Open Helsinki @ Temppeliaukio Church

Living in Helsinki is brilliant for people who are interested in culture and art. If you just keep your eyes open and look for events for example from Metro newspaper, you can find tons of interesting and also free things to go to. Some days ago I found an event called Open Helsinki: open doors and tours to places where you normally can't go in to. I always wanted to see the Temppeliaukio church (tourists call it the Rock Church) from the inside, but there was always a wedding when I tried to go there. Now I was extremely happy because I was  able to go in and get an interesting lecture from the architect Timo Suominen, who is the older half of the brothers who designed this church 1969.

From the outside it doesn't look like anything. Pile of rocks mainly. And you almost have to concentrate to notice the cross. That's the thing I love about this church. It's an unique pearl of architecture. It's a church where you can not see pictures of Jesus, God, Maria, Josef or sheep.

This is the place I wanna get married if I ever get so lucky/unlucky :D I never go to church volunteerily and I really don't believe in God, at least how it's presented in religions. Actually I normally get anxious in churches when I have to go to them. But this church made me feel open and free. Maybe it's the absence of religious images, or the fact that it's amazingly natural. It's walls are pure rock. The architect Suominen told that here are the oldest church walls in the world; 1850 million years! And it's full of natural sunlight. The roof is a round metal dome which lies on 180 beams. This place is always full of japanese tourists (during the tourist hours...) and the architect told that they are especially fascinated about the round copper dome, because it symbolizes sun like in their flag.

For me it's almost weird to write about a church, because I always hated them. I've seen most of the most famous ones in Europe: St. Peter's, Sagrada Familia, Notre Dame, Hagia Sofia, Westminster Abbey etc. etc. although we always had this motto with my mum when we were travelling (it doesn't work in English): Let's go round all the museums and churches.... from far." = "Kierretään kaikki museot ja kirkot.... kaukaa." Only St. Peter's curch made a real impact on me. And Temppeliaukio. The last thing I'm gonna mention about is actually quite funny (at least for me...) The seats are comfy! This is the first church ever where I've seen comfortable seats!!!

Design Week @ Skanno

1.9. there was a fun evening event in one really cool and luxurious design furniture store in Helsinki as a part of Design Week. Skanno in one of my favourites and I love to go there eating eye candy. (I can't afford the stuff they sell there... yet!)

This nigh was all about Diesel and it's new collection with Foscarini, Moroso and Zucchi. My absolute  favourite is the X-Ray Table. The second picture below gives a good view of that and the free beer that was served in the party! :) In the end they gave free Diesel's BE STUPID T-shirts to everybody, which I'm wearing right now! And then there was also a fantanstic beatboxer Felix Zenger. You can listen to him here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCtO4AxdtSQ&feature=related

España

Here's a little story of me and Spain. I graduated from my university last June and I had no freaking idea what I would do next so I applied to some weird job in Fuengirola, doing phone interviews by provision mainly. I got the job and I was totally crazy about the idea of moving to Spain! I found a really small and really cheap apartment next to the beach and I loved the apartment the first 5 hours. And the neighborhood I loved soo much, because it was really beautiful and I had really nice neighbours, who became my good friends. Every night we used to hang out there on the benches and I tried to learn Spanish. Fun!!!

So, I spent about 5 hours in my apartment until I saw the first cockroach. (After that I saw them there maybe every other day, sometimes more than one in one day.) I had NEVER seen a living cockroach before in my life, although I've always been travelling very much, all over southern Europe and Thailand. I freaked out and asked my new neighbours what to do with them and they told me to chase them with cockroach spray, but that didn't really make me feel any more comfortable, because that didn't prevent them from coming inside again. Later, maybe a week after that, someone gave me some extra poisonous cockroach poison that I had to spread all over the place after I almost had a heart attack because of the insects. I was just about to fall asleep when I noticed that there was one on my pillow! That was when I started to sleep with the lights on. This is how the place looks like then:

There were some days when I couldn't think about anything else than the cockroaches. I taped all the windows and holes and put salt around my bed (useless tip btw) and covered the drains and sinks etc. until I realized that the cockroaches always come under my laundry machine! There was a huge hole in the wall and the laundry machine was in this hole and there must have been a really nice hole also for my pets because one morning I woke up to the sound when one of them was climbing out from the detergent box. Then I jumped out from bed, went to supermarket, bought more tape and tinfoil and did this:

COOL, EH?!? At this point I kind of already had decided not to stay in Spain so I preferred to block the hole and thus deny myself the pleasure of using a laundry machine, but I really really didn't want to share my flat with those gross bugs anymore so I didn't care. After this they didn't come anymore. Happy ending!

