FINNISHED! / RokRokInc. travelling
A little vacation
Took a little vacation that has no end. This time my travels took me to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Before I left I made a whole bunch of jewelry for the web shop and took hundreds of pictures that I could edit then during my trip.
The trip was truly inspiring in many ways. Wonderful people and conversations, new perspective and colour inspiration and ideas. Here some best moments along the way.
Landing to Saigon.
How relaxing to cut feathers in this scenery!
Hue, Vietnam.
The most beautiful sunset. Otres Beach, Cambodia.
Cheers! Dalat, Vietnam.
An office day. Updating the web shop. Na Trang, Vietnam.
Missing something? Like a pair of earrings?
Angkor Wat, Cambodia.
Peacefullness. Hoi An, Vietnam.
Amazing colors! Phong Nha, Vietnam.
Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Festival sales in Ireland
And just like that I’m somewhere else again. This time at the Castlepalooza festival selling my jewellery. But guess where! Tip: see the earring colors.
Castlepalooza happens in the Charleville Castle in Tullamore, Ireland. The venue is awesome of course.
Club in the court yard, stages in the big ball room, camping behind the ruins, great acoustics and purposeless wandering in the castle yard. Was cool to think that here we were doing basically the same as the people having a ball more than two hundred years ago.
And here I tested the brand new UV-painted jewelry and they do work well. They are recycled leather as well but the paint glow really bright in UV-lights. Though they do look very cool even in the normal lights. And people really were exited about these ones...which made me very happy of course. AWSOME!
Vintage Shopping in Madrid
This is what I bought.
35€ for the jeans jacket and 15 € for the dress.
Alphaville
La Mona Cheeca
Williamsburg
Magpie
Kinda Kinks
Biba
Beer and Walking in Madrid
Madrid was awesome! I warmly recommend! Warm, good food, cool and vibrant city life, nice bars, party all night long, perfect gin tonics, and, and...
In a week we walked around the city with my cousin Ella all in all 90 km and took a beer here and there and everywhere.
We also met my local friends after 15 years and it was soooo great! Originally I met Emma and Fer back in 2000 when we all were working in London as summer workers in a hotel. It's amazing how fast time goes and in the end it seemed that no one of had changed so much. Except from the face of course. :D
Here in nutshell what we recommend: Spanish Bistro experience bar Palentino, hang out and eating in Malasaña, party in Chueca, vintage shopping in Calle del Pez in Malasaña, vino de verano in bar Coconut and menu del dia in any good restaurant (check out options in the Naked Madrid.)
But like always, I guess pictures tell it best.
The whole week was hot. At best +45 degrees!
Charming Malasaña!
Maaany beers. One here, there and everywhere.
Just a little swimming.
A lot of walking.
Interesting bar toilets (which I love).
We had strange problems with Spanish doors.
Our local guides Emma and Fer.
Rocking till early morning in Wurlitzer Ballroom!
Hearty food and cute cafés.
And of course second hand shopping!
(Check out vintage stores I visited in here.)
All in all we loved the city!
Nordic Tour
I dived into my summer holiday straight after my last work day at the office. Here's best part of my Nordic tour.
MIDSUMMER
I started my tour with a flight to Gothenburg where my friends Matti and Karin picked me up for a real Swedish Midsummer festivities in traditional scenery and atmosphere.
Maypole, anadems, campfire, grilling, potato salad, smoked salmon, pickled herring, strawberry cake, ice cream and and... And of course vodka shots and Swedish shot songs! And a nice add to all this: we got to see the traditional midsummer dancing in front of the maypole!
Vodka shots in front of the maypole.
Midsummer feast
Singing, shots and fruit cocktails.
Swedish pole dancing?!?
Not the biggest midsummer bonfire but a perfect campfire.
MALMÖ
After Midsummer I visited Matti and Karin's place in Malmö for a couple of days. With my usual efficiency I experienced the best of the city in two days: second hand shopping, old city and the beautiful walking path alongside the canal. Also the lively seaside walk was great. There I found for example a pier where I danced a little while some rumba in pleasurable company of wine drinking ladies.
My second hand leather jacket and dress. And chillin' on the Malmö seaside pier.
ROSKILDE
From Malmö the tour continued to the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. You already know how it is on a festival so no need to explain that. But noticeable in Roskilde compared to other European festivals is the good quality and tasty festival food.
First beer!
Not the ideal troposphere but the best atmosphere.
Our best buddies: Red...
...and Tuborg.
...In addition to previous, we did find also other new friends.
But all this we started with a bang.
Quick visit in Berlin
In the end of April I made a quick visit to Berlin to my dear friend Susa. It was perfect sunny days chatting, second hand shopping, drinking wine and eating delicious Berlin food. And I even had some time to relax and read a book in the sun.
Also, the first of May party in Kreutzberg was amazing! Tens of thousands of people on the streets, street art, music and party. Just the inspiration I needed.
Unlike Helsinki Berlin was green already.
Good coffee – good company – good mood!
Oh, there was a sofa just when I needed one.
Colour inspiration.
Second hand shopping in Dress Code, Berlin.
Ready to party just a little bit...
Night lights in Wild at Heart rock bar.
Oh my god what a burger at Burgermaister.
First of May party in Kreutzberg.
The Finnish dream team!
Good vibes at First of May party!
...Oh, I did some working as well. At Re:publica Ten.
