Shooting Location

"RAMEN RESTAURANT"  (Ep.3)

Ravintola Domo

Kalevankatu 21,    00100 Helsinki  (358 9 42890998)  Japanese restaurant - the story of Domo started with an exchange Chinese student named Guan Xin, who was studying industrial management since 2002 ; in 2010, he and his wife took over a previous Japanese restaurant and renamed it Domo, with a new chef, who was a pro in Japanese cuisine. Guan learned how to make sushi and how to achieve the best balance between freshness and quality.

After the competition, LYY took YG to the ramen restaurant for dinner, not telling her it was his 27th birthday. He introduced her to his best friend Wu Wei  吴魏   (played by Dong Zi Fan   董子凡 ). WW exchanged Wechat address with YG, who noticed that his nickname was Wusuowei  无所谓  ("doesn't matter", "whatever"), and WW told her LYY's nickname was Duncuo 吨错   ("tons of mistakes"), a pun on the term for "cadence"  Yiyang duncuo  抑扬顿挫.

Later, YG found another moniker for LYY on WW's messages broadcasting that Lin Mou Yang 林某杨 ("Lin, a certain Yang") "had a crush on someone.".   The young billiards players of the team from  Dongxin city called LYY  "Sixth Elder Brother"/"Sixth Junior Master"  Liu Ge  六哥.  YG found out through a phone call to her coach in China, that it was because LYY had been the sixth and favorite disciple of old master He, with Jiang Yang as his senior, before LYY left in anger at a decision by an arbiter, with whom YG's mom was working.   YG was worried that MXT's elder brother  Meng Xiaodong  孟晓东 (played by Wang Xing Yue 王星越) who had been pushing her to achievements since she was small, might hear about LYY and Jiang Yang (whom she thought was MXD's enemy, the teams from Dongxin city and from Bei city being opposed).

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"SHARED APARTMENT"  (Ep.3, 4  to 8)

This was the building where Wu Wei rented a shared apartment with two rooms being liberated two weeks after the dinner at the ramen restaurant.

In ep6, YG was surprised and unsettled to find the Dongxin team and Jiang Yang seated in the living room, waiting for LYY, who she thought would be absent that week. But LYY suddenly emerged from the room he shared with WW;  he texted her to meet him in the laundry room... and because another resident came to do his laundry, LYY confessed to her by text!  YG was totally flustered.

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"SWEETS SHOP" (Ep.6)

Roobertin Herkku -  Karkkikauppa, Fredrikinkatu 19 00120 Helsinki ( +358 44 7129343)

A shop specializing in sweets since 1963

After the laundry room confession, YG had accepted to set the date to treat LYY to lunch at a pasta specialty restaurant  as she had offered. Still flustered, YG sought advise from her friend by phone, but what she got was a choice of accepting or ignoring the pursuit ; YG turned off the phone and went to buy a bag of sweets. When she found LYY in the living room, she gave him a glass of sweets, among which some were heart-shaped.

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I am in fact very happy and entertained that the drama writers decided to shift the location from the USA in the novel, to a still not that widely publicized but (perhaps unexpectedly) interesting northern European country.  Those locations are real, so there's the combined pleasure of watching clever travelogue and so much food enjoyment, together with the youth and sports romance.  

As for food, culinary adventures are the most difficult things to adapt to, perhaps particularly so for Chinese people. Despite the young now having been "spoiled" by the international fast food invasion, so it's a wonder we only see the protagonists once at Hesburger,  asking for paninis elsewhere, but not too taken by spicy hotdogs from the food truck or by the Döner canteen.   I found it so sweet when Yin Guo in episode 5 appreciated in private the rice pirog ("riisipiirakkaa")  prepared by the mom of Milo, the girl working at the billiards club! 

We did not get a very close glimpse of them, but I assume they were like these ones ;  in comments, emmasdramas3    added "Yess! Your picture is exactly what riisipiirakka is! We also more commonly call them karjalanpiirakka, which as a straight translation translates to Karelian pie, as they are, like you said, historically from Karelia. The dough is made of rye flour and wheat flour, the filling is rice porridge."

recipe here ; there are other ones, and actually, this is something that accepts variations just like "jiaozi" dumplings do (they come in many forms, traditional ingot or fancy frog or duck shape, size, style of wrapping, colors and fillings, bringing festival feelings; here's a short video that can't cover them all)  :  happy new "loong" year, btw :)  Dragon dances and more fun will be on, especially today, after the Christmas eve reminding banquet yesterday Feb9 2024 evening for Dragon year CNY!

Wu Lei preparing jiaozi dumplings,for CNY  and having fun with dragon shadows and the Chinese character Fu  decoration which stands for good luck, good fortune, and blessing  (My Gif from Wu Lei Weibo post of Feb.10, 2024 to the right)

And the characters in AASOL like beer too, while remembering that water and fruit juice is also  good (ah, wishing for a comparison between ubiquitous watermelon juice in China and Swedish-Finnish lingonberry juice :)   

Coffee culture is so Scandinavian, brewed differently from the coffee brews other people drink. I was chuckling at the sight of Kona beans in the Kaffecentralen (do they really carry that famous expensive one from Hawaii?) Raspberry flavor coffee sounds like a fusion abomination?  YG  drinks lemon tea, in the Döner restaurant where food was not to her taste. But tea culture is another world...

In China, the people who put Finland on their destination map used to first think of Lapland, Santa Claus and reindeer, northern lights, snow and saunas, arctic snowhotel and glass igloos! (which actually can be found in northern China as well, between Harbin and Mohe or in Hulun Buir.  Here's a video of Evenki, one of the smallest ethnic minority groups of China, and their reindeer,  in the Greater Khingan Mountains of Inner Mongolia). The drama setting points to another reality, closer to universal world human outlook: easy and uncomplicated friendship between people of different horizons, who want to build a common future where everybody will grow and thrive, through studies, work, meeting others and being together.  Let's put some more pictures of locations in this section and prepare for the next life experience, traveling vicariously or in reality and fondly remembering the sweet story when we check out new "exploring" destinations!

Some more locales to be organized later:

"Hursin" university

SUZHOU

Episode 19.  The initial character on licence plates issued in Jiangsu is: 苏 (Sū) so the license plate on Jiang Yan's car is realistic (meaning also, it was not shot in Hengdian film city, where most dramas are careful to use "fake license plates" not pointing out to real cities and provinces).  苏E, 苏U are real prefix on number plates for Suzhou.

The food on the show was amazing. That lobster pasta that was shown on one episode looks very nice. Any idea what restaurant that lobster pasta was from?