The first blog : The first blog

Vaelntine's card

2011-02-08T11:17:16Z

Today I designed some Valentine's day cards, this is one of them

Valentine's day

2011-02-07T10:55:30Z

I'm looking forward to Valentine's day here in Japan, it seems like fun!

Yeterday I met Matsunami-san's english teacher, Yamazaki-sensei, and a few of her students, Shihori-chan and shy-kun(we call him that because he's shy..)

We went to Shibuya's bookoff, a second hand store for books, magazines etc. I got three art books for under 2000 yen, lucky! and we had dinner, afterwards we went to shinjuku with just the girls, shopping for valentine's chocolates (I'll add some photographs later). I bought something small to bring to my friends back at home, very cute things I hope they enjoy them once I give them.

The Birth of The Kantele

2011-02-04T10:25:09Z

Many Finnish people know the "birthstory" of the Kantele, it is our national instrument.

A�kantele�is a traditional�plucked string instrument�native to�Finland,�Estonia, and�Karelia. It is related to the�Russian�gusli, the�Latvian�kokle�and the�Lithuanian�kanklės. Together these instruments make up the family known as Baltic�psalteries.�In Finland's national epic,�Kalevala, the mage�V�in�m�inen�makes the first kantele from the jawbone of a giant�pike�and a few hairs from�Hiisi's stallion. The music it makes draws all the forest creatures near to wonder at its beauty. Later, after losing and greatly grieving over his kantele, V�in�m�inen makes another one from a�birch, strung with the hair of a willing maiden, and its magic proves equally profound. It is the gift the eternal sage leaves behind when he departs Kaleva at the advent of Christianity.

so, with that inroduction to the instrument that makes us all feel closer to the people of ancient times, here is the first page of the Birth of The Kantele.

I'll probably color it some time but here's just the black and white version for now ' v '

The Zodiac

2011-02-02T11:07:42Z

The Sheng Xiao, better known in English as the Chinese Zodiac, is a scheme that relates each year to an animal and its reputed
attributes, according to a 12-year cycle. It has wide currency in
several East Asian countries besides mainland China and Taiwan.

Identifying this scheme using the term "zodiac" reflects several similarities to the Western zodiac:
both have time cycles divided into 12 parts, each labels at least the
majority of those parts with names of animals, and each is widely
associated with a culture of attributing influence of a person's
relationship to the cycle upon their personality and/or events in their
life. Nevertheless, there are major differences: the "Chinese" 12-part
cycle is divided into years rather than months; contrary to the
association with animals implied in the Greek etymology of "zodiac",
actually four of the Western "signs" or "houses" are represented by
humans (one such sign being the twins "Gemini") and one is the inanimate balance scale "Libra"; the animals of the Chinese zodiac are not associated with constellations, let alone those spanned by the ecliptic plane.

In Buddhism, legend has it that Buddha summoned all of the animals
of the earth to come before him before his departure from this earth,
but only thirteen animals actually came to bid him farewell. To reward
the animals who came to him, he named a year after each of them. The
years were given to them in the order they had arrived.

The 12 animals for the Chinese zodiac must have been developed in
the early stage of Chinese civilization for hundreds of years until it
became the current edition; and it�s very hard to investigate the real
origin. Most historians agree that Cat is not in the list since the 12
animals of the Chinese Zodiac were formed before Cats were introduced
to China from India with Buddhism.

Another story tells that the God called the animals to a banquet
that night. The Rat loved to play tricks on the Cat so he told the cat
that the banquet was on the day after tomorrow. When the Cat was
sleeping and dreaming about the banquet, the rest of the animals all
arrived to the banquet. The order of the animals was decided by the
order that they arrived. The Cat was devastated and vowed that he would
always hate the Rat.

comics and crying

2011-01-31T09:56:37Z

Hi! This is just a quick update on what I'll hopefully be doing on this blog from here on out C:

The man who compiled the Kalevala; Elias L�nnrot

2011-01-26T08:04:10Z

Elias L�nnrot was born 9 April 1802 and passed away on 19 March 1884. He was a Finnish philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for composing the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic compiled from national folklore. His true passion had always layd in his native Finnish language. He began writing about the early Finnish language in 1827 and began collecting folk tales from the rural people about that time.

