Tampere trip on spring

On 4th and 5th May we had planned a spring trip to Tampere. I actually met with Mayu and Rika also on 14th April, since I really wanted to bake cinnamon rolls, and I asked if the girls wanted to join me. It’s not really an EOTO-meeting so I’m not going to write about it.

But on 4th and 5th May we had planned a similar trip to Tampere as we had done on autumn. I asked the girls what they would like to do in Tampere, and tried to plan some kind of schedule for us. Sadly earlier the week Tiia said to us that she couldn’t come, since she had to attend her cousin’s birthday party that weekend in Helsinki. Jonas was also unsure whether he could come or not. And on 3rd he told us that he’s not able to go with us. So in the end it was only the three of us.

Actually I also had some other plans for Sunday, but Mayu and Rika still wanted to come to Tampere. I went there already on 3rd and the girls arrived early in the next morning. I went to get them from the train station and we went to supermarket, and bought some foods for the weekend.

After we finished shopping we headed to the center of the city. We decided to go to Kauppahalli at first, just see how it looks like there.

In Finland these kind of places are quite often more expensive than supermarkets, so I  was really surprised to hear that in Japan these kind of market places are usually cheaper than supermarkets! I had no idea about that.

After going around Kauppahalli we went to take a look if the old church in the center of Tampere was open.

And it was! Lucky us.

After visiting the church we headed to Alexander’s church.

There was one another church where I wanted to take the girls, but in the end we didn’t have time to go there. We also took a peak at Tampere's library Metso and visited the Moomin museum again.

We walked along the Hämeenpuisto for a bit, and then went to take a look of Kehräsaari. Mayu and Rika both liked the place a lot. Too bad that the weather wasn't as good as they had promised earlier the week..

We were getting pretty hungry so we visited the café in Amuri, Amurin Helmi, but of course they didn’t serve lunch during weekends. We were wondering where to go, and in the end we decided to go and buy some tortilla ingredients and go to my sister’s place. We also visited the market place really fast, and bought some black sausage.

Mayu and Rika had both also said that they really want to try making some karelian pies. I myself had never made any so I was feeling little bit hesitant. But in the end we decided to make some. And they turned out quite nice. Maybe the taste was little bit more like cocktail pies, but they were good!

Sampo was also interested in what we were doing.

Delicious!

We decided to watch some movie, and ate the same time. We also tried playing the game called Africa’s star.

Later on the evening we decided to go to Pyynikki’s Näkötorni. The girls visited the tower, and we also took a little walk on the woods. We saw some signs of spring.

On 5th I left pretty early with my sister to go to the flea market, which would be on the center of Tampere. Mayu and Rika stayed at my sister’s place, and I met them later on, when they visited the flea market. We made a plan to meet at the café in the center at 4pm. I took the girls to this waffle café there is in Tampere. We sat there about 40minutes, and after that it was time for the girls to catch their train.

This was our last EOTO-meeting, but we have some plans to keep some kind of small party before Mayu and Rika are going back to Japan.

This whole EOTO-course has been really fun, and I’ve learned to cook many Japanese foods, learned new vocaburaly, and a lot about Japanese culture. I hope to see the girls again in Japan, when I have the chance to go there. Hopefully on my 3rd year I could go to Japan as an exchange student, and then I Mayu and Rika could show me little bit about their hometown too. And of course I hope to keep in contact with the girls from on too!

Exploring the languages and cooking

We met on 19th February at Jyväskylä University  We were supposed to stay in the café  but when we met, the café had just closed! Just our luck. We wondered a while where we should go and decided to go to the center of the city. We ended up going to Coffee House, since most of us hadn't been there yet. The café was very cozy, and everyone ordered something for themselves.

We sat around the table and started by chatting how everyone had been and enjoyed our foods. Today’s topic was Finnish and Japanese, and we had promised the girls we would help them with Finnish. I first showed Mayu and Rika our Japanese course books and they had fun looking at our kanji book.  Seems like the exercises brought back some memories maybe.

Both Mayu and Rika had brought their Finnish papers with them, and they had some questions for us. There were confused about some grammar, and we tried our best to help them. The Finnish word “noniin/no niin” was also a word which meaning Rika had been wondering about, since she had heard it a lot!

We sat in the café for few hours talking about Finnish language.

Next meeting was held on 5th March. We met on Mayu’s place, and this time Rika’s new friend Miki joined us too. She was currently visiting Jyväskylä. For this meeting we had chosen beforehand a Japanese dish and a Finnish dessert that we would make. We decided on rice balls with different kind of fillings and a pie, half apple half blueberry.

