Day 243

Day 243 - 05.07.10

Going through my stuff and finding tons of stuff that was useful at one point or another.

Cloudspotting is better with blue skies

I know it will sound silly but the moment I got out of the plane back in Finland, the first thing I noticed was how blue the sky was and how fluffy the few clouds looked. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have a perfectly blue sky. I can't describe what the sky was like in Korea, most of the time it was just a washed-down colour. I don't know if it's because of the fog, humidity, pollution or something else but I can't remember it ever being a perfect crisp blue. The clouds were not the same either. I guess this is why nothing can really beat summer in Finland, even though the winters are annoyingly dark, cold and long, even though I start getting winter blues in October and can't go cycling till May, there are a few weeks in summer where the weather is perfect. It's been perfect this past week-end and I can say it's worth it. It's not too hot, it's a pleasant 25-26C, it's not too humid, there might be a tiny bit of rain but nothing terrible, the sun is out most of the time and it's so light! That's another thing that really hit me my first night in Korea, it gets dark so early and so fast. I just went out for food at around 7:30pm and by the time I was done it was already dark. It couldn't have been past 8:30pm. Every single night I was surprised, the darkness comes so fast. One moment it's light and bam! the next moment it's dark. The third thing that I had noticed a tad in Korea but it's the short walk from the bus stop to my house that really made me think: the smells are so different. The grassy areas in front of my house are all covered with these flowers (at this moment I can only remember their name in Ukrainian): There are also some wild rose bushes and some other old wild flowers. Now these are not traditional Helsinki smells, even though there are many grassy areas around town, in the city center you probably wouldn't be able to smell wild flowers while walking down the street. I'll definitely miss Lauttasaari, I'll have to try to find a good flat around this area next year also.