L�nnrot was born in Sammatti, in the province of Uusimaa in Finland. He studied medicine at the Academy of Turku. To his misfortune the year he joined was the year of the Great Fire of Turku, burning down half the town � and the University. L�nnrot (and many of the rest of the University) moved to Helsinki, where he graduated in 1832.

He got a job as district doctor of Kajaani in Northern Finland during a time of famine
in the district. The famine had prompted the previous doctor to resign,
making it possible for a very young doctor to get such a position.
Several consecutive years of crop
failure resulted in enormous losses of population and livestock;
L�nnrot wrote letters to the State departments, asking for food, not
medicines. He was the sole doctor for the 4,000 or so people of his
district, at a time where doctors were rare and very expensive, and
where people did not buy medicines from equally rare and expensive pharmacies, but rather trusted to their village healers and locally available remedies.

L�nnrot went on extended leaves of absence from his doctor's office; he toured the countryside of Finland, Sapmi (Lapland), and nearby portions of Russian Karelia to support his collecting efforts. This led to a series of books: Kantele, 1829�1831 (the kantele is a Finnish traditional instrument); Kalevala, 1835�1836 (possibly Land of Heroes; better known as the "old" Kalevala); Kanteletar, 1840 (possibly Kantele Daughter); Sananlaskuja, 1842 (Proverbs); an expanded second edition of Kalevala, 1849 (the "new" Kalevala); and Finsk-Svenskt lexikon, 1866�1880 (Finnish-Swedish Dictionary).

L�nnrot was recognised for his part in preserving Finland's oral traditions by appointment to the Chair of Finnish Literature at the University of Helsinki. He died on 19 March 1884 in Sammatti, in the province of Uusimaa.

Botanists remember him for writing the first Finnish-language Flora Fennica � Suomen Kasvisto in 1860; in its day it was famed throughout Scandinavia,
as it was among the very first common-language scientific texts. The
second, expanded version was co-authored by Th. Saelan and published in
1866.
The Flora Fennica was the first scientific work published in Finnish
(instead of Latin). In addition, L�nnrot's Flora Fennica includes many
notes on plant uses in between descriptions of flower and leaf.

As a botanist he was well-respected, and in the standard botanical author abbreviation L�nnrot is applied to species he described.

The Finnish graphic artist Erik Bruun used L�nnrot as a motif for the 500 markka banknote in his banknote series.

Don Rosa's "Quest for Kalevala" featuring Scrooge McDuck and Donald Duck has a cameo by Lonnrot.

Based on Elias L�nnrot's fame as a researcher, the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges used the name L�nnrot for the diligent detective in his story, Death and the Compass (La muerte y la br�jula), which was also made into a film by Alex Cox.

The Kalevala, the Finnish national epic that L�nnrot compiled, was an inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien's the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.

Elias L�nnrot has been the main motif for a recent commemorative coin, the Finnish Elias L�nnrot and folklore commemorative coin, minted in 2002. On the reverse, a feather (as a symbol of an author) and Elias L�nnrot's signature can be seen.

picture from the finnish society of literature

Let's speak in finska and Pohjola's maiden

2011-01-24T06:46:35Z

This saturday I went to shibuya to meet my cousins friend from Finland, Piia. We walked around had lunch and shopped, she showed me a few of the art stores there and I bought a few suplies and some things that I needed in my appartment from a 300 yen shop.

I had alot of fun with her just chatting and, praise all that is holy, I got to speak finnish! It felt SO NICE to just blab in my own language after awhile, especially because she was such good company! It also felt surreal, because veryone else around us speaks japanese and we're speaking finnish, it felt like I was in Finland, sorta.

I hope to visit her too and have her come to Asakusa sometime.

Yesterday(sunday) i walked around with a friend from my share house. I got to explore the streets a bit and had a long walk, which was nice, I haven't really gone off to explore since the streets get a bit confusing, and the weather was so nice, lucky! He showed me supplies stores that have all the supplies you need in a kitchen and also right outside the temple area we got from this tiny shop some dumplings (GAWD were thay good! Mine was a veggie version, I could eat a dozen of them in one go). The coolest thing was when we found a shop that sells those plastic models of foods drinks and dessert that they display in the restaurant windows! They look so real, I was so amazed that I forgot to take any pictures (I just checked my camera :'D )!

