My name is Daiki and I'm originally from Kyoto, Japan. I moved to Finland for my Master's degree in 2016. After I completed my degree I stared working in the field of business development and marketing in this beautiful Nordic country. Currently I'm based in the capital city, Helsinki.
Through this channel I'm hoping to share my experience in Finland and sometimes abroad, including culture, career, lifestyle and travel diaries. In my blog and Twitter, I actively share my experience and learnings in Finland. Also, don't forget to subscribe this channel! :)
A perspective of a Finn who stayed abroad for a few semesters: I mostly missed salmiakki and saunas. It's funny, I rarely buy salmiakki here, but when I was out there it was one of the best things to get in packages from home. And also ruisleipä. Now that I'm back here, though, I miss the English pub culture. You could just get a pot of tea and some snacks and hang out with friends in a really pretty old building. We don't really have similar public spaces here.
Tasty water?? Water's supposed to taste like water right? RIGHT? 🤨 Remember reading somewhere, that Finnish tapwater is more clean&pure, than bottled water in the U.S
What sucks about toilets in Finland is that yes, public toilets are free, and that's great of course. But (for example) a shopping mall might not have a PUBLIC toilet in every floor. In one shopping mall I regularly went to at one point, there was one public toilet, in the third floor, and another toilet in the bottom floor. There is a store in the bottom floor, which is important to note because: At one point that toilet was public, and therefore free and openly accessible. But then some brainiacs had the incredible idea of making this public toilet the store's toilet! Which means it's only available to customers. Now you have to ask for a store employee to open the toilet for you so you can use it. :D What the hell? Anyway now the only free toilet is in the third floor, and by the way that's the only public toilet for about a square mile. Yeah, just go up three floors of stairs, even if you need to go RIGHT NOW. But alternatively you can use the nearby bars toilets. The employees PROBABLY wont mind. (And once a restaurant clerk let me use the toilet for free, which was very kind of her, since that wasn't the restaurant policy.)
I previously lived in Japan (Hokuriku area) and they had very efficient winter maintenance with running water outlets in the road. Compared with the small town in Finland where I live now, it was better. Sometimes I have been pushing my child in the stroller and I have to go a very long way around because the footpaths are blocked. My Finnish town also doesn't have great public transport. I think Finland and Japan's public transport is roughly equal - I have had problems with both, but it's quite rare in both cases.
Fun video, but since the headline was “compared to some other countries” I find it kind of unfair comparison on public transportation . Japan is so technologically advanced and has a huge population, it’s no wonder public transportation is amazing there. But it really isn’t in many other countries. And it’s not even good in some places in Finland.
I think that when it comes to public transit we have to take into consideration population and population density. The greater Kyoto metropolitan area for example has a population of 3.8 million people, Helsinki's metropolitan area has around 1.6 million people. So I'd say that Helsinki's public transit is impressive considering how small the population is that it serves. Especially considering that the metro although it's technically 2 lines is basically 1 line and at rush hour metro trains come like every 2 minutes. Also Finland has bus stops everywhere, even in the countryside with very low population density. Also I lived in Okayama for a while and the public transit there just wasn't nearly as good in my opinion compared to that of Helsinki.
You can collect berries, mushrooms and camp for 3 days on private land just like everywhere.. (exception to that rule are some military exercise areas and Russian boarder region) Just don't bother anyone and it's allright..
Not all countries have supermarkets where you can buy a bicycle, ceiling lamp, television and all the food at the same time. That's why the Kenyan lady is amazed that Prismas and K-Citymarkets offer all kind of house and living products.
How long does it take to travel from center of Tokyo into the nearest forest and wilderness to take a hike? 10:29 Finland has Viper snakes, Finland has wasps and bees that can sting you. But avoid Ticks in the nature of Finland. Because some Ticks carry borreliosis and Tick-borne encephalitis.
