Student Village - Where I Live

I just want to share how incredible my hostel is. If you want me to list the reasons why I don't want to go back, Student Village will probably in the TOP 3.

View of student village block from sauna room.

Let's start with the location. It locates just next to the university area, and as you know their university don't really sticks to a compound, it scatters everywhere in the town and you could hardly tell is that a building for university or a shopping mall. Turku has three universities (as far as I know), University of Turku, Abo Akademi University and Novia University of Technology. These three kind of mix together and form a university area, then Student Village is just next to it. If walking to the building that I usually have class there, 20 minutes are more than enough. Student Village is quite big, i mean, really BIG. It has more than 60 buildings (I don't really count it) and divide into East part and West part, where my building located at West part, nearest to the university area and 12A is my building, and I love it so so much, I will explain later.

The map of Student Village, and the orange one is the block

Inside the Student Village, we have different kind of apartment to choose, some is for families where you can rent the whole house, some is double room, and mine is single room. There are a lot more, but I could not really differentiate them through the appearance, they looks alike from outside. Not to mention, there is a tall building looks much more like an office building than residence building, but it actually is an apartment... I really wish I could go in there and have a look what is the difference with mine.

This one looks so magnificent... like an office building haha

The yellow one is my block, and i live at the highest floor. The small extra floor top there is sauna room

In front of the entrance of the block, you can lock your bike here, My bike is the white one with basket, nearest to the door.

It also has a small convenient store named K-mini market which you can get most of your groceries and daily need product here, but the price is almost double if you compare to Lidl or S-market near the Kauppatori. I am glad they have it because when you first arrive, especially a timid one like me, will rather spend some money than go far away to a place where I have no confident not to get lost when coming back, also, if the snow was heavy and almost impossible to walk that far, this store will safe you.

K-market opens everyday from 10am to 10pm

Beside K-market is a student bar... where they sell cheap beers

Another service such as laundry, storage space, parking lot and sauna etc are provided, although not every block will have one, but they make it as fair as possible, such as if your block have sauna, then you won't have laundry and so on. Every block will have three floors, and each floor will have 12 rooms. For my floor, I know almost half of them, and the rest are just seldom meet, rather meet only once since I come here, or never meet. I just wonder do they really exist...

By the way, the reasons I like my block so much got two. First is the sauna. I could hardly describe how incredible the sauna is, it is just fantastic! The sauna located at the top of the building (which is just one floor above mine, perfect!), and only 10 blocks have that, and lucky that is my block!!! Hahahahaha.... I don't really care about laundry because I wash by hands... You have to book a time for your sauna, and you can only book four times per month. Here's the tips, you can book and invite your friends to come, so if you have four friends, that means you can go 16 times a month. Every session last for one hour and I feel that is great, Although I didn't bring any watch or clock inside, but every time I feel "that's it" it is almost one hour. The rest of the time you can take shower and relax. When you go upstairs, and open the door, you can see a lobby-like room, or you can say waiting room? There are hooks for you to hang your coats if you have one, and high stools and tables for you to dry your hair maybe. There is a mirror too, and it is quite spacious. I guess we can have a sauna party here and bring some liquor and dance there. Then there is a glass divider, and there is shower room, and an attached toilet with door (of course!). It is wide and spacious, almost like my room. And next to it is a glass door, and there is sauna. I feel like it can fit the whole floor inside and there will be some space left. The temperature does not really get too hot, so you can pour a lot of water inside the rock heater actually.

The door to sauna!

This is 'lobby' i could say... the place where you hang you coat or put you stuff on the table at left hand side. On the right hand is the door to shower room

This is the door to shower room

Inside the shower room is wide, but only got one shower head. Right hand side is toilet and in front is the door to sauna room.

It might looks small, but once you get in here, you will feel how big it is for a sauna room. 

The second reason why I like my block is... it is quiet!!!! This is so damn important when you live here, because they can have party until 4am and you won't be able to sleep before that if they have party at your floor. Luckily i don't have this problem because most of the parties at 10A, 3B or 3C, and 10A party I could say it is the most high frequent and craziest, two times get caught by security guard.

Then about my room. It has a small entrance to put my shoes and coats, and a toilet plus shower room, divided by a curtain. A fridge, cabinet, wardrobe, bed, table and chairs, book racks, mirror, table lamp and a heater. I feel like it is as big as the room one in UPSI hostel, and not to mention the room is for two. You just need to bring your own blanket and pillow here, but the previous resident left me a blanket. Every floor will have one common kitchen where you can cook or have party here! The kitchen is well-equipped with all the tools you need, two oven, one microwave, two electric stoves which can put 8 pots at a time, a toaster, a coffee maker, a lot of plates, spoon, knifes, forks, pots, pans, whisker, blender, wine glass, table and chairs, cabinet for each room and many more! Sometimes we even study in the kitchen...