He then went to study in a cafe and I headed on home through the temple street. I'd never walked there during the daytime, everything looked so new and different! Even my home street , I had to double check that I was going the right way, I usually get home when it's already dark, so walking there in bright daylight was something new too. When I got home I found some share yeast in the fridge and made some bread. They didn't taste bad, but I'm not used to eating or using wheat, so it took me a minute to get used to the flavor. I've been searching for some sites on japanese cooking so that I won't slip into a restaurant and rice and salmon only diet while I'm here. Would be nice to learn to make something else than just soba, finnish food is too expensive to make here and you can't find all the ingredients, which are usually of more poor quality and way too expensive.

. . . . . . . . . . .

Pohjola's daughters also known as Pohjola's maidens are in the kalevala known as mythical and wonderful women who reside in Pohjola or even up in the heavens. In general potrayal of the Pohjola's maidens, they sit in the heavens weaving gold and silver srings. The maidens are the cream of the crop; the maiden is so luminous and bright that in some cases she is glowing and see through.

The common resting place for the maidens has thought to be a rainbow, the top of a mountain or the holding structure of the sky.

The gold and silver strings have been associated with the strings of life and knowledge, though they are not goddesess, still they are above common women.

In the stories many go out to ask for the pohjola's maidens hands, but there are many obstacles on the way, such as rough terraine and monsters and dangerous quests set by Louhi, the mistress of Pohjola. Her quests often seem impossible, which is all well for her, for she does not want to give her daughters to just anyone. But in the Kalevala, the maidens that are wed turn out to be poor wives despite their heritage and beauty.

GTS skype and Tuone's daughters

2011-01-20T02:53:23Z

Yesterday I was able to talk to my friends at school via Skype. We had a quick chat on what it is that I do here, I got to see them (especially my friend Heidi, yay<3) and just laugh, and talk about random things. And as I was at work, Matsunami-san (my desk neighbour, heh) and the vice president Tomizawa-san got to say their hello's too and hear some Finland talk! It was so nice to see them again, though I had so much fun the last time I was with them a month ago, and time flies by so fast, it only felt like I had been with them last a couple of days ago. And it is kind of surreal everytime I use Skype, just to think that the other person is thousand of miles away from you and you can just see them and talk to them via live video feed, it makes me feel grateful that I livein the 21st century.

I hope I get to talk to them again soon, I have to download skype to my work computer so I don't have to drag my laptop that has skype to work.

I also bought� instant miso soup and tried it yesterday.. it was very bitter so I couldn't finish it all. I'll try adding mentsuyu to it today, maybe it wil taste a bit sweeter.

. . . . . . . . . .

In Finnish mythology, Tuoni is the god of the underworld, Tuonela, and his wife is Tuonetar, the Queen of death and the underworld. Together they rule over the underworld and when the dead arrive to their kingdom, they are their kind hosts and are delighted to offer their guests a tankard full of frogs and worms. They're also the parents of four daughters, Loviatar, Vammatar, Kipu-tytto and Kivutar.�

Vammatar is the Finnish goddess of pain, disease and
suffering, other versions have her as the
goddess of all evil and misfortune.

Loviatar (alternative names Loveatar, Lovetar, Lovehetar, Louhetar, Louhiatar, Louhi) is a blind daughter, and she was said to be the worst of them all. She was impregnated by wind and gave birth to nine sons, the Nine diseases. In some poems, she also gives birth to a tenth child who is a girl.

She is mentioned in the 45th rune of the Kalevala as follows;

The blind daughter of Tuoni,

Old and wicked witch, Loviatar,

Worst of all the Death-land women,

Ugliest of Mana's children,

Source of all the host of evils,

All the ills and plagues of Northland,

Black in heart, and soul, and visage,

Evil genius of Lappala,

Made her couch along the wayside,

On the fields of sin and sorrow;

Turned her back upon the East-wind,

To the source of stormy weather,

To the chilling winds of morning.

