#박근혜하야하라

Hello beautiful people ! 

Last Saturday I went to Gwanghwamun with my friend Hyerim. There was a protest against the current president and more than 200 000 people gathered to peacefully protest against Park Geunhye. There has been a huge scandal surrounding her the last weeks because it turned out she has been giving out governmental information to a complete outsider, one of her close friends, who has also been writing her speeches for her and helping her to basically run the country. It has come to the point where less than 5% of Koreans support Park Geunhye anymore. There is going to be another protest today at Gwanghwamun and more than million people are expected to arrive as they even have buses from all over Korea bringing people to Seoul. So things are getting pretty serious over here and this all might as well end with her resigning for good. 

I have never been a part of a protest before and I'm not really interested in political affairs but I am really glad I went last week, even though I felt a bit awkward at first as, you know, I'm not even Korean. But I was hiding under my hood and fitting in pretty well with all other people holding candles and chanting for the president to resign. It was also one of the moments when I realized how much I love this country and being a part of the society here no matter how many small daily flaws there are (Let's face it, there are flaws in every damn country nowadays). Korean people have the absolute best team spirit. People come together and work for a better future for them and their kids and I think that is just beautiful, as opposed to Finland where people write an angry post on social media and then sulk at home how the government did this and that wrong again. From school festivals to political protests of thousands of people, people here know how to work together, support each other and create an amazing spirit. 

xx,
Julia

Seoul lantern festival '15 (서울빛초롱축제)

Good evening, world. 

Starting a blog post with something else than "hey guys" probably for the first time ever. So I'm one of those "New year new start" type of people and I already have one resolution for next year; Seeing and doing more stuff around Seoul. I want to visit events, exhibitions and festivals, take more pictures, visit famous places, find good restaurants et cetera. I've been studying really hard this whole year and haven't really had the time to explore and see that much, so that's something I really want to concentrate next year. I have only 3 weeks left before I leave to Finland for a 2 month winter vacation and a loot of plans with my friends, final exams coming next week and I've been writing speeches like a crazy person lately but I decided to start my project a bit early and made time to visit Seoul's annual Lantern festival. 

It's held in Gwanghwamun, along the Cheonggyecheon stream and runs from 06.11.2015 to 22.11.2015 this year. It's completely free for anyone so if you are in Seoul and haven't seen it yet you should ! They have lanterns designed by both regular citizens and famous artists and the themes vary from Korean historical palaces all the way to popular characters like Pororo. Cheonggyecheon is right in the heart of Seoul surrounded by high office buildings so it's absolutely beautiful. 

They had small paper lanterns you could buy, write small wishes / messages on them and then send off along the stream. Wanted to try that but the line was reaally long. They also sold other small lantern lamps and postcards and such and there was a lady doing airbrush tattoos. Not really related to the festival at all, but still a cute idea so we decided to try those out. Posted a picture of it on Instagram, you can check it out from the sidebar of this blog. 

In the end of the stream they had lanterns for the younger family members, like characters from children's movies and popular cartoons, and also some other random lantern designs. My absolute favorites were the cushion lanterns! Cushion foundations have been a huge makeup trend in Korea lately so it was amusing and very accurate at the same time. 

It was a great opportunity and I'm glad I made time to go see it. And Cheonggyecheong is gorgeous even without the lanterns and I haven't been there for a while so it was nice. 

Totally off topic, today is pepero day here in Korea ! Peperos are chocolate covered cookie sticks and the purpose of the day is similiar to Valentine's day; Giving peperos to your loved ones and friends. After a quick google search I found out the original purpose was to exchange peperos with each other in hopes of becoming taller and thinner...typical Korea hahah. Anyway have a good Pepero day everyone whether you do celebrate it or not !  

xx,
Julia

Korean dinner & Hanyang spring festival 15'

Hey there~ 

Today's my last day in Korea before I fly to Finland for 3 weeks. It's 11pm right now, and I have about 5 hours left before I'm leaving to the airport. Gonna pull an all nighter and watch Netflix or something. 

So as I mentioned earlier, I was planning to do a separate post about the Hanyang festival that I went to last night, but we were all so incredibly tired and there were so, so many people it was impossible to have like a photo shoot going on and all, so instead I am just going to do a picture post about my Friday. 

We went to eat with our class to this Korean buffet restaurant and then just walked around a bit and watched the performances that were going on on the stage. The finale was Girl's day's performance, and everyone, literally everyone wen't crazy over them. I had to run errands today, pack and write posts to my blog for the next 3 weeks so I couldn't really fully enjoy the festival and I had to go home semi early to, be boring and, sleep. Anyway, enjoy the pictures and I will see you the next time!  I will post here minimum once a week & I'll keep my instagram, tumblr & twitter updated through my whole vacation so I will see you there~

xx,
Julia

Hanami @ Roihuvuori, Helsinki 180514

Hello !

So like I mentioned earlier, we had a picnic in a Sakura park here in Helsinki last Sunday. There was also this festival / happening going on, so it was super crowded, there were some performances & they sold Japanese food and goodies there. We just concentrated on our picnic and taking pictures, though, haha.

Even though it hasn't been that warm here in Finland yet, the flowers were already dying and falling off, so we missed the actual "cherry blossom season".  It was okay though because the flower petals were flying around in the air and the ground was pink. So pretty. 

I also got to wear my new maxi dress that I've been already talking about here more than enough lol. Anyway, the weather was suuuper hot, we had good food & great company so all in all the day was a success. 

Also found my favorite Japanese candy called "Miruku no kuni" and melon ramune. So nostalgic! Haven't had these in like 3 years.

I came back from Helsinki this morning and went straight to work because they needed some extra help there, so I've been running around the whole day like a crazy person. I'm so ready to go to bed. Gonna have morning shifts every day for the rest of this week. uhh. 

Catch up with you later~

xx
Julia