Christmas in Asia

Once again I failed to come home for Christmas and it bothers me. This year was not nearly as bad as last year when I had to work all week for Christmas but even though we had a lot of fun I still feel the distance to a real Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had a party in my flat; it was Joyce's and Man's idea so of course they were there, Janice, Kate and Ariel came too and Kate brought her boyfriend Tony, Joyce also invited a mutual friend of theirs, Wilson, and Almen and Lone came too, so we were 6 girls and 4 guys, which was a lot better mix than I had ever hoped for actually.

It might seem like a small group but with an apartment this small it still got quite crowded, especially since everybody should bring their own dish but because of work no one had time to prepare anything so they all had to use my kitchen and with a tiny kitchen like mine we had to go in turns and all the cooking took several hours to finish. Almen and Lone were rather clever and ordered Pizza instead, which took two hours to deliver but still arrived at about the same time all the rest of the food was finished.

Everyone’s dishes:

• Joyce - Pasta with pasta sauce (basically "spagetti och köttfärsås")
• Man - Chicken wings
• Janice - Brought a homemade cheesecake so she never had to occupy the kitchen.
• Kate and Ariel - A vegetable/fruit salad.
• Johan - Meatballs from IKEA and chocolate cake.
• Almen and Lone - Pizza hut set with pizza, lasagna and soup.
• Then I just guess Wilson and Tony got the Sushi.
  

I had planned to make pancakes too but we were too full and everyone left before we got hungry enough again.

Tony brought his Wii too so for the first time I got to try the Wii-mote and play things like Mario-cart, boxing (which was a real exercise), bowling and tennis. We had gift exchange too; lucky draw where everybody bought one gift and then fortune got to decide who got what. We numbered all the gifts and had numbers in a Santa-hat and the score in bowling decided who to draw first. You should have seen Joyce playing bowling by the way, damn the girl can stance, hahaha.

I got Ariel's gift, a two piece set of cute cat's where one holds curtains and the other is a storage box for napkins. Almen got my gift which was a beginner's guide to palm-reading book. And of course there were lots of photos taken and many joyful sounds so soon after the gift exchange we got a complaint call that we were too noisy.

We still kept playing a bit more silently and had the cakes and some Champagne that Wilson had brought but around 2am everybody started to get tired and left. I think that was a bit premature and was slightly disappointed but what can I do? Everyone else had been working all day and it was pretty late. I still sit with a lot of leftovers now so I don't have to buy and food today.

On Christmas Day I went out with Ariel and her friends; first we had hot-pot, which was actually a bit too expensive and not so fun for me; it is just not easy to join a group that speaks another language. After that we had a room in a club in TST but there had been some booking mistake and after less than an hour we were basically thrown out and moved to another club, which had a significantly better room; much bigger and with a nice view that I doubt anyone noticed.
We also had gifts exchange and I "won" a wallet from Quicksilver, so I guess it's time for me to start using wallet again, after about five or six years with my metal cardholder. My Klappa Panda from IKEA (IKEA is useful) went to a random girl that I don't know, I think Candy's friend. Ariel got a Hello Kitty play set for making labels.

The whole gift exchange was rather complicated, and took a long long time as we were about 20 people exchanging. First we had a lucky draw like on Christmas Eve but then we went through the whole group and had a blind exchange; basically your eyes were covered and someone pointed at someone else’s gift and you could say yes or no to exchange it with yours, if you said no three times you got to keep the one you had. I don't know the first one I had because I didn't see who finally got it but it was something from Sasa (a cosmetics store) so I guess something for girls, then I had some kind of first-aid for lonely men; something that would supposedly make you more charming, after that I got a tie which I finally lost to Fish and got myself the wallet, which I'm pretty happy about actually.

After that we played all night and had lots to drink, Ariel left around 4am I think but I stayed to the very end where the all nighters went to have breakfast at MacDonald's, which I despise by the way; what is the point of only serving ham stuff and nasty potato cakes when you actually have the means to make real burgers? And even when you ask nicely they completely refuse to do it, and it's just bureaucracy. It was still fun though and I didn't step through my door at home until around 8am.

Today I have to try and clean up the rest of the party (it is not as bad as the girls did all the dishes after dinner and we were actually rather clean), finish the leftover food and lesson plan my classes for tomorrow.

Out of phase

I think this might be just about the weirdest dream I ever had;

I was back in Bjärred in my parents’ home and I might have been 10 years younger, Sandra and Anna were there too and they were definitely 10-12 years younger, I think Maja was there too. Everything was rather normal but suddenly the ground started shaking and a flash of lightning went through the ground around us. The lightning was not like the one we see from the sky but was the color of dirt, brownish red, and wider than what you would normally think of as a fork of lightning, it was yellow in it and at the edges it turned into a hot white, it was like it was taken from a Japanese cartoon or a computer graphics animation but it still looked completely real in the dream.

The flash traveled up along the walking path to where Niklas used to live and in its wake something mysterious happened; it was as if time and space was out of synch and when you moved it could happened that a fraction of a second had disappeared, or that space was making up for there not being enough time. As I jumped over a low hedge, seemingly the one that was marking the line between the street and Niklas' font yard but still on my street, I was in mid air and then suddenly I struck ground really far, it didn't exactly hurt me but it felt like I had come down with a near infinite speed, which it must have been since I without spending any time moved from a few feet above ground to standing on the ground.

My sister and my cousins ran in through the garage, which was strangely empty, and as I ran after them a though struck me that if someone closed the door and it was out of synch with me I might as well be within the area of the door when it was closed, and that would probably kill me. I came into the kitchen and found my aunt Gordana cleaning the floor in there, but for some reason she had cleaned away even the floor tiles with the explanation that time had shifted and she had been finished it before she had started.

The gaps between time and space seemed to grow longer and like in a movie where the director what to show something general and global happening I knew that it was global, the brownish red flashes were travelling all around the world and the gap could last anything from a fraction of a second to several minutes; causing accidents and deaths all over the world.

A place to live!