Hi, nice video again. 😊 I don't mean to be rude or anything, but as a nature enthusiast I need to point out that poisonous animals mean like if you eat the animal, it can poison you and its flesh is poisonous, but venomous animals are like the viper, its bite can harm you. 😄 The only venomous animal in Finland is the viper (Vipera berus). But we do have many poisonous mushroom and plants. I'm glad too that we don't have those big cockroaches that many countries have. 😅
We do have wasps (venomous) and they can be deadly to some people (allergic), though only for one person per year according to statistics. Moose, horse and dog are far more deadlier beasts in Finland.
@@66hss well, if we count every insect and spiders, then yes, we have many venomous animals. Every spiders bite is venomous, but because we don't have the most dangerous ones, the venom does not normally affect people.
@@Sayumi820 The quality of food is good. Do I need Kobe meat, caviar or truffles?- No There are only 3 major grocery store chains in Finland: "S-market", "K-kauppa" and Lidl. 1 or 2 more chains would improve the selection of goods and most likely it would help the prices reduce. - I would be so happy if a Japanese chain would enter Finland .
The 12th is saunas. Three million saunas - considered a luxury almost everywhere else! (Northern Russia has their banjas which I wouldn't even call saunas, and Sweden has 1/10th of the amount).
I'm not sure if it is something you would like to talk about but earthquakes are something that basically no Finns get to ever experience so I think that could be something you could make an intresting video for us Finns. And any any other watchers you may have in places where you don't get earthquakes.
S-group grocery stores all have pretty similiar selection and tend to be slightly cheaper but K-group has more leeway what to sell per individual store and often you can find more selection from local products, like meat pies from local bakeries where neighboring S-market has frozen meat pies from Fazers factory that they just heat onsite. It's down to differences in the Groups contracts. S-market have to sell certain selection that is decided by the group and the K-markets are more like individual stores with common pool to order selection but more autonomy to go outside of the pool
Yeah, don't quote me on this, but I believe there are only some venomous spiders and one of our 2 snake species. All of them are small and far from a one way trip to the morgue unless you're a very small child when you're bitten
And there are very few toilets in Finland compared to Japan, for example. A good example is Japanese train stations, where you can always go to toilet after the ticket gate. In Finland that's impossible.
So why do Japanese have 17% in passports? They are not interested of getting one and going somewhere or what? edit. and still 17% is something about 21million, so I dont know. Just interested.
My mom (born in the 1940s) has told me that cockroaches were actually very common in the countryside when she was young. And I’m from northern Finland. So it’s not about the climate. It’s more to do with modern housing.
@@spugelo359 If you live at an appartment house you might not have one (because of the central heating system). But I live in an one-family-house and I had my first one like 20 years ago. Now I live in a third house (in a row) with an air heat pump. Couple of years ago there were also peaks with electricity prices and those people who didn't own one (and used electricity for heating their houses) ordered one. Waiting times were like half a year and there were many articles about it. Nowadays there are some old people and some with oil heating systems without it, but the others have quite often an air heat pump.
AC is pretty common in newer buildings. I live in an apartment building that was built in 2021 and we have AC in every apartment. Some of my friends who live in older buildings don't have AC, but out of the friends who live in buildings built in the 2010s or 2020s, most do have AC
I wish they'd turn on the central heating already, but I live in cheap student housing and they're skimping on everything😅granted I'm pretty sure basically everywhere else it's on already.
Tourism: Finland is a pretty big country (8th largest in Europe, just a little smaller than Japan), so unfortunately unless you live near Helsinki, it isn't all that easy to travel abroad. From many parts of the country you do need to allocate almost one full day mainly for travelling to the airport, being at the airport, and flying to your destination, even if it's a destination a short flight away. If you live north-west, you can go to Sweden easily. If you live along the eastern border, even when the border was open, you still would've needed a visa to go to russia (and frankly there isn't much there north of Viipuri). Natural disasters: I have experienced one (1) earthquake in Finland. It was just a loud bang and the house shook once. There are about a dozen earthquakes per year, but they are not strong in Finland. Most cannot be felt by people. There is one venomous snake in Finland, but it's unlikely to kill you even you get bitten. You should still seek medical attention if this happens. Public transport: 100% agree that Japanese public transport is better. I think in Finland we are limited in what we can get because of the small population. Grocery stores: I think it is common in Western and/or developed countries to have big supermarkets where you can buy pretty much anything. Maybe this is not as common in non-Western or developing countries.