This is what you will see when entering the kitchen

It is quite spacious for a kitchen in hostel

Now I want to say the little bit cons of living here, and it is hard to find one because it is so perfect for me. Still I manage to find two, if that consider as cons... First is the door. The door is so hard to open, and I still remember how panic I am when I was unable to open my door and I thought I will be stuck in my room forever. The door knob is so hard to twist, and every time my hand hurts after I try to open it. Now I know, I have to twist it and kick it at the same time to open that stupid door. Next is if you lost you key cards or left it in your room (we don't use key, we use cards just like hotel), you can get a temporary card for one week if it is working hour, but if it is off-working hour, you still can dial the 24/7 number, but they will charge you 58 euros for that. It is not worth at all, and most of us will choose to stay in friends' room for a night if next day is working day, or for three nights if you lost your card on Friday after working hour. God bless.

Don't lost the key cards. You need this to open three doors, the main door to enter the floor, your room, and the kitchen door

12 Facts of Finland

I am just gonna summarize what I feel about Finland after about a month staying here. It might be stereotype that I am not aware of, but this is just my personal opinion towards Finland! I say that no one will tell you about some small facts because they don't find it weird of worth talking about, but I myself find it might cause some inconvenient if we don't know it beforehand.

1. The sun are somewhat rare to spot especially in winter, it is 50/50 chances
I remembered the first time i spotted the sun is after one week I'd been in Finland, and we were so excited to take the picture of the sun and shared it among the exchange students in Finland. Mostly the weather here (winter) is cloudy or gray, the day time is still as bright as normal, but you just can't find where the sun is.

2. The snow is cute, but evil too
Before this, I never encounter snow before, hence for us (or maybe just me?) snow is often associate with romantic, pretty, fluffy(?)... as you can see, it is all positive traits. Well, indeed I still love snow now, yet when I think of the icy road that appear after snow melts, it never fail to upset me. I wonder HOW can local people walk so fast and even walk with high heels on the ice, while I fell frequently in a winter boots. The road is an ice skating park for me, especially when the road incline up or down, either one is worst! And I live in Turku which build along the hills, it is normal to have incline road than a flat one. I can say that I was actually sliding rather than walking.

3. Finns are cold, but helpful
This is from what I observed and also personal experience. What will you do (or people in your country) when someone is falling? Well, perhaps people will approach and ask "Are you ok?" such a typical questions, and reach out a helping hand. People in Finland just won't care to give help if you fall, they will have eye contact with you, to make sure you did not break your body somewhere, then they will walk away. Sounds terrible, right? But actually they are looking whether you ask for help or not. If you do, they will be very happy to help. Bare in mind that do not scared the Finns (*laugh*). If you suddenly approach them in fast speed or with a huge gang, they might feel terrified and eventually refuse to help because they are too scared. (in some cases, they will run away). Exception case is when they are in a bar/pub/party/disco/karaoke something like that, they will become more open and talkative, more easy to approach. If you want to have a real good start of friendship with Finns, you can start with party, and they do held a lot of parties during orientation week. In my opinion, Finnish speaking Finns are more reserved in some cases, and Swedish speaking Finns are more open and friendly. No matter what language they speak, once they know you, they are very kind and eventually the "coldness" disappear.

4. Self-study all the time
I know that the education system of Malaysia vary from Finland, but I don't exactly know how it actually varies, ...until I encounter it. Basically, the reference book I bought in Malaysia is just a decoration for my bookshelves, but in FINLAND, I would say I never been so hardworking before. The lecture is just like a summary of the chapter, so you need to revise it beforehand or otherwise you could not catch up the class. It is insane in Malaysia if we study three or four chapter in one lecture, but it is possible in Finland, because they just summarize it. When you go back your room, it is your responsibility to read it on your own. Besides, they will upload a few articles to read, and they won't inform you, you just need to check the portal often and read it on your own. In short: READ IT ON YOUR OWN!

5. They are so digital...
Everything in digital! They pay using cards rather than cash, even 1 euro of coffee. They scan the books in pdf and make it e-book, they make the library become e-brary and you lend and return the ebook just like how you do it with real book. Just a small fact: when you want to withdraw money from their ATM (they called it otto), you need to pay some charge. I am not quite sure how much, but it depends on the bank you have. On top of that, cash is still king. You can't pay cloakroom fee in a pub by card, you can't buy coffee from vending machine by card too. You can't pay travel fee if you follow student trip with ESN or any student organisation by card either. Despite all the digital access, cash will be so handy in some cases.