I have been looking around at a few apartments and I have some more tomorrow to see but I'm quite set on the one I looked at on Saturday morning; it's a rather small apartment, only about 50sqm, and my room will honestly be tiny, 195x180cm (3.5sqm) with nearly 1sqm lost for a door, it is located in the east most part of Kowloon at the end of the green line with interchange to the purple one (so it actually have quite easy access to both Kowloon and Hong Kong despite it's remote location), and right on top of the metro station with an awesome view of the bay and the mountains to the east and south-east (early morning sunshine suspected) from the 28th floor (plus quite a bit as it is located on top of the park that is on top of the shopping mall that is on top of the metro station. The main contractor and user of the larger room is a Singaporean guy that works here in Hong Kong, I always have a good feeling about Singaporeans and I tend to make friends with them very easily.

The place has just about everything, even though most is not for free, the nice park for the estate, outdoor and indoor swimming pool, a decent gym and lots of other club activities like snookers and karaoke room, plus that is built on top of a shopping mall and the metro station giving easy access to most necessaries.

I still have three more apartments to look at tomorrow which are all quite promising, but they are all more expensive and only one of them has a decent location, I will go and look at them with an open mind though. Having said that, I can admit that I spent the afternoon today in IKEA; trying to figure out how to furnish a room that small. I figured out the following: a double size mattress (135x189) will fit on the length but prevent the door from opening fully, I will not care about the door because I can't live in a single bed (92x189), to me this means a Sultan either Hamnö or Hasselbäck, with 20cm legs and either storing stuff as they are or having an under-bed storage box, Anneboda, or a Mattress base with storage boxes like Sultan Arnö.

This leaves about 45cm to the wall where I'm hoping to squeeze in an 'wardrobe' PAX (which is 50cm wide and I just realized I have 45cm not 55cm so perhaps something else would be in order). I also have a big window that is rather deep set where I think I can make something of a work place and a storage area; using the bed as a seat I can have a low desk where I can sit with my computer.

The rest of the apartment is already fully furnished with most of what anyone needs; it actually even has something as unusual as a western (heated) washing machine and a drying machine!! What is lacking though is an oven but that is a later problem.

Since I don't really have any money right now I guess I will have to settle with buying a decent cheap mattress and live out of my suitcase for a while longer, it still feels good to have my own place though.

Casino

It was pretty weird sitting there and watching Deming put down several hundreds of Hong Kong dollars in markers and sometimes doubling them and sometimes losing them all but the strategy is pretty simple; he starts out low and once they have doubled a few times he leaves it doubled then keeps going and lets it build up higher and higher until he finally loses it and he starts over from the beginning. It doesn't make any rational sense whatsoever, but just seeing it like that makes me believe that luck is a skill or at least a property, I still know for sure that if you throw a dice a million time there will be the same amount of each number, give or take a few (not enough to make any real difference), unless the dice is fixed of course. In the end he made quite a lot of money, I don't know how exactly much and I guess it would be private information anyway.

The second funny thing was the prostitutes; it wasn't until around midnight they showed up and at first I didn't realize what they were - I kind of thought that a flashy casino would really allow that kind of business going on but I was apparently wrong - so I looked around as we boys normally do and kept my eyes and a pretty girl if I saw one and soon someone deliberately bounced into me, basically blocked my way and asked me if I wanted a massage. Within the next few minutes I was approached, a little bit more subtly but still, two more times, and after I tried very hard to not look at all and took particular care not to make eye contact with anyone. I was still approached one more time and Deming was also approached once, despite being very careful not to look from the very beginning.

yao ling ling

Last night they had a fund raiser for the local rugby team at Carol's too, for this they had hired a pole-dancer who did a 10 minute show in the evening, a MALE pole-dancer; black leather west and tight fitting black briefs, very sexy and extremely gay. To make money for the team they had a lottery going on so the players and other people involved with the team were running around convincing people to buy lottery tickets to win the big price; a bottle of wine, or a small price; random funny stuff.

Ryan and Andrew (US and Aussie friends) were convinced early on to get a ticket but I wasn't so easy to convince, eventually I also came through and bought number 21 from a guy with a panda hat. Not long after I paid my 20 kuai for the ticket Kelly showed up and complained that I hadn't bought a ticket from her so I ended up paying another 20 kuai for number 100. So when they started drawing the first round of tickets we sat there with four tickets between us, the girls with us only seemed to care for dancing so they hadn't bought any.

In the beginning they mostly gave out the funny stuff but the last one of the first round was a bottle of wine but of course I didn't get it, I think that one was for 007 actually. They did several drawings through the night but my numbers never came up, I heard 23, 19, 18, 010, lots of 00x numbers also; there was actually a lot more numbers drawn than actual gifts because two numbers out of three were never claimed. And so it came to the last drawing; they still had several bottles of wine left and we still had four potential winners. Of course there were several misses first, I heard 102, and 103, and for Andrew's 62 there came a 61. At this point Andrew was standing behind me yelling 62 and suddenly he got the reply he wanted, 62!!! Andrew was the winner of a 2006 Bordeaux and as soon as he knew it he announced wine for everybody.

When he got up with his bottle they had already started drawing for the next one, yao ling yao (101), dammit so close! But no one came to claim it, another one: yao ling ling, say again?!? one zero zero, oh yes box!

Not long after we had gathered a load of wine glasses, but even sharing a few glasses with other friends; Kelly got one for selling me the ticket of course, Aaron had one too, and Andrew and Ryan had some other friends, the girls with is are not much of drinkers so there was a lot of wine between the three of us. I got pretty well loaded before I left that night.

Swedes everywhere!

Saturday 8th November 2008:

First in the hostel, which is actually not so strange, I ran into three Swedes, two of them checking in and the last one using the phone for long distance call.

Later I had dinner with my friend Eva, we went to the same restaurant where Joyce and I met dad in Beijing the first time, which is where I got sick (not because of the restaurant) and threw up on the street outside two years ago. Anyway, we sat down there and ordered some food and I suddenly noticed a group of six slightly senior persons sitting at the table behind Eva that were conversing in Swedish, couldn't place the exact location though.

