in English, "hjärta" in Swedish, but is not literally meaning heart, the organ - it does mean heart, the suit in card deck, and is the base word for sweet or cute in Finnish.

She was running around on the big yard with other dogs at the breeders. She was really tired when getting to the car, and slept for most of the journey to Riikka's parents place. As babies often do, Heart became car sick on the final small roads.

The puppy is really brave and feels comfortable with her new home. She is testing her teeth on almost everything, but otherwise behaves really well. During the day Heart is playing in and out of the house - sometimes quite wildly. The nights she sleeps on her small nest on Riikka's and Aura's room. Luckily she is a good sleeper.

Sayonara

It's difficult to think what else to say than Sayonara when we are leaving Japan after four amazing years. We have experienced many new things, seen many new places and made many new friends. We will miss them all!

Below the first and last family photo taken from us during these years.





The kids have grown - Aura has spend more than half her life in Japan and Oskari quite exactly one third of his life.

Riikka, Oskari and Aura moved back to Finland yesterday, Samuli will stay in Tokyo until the end of the year.

In 3,5 years we wrote 244 blog posts about our experience in Japan and occasional trips outside Japan. We will keep on updating this blog, the name will change to be simply ROSA Pahkala - the address remains the same rosapahkala.blogspot.com. You can follow us there or in Facebook. If you have a blog, please let us know the address and we will add it on the blogroll on the right.

Let's keep in touch!

Trip to Hiroshima

We had a great trip to Hiroshima where we wanted to take the kids before we leave Japan.

We spent most of day 1 at the Peace Memorial Park and Museum.



To rewind from the shocking museum exparience we enjoyed great weather and outdoors on day 2 at Miyajima island near Hiroshima.



On day 3 we spent several hours relaxing at Shukkeien garden, had a late lunch and some ice cream down town before heading back to Tokyo.



We all enjoyd our great holiday. We highly recommend the trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima to anybody visiting Japan or living here!

Click on each image to see a slideshow of our best pictures that capture the essence of each day.

About free education

This morning I read from the front page of Daily Yomiuri that:

The Democratic Party of Japan likely will include a policy of raising disposable household income by 20 percent in its manifesto for the next House of Representatives election...

The party plans to achieve the proposed increase by reducing the cost of living through means such as making high school education free. It also will increase direct financial support to households, such as providing a monthly child benefit payment of 26,000 yen for every child until graduation from middle school.
...

Sounds good and quite familiar - in Finland all education is free by constitution and child benefit of about 100 euro is paid until the child turns 17.

See also previous blog posts about Entrance exams to primary schools and about How do we educate our children.

Hello Kitty morning

Mom bought me Hello Kitty cocoa and I was so excited to taste it I gathered some of my Hello Kitty stuff on the table. The Milkitty drink was not cocoa but milk tea which I did not like at all. Luckily we had normal cocoa to save the day.

Oranssit vyöt - Orange belts

See them in action earlier this spring.

ミセス Magazine, July issue

For those of you who read Japanese: ミセス Magazine published a 34 pages special section about Finland in their July issue. It covers wide range of topics like landscape and living, famous composers, architects and designers, design and shopping in Helsinki. It dedicates 6 pages for the Finnish school and library system, including an interview with Riikka.

ミセス July 2009, ７月号

フィンランド

45 年前、ピアニストとしての将来を思い描いた舘野泉さんが目指したのは、ウィーンやパリではなく、北欧フィンランドでした。作曲家シベリウスが奏でた北欧の森の「静けさ」に導かれるように。イラストレーターの山本祐布子さんは、忘れ去られたものに命を吹き込むアーティスト、アヌ・トゥオミネンを訪ねて湖畔のサマーハウスへ。その他、北国の自然が作る美しいデザイン、建築、暮しと教育など、フィンランドの素顔をお届けします

Koirakuume nousee - Dog fever rising

Kävimme tänään Porvoossa Mihan kennelissä katsomassa huhtikuun lopussa syntynyttä snautseripentuetta. Meille on varattuna yksi narttupentu. Kuulimme että "meidän" pentumme nimi on Mihan Pirttihirmu - lasten mielestä juuri sopiva koira äidille!

Koirat ovat saaneet kasvaa kauniissa maalaismaisemassa Saimi ja Ahti Niemisen hyvässä hoidossa - aika eri olosuhteissa kuin koirat Tokiossa.


Today we visited Mihan kennel near Porvoo, Finland (50 km from Helsinki). We saw schnauzer puppies born late April. We have reserved a female puppy.

The puppies are living in wonderful conditions in the countryside - quite different from dogs life in Tokyo.

Hot and humid

Tokyo summer is approaching, it's not yet too hot, but the humidity is really high. You can not avoid getting sweat just by being outside.

There is so much humidity in the air, that you can not see far. But better that than the grey skies in Korea I saw during the past couple of days.

Sayonara Old Faithful

She took us to places like Odawara, Disneyland, Finland Village, again, again, again, again and again, and Hakone.

She never let us down - in town, on the highway, and not even in the toughest conditions!


She had plenty of room to transport furniture or bicycles.

She had two extra seats to fit our friends to take them places like Disneyland with Grandma and Grandpa, Finland Village and Mt Fuji with Samuli's aunt and her family, Hakone with Grandma and Grandpa, fishing with Grandpa, Finland Village with Michael and Sonoko, or Hakone and Mt Fuji with Jonni and Mannu.


After 12 years and only 40 500 kilometers she is in very good shape to spend her retirement days most likely in Russia, Pakistan or some other exotic destination.


We will miss our Old Faithful Toyota Ipsum!

Harmaa sunnuntai

Sunnuntaiaamu on ollut sateinen ja näkymä ikkunoistamme on varsin harmaa. Viime viikon muuton jäljiltä olemme kaikki uupuneita ja päivän suurin ponnistus on sunnuntailounas jossain lähiseudun ravintolassa.

Muuttopuuhissa osa 2 - Moving out day 2

Kirjahylly purettu - Book self taken apart


Olohuone melkein pakattu - Living room almost packed


Auran huone melkein pakattu - Aura's room almost packed


Makuuhuone pakattu - Master bed room packed


Oskarin huone pakattu - Oskari's room packed


Vain keittiö ja kellari jäljellä - Only kitchen and basement are left

Muuttopuuhissa - Moving out

Olemme asuneet kohta neljä vuotta Tokiossa ja on aika palata kotiin. Muuttokuormaa alettiin pakata tänään, jotta se ehtii Suomeen ennen kuin koulut alkavat syksyllä.

We have been living in Tokyo for almost four years now and it is time to return to Finland. The moving company started packing today in order to get our belongings to Finland in time for the new school year in August.