When Elias L�nnrot compiled Kalevala, he made Loviatar and Louhi
two different characters. However, in the old folk poems the names are
often used interchangeably. Some poems specify Louhi as the mother of
the Nine diseases and others give Loviatar the title "Whore Mistress of Pohjola".� There is one difference between Louhi and the various forms of Loviatar in the poems. The Loviatar name family occurs only in spells where diseases are banished to go back to her, while Louhi occurs also in epic poems. She gives quests to heroes,and opposes Lemmink�inen in a spell contest. One hypothesis is that Louhi and Loviatar were regional names for the same goddess
and that the epic poems were composed in an area where Louhi was the
primary name. A large portion of the epic poems speak only about the
Mistress of Pohjola and don't call her by name at all.

Kipu-tytt� is the Finnish Goddess of illness. Kipu-tytt� sits on a pain rock at the spot where three
rivers meet in the underworld, and all of mankind�s diseases live
below. She slowly turns the rock, releasing them one at a time. In some spells Kipu-tytt� is said to cry. She is
depicted as a young woman with a pockmarked face, and she sings as she
sits on her rock, luring the ill with her song. Kipu-tytt��s name means
�pain girl� and she is also referred to as Tuonela's maiden. In the spells people ask for Kipu-tytt� to take their pains to the pain rock that has many holes in it, to put their pains inside the holes, for a rock doesn't cry of pain, doesn't complain of illness. These sorts of rocks can still be found all over Finland and Sweden, they are known as kuppikivi, cuprocks.

Loviatar, Vammatar and Kipu-tytt�.

MOT and Joukahainen

2011-01-19T04:04:36Z

I visited the Museum of Conemporary Art of Tokyo last sunday (16.01.2011) with my new acquaintance Tomoko-san.

The exhibition was named Transformations and artists such as Patricia Piccinini, Tunga, Bharti Kher and Sputniko! had their artworks on display amongst 17 other artists, all of them from 15 different countries.

Personally I liked Patricia Piccini's piece Newborn and Shahzia Sikander's traditional miniature paintings (watercolor and gouche).

The main thread of the exhibition was that the world is in constant transformation mode, from physical changes to the changes that happen in our minds and perseption of our surroundings. Bharti Kher's pieces, for me, achieved the concept of change, with his photographs and sculptures of human animal mutations.

There was also a second exhibition, Catalysis for Life New Language of DutchArt&Design.

I loved this one, because there were so many things you could get involved in yourself. Before entering the gallery we were given these small pieces of brick but we weren't told what for. After seeing pieces of furniture from Maarten Baas and a performance art video of people moving pieces of garbage like the pointers of a clock, we came to a labyrinth where you had to choose between two doors that had questions on them. The first doors had MAYBE and PROBABLY written on them, I chose probably. The next doors were TOGETHER and FOREVER, from forever I ended up at the doors saying SCREAMER and DREAMER. my end result was that my personality is a LONELY DREAMER (MAYBE). It was fun, especially when we came to Martijn Engelbregt's Restaurant 'Rest' piece, where 21 gardentables had been piled up together to form a sort of pyramid that you could climb on! Guess twice if I climbed it or not >v< (There was even a sign that politely asked you to climb on it).

There was also a market stand that had all these humorous items you could buy for your neighbour, there was this one cd that you could get your neighbour and kindly ask them to play it as loud as possible so you could listen to it too through the wall.

So, finally the mystery of the small piece of brick that was given to us at the beginnig of the exhibition was revealed. There was a pile of the small bricks built by everyone who had visited, everyone could write a message on their brick and place it on top of the rest of the brickpile!

My other favorite was that there was a small room full of information on mythological creatures, pop culture icons and caharacters, advances on technology and so on that had somehting to do with the concept of change and transformation.

When we had taken our time in the exhibitions, we went to the gift shop, I bought a few cards from the transformation exhibition, since photographing wasn't allowed and I bought these tiny animation books, you flip the pages really fast to see the images move!

I had so much fun and yesterday when I was getting lunch with Mami, we drove past the museum, I had noidea it was so close to my work, maybe a ten minute walk or so!

I'll definitely go there again, just to see the park at least.

. . . . . . . . . .

