Things that have made me smile recently

I'm currently on my way to Penang as we are going to conduct a workshop there. On the way I stopped for one day in Ipoh. Ipoh is famous for its old town so I of course went there. The funny thing is that it looks to me exactly the same as the new town in Ipoh. Guess which ones of the following pictures are from old town and which ones from new town:






Right answer: first two are from old, last two from new town. Maybe you have to be more used to Malaysian architecture to see the difference. And I'm just learning to distinguish Asian people's faces... Maybe distinguishing old and new buildings is the next step...

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I made a donation to a buddhist-chinese temple just because they have a donation bell that they ring every time somebody makes a donation. Every charity should learn something about this :)



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One day in Kuala Lumpur I didn't have enough cash for train ticket so I jumped on the back of the train and held tight:


NO, NO, of course this is not true! Please don't believe and get worried :)
I was at the last wagon and took the video through the window...

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One evening we took the most social taxi I've ever seen. It can fit 6 people and the chairs in the middle can be turned so that everybody can sit in a half circle.



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Now that I get to visit a lot of schools as part of my job, I have also a chance to enjoy motivational quotes that they seem to love to put up to inspire students:

Pakko olla kaunis

Vaikeat ihmiset ja ympäristön kiinailmiö

Moottoripyörät, kananjalat ja sademetsät

Becoming a MyAIESEC.net champion

Although I'm on an internship far away, I am still in the National Support Team of AIESEC in Finland. So I'm using a couple of evenings per week for long-distance AIESEC stuff. The hardest thing about it is to meet people on Skype...I still haven't managed to have a single meeting. The best thing is that now I'm activated to learn new things that I used to keep postponing, such as making a WIKI look nice.

All AIESECers, please go and see the AIESEC in Finland projects WIKI and leave a message in the message box at the end of the page. For those who don't have MyAIESEC.net account I can say that there are e.g. pictures of Global.Me and Be a Change projects:

What's behind the AIDS epidemic?

Why am I in Malaysia?
Why is HIV an issue here?
Would the world be better without AIDS?
Watch and comment a video about my thoughts in our project blog!
And don't forget to comment :)

Me after 2,5 weeks of internship

People have said to me: "Meri, you should go for internship abroad because it will change you so much!" Now that I've been here for two weeks I still find myself pretty much the same person, but the magic of it is that I see that person in a new perspective. So I would like to tell some things about myself from this perspective. You can read the rest of this post is in our project blog here.

Terveisiä Suomesta

Oon tällä viikolla melkeen ajatellu, että voisin huijata että oonki Suomessa, vaikkei kukaan tiedä. Ensinnäkin, yhtenä päivänä söin makaronilaatikkoa, siis todella MAKARONILAATIKKOA!

Paikalliseen tapaan söin sitä kyllä aamiaiseksi. Täällä syödään samoja ruokia aamulla, päivällä ja illalla, yleensä riisiä mutta vaihtoehtoja löytyy. Huomasin että täällä tehdään myös lumihiutale-ikkunakoristeita.

Löysin myös ekokaupan, joka on Ruohonjuuren tapaan täynnä yksittäispakattuja luomutuotteita. Olin kyllä aika vaikuttunut, kun olin luullut, ettei Aasiassa kukaan ostaisi sellaisesta.

Weekend trip to Cameron highlands

You can find more pictures of the trip in the blog of one of my new friends:

http://matgeos.blogspot.com/

Työasioita HIV:n ja islamin kanssa