Later that night I had supper with another friend, Ying, that had come in from Tianjin to meet me, we just went to McDonald's actually and had a burgers when I noticed the crowd of five that seemed to be speaking in a very familiar way, I soon discovered that it was in fact also Swedish and to be more exact whiny Swedish, just like my good friend and former flat mate Kei! hoho

A funny wake-up call

Around 12.30pm on Friday "morning" my phone started ringing, since I was meeting my friend's friend Vivi at 1pm I had already woken up from my alarm but I was still only semi-conscious so this became really confusing for me. The conversation went something like this:

Girl on phone: Ni hao.
Me: eeeh, hello?
Girl on phone: Ni hui bu hui shou putonghua? (do you speak Chinese?)
Me: eeeh, bu hui shou (eeeh, no?!?)
Girl on phone: Wo shi Luqi de pengyou (I'm Luqi's friend)
Girl on phone: Tjing tjong tjing tjong (I couldn't understand)
Me: Ni hui bu hui shou yingyue? (do you speak English?)
Girl on phone: bu hui shou (no)
The conversation kept going for a bit with her speaking Chinese and me saying "tin bu dong" (I don't understand). After a while I tried to ask her to send me a message and I think she said the same thing in Chinese, something about gei ni which means give you, and a few minutes after I got a message in Chinese, which my phone can't even show and I wouldn't understand anyway. I replied with some mix English and pinying (Chinese written with western letters) and I never got any reply.

I asked Luqi about this and she confirmed it was her friend, first it seemed they didn't know each other that well but after the confusion lay down I understood that it was a close friend of hers, just that she didn't know she couldn't speak English.

I actually met the girl later when I was out with Luqi and she was a bit embarrassed about the whole thing, but it was really not that big a deal in the end.

Pancakes

Pancakes 2-4 portions

3dl Flour
6dl Milk
3 eggs
sugar
salt
some grease to fry in (I prefer mixed oil and butter since it's easier than butter and tastes better than oil)

mix the flour and half the milk (it is easier to mix with less milk in the beginning)
add the rest of the milk
add the eggs
add a dash of sugar and a dash of salt
stir for a while, the longer the better

melt a very small amount of butter/oil in a frying pan of your size
pour a thin (about 1mm) layer of the mixture in the pan and let it cover most of the pan
turn when the whole mixture has turned solid, should be about 30-90 seconds depending on heat and thickness, medium temperature is usually the best, thicker pancakes means lower temperature, so it won't get burnt, and a lot longer time
about 30 seconds on the flip side and put the pancake on a plate to cool off
it is usually enough to add oil or butter for every second pancake, judge for yourself if it's greasy enough

enjoy with your choice of jam, sugar, syrup, ice-cream or other sweet stuff that you like (I prefer jam, strawberry or raspberry)

Last night in Shanghai (3rd night in Shanghai)

Wenying was already home when I came back with the supplies, Linna had gone off to buy some bread since I finished the little they had that morning (they actually had Bregott and Hushållsost so I just had to eat some bread). I didn't start off directly, waited until around nine or something before I did it.

It was the first time in a very long time; I did it once this summer at home in Sweden but before that only twice in total in Chengdu. I had bought a new small frying pan since the ones they had weren't really flat and I worked with chopsticks since the other spades they have were way too thick.

Finally success, I'm pretty proud of myself actually, the pan was really awesome actually, easy to work with and nothing stuck to it at all. We sat down together for half an hour or so and finished up the pancakes with cheap Chinese strawberry jam and watched an episode of American Dad (rather Linna and I watched and Wenying was on the phone).

Good times, I can't wait until I get my own place in Hong Kong, I really miss having a kitchen.

belittling

For some reason there are a lot of people, I should say some Chinese girls, that seems to think that I can't take care of myself. There are other things that make me feel that they are in a very extreme way underestimating me. I know that my friends only do what they think is best for me but I know that my friends only do what they think is best for me but I often feel like I'm treated like a 10 year old boy out on his own for the first time without mommy.

My first example is about my comfort levels; Wenying and Linna, especially Wenying, has seemed to be very worried about how I would feel staying in their apartment, the way she has been talking about it it has sounded like the worst little dump you could ever find. This is far from the truth; they have a quite big place; I'd say about 100-120sqm, two rather big bedrooms, a huge living room, a decent kitchen and a sizable bathroom with bathtub, western toilet and washing machine, plus a nicely sized balcony that they only use for hanging laundry. It's well furnished and clean, a bit messy though but what to do when you work 50-60 hours a week, which they both seem to be doing. My point is still that this place is probably nicer than mine and Kei's place in Sparta, even though we had some commodities like heating and insulation that every place under the 40th northern latitude in China seems to be lacking (basically anything South of Beijing). Linna explained this with that they had to make me have low expectation to give me a happy surprise.

The second thing is the over worrying, I have a mom to worry about me and she worries enough for everyone; so it annoys me pretty much when a friend I meet starts complaining about my sleeping and eating habits and tries to instruct me on how to live my life, I know that it is a lot healthier to eat regularly at fixed times, say breakfast 8am, lunch at noon and dinner at 6pm (sounds like I would go hungry for a few hours in the afternoon but that's something we get used to, isn't it?), and sleep at regular fixed times, from 11pm to 7am, or something like that. There is more to it though and this is a bit more abstract; it is a kind of feeling when you are with someone that they don't seem to think that you can't take care of yourself on your own, and since your mom is about 8000km away they want to take the role as your part time mom. For a Swedish guy (or girl for that matter) I haven't lived on my own for very long, I moved out from my parents' home when I was 23, still that is 5 years and before that I pretty much took care of myself since I went to high school and had to take responsibility for myself and what I did (it is not entirely true but at least it begins there and we gradually get more responsibility), this is excepting some elementary things like cooking, cleaning and doing laundry which are things that are picked up when needed.

Anyhow, my point is that I wouldn't go on my own to the other side of the world if I couldn't take care of myself in most expected and unexpected situation. This is not to say that I don't need help sometimes and admittedly it is sometimes only to make life a bit simpler but this is not the same thing as wanting constant help and worry about everything. I just want to say that if you want to treat someone as a child it is better if you either get a child to treat as such or make your own baby and let it grow into the child you need. I appreciate the thought behind it though.