6. They use a lot of websites for academic purpose.
 In Malaysia or if only UPSI, we only have myguru for academic purpose, all the study materials of different subject are in one website, but in Finland, mostly use moodle (for abo akademi), but some use psykonet, some is nettiopsu... depends on the subject you are taking and the preference of the lecturer. Some of it even use a facebook group... so it is crucial for you to write down or at least memorize every password and account name for different website, or else you will be in trouble when you are lock out.

7. Flexibility of the course and also inflexibility
There are no "only one lecturer" for one subject, you could have two to five or more lecturers for one subject, and each of them represent different topic, so it is better for you to write down which lecturer are responsible for which topic, so that if you have any questions you can ask the correct lecturer. Their timetable (or maybe only Abo?) are not the same every week. This week I might have full class for the whole five days, but next week maybe just two classes on Tuesday. They are not very stick to one way of teaching, rather they substitute lecture to research seminar, self study and so on. Not as Malaysia, we can depends fully on lecture. Some of their subjects are not stick to the typical study duration, such as my social psychology, it started yesterday, and the last class is next monday. The duration of the class is only one week, more or less. Each of the subject works independent to each other, which means they do not have prior agreement in negotiating class schedule, so it is possible to clash courses, and here is where inflexibility is. In UPSI, you can negotiate with lecturer to change timetable if it clash with other subjects, or we are not satisfied with the time arrangement, but here it is a MCQ, you can only pick one and skip the another. More hurt is, sometimes the class you decided to skip the lecturer might have a test on that day. There is nothing called substitute test or late test, if you miss it, you missed it. You have to be good in organizing too, count correctly the number of class you skip per subject, or else you will be banned for exam.

8. They have two official language
Swedish and Finnish, depends on where you are, you need to know at least one of them if you want to live easier here. In Turku, Finnish are more than Swedish, but because my institute is Swedish based, so they use more Swedish in the school compound, but Finnish outside of the school. Their signboard is also in bilingual, so knowing one of them is enough. How to know which language is majority in your city? Simple, just look which language is the first one / at the top of any signboard.

9. They talk Finnish to you, although you look like a tourist
For them, it is consider rude if they assume you don't talk Finnish at the first hand, so they will try to talk Finnish to you even though they thinks you come from a different country. I feel offense a bit before I understand why they keep on talking Finnish to me when I look exactly like a typical Asian, so bare in mind that they do this because they respect you. You can say politely that you don't speak Finnish, and they will speak English. I tried to understand their language but judging the situation and content of the surrounding, and answer back using their language, this really helps and they will be so happy when you are able to response to them in their language. Basically, you can start with saying kittos every time, which means thank you, or in Swedish is tack. Or in the other case, they just don't want to talk English because they do not feel confident to their English, so they might refuse to talk to you in English. Do not assume they don't understand, they do, just don't want.

10. Buses are expensive
Yupe! For me it is expensive. For in-town bus, it costs you 3 euros no matter how long the journey takes, and the ticket last for 2 hours without any limit of transit. For long journey it counts according to kilometers, but you can get a cheaper one by Onnibus. From Turku to Helsinki cost about 4~8 euro depends on time section. Peak hours are more expensive and vice versa. Shockingly I never seen a motorbike here, the most common transport in Turku is bicycle, or walking hehe. Cars also have, but there are quite amount of place where you couldn't reached by car, only have pedestrian and bicycle track.

11. You won't die if you cross the road
Finland are so safe that even if you want to cross a road, you no need to pay much attention and you won't die (technically please check the road before crossing😁). It is written law that let pedestrian walk first before any vehicles, and the people follow it 100%. I tried to stand by the road and pretending I was going to cross the road, and every car that I had tested really stop in front of me and let me cross the road. Not to mention, bicycle stops too. I tried out in Helsinki also, and except highways, they still stop for you, even bus or lorry that are so difficult to accelerate back to the previous speed. So if you want to cross the road and you see a car is approaching, never mind, just cross, because even you want to wait for the car to pass before you cross, they will still stop and let you go first.

12. Salesman/Promoter are just nice
It is so annoying when you encounter any salesman or promoter on the streets and they keep on harass you while you still walking. You have to repetitively tell them "No, thank you" until you are in rage and tell them to get lost or begging them to let you go. In Finland, the first time when i spotted two promoter, I was thinking "Oh God not in Finland please." and I actually stood there and try to find a way to avoid them, but I realised that is the only way to supermarket and they are so clever to stand there. No choice, I accelerate and tried to avoid eye contact, but sooner one of them spotted me and smiled at me, waiting for me to jump in the trap. Miracle happens, when I waved my hand and tell them "No, thank you." they stepped back and said "Thanks." and continue looking for the next one. I was so impressed that they respect your will and so polite even they were rejected. So next time if you are in Finland, no need to be scared of promoter, they are just nice and respectful.