In the Kalevala, Joukahainen is Aino's brother and the rival of the main character, V�in�m�inen. After losing a singing contest, he promises his sister Aino
to V�in�m�inen, but she drowns herself rather than marry him.
Joukahainen, still envious of V�in�m�inen, then shoots the stag of his
rival from under him, plunging him into the waters of Pohjola.

Joukahainen has many names in the Finnish folklore, such as Joutavoinen, sometimes his name isn't even mentioned and he is referred to as Lappalainen.

When Elias L�nnrot
compiled the Kalevala, in his travels as many other poem gatherers, they would hear of poems about Joukahainen and V�in�m�inen having been rivals since the dawn of time during the creation of the world. One of the common stories on the creation of earth, is that the Lappalainen hated V�in�m�inen and stalked him. V�in�m�inen is riding on the water and Lappalainen shoots him down into the ocean. Some stories go even further back in events. In those stories V�in�m�inen and Joukahainen are siblings and they journey on together, but drift apart and start fighting each other. V�in�m�inen wins but the bitter Joukahainen seeks revenge and shoots V�in�m�inen into the ocean. V�in�m�inen floats in the ocean, when a bird lays eggs on his knee. The eggs break and from them the world is born.

Elias L�nnrot
moved Joukahainen's and V�in�m�inen's singing battle to more natural surraundings and a time well after the world had been created.

Lemmink�inen

2011-01-18T03:30:18Z

Lemmink�inen or Lemminki is a prominent figure in Finnish mythology. He is one of the Heroes of the Kalevala,

where his character is a composition of several separate heroes of oral

poetry. He is usually depicted as young and good looking, with wavy

blonde hair.

The original, mythological Lemmink�inen is a shamanistic figure. In

the Kalevala, he has been blended together with epic war-heroes

Kaukomieli/Kaukamoinen and Ahti Saarelainen.

In one myth he drowns in the river of Tuonela (the underworld) in trying to capture or kill the black swan that lives there as part of an attempt, as Ilmarinen once made, to win a daughter of Louhi as his wife. In a tale somewhat reminiscent of Isis' search for Osiris, Lemmink�inen's mother searches heaven and earth to find her son. Finally, she learns of his fate and asks Ilmarinen

to fashion her a rake of copper with which to dredge her son's body

from the river of Tuonela. Thus equipped, she descends into the

underworld in search of her son. On the banks of the river of the

underworld, she rakes up first Lemmink�inen's tunic and shoes, and

then, his maimed and broken body. Unrelenting, she continues her work

until every piece of Lemmink�inen's body is recovered. Sewing the parts

together and offering prayers to the gods, the mother tries to restore

Lemmink�inen to life, but succeeds only in remaking his body, life is

still absent. Then, she entreats a bee to ascend to the halls of the

over-god Ukko

and fetch from there a drop of honey as ointment that would bring

Lemmink�inen back to life. Only with such a potent remedy is the hero

finally restored.

Books and the story of Kullervo

2011-01-15T08:53:55Z

I've been dying to visit a bookstore here in Japan, I finally found a
few big ones that also sell english titles, for example one in
Akihabara and one in Harajuku. I think I'll visit the one in Harajuku
first, since I've gotten used to walking around there and am starting
to remember the mainstreet pretty well. I'd like to find some haiku
books, and something to get for my high school. Childrensbooks would be
pretty easy to read and they'd have illustrations too, I find the
pictures and stories in Japanese childrenbooks to be so adorable. My
friends friend in my share house had a baby and my friend bought a
childrens book for them to read when the baby gets older. Another one
of the people in the share house read the book fo me, it was about two
mice who found a huge egg and cooked it, it was cute.

. . . . . . . . . .

In the Kalevala Kullervo is the ill-fated son of Kalervo. He is the only irredeemably tragic character in Finnish mythology.

Kulervo's story begins with his father, Kalervo, who becomes enemies with the Untamo family.
Eventually Untamo's men kill Kalervo's troops and entire family. Only a
maid is alloved to live and taken in as a slave for the Untamo's. But
soon enough the maid gives birth to Kalervo's son, Kullervo. Kullervo
is put to work, but he proves incabable to do the chores he is given.
Untamo's try to kill Kullervo, but they can't, because Kullervo's
latent magical powers protect him.