20% to boot.

While me and my friend was passing the time outside security check in the airport we started my laptop and looked at some photos for 15-20 minutes or so. After I left her and got through security I had to pass more time so I brought it up again and started up, I found it on 30% battery power left and a claim that it would last 11 more minutes, 2 more minutes and before whatever stuff had finished loading I tried to find the wireless network and my computer died, low power!

I don't know if it just is too much stuff happening, if my battery is singing on the last verse or a combination of it, either way it sucks.

Southpark FTW!

This is without any doubt a new all time high from Matt Stone and Trey Parker; Southpark season 12 episode 11 (combined with 10 as it really is a double) - Pandemic 2 - The Startling. Without saying too much it is something of a spoof of Cloverfield and it's really really awesome.

Meanwhile Heroes is just getting weirder and weirder and it is just keeping piling up proof that the authors have issues with their parents, and probably with their children as well. And it is also kind of starting to look like some kind of metaphor for going through puberty at an unusually old age. I really like it though, can totally identify with some of those... errr... issues.

The China probrem!

Quoting Southpark is fun but I really don't have the same problem with China as Cartman, my problem is more in the sense of my own planning this time; I arrived in Shenzhen in the afternoon and met my friend at the border we went to the train station together and she helped me buying tickets to Shanghai for Saturday. But oh see there are no tickets to Shanghai for Saturday, neither is there any for Sunday nor Tomorrow. SHIT!! Going on Monday would be too late since it takes a night and half a day to get there and I should leave on Wednesday anyway. DAMMIT!!!

Well fortunately for me when we found my hotel, which I by the way could never ever have managed without my friend's help either

* It's actually pretty amazing how much difference there is just walking those 200m across the border (YES THERE IS A BORDER BETWEEN HONG KONG AND mainland CHINA, doesn't that mean they are different countries?) suddenly no one can speak or understand English anymore. From being able to talk to most people and at least communicate with the rest to nothing at all; actually even my friend had a hard time understanding me. *

, I got online and found a cheap flight from Shenzhen to Shanghai on Sunday evening, all was relatively well again. I still started to worry about my other train tickets, would it be just as hard to get a ticket from Shanghai to Beijing and from Beijing to Chengdu? So I started to try to get hold of Wenying and Linna in Shanghai and Nini in Beijing. Beijing is actually not so urgent since its still nearly two weeks until I'm going there, but the Shanghai ticket should be in less than a week and I have hostel reservations in Beijing already so that might be a problem. But in the end that isn't the problem, the problem is instead Wenying and Linna, well not them themselves but their works; my main reason for going to Shanghai is to visit Wenying and Linna, I will see two other friends there but that is not why I'm going to Shanghai, and now it turns out that they are working really late next week, I mean REALLY late, we are talking home at midnight here. This basically means that I will be alone in their home from 7am to 12am for 2 days and from 7am until I leave on the third, great fun! - not.

So what I'm trying to figure out now is if A: I should leave sooner than Wednesday; call my hostel in Beijing and move the reservation forward one day (two won’t be possible), B: Leave later than planned; call and postpone the reservation so that I can stay in Shanghai until the weekend when Wenying and Linna are free to do something or C: leave it as it is and just live with it? Since my time in Beijing is pretty much fixed, due to the fact that I don't want to spend too much money staying in hostel and still want to have enough time to meet up with some friends in Beijing which makes 6 nights perfect, I will just move the arrival day in Chengdu, and since my departure date from Chengdu is fixed to the 21st, flight ticket already bought, I will shorten or lengthen the time there.

The Cube

For those of you how know the cube game you know it's hard to play it if you know the rules but I have been asked so many times when playing it; what my cube is like, so I have closed my eyes and thought and thought about it for long periods of times and tried not to manufacture things to be according to my will but think of what pops up in my mind; the way it should be. So this is my cube, for those who know how you are welcome to analyze it:

The cube is in the middle, it's rather big but not enormous (I would say each side is 1.2-1.4m). It's floating in mid air about half its own height above the ground and it's spinning around its horizontal axel, sometimes it spins quicker and sometimes slower but it never stops. The color cannot be distinguished, perhaps it is because it's spinning, maybe even different sides are different colors, but I would guess that it is either white or black but sometimes it seems to be a shade of blue. I think it's totally opaque, or rather it could actually be somewhat transparent; it seems you can see into it but not through it but that is really impossible to actually see, but it's probably just an illusion, it is opaque.

The ladder is along the wall to the right of the cube when seen from the entrance; it is not all the way to the wall but closer to the wall than to the cube. It is a tall ladder, actually infinitely tall. At a first glance it looks easy to climb but when then you realize it is impossible to ever reach the top anyway. Even as tall as it is it doesn't really take up much space, the cube actually seems to be looming over the ladder. There is no distinguished color or material to the ladder, just seems to be a normal aluminum or iron ladder made of rounded metal bars as thin as a thumb.

The horse is standing on the opposite side of the cube from the ladder, she is quite big, I would say bigger than the cube actually. I think she is white, but there is something black about her too; perhaps the mane and tail are black. She has big brown eyes but she is looking away so you can't see it clearly. It's a nice horse, a horse you would want to take care of; I want to make sure it's safe. And I want it to come closer to the cube, but she doesn't. Actually it seems she is an illusion and not really there at all.

The house seems to be small and hidden in one of the far end corners almost like it's been forgotten there. It is just a normal Swedish falu-red cottage with white frames and a roof that you can't really see what color it's supposed to be.

The garden covers all the ground behind the cube, seen from the entrance. It is a green garden with leafy bushes and red flowers, green soft grass covering the ground and a clear sun touching it from above.

The weather is a dark cloud looming high above between the cube and the illusion of the horse. I is not so dark that I would call it a storm, and it won't be a storm I know that, but some people might think it will and want to go inside not to be hit by lightning, it does however have a light drizzle pouring down from it and wetting the floor between horse and cube.

