First set of photos uploaded
Hey, I promised to upload the photos taken so far. Well, there was 450 of them so I just picked 44 best ones of them for you to see. So go and view my latest photos and select the July 2006 folder to get a brief glance at my adventures in Sri Lanka.Happened so far... I was handling practicalities in Colombo for the first week: I got my health insurance just in case something happens and I need to go to hospital (something already happened, but didn't need to go... I'll tell ya later). I fixed myself a local bank account so that the salary could be paid there and I could use the local ATM card to withdraw money when necessary. Later I heard the salary is paid in cash and it seems pretty much everything here is handled in cash. Some restaurants and major stores accept a credit card (which I don't have), so there's a lot of cash moving around. Actually, they even have the old-fashioned account book where you mark all the withdrawals and deposits when visiting in the bank. That's just a one thing that makes me feel like traveling back in time. I also managed to get my residence visa and it took me only three visits to the immigration office. I knew that nothing would happen if I didn't demand quick delivery so I pushed, pushed and pushed and got it done within one day. As I was finally collecting my passport and visa at around 4 pm, I met one guy from UK who had been waiting there since 8 am and still didn't have his visa. Tourists, hah!
First weekend we - Sasha, Sam, Shek and I - went to Dambulla and Sigiriya. I didn't like Dambulla that much because in every corner people just tried to rip us off. Even the trishaw (tuk-tuk, three-wheeler... call it what you will) driver who at first seemed really helpful was actually just trying to make us visit shops and fruit stalls with whom he had "an arrangement" (getting money for bringing in customers). And I was so stupid that I even bought him an ice-cream because he was willing to wait for us while we were shopping for our groceries. Live and learn! Anywho, in Dambulla we saw the huge Buddha statue and the cave temples filled with Buddha statues and images (just check the pics). Sigiriya, on the other hand, was just amazing (even though there was a guide who just tagged along even though we didn't really want to use him). To climb the Lion Rock in Sigiriya takes 1200 steps, to get to the height of 350 meters. The views were just breathtaking! The story goes that back in the old days there was two palaces - one for winter and one for summer - and the king used to take turns living six months at a time in both... with 500 ladies. Not bad!
I have also tried to build up some kind of life in here... played football and basketball, shopped for some clothes (I have to wear long pants at work even though our company is not that strict on dresscode!!!) and strolled around the streets of Colombo to familiarize myself with the city.
Last weekend we hit the beach (maybe the best beach in this country, after Arugam Bay that's in the dangerous zone in the east) south of Sri Lanka, called Unawatuna. We arrived there late on Friday evening and around midnight we went from our hotel to the party place. We took the beach route although it was pitch-black. Everything went fine, the ocean was amazing under the star-filled sky... until the tidal waves came in and sloshed over us. Well, it was fun start for the weekend. Next day more trainees came there and we were basically trying to recover from last night's party. But the evening was so cool! Sifaan came there, we played two truths and a lie (some getting to know!) and just chilled at the beach. On Sunday morning I woke up early to go snorkeling with Rasmus. After 15 minutes of snorkeling I took a break and when I went back to water I hurt my foot on a sea-urgin (merisiili in Finnish). That kind of spoiled the rest of the trip but at least I experienced the local way of traditional healing (using herbs and burning the wound with a flame!). There are some pics of that too so you better check them out! Cool stuff! And it worked. On Monday it was much better and now it's completely healed!
That's all for now. Back to work! I'm meeting my first client today. I'll be an account manager for them. Cool!
posted by Tomi Astikainen @ Wednesday, August 02, 2006
2 Comments:
Glad to hear that you've gotten off to a good start! It's really cool to see all the pics. Almost feels as if I'm there. :-)
-Janne
Moi Tomi! Your thesis is now linked to the Finland community. Looks like the kids enjoy being with you. :)
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