Tag: Travel

“Beautiful” word from stranger

Published on by LostViivi23 Comments

I have met kind people around the world. I have got new friends I will never meet again and memories staying with me forever. I wanted to share this story about the woman who impacted me greatly. I’m thankful to her and will be probably until the end of my life.

“Beautiful” How can one word change person?

It was my first week volunteering in Kyoto. I lived in small hostel free for working three hours day and it had taken only a couple of days for me to feel like in home. At daytime I explored the city and the nights I spend writing in the hostel’s common room. In one of those nights I met her.

She was older lady and I never really get to know what she did in the hostel. The language barrier between us was huge. I didn’t know Japanese and she didn’t speak English. However she kept talking to me and I tried to understand.

Soon I get to know that she knew one word in English. Beautiful. She told me just that. You beautiful. No one has ever called me beautiful. I have never felt particularly pretty. When I went to school people used to call me ugly and it has always stayed with me.

Beautiful. That one word and her kind eyes changed me. Nowadays when I feel ugly or worthless I recall that moment and feel better. That one moment and stranger impacted me for the rest of my life.

I didn’t see her the night after and come to the conclusion she had stayed only one night. I hoped I would have talked more with her. But like a magic and destiny I get to meet her once again. After two months and my last week in Japan we met like old friends.

I spend the night in common room like always and she came in. She put her things next to met and while she cooked we tried to talk like the last time. This time too she kept calling me beautiful and I even got to thank her. She was like angel with her bright smile.

Then she put plate in front of me and surprised me once again. She had cooked a miso soup for me. Even if I tried to say she shouldn’t or would she take some of my food as returning favor she didn’t take any of it. It was the perfect last week for my Japan trip.

I know I am probably not going to meet that woman again. I wil remember her. The kindness and the one word he was able to say in English. Beautiful. You just can’t forgot person like her.

 

.    .    .

I didn’t have time to write anything long today (trying to back for my Sweden trip) so I came up with this memory. I have been thinking about writing “story times” or my memories once in while but I don’t know would those be interesting.

Have you met kind strangers? I think this world is full of kind people and I hope I will meet more of them while traveling. Maybe in the future I will write about all the people I have met on my travels.

With love and wanderlust,

Viivi Severina

 

Photo Diary: Beautiful Tokyo

Published on by LostViivi36 Comments

Today is my birthday! Thanks for everyone who has wished me happy birthday. To celebrate this day I have collected my travel photos from Tokyo (yes I finally found my lost photos…) and want to share them with you. This will be my first photo diary but definitely not the last.

All photos are taken by beginner photographer using her phone so I am sorry if some of the pics are not so good. I hope you enjoy my travels!

 

Getting lost in Tokyo means finding beautiful places.

 

Ueno park was my love (and next to my home) in Tokyo and this particular Starbucks quickly came my number one place to visit.
If someone is as enthusiastic as I am about Japanese (crime) dramas, this whale is seen so many times in them. I haven’t even realized it before coming back from Japan. It’s in Ueno park too.
Tokyo is full of interesting art museums. This Taro Okamoto memorial museum is one of them.
Torii gate somewhere in Tokyo between urban neighborhoods
I’m big Star Wars fan. (Or better said my whole family is) It was fun to notice how Japanese share my passion for Jedi. They had Star Wars everywhere!
In Tokyo i was blessed with some beautiful blue skied days and one week of rain and storms as balance. This is one of the best days.
Tokyo’s railway station is still big mystery for me. I got lost and somehow exited from different door every time.
Any kpop fans here? Well I don’t admit anything but Korea town may have been like heaven… I find these stairs totally cool.
Harajuku is my favorite neighborhood in Tokyo. It’s full of surprises and small alleys. Every time I visited there was something new to discover.
When your best friend and mom are crazy about textiles you can not dissmiss Fabric Town and Street in Nippori. Shop after shop this are is full of beautiful and cheap fabrics. (Look even Buzz Lightyear is shopping there!)
Getting lost in Tokyo is like walking in to movie. I would just spend years in Tokyo to get know all the streets and corners. I discovered this place one afternoon but the fun fact is that even if tried to go there again (there was cute shop) I wasn’t able to find it second time…
This photo is from Ueno Zoo. It was so beautiful! Small lake full of plants.
Akihabara was something I have never seen anywhere else. Even if it was raining (I have never seen that much water coming down from sky!) the there was so many people.
I have maybe the worst phobia of high places. Of course I had to visit three Ferris wheels in my in my Japan trip. (Why am I doing this to myself?)