That's it; as clear as it comes to me. Now I should really try to fall asleep.

Symbolism

Stupid SEK

Almost exactly one month ago I arrived in Hong Kong, I was walking around happily with a stung currency (for the sake of calculation at least) backing me up. Counting safely I always thought 1 to 1 on exchange rate and every time I checked my bank account I happily found that I had spend about 20% less than I had counted, because the exchange rate was about 0.85HKD to 1SEK. This also worked pretty well for the CNY that was just slightly stronger than the HKD; about 0.95CNY to 1SEK.

World economy has broken down and for some reason that I has a mere journeyman cannot understand the SEK has lost an extreme amount of value against the USD, and since both the HKD and CNY are tied to the USD we have lost value to them as well, and not a little, checking today I found that the HKD has actually passed the SEK, about 1.05HKD to 1SEK, and the CNY: 1.20CNY to 1 SEK. It looks like all of Europe is on the downfall, at least it seems the EUR is about the same is a few month, and the last few years, ago; about 10SEK to 1EUR.

This hurts as I'm still living on Swedish money here and will do so for the next two months at least, on the other hand when I do start working I will actually earn 20% more instead of 20% less than what it says, and this is a very good thing.

Just to clarify (mostly to myself) when I say for example 0.85HKD to 1SEK I mean 1HKD costs 0.85SEK. I'm not sure which is the correct way to write it but in context anyone would understand anyway.

China

So I have to wait for three to eight weeks to get my working permit and two birds with one stone I will save money and visit friends in China I have made a travel plan; for about 23 days I will travel around, mostly by train, and stay with friends, at least most of the time, in China.

First I will start off by going to Shenzhen, depending on any Halloween plans here, of which I think there are none for me, I will either go on Thursday, Friday or Saturday next week (29th, 30th or 31st) and stay there in a hostel until Saturday afternoon when I will take a train to Shanghai, it is probably best to be there at least a day early to make sure I can get a ticket, and I will try to meet up with an online friend there that I've missed every single time I've been to Shenzhen.

Train to Shanghai is ONLY about 13 hours so I will arrive sometime really early on Sunday morning. The plan is to stay with Wenying and Linna in Shanghai but it seems rather complicated, in worst case I will have to skip Shanghai completely. The plan though is to stay there for about 3-4 nights, hang out with the two of them and meet my other Shanghainese friend and finally catch a train in the afternoon on the 5th.

To Beijing it's a bit further and the train takes about 17 hours but arrival is also in early morning. There I will stay in hostel though for a few days, I might do a night in Tianjin too to visit two friends there, and I will try to meet up with Nini and Mei and possibly some other friends too. I will leave Beijing with a train to Chengdu on the 11th, spending six nights in the same hostel I was in January.

Chengdu is actually not much further from Beijing than Shanghai is, the problem is the mountain range that the train has to go around so that trip actually takes 25 hours, which is the fastest train they have where the slower ones take 30 and 35 hours, so I will arrive sometime in the evening in Chengdu and then I will probably stay with Li Min when I'm there, either with her or Aaron I guess but I haven't talked to him much and I like her place better actually. I will try to meet up with as many friends as possible and since I have about 10 nights there it shouldn't be that much of a problem. I might go out of Chengdu for one or two nights but we will see about that.

Finally on the 21st I decided to fly back to Shenzhen instead of taking another 30, or even 50 for the slower one, train to Guangzhou and spending another few hours and 250HKD to get back to Hong Kong, the flight ticket was only 700 Yuan including all costs so it actually turned to be almost the same price as the train ticket.

This date is set because Deming will come to Hong Kong that day too and I might go with him to Macau for a few day and stay with him and his parents there. After that I'm not sure what happens, I have been considering looking for some place to live but if the working permit application still have a long time running I might as well go back to China for another few weeks.

The Job

I finally got a contract and I signed in last Monday, the only problem is that it's not a real contract, this gets rather complicated actually; The contract I have signed is a dummy one, that basically means it is not legally valid for anything but to get me the working permit. The contract states a rather low salary, about 15k HKD a month, and a full time workload, this is rather bad actually but since it is just a dummy contract it doesn't really matter.

Instead they will offer me part time projects, with the stated salary they need to reach at least that amount to not have to explain to the immigration office why they couldn't, this has to do with the fact that they shouldn't hire someone they can't provide for, so I feel I'm almost guaranteed that and it's only about 13 hours a week to get that anyway. Since they might not be able to fill my schedule they have also allowed me to do other part time jobs as long as I get the salary through them, the good thing about this is that it will still be completely legal; I have my working permit for this company, company A, and can only work for them, if I work for company B both me and company B might get in trouble if I don't have a working permit for them, and for company A this also helps adding up to the 15k they should pay me every month. The drawback with this is a 12% company tax that they will deduct from all my work outside their company.

I have been in contact with another company too actually and I will stay in touch with them hoping they can provide some part time job. I really liked that place and would actually have preferred working for them fulltime but they were taking too long having too many candidates to interview and test.

So with this stuff done I will get my working permit application papers and go to their office on Monday to sort that out, I was intending to go to the HKCAAVQ today but I actually overslept about 5 hours and there are some issues with payment for that. Then on Thursday or Friday I start my trip to China.

Hong Kong

I've decided that I don't like Hong Kong very much; I can't really put my finger on exactly what I don't like but there is some bad feeling to it. It's like with Shanghai where I feel that everybody basically are rude, people are rather nice here though. There is something else, it feels like no one here is really happy, like everybody are just struggling to get through their daily life and never expecting anything to change, or at least not get better. People seem to generally dislike their jobs, be rather unhappy about relationships and not enjoying their free time at all, basically because they hardly have any and when they do they are too tired from work.

I don't think this applies to everybody here, I have seen happy people too; no one that seems happy about work but at least happy in love and stuff, what I do see more are unhappy people, and it's not only local people, it's everybody; it just feels like this city destroys everybody that comes to and lives here.

I won't give up on this just yet, I got my contract now and will probably be able to start working in about a month, it might be quite crappy and I might actually change my mind by the end of this week.