End remarks: I loved my time in Spain and I recommend moving there, but you should try to find a flat from a new building or get it as high as possible in a block of flats. Ground floor was just bad. Or you can party every night until the sun rises and sleep in the day time, because the cockroaches only come when it's dark :D

Sushi Pillow

Sushi is my favourite food in the world and I could eat it all the time. And I'm so happy that I'm finally moving into a proper apartment with a big kitchen and that I can start doind my own sushi dishes again <3 It's been a long long time since I did them the last time. I've been a victim of my own laziness and uncomfortably small kitchens. I love sushi so much that I wanted to make a pillow that looks like salmon nigiri. Maybe not a good idea, because now every time I see it, I crave for the real thing. Anyways, this was a fun project :) Something to do while watching movies and being a lazy ass.

 

I got the idea from this website: 

http://www.theoriginalsushipillow.com/nigiri.html

But I made my sushi look a little different... (Not so good, because mine looks  more like some ancient Nintendo game mushroom). But I still like my version better, because it has sequins :) Maybe later I make a shrimp nigiri. But then I want to have a sewing machine, because my fingers look like shit after doing all the sewing myself.

A praise for Lush

My plan was really to stick to design and only design in this blog, but I can't help myself now. I love Lush so much. And I'm sad some people don't know that company. I prefer buying almost all my cosmetics apart from make up from Lush and so it becomes kind of a decorational thing that all the boxes/cases/packeges match. They're all black, my favourite "color". And Lush is really committed to environmental issues, for example they're motivating customers to recycle the packagings: when you return 5 of them back to the store, you get a free face mask.

I really really recommed Marilyn for all the blondes. I don't know how they're able to make a blonding hair mask using only natural ingredients (well, almost only...), but somehow my hair always looks so much lighter after using this. (The picture in my profile is really old, now I'm a blonde, especially under my hair.) So, go there: lush.com.

Festivo Design Wine

Finland is a place where everything is forbidden and I have no idea if advertising alcohol in one's blog is illegeal, but still I will do this. I got so happy this summer when I found these wine "bottles" in Alko (the only shop in Finland where you can buy wine), because they are both really handy and so pretty. (Plus they taste good, especially the white one.) Handy they are because you can open and close them during the night as much as you want  for example on a private island on Midsummer festival :D The prettiness comes by Paola Suhonen, a famous Finnish designer. I had a cute terry skirt with the almost same print when I was about 15 and I wore it all the time until it got some permanent hair color damage... Anyway, it says also in the back of this 2 liter wine box something like this is the first wine which matches the typical youthful and scandinavian table setting. In short, I love this new summery fresh idea and will propably buy the white wine again sometimes when I have guests coming.

Marimekko, my love.

This summer I needed to buy a new wallet and a new make up bag. My old wallet was torn apart and my old make up bag was way too small, so I headed straight to Marimekko. It's my second favourite Finnish design company and they're known all over the world. Even Carrie Bradshaw had Marimeko curtains! (The print is called Satula.)

http://www.marimekko.fi/eng

In Helsinki there's a lovely luxury shopping centre, Kämp Galleria, which has a huge Marimekko store in two floors. I love to go there although it makes me sad because I normally don't have money to buy the clothes or bags. But I bought these (the more inexpensive stuff):

The blue stripey one reflected my style so perfectly. It's not a usual wallet, it's kind of granny style, but I love stripes, blue and white and it was so easy to throw everything there, money and cards in the same pocket. BUT some mean idiot stole it in Spain. I lived there for a month this summer and with my friend we went to the biggest 2nd hand market place in Fuengirola one Sunday and after the round I noticed my dear wallet was gone :( And there was also a Marimekko store in Fuengirola (million Finnish people live there...) but I thought I would move on and not buy the same kind again.

The black and white bag I also love really much (the print is called Pirput Parput). I hope I never have to get rid of it.