FUTURE CALLS - PIHASALI YOGA STUDIO

About two years ago I finished my Bachelor degree in businesses and took off for a 4 months trip around the east part of the world. When I came back to Finland my mom suggested that I would take over her company, a yoga studio in Helsinki called Pihasali - Joogaa räjähtäneille. It wasn't even 12 hours from landing back to my home country but there I was, hearing myself answering "yes" to her question. My mind was going "What on earth are you thinking!? Are you crazy, lady?!" but the answer came from somewhere else, from the heart. So the next thing was to find out how to proceed with this project and one year later, summer 2012 I became the happy owner of our small yoga studio and joined the entrepreneurs colourful group! Here's some pics from our reopening and a video. Please have a look and hopefully you get the same feeling which we all had in the party, very happy and grateful.

More pictures of the party in our Facebook group. Pictures and video by Joni Helminen (except two last ones).

Joogastudio Pihasali - Kutsu tulevaisuuteen from Pihasali on Vimeo.

NEW YORK

Before getting to this day, what's going on now, I wanna share some last year's highlights and one of them was definitely visiting one of my best friends in NYC. I went there to do some yoga research, visited studios and yoga classes, bought things for our studio and got inspired - but the best part was to just hang out with my soul sister! Here's some pics from the trip.

New York Brooklyn and the heatwave.

Yankee stadium.

Best spinach gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce. Mmmmm.

Highline park, old railway turned into a aerial greenway.

Can still see the old tracks, now covered by plants. Loved the place!

JR.

Visited this sweet yoga studio Abhyasa in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Try their gentle classes
if you happen to be there, I liked the calm pace and not too crowded classes.

Kirtana evening in Integral Yoga Institute, Manhattan. I also did couple of their classes
and found them very nice, dynamic but gentle at the same time. And their own food store
was awesome with a wide selection of different organic foods. 

Rainy day but still SUPER hot weather.

At the end of the trip my feet were covered with plasters! The heat combined with humid
weather wasn't the best for my turist feet.

Studying yoga in the rooftop of my friend's flat while she was at the university. Not bad,
couch and all!

Thanks for taking such good care of me, I will be back! xxx

FRENCH MOUNTAIN WALK

It was good to go to a half a day walk out in the beautiful nature which surrounded our yoga
retreat area. Here's some pics but they don't make justice to the incredible view we had finally
up in the mountain 1600 m high!

PARIS - NICE BY TRAIN

Mom and me decided to go to France to our Finnish yoga teacher's course. The course was
arranged in the mountains out from Nice but we wanted to see Paris too so the easiest was
to fly to and from Paris and travel with a train in between. So we set up for the adventure!

Paris was freezing when we first came and I was happy to find my IVANAhelsinki wool cape
just perfect for the weather. And yes, I am wearing shorts under it.

Marseille.

Meeting new people in the train and borrowing their travel guides. Trains are THE best
way to travel, if you ask me. You meet people, see the view changing, can just read and relax.
Eat. Sleep. Perfect!

Nice was sunny and beautiful. But we were hungry so our next destination was a nice little
restaurant - but where to?!

Maybe here? Actually around the corner we run across our fellow course members - what a
sweet coincidence! But after their not too positive review of the restaurant we continued on
our task for good food.

And just when I thought we won't find any, a guy walked over to me and asked if he can help
us and voilà! He showed us a nice Lebanese restaurant close to our hotel. It looked cozy
and just relaxed enough for us to feel like non tourists.

The 10 different mezes were amazing and staff friendly! Soooo good. If you like Lebanese
food and happen to go to Nice, try to locate Beyrouth. Easy, mid priced and delicious.

PACKBAG IS BACK MAN

New packbag from Paris. The shirt I got for free from a friend at Sunday's fleamarket, luvz it!