Epiphany

I had this realization last night, it's really ironic actually; I can't really say much about it since it's involves a lot of secrets (mine and others and some that I don't know so can only make guesses) but I finally realized that something I did over a year ago is having some effects on today (big surprise) and I just don't like the results. This is only one of reasons but at least it is one reason and something I can see is my own fault at least.

Facebook

I have given up on Facebook; I guess it's just temporary but I deactivated my account. I'm just getting sick of it right now, too many feeds. I guess the problem is something of an addiction; I have nothing to do these days and get really bored so I just went on Facebook all the time hoping that someone would have said something to me, but of course that is just stupid.

So I deactivated it, for a while at least we will see what happens, however this means I'm not contactable through Facebook so if anyone wants to talk there is MSN or Skype.

the destructive circles

I read somewhere that the definition of stupidity is when you keep doing something the exact same way despite that you get the same result every single time. Now the circles I'm talking about might not be the exact same way every round, but they are same enough; it is something about when you keep coming back to the exact same place and same situation all the time and you know why you got there, what is wrong and what could be done about it but still when you start your next round you don't take any advice at all, you just keep running the same endless track and wind up at the same place again not long after.

I'm doing this now; I'm right now in that low place where you don't want to be.
The one I'm doing this around does it too, around someone else.
And there are others, I think everybody does it, someone did it around me, and I would think someone does it still.

You try to pull yourself up, tell yourself it will never happen again, tell all who care that it is not like this but then it starts again, things happen and you build yourself up, or are built up by someone until you are high enough and can crash down. I don't think anyone does it on purpose, it is still very often that it is what happens.

It makes me think of the song, Buttercup by The Foundations, that we have on the Singstar party disk, the first disk I had for that game actually; the lyrics has some points.

IMAX

My first IMAX experience! It's not that amazing actually, just a really big screen, and it was really cold in the theatre, I mean really REALLY cold. We watched Eagle Eye; it was a pretty good movie, interesting development and stuff. What was cool about the IMAX thing though, was that it was totally unplanned, there is like one single IMAX theatre in Hong Kong (and not that many outside Hong Kong, I think around a few hundred or so in the world, two in Sweden); it just happened that Ariel and I had dinner in a shopping mall called MexaBox and on the floor we had dinner there just happened to be a theatre and it just happened that Eagle Eye started showing just 15 minutes after we finished eating and that it was showing in the IMAX theatre.

Clubs in Hong Kong

After being here for a few weeks and seen much of the night life I actually had the feeling that there are no clubs here and that local people don't really go out, fortunately I was wrong though; last night I went out with an American friend that I met the first week I was here and he finally brought me to a real club, with local people. I did cost a lot though, entrance alone was 220HKD and even though I didn't really drink there I still spent 120HKD on drinks (I ordered one but for some reason got two). It did become a long night, I took a taxi back at about 4.30 or 5.00 in the morning but at least I have nothing to do today so it was pretty fine.

what to do when not looking for jobs

Painted Skin (wa pei)
A killer that cuts the heart out of its victims is terrorinzing wang shengs territory, meanwhile his wife, pei rong, starts to suspect the new girl that wang sheng saved from bandits during one of his recent campains to be a deamon.




Not the greatest movie ever but it was quite interesting, a lot of people assume it is a scary movie but it was more like funny action, I gave it a 3 out of 5 on http://www.filmtipset.se/, after adding it there myself, that low because of the ending.

My need to see list (priority listed!!!):

1. Southpark S12E08 (E09 comes on Thursday)
2. Heroes S03E01-04 (E05 should be available today but I can't find it so I guess I have to wait until tomorrow)
3. Robot Chicken S03E14-20 (all second half of season 3 basically)
4. Californication S02E01-03 (E04 on Thursday)
5. Enourage S05E03-06
6. Family Guy S07E01-02
7. American Dad S04E01-02

Of course I only have today and tomorrow to find stuff so anything that airs after that will have to wait. Lost is also one thing that will have to wait for a while since it doesn't start again until January 2009. Apparently I missed Robot Chicken S03E14 too, the Christmas special from 2007 (S03E14) So that one comes too.

Tap Mun

As usual when I have to get up early I can't sleep at night, I probably got about 3 hours of sleep but was still quite fine, since I had actually eating something which is usually the biggest problem, when I met Joyce and Kiu Kiu at Coi Hung MTR station at about 9.45am. We took a 10 minutes or so Light bus to Sai Kung where we met up with Joyce's friends and had breakfast with them (which I didn't know so I had already eaten something but not too much). After breakfast we took a real bus for about 20 minutes to where the ferry was and went on a ferry ride for another 30 minutes or so, then we finally arrived in Tap Mun.

The harbor on Tap Mun is on the east side of the island so we walked up the hills and found ourselves on the steeper west side after a rather short walk where an amazing view and strong winds met us. We played around with kites and other stuff for a while, which was a lot tougher than you might think, and after a while we had our picnic; everybody, except me, had made some stuff and brought with them, I can't even try to explain the food but it was very good.

A lot of photo shooting (neither of nor by me) later we packed up and started walking around the island, I would give it about the same size as Pottneholmen (one of the places we used to boat out to in Blekinge when I was younger) but a lot hillier. More marvelous views and photos later and a walk through something like a cemetery we got back to the harbor at about 4.30pm.

With all the travelling back, boats and waiting and a bus that I think took about an hour, it was probably around 8 when we arrived at Diamond hill MTR station so we stayed there and had dinner, very typical Chinese dinner with the spinning table and several really good dishes.

After a very long day I was totally exhausted when I arrived at the hostel at around 10pm, but having to check my email about the interview that I thought I had the day after I met some friends in the hostel common areas. Realizing that I didn't have any interview I had a few beers and suddenly it was 4am and I had had a few beers more so I basically went up to my room and passed out from exhaustion.

Om hästar kunde flyga...

Så skulle dom troligen inte kallas hästar längre, eller?