Everyone working to make the food

Funny looking mushrooms and other Japanese ingredients

Apple blueberry pie! We had also bought vanilla foam to go with the pie. It was really delicious and seems like everyone liked the pie and the foam a lot! I was happy to hear that.

Rice balls on their way to be done

All in all, we used 5 different fillings. They were all very tasty. I want to try making them sometime again.

We talked about various things like Finnish school system, travelling for example Lapland and how Miki had met the Santa Claus. We talked so much that I don't even remember anymore all the things we chatted about. I was also happy that I understood some parts of the things that Mayu and Rika talked with Miki in Japanese. There is still many words in Japanese that I don’t know, but if it’s simple Japanese, I can understand. I was very happy notice that. Maybe sometime I can gather up the courage and try to speak in Japanese with them a little bit! It was also nice meeting Miki and hearing her experiences in Finland and how she has liked being here. Maybe if I’ll get accepted to go to Japan for exchange, I can meet her in Japan too. I’m sure that would be fun. The evening was really relaxing, and I had really fun with everyone.

Until next time!

Each One Teach One

This blog is for my school’s course Each One Teach One, or for short, EOTO. I'm a first year student in business administration in Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences. In this EOTO-course, there are five of us and we plan to meet every once in a while, and do all fun things: cook Finnish and Japanese foods, go shopping, go around the city and visit different places etc. We want to learn about each other’s cultures and languages, and I’m kind of looking forward to practice my English and Japanese skills. We have already met two times and next I’m going to tell a little bit about our first two meetings. Sadly I don’t have many photos since at the time I didn't know I was going to write a blog for this course, but from now on I’m going to take many photos, since they make writing blog much more fun. My English isn't always the best, but I hope I don’t make too many mistakes!

How I met Mayu and Rika?

I’m interested in going to Japan as an exchange student, so in the beginning of fall semester when I heard someone talking in Japanese on the bus stop when I was on my way to home, I was pretty excited! So yes, I first met Mayu and Rika on a bus stop at the centre of Jyväskylä. At first I didn't have the courage to say anything to them, and to be honest, I was quite nervous. On the bus I realized that this might be my only change to talk to them, so I gathered up courage and asked if they were from Japan. Turned out that they were, and they were indeed studying in Jamk, so we decided to add each others as friends in Facebook. A few days afterwards I met Mayu and Rika with Tiia, my classmate, in Jamko café, and we discussed various things, and later decided that we should take the EOTO-course. Mayu and Rika also told us that Jonas is interested taking EOTO-course with us, so we decided to form a small group, and take the course together. We made a group in Facebook, so that communication would be easier, and then decided when the first EOTO meeting would be held.

30th September 2012

We decided that we would bake cinnamon rolls on the first meeting, since they are quite traditional Finnish buns. We held the first meeting in Mayu's apartment, in Roninmäki. I brought all necessary equipment with me to Roninmäki, and then we all went to Keljo's Prisma by Jonas’ car and bought necessary ingredients. As we shopped Mayu and Rika asked a few questions about Finnish products, such as which is milk and which is sour milk, what kind of cookies are good and so on. After we finished shopping we went back to Roninmäki and started baking. I made the paste quite quickly, and then we all sat down and chatted for about 30mins, while the paste rose. When we started making the cinnamon rolls, I first showed Mayu and Rika how to make them, and then both of them took turns and tried making them too. All of the cinnamon rolls turned out really good and tasty! 

Mayu and Rika liked them a lot, so I was happy. We sat down, drank some tea and ate many, many buns. We talked about various things, and made a little word list of the ingredients in Finnish. Mayu and Rika also wanted the recipe for cinnamon rolls, so we promised to translate it for them.

4th November 2012

We had talked in Facebook about when we should meet next time. We decided to meet on Saturday 4th, at Rika's apartment in Roninmäki. For this meeting we had planned to cook Japanese dish, okonomiyaki. I had heard about okonomiyaki before, but never eaten it, so I was really looking forward tasting it. We arrived to Roninmäki around 13:00 and Mayu was already making some preparations for the food. While the two girls were cooking, we chatted a little bit, drank some tea and looked how okonomiyaki was made. It seemed quite simple to do! As Mayu and Rika finished cooking, we could finally taste the long waited dish, and it was really good! 

I really want the recipe, so I can cook it for myself sometime. The girls made both different versions of okonomiyaki, and they said that everybody has their own style to cook it. Mayu used cabbage and Rika used cabbage and potatoes. After eating we made a little word list about the used ingredients in Japanese. We also talked about the schedule  and what all we should do in these meetings, and decided 3 more meetings for the end of the year. Since neither of us knew our school schedules for spring, we didn't plan the dates further than that, but we discussed what all we should do. Our next meeting was planned to be on 30th November.