South Manhattan with the water taxi

Day 3’s first mission was to get to Wall Street to take a look at the Financial District. We had a little, funny incidence when changing the subway at the Grand Central Station as Ville wasn’t able to jump into the train and was forced to wait for the next one. I, Matti and Lauri thought we’d be before Ville at the Wall Street but our train didn’t go that far and we had to wait for another line and in the meanwhile Ville had taken a faster line about which we weren’t aware of. At Wall Street we still thought we were there before him but it was actually the opposite way.. We also met Olli and Maiju there who were coming from Brooklyn and continued with them walking around South Manhattan. After a while we crabber a quick snack before taking the water taxi to the West Side Manhattan via the Statue of Liberty. We certainly were very lucky with the weather because the whole morning time the sun was shining from a blue sky and it was quite warm as you can see from pictures below J

We jumped out from the ferry next to the Intrepid aircraft carrier from the cold war era. It is a museum today and we decided to visit it since it’s also included in the New York Pass. The tour contained also a submarine from the same area and on the carriers deck there were several fighter planes and military choppers.

After the tour it was time to eat and we found a great Italian restaurant that served big but pretty cheap meals. With full stomachs we headed to the NHL Store at the Avenue of the Americas but I have to say that I was a bit disappointed in it. I was expecting it to be a huge store offering a wide range of items but it was much smaller that I thought and none of us found anything worth of buying. Today we wanted to visit shops and we continued our unsuccessful shopping spring to Macy’s, the biggest mall in the world.. At first we didn’t even find men’s section but finally we managed :D Although it was huge we thought it would be wiser to wait until we get to the outlet center in California and only Ville and Matti did actually buy something. After Macy’s we headed back to our hotel after a long day and lots of hurting legs to rest for the coming days.. 

Top of the Rock

After some small departure delays at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport (our first flight to Berlin took off almost an hour after planned) we reached JFK on time on Monday at 1pm and headed to the security check. We certainly weren’t the only people there and had to stand in the queue for an hour before we got out to breathe the American air and catch a cab to drive us to our hotel in Queens.. We did only let our luggage in our room and headed to the closest subway station and drove to Times Square to find Olli and Maiju who had come to NYC already on Friday. First mission for us was to find a decent place to eat since we were starving although the airplane meals were surprisingly good. TGI Fridays’ burgers tasted good but the bill was pretty high which we weren’t aware of before eating J 

After lunch it was time to walk up the 5^th Ave for a while and have a first look at the New York skyline. The only place we visited on the first eve was the new Apple Store. We all were amazed by the size of store and the fanatic iPeople in the States! I think there were at least 50 salesmen and it looked like that many customers were spending the evening playing games on the iPads.. Because we woke up already before 4am in Finland that morning, we were pretty tired and exhausted after the long journey so we decided to head back to our hotel to get a decent amount of sleep to get rid of jet lag.

On the second day we stood up quite early after a cold but well-slept night. We wanted to experience the skyline from the skies so we went to the Rockefeller Center observation deck. Below you can find a few pictures from the deck and gotta say that the view was breathtaking!

With the New York tourist passes we got also a free, guided tour around the Rockefeller Center and Plaza. It was cool to hear some interesting details about several things around the buildings and their details. After the tour we went to visit the American Museum of Natural History. It was way too big and versatile for a 2-3 hour tour and we didn’t spend much time in wondering details J

Being a tourist is a tough job and we wanted to relax for a while and thanks to the museums wi-fi we found easily a pub located in the neighborhood which had a happy hour during the whole day-time so we went to grab a couple beers and relax for a while before continuing. After Top of the Rock we wanted to visit the Empire State Building during the evening so we headed there. Though the view was amazing in the sunny morning, it was even better in the dark as you can see in the pictures below! 

Tomorrow it's on!

Wow, the day has arrived! Tomorrow morning it’s time to catch the plane at Helsinki-Vantaa and fly via Berlin to New York’s JFK. I remember how far away this day seemed to be that one early summer day as we bought our tickets J and now it’s here.. I have a bit mixed feelings at the moment because on the other hand I’m excited that the journey is now beginning but I’m also sad cause I just had to say goodbye to my sweet S. But fortunately she’s coming to Shanghai to visit me in a couple of months which I’m looking forward to! But now it’s time to wait for the boys to come here and spend the evening hanging here together and in the morning it’s off to New York! See you Finland again in the summer.. 

Feelings before takeoff

I'm waiting extremely excited for my exchange year since I've been looking forward to having such a chance for many years already. During the upper comprehensive school I spent with my parents 3 years in Germany and after that I've known that I wanna live outside Finland in the future too. And now I have the chance to do it, so I'm pretty stoked! I've been asked several times in the past few weeks if I'm anxious or scared about moving to Shanghai. No I'm not, I don't know if I should be afraid or whatsover but I'm just excited of experiencing a completely different country and culture from that what I'm used to.. 

Of course there will be some issues that might cause problems for us at the beginning but I'm sure we'll handle those things well, and we're not alone there. There will be around 50 students with us who will need help just like us in managing some regular arrangements like getting a mobile subscription etc..Our study program is starting at the beginning of February and we don't have a accommodation in Shanghai yet, and it looks like that we have to wait until we get there. Fortunately, we've been in contact with a agency which is able to provide some apartments for us to look at and hopefully we find a decent crib to live in for the coming six months :) We were also told that we should receive a list of all the participants on this program by mid December - Nothing yet - but since the university is a French one, there's no need to be worried about some delays related to compromised days and deadlines :) but that list would certainly help us because there are many other students dealing with the same problems and roommates are always welcomed! 