*
Vad vill du ha till middag ikväll?
Det va ett tag sen vi hade hästvinge!
*

Gott och nyttigt, väldigt mört ljust kött som bäst servers till ris eller potatis, passar mycket bra till vita viner och smaksätts gärna med basilika eller rosmarin.

Leisure

I have been jumping around a little when it comes to accommodation actually; the first 5 nights I saved a lot of money staying in a 4-beds dorm and only paying 70HKD per night, this really sucked though and I made a friend in a travelling Dutchman who also wanted something more private, so we got for his two last night a 2-beds room which cost us 175HKD each and gave us a king-size bed each and private shower and toilet.

After he left I spent one night in Tin Shui Wai, in Joyce's home, and left the majority of my luggage with my Canadian brother (he has kind of adopted me) who has a private room in the hostel, when I came back the morning after though there wasn't any other room free, not even a dorm bed actually, so I started looking around in the building, where there are about 20 other hostels, and found a private room for 250HKD, in which I'm still staying, have 8 days in total and might extend until I leave for China. I still hang out a lot in the old hostel since they have some nice common areas (remove nice it’s just a comparison and there because it's the only place that has any common areas at all) and I made some friends there.

The first few days when the weather was better I went to a public leisure pool in Kowloon park a few times, since I didn't have much else to do I tried to spend as much time there as possible but it got pretty boring after 1-2 hours. I have been trying to meet up with friends for lunches and dinners but most of the time no one is available, I did (fail to) surprise Joyce (Man had already told her I was coming) and we had Thai food and watched a movie, Connected which is a Hong Kong remake of the Hollywood movie Cellular. No point in counting all my lunches and dinners and movies now but I have tried quite a lot of different food and met almost everybody I know here I think.

I also spent two days in Tin Shui Wai, at Joyce's cousin Kiu kiu's request I had to come back and play with him, a lot of scrabble and other word games, he is a very curious little 6 year old now and I have had good times there.

EFL

I had some very positive feelings before I came here, given that I already had an interview waiting for me only a week after I arrived. I got a few more calls about interviews actually and went on the first one a few days before my original first, and the first one I went to, at a company called Eureka, I got a quite good feeling for it, but the other two, including the original was not so good and finally they don't offer much money to be honest. I also got quite a lot of calls for part time jobs but as soon as I mention that I don't have a working permit yet they all say they have to talk to their supervisor about sponsoring and that they will come back to me, which they never do of course.

I have quite a bit to write about the process of getting a job and a working permit and such here but I think I will wait with it until I actually have one. I'm still in contact with Eureka and waiting for a contract with them, but they are sometimes slow to answer and I really don't have much time, this is because, from what I hear, the working permit process can take as long as 6 weeks, which is a long time and I'm not sure I can afford to stay that long. It is not all bad though as I will still have my passport during that time and can actually spend it in China, where I can live of about one fifth of the money I need in Hong Kong.

There are some additional expenses I didn't foresee; there is an institute called HKCAAVQ (Hong Kong Council for Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications) that will accredit my academic qualification so that they count in Hong Kong, which they don't do right now. This accreditation costs 2160HKD though and will take 15 working days, and it needs some papers that I don't have with me here, my high school grades for one.

Still hope is left and I think in the end I will have a job, it is rather impossible for me to go back to Sweden over Christmas as I had hoped since I probably won't even start working until mid November and not get my first salary until beginning of December. Sorry.

Nightlife

Already on the first night I came here I got to experience Hong Kong night life, this was actually the worst night life experience I had though. I met a random stranger from UK and we went out drinking together, soon Ariel joined us and when time drew closer to midnight we decided to try a club. The club we went to is called "Why bar" and can be found in TST pretty close to my hostel actually, we paid our 160HKD each (free for girls though) and went inside to find it... totally empty, there was not a single patron there when we arrived. Later three others came in and the six of us actually managed to have some good time, got a few drinks for free and enjoyed the night until about 2 or 3 in the morning.

Since then I have tried quite a lot of different things; One night I went out alone, since no one at the hostel wanted to go out, and managed to find some foreigners in central that brought me around in Lan Kwai Fong in Central, which is one of the bigger bar scenes in Hong Kong and is where basically all, and only, the foreigners go. Before the end of the night we had explored Wan Chai as well as central and I had seen the sun rise over Victoria harbor. This was so far the most affordable night since we just kept buying beer at Seven-11 for 6HKD a can instead of the 50+HKD in the bars and I took the MTR both there and back again.

Another night I just spent in a bar in TST, this time with more than 3 people, and talked to some old professor and got treated Bacardi 151 (which apparently is 75.5% rum) by my Canadian friend from the hostel.

I made a Greek friend at the hostel too and together we explored a more local scene when we went to an open mike night at a live restaurant, that is a restaurant that has live music by local talents, and got tipped off by that owner, who my Greek friend is out having drinks with tonight, to go to one of two towers in Causeway Bay and explore the karaoke scene; it took a while for us to actually find any lounge karaoke but jumping around on 10 different floors (which is only half of one of the buildings she talked about) we did see a lot of bars (that were basically exactly the same).

Mostly a night out has cost me around 300-400HKD, but like the longest night I only spent about 100HKD (and I still bought one beer in a bar) and another I should have spent way more but my Canadian brother is, or pretends to be, loaded so he bought a lot of drinks for us.

Too much

Way too much has happened for me to write about it all, mostly because I've been too lazy to write and I don't have much access to Internet these days so I'm just giving up. I figure I should write some kind of summary though so I decided the divide it into three parts, night life (I have been going out quite a lot and been trying to experience different aspects of Hong Kong night life), EFL (basically about my pursuit of a job here) and others (what I have been doing when I'm not partying and looking for jobs.

Singapura

I think staying with Deming I seriously hurt his health both physical and financial, from the first night we had dinner with his friend Lynette, who is really cool by the way, and cute too for that matter. Who we also got to see a lot of the rest of the week, and after that we went to an Irish bar, Scruffy Murphy's, on the east coast. It is damn funny how everybody in Singapore knows every single place there by name and semi accurate descriptions; people always asked me where I had been and I never remembered the places, but there wasn't a single person who couldn't get it right on the first try when I said something like "Irish place somewhere on the east coast" or "Some shopping mall close this or that MRT station", truly amazing, I can probably do that in Lund but the size is slightly different.