 

So there was all the photos! If you want to see some more adventures from Japan check out these food post I have made:
Sweets in Japan

Food in Japan

More Food in Japan

Have you ever visited Japan or planned to go there? Making this post has made me miss the city so much… Maybe I should start to plan my second trip there. (Or maybe not because so many places I want to see!)

There was all for today. I hope you are having amazing weekend.
With love,

Viivi Severina

My Travel Bucketlist

Published on by LostViivi47 Comments

My birthday is in couple of days and I just realized I will turn 21. The numbers grow faster and faster after every year and I just stay same. There is so many things I want to do before dying, places to visit, people to meet and dreams to achieve.

I have never done official bucket list for myself. Until now all the things have just been on my head. Today I put all my dreams on paper and now I want to introduce my official bucket list for you!

 

  • Visit all the continents (Currently: 3)
  • Go to at least 30 different countries (Currently: 10)
  • Don’t have permanent home but live in hostels
  • Couchsurfing
  • Around the world trip on cruise ship
  • Ride hot air balloon in Cappadocia, Turkey
  • Swim in infinity pool
  • Travel to 15 different Finnish cities and make blog posts about them
  • Go to safari
  • Travel around Europe by cheap buses
  • Visit the Amazon
  • Spend night in the glass igloos (Finland)
  • Visit abandoned amusement park (maybe will share this story with you in future)
  • Do volunteer work and help animals
  • Wash elephants
  • See the pyramids and ride camel  (I rode camel once on family vacation)
  • Hike E10 trail/Finland from South to North
  • Be up all night on beach
  • Island hopping on Thailand, Philippines, Singapore
  • Live week without internet
  • Travel through Russia by Trans-Siberian railway
  • See a broadway musical
  • Get lost in big garden labyrinth
  • Spend night in lighthouse (did this once when younger)
  • Visit Easter Island
  • Bungee jump (with my fear of highs this may never happen)
  • Interrail around Europe
  • Be vegetarian for month
  • Sleep in an ice hotel
  • Add a lock to Love Lock Bridge in Paris
  • Go to fashion show
  • Spend night in a tree house
  • Hike to top of the mountain and see sun set and rise
  • See Venice by gondola
  • Do Working Holiday year in Australia or New Zealand
  • Hike to Mt. Fuji
  • Go to kpop concert in South Korea
  • Visit North Korea
  • Luxury holiday in beautiful seaside resort
  • Road trip through USA
  • Go to Disney Cruise (because why not?)
  • Live at least three months in Germany
  • See cherry blossoms in Japan
  • Get five hundred readers for my blog (it’s good to have impossible goals right?)
  • Attractions to see:
    • Machu Picchu
    • Taj Mahal
    • Stonehenge
    • Grand Canyon
    • Berlin Wall
    • Dead Sea
    • the Great Wall of China
  • Festivals to attend:
    • St. Patricks day, Dublin
    • Floating Lantern Festival
    • Halloween treck, Transylvania
    • Oktoberfest (learn to drink beer)
    • Las Fallas, Valencia
    • Festival of colors/Holi Festifal
    • La Tomatina, Bunol (Spain)
  • Cities to visit:
    • Brighton, UK
    • Busan, South Korea
    • Berlin, Germany
    • Budapest, Hungary
    • Sydney, Australia
    • Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
    • Moscow, Russia
    • NY, USA
    • Bali, Indonesia
    • Krakow, Poland
    • Jerusalem, Israel
    • Havana, Cuba
    • Reykjavik, Iceland
    • Bangkok, Thailand
    • Amsterdam, Netherlands

 

 

I’m more than happy to hear about your bucketlists and places must to visit! Did I forget some important destinations from my list?

Starting from today my bucketlist is accessible on the upper menu. I will try to remember update it and cross the things I have accomplished.

With love and big age crisis,

Viivi Severina

 

Planning, planning, planning…

Published on by LostViivi12 Comments

Hi there! How are you? Today I’m talking about what is happening currently with me, my blog and of course my travels.

 

Travel Plans

I will start my summer working and do some cleaning in my relatives’ summer cottage. While there I will take some amazing Finnish cottage pics for you and write new Surviving Finland post about Finns’ secret summer lives.

Like I have mentioned before I have been sick lately and because of that had to forgot my plans to go France in June. However I’m going to Sweden with my family! We will go to cruise from Helsinki, Finland to Stockholm, Sweden in the end of this month.

