Casa Maika

25/10/2017

Kiinalaisten koululaisten vierailu Casa Maikaan
**In English below :) **

Järjestimme viime kuussa supisuomalaisen elämyksen kiinalaiselle koululaisryhmälle. Naapuri hieraisi koirankävelytyslenkillään silmiään kaksi kertaa, kun näki että hiljaisella kylätiellämme vastaan ajoi järjettömän iso turistibussi ja se parkkeerataan sitten meidän talon kohdalle. Kuulemma siinä vaiheessa kyllä jo arvasi, että Marikan luokse ovat varmaankin menossa :D

Ja näinhän siinä kävi! Meillä oli mahtava aamu AuroraXplorerin ja kiinalaisen koululaisryhmän kanssa. Kahden tunnin vierailun aikana teimme mustikkapiirakkaa, esittelimme kotiamme ja teimme pienen metsäretken lähimetsään. Söimme metsässä mustikoita ja ketunleipiä ja osa lapsista uskalsi maistaa myös pihlajanmarjoja. Lopuksi syötiin kaikki yhdessä mustikkapiirakkaa, juteltiin ja katseltiin ikivanhoja Kiinan vaihtovuoden kuviamme. Aika meni kuin siivillä. Sain vähän harjoitella myös kiinan kielen taitojani. Minulle ja koko perheelleni jäi tosi hyvä mieli vierailusta ja saimme jälkikäteen vielä viestin matkanjohtajalta:

"Vierailu meni UPEASTI! Lapset olivat aivan tohkeissaan koko bussimatkan ja harmittelivat kun eivät saaneet jäädä pidemmäksi aikaa! Meidän osalta en keksi parannettavaa. Oli ihanaa että lapset pääsivät takapihan kautta suoraan metsään poimimaan ja maistelemaan marjoja. Leipominen oli niin ihana kokemus lapsille - niin kuin he sanoivatkin, että sitä ei paljon Kiinassa harrasteta. Vielä mukaan saatu piirakka toimi heillä hyvin iltapalana junassa matkalla Rovaniemelle. Meidän osalta voin sanoa, että oli mahtava aamu teidän kanssa ja toivottavasti nähdään taas pian uusien ryhmien merkeissä!"

Tässä ohessa kuvia vierailusta. Kaikkiin kuviin on saatu lupa koululaisten vanhemmilta.

25/10/2017

It is official!
Casa Maika is a new Partner for Finnish Travel Agency AuroraXplorer!

This fast growing travel agency is focused only in Chinese guests. Kirsi Mantua-Kommonen, Dr. of Science in Economics and CEO of the company has wide knowledge of Chinese business and tourism. We are honored to be one of the partners for AuroraXplorer.

In the below article Kirsi Mantua-Kommonen explains why it is important to co-operate with different service providers and not to compete with each other in order to gain more Chinese travelers to Finland. She tells that unique and genuine experiences count and touching people's heart truly matters in travel business. For example visiting Professor Björn Weckström, who created Princess Leia's necklace or visiting a Finnish family and making blueberry pie together. These are unforgettable experiences.

Casa Maika will offer services for leisure travel and camp schools. I will soon write about our first experience with a Chinese children group at our home, it was a lot of fun

11/10/2017

Our longest stay from one guest was six weeks. First she stayed four weeks and then two more. She loves Finland and wanted to experience as much as possible. She let me to write about this: Every day I listened curiously where she had travelled and which places she had visited. We went to new places also together, like this pretty beach at Kauklahti. She wanted to learn Finnish so we spent quite much time with our children and whole family. Once we went to our summer cottage in Lohja and by doing that we could make one of her dreams come true.

I am interested of Jean and Aino Sibelius life so one day we invited our guest to Ainola, which is their beautiful house open for public. It is wonderful place to visit. Following week we went back to Ainola to listen to a piano concert there! It was played with Jean Sibelius' own piano. My guest got very interested in the Sibelius' life and soon she had visited also all other famous artist museum houses nearby Ainola, because those families knew each other well :D I can recognice now that there's much same in my and her curiosity to life :D

After such a long time living in our house she has become like a family member to us. She is still visiting us often even though living already in different place. I am thankful for my life and how it is possible to make it even more meaningful by opening our home to travellers who are interested and fascinated by Finland. And being able to spend time with such wonderful people from different parts of the world.

28/09/2017

No ei pöllömmät tilastot :D
Ja näin aiomme myös jatkaa :)

25/08/2017

Your host family exactly three years ago 😂😍😂

Our family :D
Marika, Antti & Children
- Only dog is missing from this photo

Meidän perhe

25/08/2017

OMG, What a wonderful feedback from our super fun guests from Russia last week! They only stayed one night at our home and then continued their trip to abroad, but we already made friends only in this very short time. I am happy if I can offer travelers experience what is beyond their expectations

06/08/2017

Not yet familiar with Airbnb, but would perhaps like to try Airbnb accommodation in the future?

When you follow the below link, you will get 35 € to be used for your first accommodation via Airbnb :)

(And why I post this?
I did't use friends recommendation when I registered with Airbnb, so I naturally didn't get any benefits. Now I want to offer that possibility to other people. It works so that new Airbnb user will get 35€ for any trips, and I giving recommendation will get 20€ to be used for any future trip.)

Registration is free and you can use the coupon when you want.

www.airbnb.com/c/marikak24

Join Marika on Airbnb and find over one million unique places to stay anywhere in the world.

04/08/2017

Some particularly hilarious moments can occur when different cultures and also personalities meet. For example with our lovely Asian family, who stayed at our home this summer. I invited them to have a coffee with us and taste that amazingly delicious blueberry pie that I had baked. For the record it IS the best blueberry pie in the whole world because it is my mothers recipe. Ok, they tasted it and as they were polite, they gave me a compliment (like normal people do): "This is very delicious!".
And what did I answer???!
I answered with loud voice:
"I KNOW!!"
😂🙈😂

They bursted immediately into laugh. As they didn't expect SO honest answer from their host 😂

I regretted immediately what I had said, but as I noticed that they were laughing from the bottom of their heart, I relaxed too. Probably they had noticed that I didn't want to be rude to them, but just honest, so it was so funny for them.

This was one moment, there are other funny situations as well, but I think it takes some sisu from me to tell all of them.
Maybe later 😂

04/08/2017

Room is again ready for the new guest

02/08/2017

Casa Maika's services are expanding!

In addition to current Home Accommodation service, we will start offering Home Visit packages for groups.

More information coming soon! 😉

02/08/2017

"Metsä, sauna ja muut perinteiset rentoutuskeinomme ovat juuri sitä wellnessiä, joka on nyt matkailutrendi".
Mondo 4/2017

28/07/2017

So nice message and continuation of Superhost status from Airbnb. I must say they are very good at giving compliments to us hosts every time we have earned it. It is great feeling to be appreciated by both guests and Airbnb company.

"Wow Marika, it’s time to celebrate. You’re one of the few hosts who earned Superhost status four quarters in a row! Keeping your response rate high and getting great reviews while hosting frequently is a true achievement."