But now it's time for Christmas and the New Year's celebrations, so we'll see us again next year.. Happy Holidays from rainy Finland!

Visa & Vaccinations

The journey has still not begun but I’m writing again since I’m having pretty much free time and there are so many things which need to be done before the plane takes off.. Well, I’d use this free time also by reading for my last exam which is in about two hours but I felt writing a new blog post is more useful. I might think otherwise in couple of hours :D Going to China for a long period of time means a lot of vaccinations as we are planning not only to hang around in Shanghai for the six months but also travelling around China and hopefully around Thailand and Malaysia etc. too. Necessary vaccinations are for example hepatitis, Japanese encephalitis, cholera, typhoid fever which are certainly not cheap. I’ve paid over 500 euros in total for all of these but I wanna travel a lot in the coming months without having to have any concerns about my health.   

Another not too easy mission is to get the Chinese Visa. The Embassy in Helsinki is open only 2,5 hours per day, so for people not living in Helsinki it's quite difficult to deliver the Visa application, especially as the embassy doesn’t accept mailed or e-mailed applications for some reason. Luckily for me, my mother was very helpful and not only was able to deliver my application but she’s also going to pick it up once I get the Visa approval. For some reason they don’t allow any Visas for multiple entries to China in Finland, so we have to continue dealing with our Visa affairs also in Shanghai before our first trips outside China. And by the way, we had the exam in our Chinese course on Friday - nailed it! Having studied Chinese for around 3 months now, I must admit that it's the most difficult language I've ever tried to learn :) but motivation is the key and I hope I'll be capable of speaking and understanding some simple sentences when we get to Shanghai..

USA Trip

I caught the blog fever! Can’t wait until I could actually write about something interesting and relevant issues but I’m gonna tell a bit about our plans in the States. We’re flying with Air Berlin from Helsinki via Berlin to JFK and from there it’s time to search our almost five star penthouse suite. We booked a double king size bedroom from Howard Johnson Express Inn Hotel in Queens. The only criteria we had when booking the accommodation were cheap price and a decent location near the subway. 

As you can see, it’s not the best possible hotel but it fits to our needs pretty well. We also bought the New York City Passes in beforehand, as they were $25 cheaper when buying those via Internet in November. With those passes we have free entries to most of the must see sightseeing places for tourists and what’s even better is that we don’t have to stand in the queues that long as without the passes.

As already mentioned from NYC our journey will move on to the West Coast. We have rent a car for the 14 days we’re going to travel there. If we get what we were promised when making the reservation, we should get a fancy Chevrolet Impala which hopefully is big enough for us 4 and our luggage. Besides the car, we booked a hotel for the first 3 nights in LA and also tickets to the Ducks vs. Coyotes NHL game in Honda Center. I’m really hoping that the Ducks will improve their game compared to what they’ve presented so far during the season and of course we’re counting on our countrymen Selänne, Koivu, Lydman and Hagman! After 3 or 4 days in LA we’re driving down to S.D. for a couple of days to hang around and after that it’s gambling time! Off to Las Vegas :D It might be a wise decision to skip the casinos but hey, once we get there we have to give a shot and experience the casino lifestyle! Since our accommodations in other cities aren’t any 5 star hotels, we allowed us to book a little bit better and more luxurious hotel in Vegas. We ended up with booking a room from the Stratosphere Hotel with a hopefully awesome view to downtown Vegas! 

Nevertheless, compared to the prices in LA or S.F. the hotels in Vegas were pretty cheap, so we’re paying only around $25 each for one night despite the pretty decent hotel.. But we’re not gonna hang the whole time in the casinos cause we all want to see the Canyons and we’ve got one day booked completely for that.. After Vegas we don’t have that many plans, most certainly we’re going to drive to San Francisco with a one stop strategy and spend a night somewhere between these cities, maybe in Reno, the little brother of Vegas.. But I will definitely keep you informed about our adventures and hopefully with some cool pictures too..

Time to start blogging

Okay fellas! Time to start writing a blog about my journey as an exchange student in Shanghai. Maybe I’d begin with a short introduction of who I am. Originally I’m studying in Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland. It’s my 4^thyear now and my major is Industrial Marketing and International Business. Since the begin of my studies I’ve wanted to spend a half year minimum somewhere outside Europe as an exchange student. At first I was planning to go to the States but during last year I increasingly started to consider China as my potential target country and eventually ended up applying into a French Business school called ESSCA, which has a campus in Shanghai focusing on Marketing and the Supply Chain in the Asian environment. If you wanna find out more about the program, here’s a link to  ESSCA Shanghai Program web page. At first I planned to write this blog in Finnish but since we live in a international, multilingual global world I’m writing in English. At least for the most part…

Because the Finnish semester ends already in December and the studies in Shanghai are starting in the early February I’ll be travelling around USA with three friends of mine in January. One of these guys, Ville, is also coming to Shanghai and the other guys will spend the next six months in Kuala Lumpur and Auckland. So the coming blog posts will most probably deal with our journey in the States. We’re going to visit New York first for around 8 days and from there we’re flying to L.A.where we rent a car and travel around California and Nevada. Some must visit places beside LA are San Diego, San Francisco and Las Vegas.. Maybe this is long enough for the first post, so let’s see how our little adventure will go:D