By the end of summer/autumn I may carry out my France plans. It depends on many things but I hope it will work out. -please cross your fingers for me-

I haven’t yet decided how to use my free flight but fortunately I have almost year left to spend it. Currently Iceland and Dubai are on the top of my list. (I realized that flights to Amsterdam are so cheap that I can make that trip by buying the tickets myself.)

Other trips I am planning to do this year are to Tallinn (cheap to travel by ship) and Gdansk (cheap to fly from Turku, Finland). And from Tallinn maybe by bus to somewhere in Europe.

 

University… Or Not?

Big part of my planning is still uncertain because of this big question. I did aply to University even if I wasn’t sure if I want to get in. I would like to study the areas I selected but rather than living student life I would travel and see where this life takes me.

The university exam results come out at the end of this month so then I know. The travel will not stop in any case. My new student life would start in Turku where they have good airport and possibilities to travel around the world.

 

The Photo Problem

Some of you may have noticed that my photos are running short. I haven’t done long posts about my own travels for a couple of weeks. And that’s because my old computer died -RIP the loyal Samsung laptop from 2000’s- and my pictures are somewhere inside it!

Fortunately I have saved them to external memory device but I have kind of lost that thing. So I have been cleaning my room the last week just so I could find that memory device and present posts with pictures for you.

Hopefully I will find it today but don’t worry even without those photos I have new posts planned. (And I’m always happy to hear ideas what would you like to read on my blog!)

 

 

This was quite mixed thing of everything but I felt like keeping you up about my plans. Starting from now you can find all my coming travels updated from the upper menu’s My Plans page.

Have you been planning any travels for this summer? Or maybe some ideas for me what should I do in the destinations I’m going to visit?

 

Hoping to travel already,

Neidotta

PS. I made Instagram! @lostsneakers

The Dilemma of Free Flights…

Published on by LostViivi40 Comments

Couple of days ago I checked out how much Finnair points I have and almost fainted. Apparently I have flown more than I would have ever guessed. My points are enough to get round-trip tickets to any European country or Dubai! Now there is one big question left…

Where should I travel?

As cheap person I have to travel somewhere usually expensive. It’s hard to decide so below I have listed some of my options. Where should I go?

 

Dubai

Dubai sounds like dream but my mum said straight away she hopes I don’t go there alone. -My sister said how cool would it be to visit Dubai and I agree with her…- So should I listen my mum or take the “risk” and go. What I read about blogs, Dubai isn’t as dangerous and scary as it’s in our heads. So solo travel to Dubai… Dream or reality?

Dubai isn’t on my bucket list but that’s mainly because it seems so far away and too fancy for me. I didn’t know a lot about it before doing some research today. It’s quite expensive (or did I understand wrongly?) but I have got used to expensive in Finland…

 

Barcelona

I have visited charming Barcelona two or three times (I’m bad person and can’t recall which one) and this city has made me feel like home in its small labyrinth alleys. Of course there would be other cities to visit in Spain like the capital Madrid but I just don’t believe those would delight me like Barcelona.

The beaches are calling for me (and the warmth! Because in Finland we only have the cold…) The flights to Barcelona are usually quite cheap and that is the only reason keeping me away from the free flights to Barcelona.

 

Amsterdam

I’m blaming all the bloggers currently writing about their trips to the Netherlands for adding this one on my list. Photogenic city with a lot of see and do. I would spend time just walking around admiring all the streets and buildings. And the Van Goh museum is place I would love to visit!

 

London

I have been three times in London but there is so much to see that it would be nice to go again. Last time was a couple of years ago and I didn’t see a lot because we only went to concert. The times before that I was so young (and with my family) so I couldn’t appreciate the city. Now when I have grown up going again would be interesting experience.

 

Italy

I have never been to Italy but it seems my kind of country. I haven’t decided with city would be best for me. Rome or Venice? I like the culture and architecture of Southern European countries. Many of my friends have visited Italy and everyone comes back with good experience.

 

Iceland

First time I added Iceland to my bucket list was at primary school when we learned about it in school. (Of course at that time I hadn’t even heard about bucket lists but I knew that was place I wanted to visit at least once in my life time.)

But is there enough things to do if I want to spend longer time? And I don’t know if I want to go there and suffer from the cold.

 

 

This is going to be hard decision… There is so many places I would like to visit and choosing just one is impossible. I accept all suggestions and help so where should I visit? Which country would you like to see me writing about in this blog?

With mind full of wanderlust,

Viivi Severina