Agreed!
Playing at the same playground.
Visit to Kemi
I had to make a quick visit to Kemi, my hometown for my great uncles funeral. I had only a couple of days time so I didn't have time to do much. But here some greetings from the Northern Finland!
I always go for a flea market tour in Kemi with my goddaughter Liisa who also is my official second hand clothing stylist who never says no to even crazy ideas...as long as they look good on me!
This time we only had like two hours and as you maybe very well know: that is totally not enough time. But I managed to find something though. A dress, two belts (one for using and one for the pyramid stud earrings) and cartoon clips for making maybe earrings.
Here's my home street in the midday sun. Finally light in the North as well. Really pretty indeed!
For RokRokInc. jewelry I got from my friend Raija some amazing stuff that she found from her storage. Take a look!
In the end I had also time for a couple of glasses of wine with in the moonlight that shone really bright that night.
Kemi is an coastal city in the Northern Finland. This is how it looks in the winter.
Summer 2015
Summer went by so fast – like always. I started my holidays with the UK tour that included: 1. partying with dear friends in London 2. partying with my better half in Glastonbury festival and 3. partying with great Glasgow-hunks in Scotland. Then we had visitors and some more visitors and a little more party and the long two months Finnish summer was gone. (By the way weather-wise it was the crappiest summer ever. Thanks god we at least happened to visit in the always sunny Scotland, haha.)
I didn’t have much time for RokRokInc. (In addition to that I found some great new materials from flea markets.) But now I’m starting to get back to normal life: work work, craft craft, work work, party
HIGHLIGHTS OF MY SUMMER
Enjoying Finland with several guests.
Crafting with my goddaughter.
Beautiful Scotland.
GLASTONBURY – FINALLY!
London baby yeah!
Prague
A couple of weeks ago I visited Prague for the second time. My first time was year 2002 right after the awful flooding disaster. Back then the river side was totally ruined and there was nothing there. This time the lively river side boulevard in the night time was the best part of the city.
It all happened so fast that night: after this picture the boulevard started rapidly to get full of cheerful people drinking wine and having fun. A Latino band of at least eight musicians was playing outside and local punk was played in one of the bar boats. Then you could feel "the wind" before a storm and soon everyone was running for shelter in the middle of flying objects. I've never felt a wind that strong and this night the thunderstorm was the strongest one this summer. Not only in Prague but also throughout Germany from Munich to Berlin.
Calm before the storm at the riverside boulevard in Prague on a Tuesday night in August.
I also found accidentally one really cute vintage shop in Prague. The Boho shop (Francouzská 76, Prague 10) was small and had a few nicely selected vintage dresses, belts and other stuff. They also had some quite nice upcycled accessories that would be perfect for a plain hipster style with subdued colors.
The charming Boho vintage shop in Prague, in the up-coming district of Krymská.
Second Hand Shopping in London
We visited London a while ago and of course I did some second hand browsing also there. So, what I found from London was two jackets. They both are from Brick Lane second hand markets. For the jeans jacket I paid faaar to much (£45) but for the army jacket I paid only £5. Still I'm happy about the jeans jacket as well because I finally found just the right material for my jeans vest. It is the right color, hardly used, small enough and of course Levi's. Bigger and more used ones I could have gotten for £20-25 but as I am so short legged I feel that tight upper part fits me better.
I seem to have this little perversion to 90's style. Maybe I am trying to feel like 15 years old forever. Anyhow, here's two new modification projects. ...As if I wouldn't have unfinished projects enough.
Around the Spitalfields and Brick Lane, as well as at the Camden Town Stable markets, you can find tens of second hand stores. But the thing with the vintage markets and shops in London is that they sell everything as vintage but actually most of them are just recycled clothing. But they surely always have vintage prices.
I found some cool stuff and of course some of the best items are real vintage. But I am totally not going to pay for used T-shirt £18 or square pattern shirt £20. Only the shoes were maybe in more sensible prices, it makes more sense to pay £20 for leather shoes than a pullover.
Street art somewhere around the Spitalfields/Brick Lane markets area.
London was darn cold so we ended up doing mostly bar hopping. We checked out maybe twenty bars in two and a half days. We found some good ones and popped in also in some shitty ones only because we were freezing and needed some warm up. All in all, many liters of beer consumed!
In the Paper Dress Vintage Bar/Boutique we found something very cozy and familiar: Löwenbräu beer! It seemed somehow that also other beers from Munich are in and hip right now. And of course, the RokRokInc. tape chain got some compliments!
About bar hopping in London I have to say that it is impossible and pointless to try to visit all the good ones at once since there are so many and they are so scattered around the city. Maybe it is still worth pinning some places to your map so that you can stop by if your way happens to pass some place.
HERE'S MY LIST OF ROCK BARS & GIG VENUES IN LONDON:
direction: SCHOREDITCH - ISLINGTON
Strongroom, Paper Dress Vintage, Roadtrip, The Relentless Garage, The Fallen Angel, Slim Jim's Liquor Store, Rattlesnake, Filthy MacNasty's, Islington Academy
direction: CAMDEN
The Underworld, Dingwalls, Black Heart, Elephants Head, Dublin Castle, The Hobgoblin, Purple Turtle, Boston Arms, Barfly, Joe's, Aces and Eights, The Blues Kitchen
In front of the Cargo Club...don't go in there.