It's quite easy to travel abroad by ship from Helsinki, Turku and Vaasa if you want to visit in Sweden or Estonia and even Germany across the Baltic Sea every day in 30 hours (Helsinki - Travemünde).
@@lucone2937 True, but to actually fly somewhere further you generally need to go to Helsinki-Vantaa. And the cruises are not quick trips like going to Tallinn from Helsinki.
Haha, that's why I don't travel to Lithuania during the shoulder season. They don’t turn on the heating in October! I think Finland is one of the first to turn on central heating. I went to the UK and Ireland in August, and it was a bit cold, but they turned on the heating for me in August!
I'm Portuguese and I am planning a trip to Helsinki! It's been more than 6 months that I'm saving money for that because definitely it's not cheap for my pockets 😅
@@pvahanen-dh5rt I was talking about my financial situation, not about criminality! I guess in Portugal, specially in big cities like Lisbon and Porto, it's much worse then in Helsinki, but I can not say that because I never been there!
I agree with you. It's not easy to find a public free toilet in Finland in my opinion. There are several near me, if I want to drive to a Prisma or ABC. But in the city center, I don't know where to find one. Oh, and I have rented and lived in six flats or apartments. None had air condition (cooling) in the summer.
In city centers department stores such as Sokos often have free public toilets. Except in Helsinki. They don't want poor people to use toilets or something. And air cooling was all but unneccessary before the climate change. The summers and winters are nothing like they used to be.
At least in my case I have always found a free toilet in every Hesburger and most of the time in McDonald's. In Lahti I had to use a code in my receipt to get to the toilet in McD's but that has been the only one so far.
Yeah we do pick up mushrooms and berries and we don’t tell our mushroom places to others 😂 if we do, then we have to give up on our citizens ship😂 jokes aside, we even have mushroom picking competitions
Estonia too - I lived in Dublin for a couple of years during the milennium and had my first garlic bread there, a kind of garlicy wheat bun. Nothing much to tell grandchildren about. Then soon afterwards I met my future Estonian ex-wife and she introduced me to actual garlic bread in Tartu. I still remember how she said we should have it for an appetizer and I said pretty unenthusiastically, sure - and it turned out to be this absolutely delicious dark and hard rye bread!
Garlic is something we got familiar in Finland on 70’s😊 perhaps only decendants of Karelian evacuated people from Vyborg used it, since their cuisine is kinda more aromatic. The only spice with rye bread is cumin and even that is only in west Finland.
Until the 1900s, almost all garlic was imported to Finland; it was expensive and sold only at pharmacies - as a medicine. That's why it isn't used in traditional dishes and bread.
There's something a little similar actually in Finland. The products name is: Bread Snacks valkosipuli 150 g leipätikut. It has dried dark rye bread which has been infused with garlic oil. They're the outer layer of black rye loaf type of bread mostly which have been repurposed this way.
These tram stops in the middle of the road, hahaha :D I think that's the way they were builing them decades ago, where traffic was much smaller than today. That's why you can still see them here and there in Europe. Veeery normal thing in Cracow and I was scared at first to use them as well :D If I remember correctly, they had a couple of them in Prague 15 years ago, too (but I might be wrong). In my city there's only 2 or 3 stops like that left, I guess they left them because they would have to tear down some buildings to widen the road and make space for the stop in the middle. And about ramen - it is still very exotic thing for many Europeans, because we cannot have it everyday and everywhere. Usually there's only a couple of places per city, and demand is pretty high because even if it's not the same as in Japan, it's still a very good soup and a totally different one compared to our traditional soups or to what we eat every day. So we think about it as of any other restaurant visit, I would compare it to going out to have a nice steak :)