Kullervo is sold to ilmarinen, who puts him to work as a shepherd, but
Ilmarinen's evil wife, the daughter of Louhi, bakes a stone inside
Kullervo's bread. Kullervo brakes his knife, his only memnto of his
father, on the stone when tyring to cut his bread. Kullervo is enraged
and he curses her to be killed by bears and wolves along with the
livestock.

Kullervo runs away, and a woman dresed in a blue cape tells him that
his family is still living. Kullervo finds his family, but thinks that
her sister is still missing. After trying to work, he still fails at
his chores, and is thus sent to pay the taxes. On his way back home, he
stumbles apon a maid and seduces her. But it turnsout that the maid is
his lost sister. Ashamed the sister jumps in a rapid and drowns.
Kullervo returns home ashamed.

The now desperate and selfdestructiveKullervo goes to wage a war
campaign in Untamola, and is saddened that the only person to moarn his
fate is his mother. On his war campaign, Kullervo find's out one by one
about his family members dying. After destroying the Untamo family,
Kullervo returns to his empty family farm. He says to his sword that it
has drunk much of innocent blood and that now it shall have the blood
of a guilty, then he kills himself with the blade.

Kullervo's Death poem is one of the most famous poems in the Kalevala.

Jan 12/11

2011-01-14T08:21:19Z

Japanese TV ( as many other things ) is very different from the format we have in Europe. I like to watch it though there are very little things I understand, so I turn to internet tv for Finnish or English shows. But the only thing I've been able to watch from Finnish internet TV is the news.. Apparently I can't watch Finnish copyrighted programs here in Japan.

. . . . . . . . .

Louhi, also known as Pohjola's Mistress, is the main villain in The Kalevala epic. She rules the cold land of the north known as Pohjola,

where the enemies of the Kalevala people reside.

She is said to be the birthgiver of deseases, such as the plague.

In Finnish folklore she is also known as Louheatar, the ancestress of wolves and the mother of nine deseases.

Louhi is described as a witch, a leader with immense magical powers; she can change her physical form, order the weaher, change the rotation of the sun and the moon, heal and give birth to different creatures. She is also known to take the form of a gian bird Kokko, lifting her arriers to travel on her back when her warship had crashed.

In Kalevala Louhi promises to give Seppo Ilmarinen her beautiful daughter if he constructs for her a magical artifact, Sampo,
that would bring good fortune to its holder. When the Sampo was stolen, it
is said that Ilmarinen's homeland fell upon hard times and sent an
expedition to retrieve it, but in the ensuing battle it was smashed and
lost at sea. As vengence, Louhi moves the sun and the moon from it's place and steals fire from the people of Kalevala.

Seppo the eternal blacksmith

2011-01-11T08:33:45Z

I'd like to learn how o cook Japanese food, it tastes so good and is mostly very healthy.. I wonder i they hve cooking class for foreign dummies here in Tokyo?

. . . . . . .

Seppo Ilmarinen is the hero blacksmith of finish mythology, with
godlike qualities. He was given birth by lady Iro in the night and
already in the day Ilmarinen had built himself a workshop. Ilmarinen
forged in the beginning of time the sky so well, that you couldn't even
see the seams or hear troublesome noise from his hammering. Ilmarinen
also crafted the aurora borealis, and the morning and night colors of the sky. It was
also believed that Ilmarinen invented the making of fire with sparks
and iron.

In Kalevala, Seppo lives in Vainola. There he forges many
objects, such as the sampo, the golden woman and he also tries to forge
the sun and the moon.

Macaroni Casserole, Hanamaki and Aino

2011-01-07T07:47:47Z

Yesterday I decided to be very Finnish in my cooking and thought of making oven� macaroni casserole for dinner.

I bought all the ingredients and checked on the internet that I remembered how to cook the dish.

I got back to the share house, pumped up and ready to go only to have my dream of eating

macaroni casserole burn flat when I found out our kitchen doesn't have any oven pots. I had to settle for making pancakes.

Today I'll buy an oven pot if I can find one!

. . . . . . .

It was very refreshing when we arrived to Japan from the cold sunless winter Europe when we were greeted by the afternoon sunshine.

Our group was the first to arrive in Japan, followed in the next six hours by the other four groups.

Our first adventure in Japan was the metro and train system. First because there is so much more train traffic and lines here in Japan compared o Finland, we didn't know the lines,

so everything was quite confusing. We just ran after Chieko-sensei, the only person ho knew the way!

After a long train ride to Hanamaki, we arrived at our hotel late in the evening. Even though we were very tired from our travels,

we still had energy and andrenaline to spare and stay up to chat and look around the hotel. Though I was excited, I still fell asleep

as soon as my head hit the pillow. I hadn't had such a good nights sleep for the last three months!

. . . . . . . .

There are many leading ladies in the Kalevala, one of them is Aino.

Her story begins with her brother, Joukahainen, envying the fame of V�in�m�inen. Joukahainen decided to challenge V�in�m�inen to a sword fight and

went on to look for him, until he ran into V�in�m�inen after three days. V�in�m�inen wouldn't agree to fight Joukahainen with swords and came up

with a better way for them to find out which of them was the better man. They had a battle of enchantments, and V�in�m�inen won, singing Joukahainen

to the swamp. To save himself from drowning, Joukahainen offered his sister, Aino, to be V�in�m�ise's wife. Aino's and Joukahaise's mother was thrilled

of the prospect of having such a famous groom in the family, but Aino when hearing the news burst into tears, she did not want to mary someone so much

older than herself. Aino travelled to the ocean, and went swimming to see the water maidens better, whom were beconning her to join them. Aino sat on

a rock but the rock sank and Aino went with it. Aino drowned but began a new life as a fish. Aino's mother cried so much from losing her daughter, that

three rivers were born from her tears. V�in�m�inen went to look for Aino, and caught her while fishing. He didn't know the fish to be Aino, and let it go.

Happy new year

2011-01-05T02:33:34Z

I received a postcard from my mother today, it said to take care; a nice way to start my morning.

On the 30th of December I went to spend New Years at my co-workers, Ms. Akiyama's family home. I was very happy to spend time

with them and to get to see how the new year is welcomed here in Japan. I was suprised at how quiet the

change from 2010 to 2011 was. The temples ringed the bells and then I was expecting huge cheers at midnight,

but instead everyone prayed quietly or kept on doing what they were doing. In Finland we have fireworks and people cheer

very loudly, the new year is welcomed with congratulations and huge roars, so it was nice to see a different way of doing things,

it felt very peaceful and harmonious to spend The New Years the Japanese way.

The family ate together and we went to the Narita Temple, all of these customs reminded me of how we spend Christmas

in Finland. In Finland Christmas is a family holiday, New Years is a couples holiday, here in Japan it's vise versa!

On Christmas we clean our homes and prepare a family feast and on Christmas midnight we go to Christmas church.

My second time visiting Narita-san

Here is a new years picture of Akiyama's family and moi, they dressed me up in a kimono '//v//'

It was suprisingly warm and comforable!

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About Kalevala part 2

The creation of the world in the Kalevala takes place in more than 50 years and it's final stage begins with the birth of V�in�m�inen, a logos, a man withwisdom and eternal age. The saga begins with the Ilmatar simply being bored of her eternal flight in the skyes, so she decides to take herself down to the ocean and lay there. But Ilmatar is impregnated by the ocean waves, and is in burning pain after seven years of carrying V�in�m�inen in her voomb. Then after her cry of help to Ukko the god of sky and thunder, a Common Golden eye decendes from the heavens, looking for a place to lay her eggs. But as there is only the wast sky and the wast ocean, the Common Goldeneye can't find a nesting place. Then Ilmatar offers her knee to the bird and mistaking the knee for a piece of fresh moss, she lays six golden eggs and one iron egg on Ilmatar's knee. Time passes and laying still had grown irritable to Ilmatar, she moves a little and the eggs fall down from her knee and brake.The pieces of the eggs become the sun, the night sky, clowds and the earth. After ten years Ilmatar continues to further shape the earth, growing trees and shaping bays and rocks, by stepping rolling and touching the earth.

Ilmatar offers her knee for the Common Goldeneye to lay her eggs on.