Turns out that the people I met the most where the ones I had least expected to meet at all, except for Deming of course who I was staying with I mostly saw Yi Ling (one zero in Chinese) who came and met us at the bar that Evening. Yan Wei who I thought I would spend a bit more time with was really busy so I actually didn't meet her until Saturday lunch and later again on my last night in Singapore. Kelly too, who share my birthday, hardly had any time at all but we did go out for dinner, clubbing and finally a lunch too, with Elgin joining everything except clubbing. Kunshan and Glen I didn't see at all, nor did I meet any of the people that were in Lund same time as Yan Wei.

Day by day the story goes:

1. A few beers the first night with Deming, Lynette and Yi Ling, then I pretty much crashed at 1am when we got back home.
   
2. Lunch with Yi Ling and a brief visit to IKEA to buy some Elderberry flower juice concentrate for Karen who I met for dinner in the evening. This was after waking up at 6.30am and wondering why the hell I couldn't sleep though, then finally finding that Deming didn't get up until 9.30ish. Meeting Karen was really nice, we had Chinese food at one of the central buildings on Orchard road, and she seems to be doing well with her work here and is as lovely as always.
   
   The hours between lunch and dinner I spent walking in the really nice botanical garden and the national orchid garden. That would have been so much more fun had I not been alone and if I just had had a camera, I actually tried to make Lynette come and join me since she had half a day off, but unfortunately it was the first half of the day so that didn't happen. I ended up making my own way home and after some major confusion at bus stops I finally came back and crashed before the clock struck 10pm.
   
3. Again waking up around 5-6am I spent my whole morning at home and had lunch at a local place, but western food it turns out. The evening was my first club night but before that I met up with Yi Ling for some drinks, she had taken the afternoon off and we explored the central happy hours (still rather expensive I might say) and even before dinner I had gotten so tired I could hardly sit straight. Nothing to do but power through though and even though I might not have been the best conversationalist at the Italian dinner with Yi Ling and her friend at least I didn't fall asleep.
   
   Deming joined us there and after that we went from bar to bar, meeting up with random people, friends of Yi Ling mostly, and had quite a lot of red bull vodkas. By around 1am we found our way to a club called The Butter Factory (for butter cookies I guess) where eventually Lynette joined us too. Still being tired when we got there I wasn't much fun I guess, but by the time they closed at 3am I had somehow turned around and gotten really energetic, so we headed out for the main clubbing attraction that Singapore offers (or so they say), Zouk, a clubbing venue that offers the most expensive drinks from multiple bars and several dance floors, we only had water and that was free.
   
   We pretty much stayed at a dance floor for about half an hour until they closed it down and we had to move on to the next one, ending up at a pretty boring techno floor at 4.30 or 5am where I managed to drop my shades and dance them to pieces, which Lynette found rather fun and Yi Ling sorry, she actually offered to buy new ones, I think Deming didn't even notice it.
   
   Eventually we gave up though and went for some after party food where I accidentally ate a piece of minced prawn that nearly had me throw up, I really don't take prawn. Yi Ling and her friend Marcus pretty much fell asleep on the way back but Deming and I stayed up a bit longer when we came back. Clubbing in Singapore is fun, but really expensive, entrance fees to places is around 20-40 S$, which is basically 100-200kr, and drinks are worse than in Sweden, Deming is really happy to buy jugs of drinks though, sharing on a few people, which is fun but it's probably not too good for his wallet.

to be continued...

Flying, flying and flying continued

Time flies and I've been pretty busy, but let's continue with what happened with the plug in my ear; I was trying really hard to get it out but my fingers are a bit too big to put inside my ear, I was actually worried I would have to sit with it still there throughout the whole flight, but finally I asked a stewardess for something to pick it with and she gave me a rather big pincer, it probably would have been easier had she helped me too since I couldn't see anything but she really didn't seem to want to do that for some reason, so I spent about 15 minutes in the lavatory and finally to my happiness I got it out.

The rest of the flight was rather uneventful, except that I was pumped with adrenalin from the battle with the earplug so I couldn't relax and fall asleep in the next 30 or so minutes. I did finally fall asleep though and the rest was just normal sleeping/watching movie to kill time. At Hong Kong international I exchanged my last 100kr bill to a 100HKD bill and 1.8 or so HKD in coins (which is a horrible exchange rate), so that I could call Joyce from a phone booth.

3rd flight was as boring as the other two with the addition that I couldn't sleep anymore, I watched Find Bill which was pretty good but it was damned boring anyway. And then finally we are back to where we started and Deming meeting me at the airport with uncanny timing.

Once arrived he took me to a local small restaurant and forced me to eat cuttlefish, it was alright but I'm still not giving up my seafood ban! Finally finally finally I arrived at my end destination; Deming's home, and once he went back to work I could take my shower and rest up for the evening fun times!

Flying, flying and flying

24 hours later I landed in Singapore and with some marvelous Singaporean efficiency my friend Deming, who I'm staying with, arrived just about 5 minutes before I go out through the customs checkpoint.

The journey began in Bjärred at 5.40am CET when I had already been up pretty much all night, only excepting about 40 minutes when MaoSai had me realize I couldn't leave without staying in the bed with him for at least a while. Mom drove me to Copenhagen airport well on time - being well on time is pretty unusual to me and this is a going theme for this whole journey with early boardings and all flights arriving earlier than expected - and by 7.20 I had found my gate, at the furthest depth of Kastrup airport and after getting ripped at a money exchange booth (only getting about 186SGD for 1000SEK, which is an exchange rate of 5.4 instead of the going 4.7), and was boarded a short while later.

I have no recollection at all of that flight except that I saw some sandwiches served in the corner of my eye and that the flight was rather empty. At Heathrow I started out with terminal changing then I found a Cathay pacific information booth and managed to get my seat changed to lots of leg space seats on both my next flights (since I actually flew with BA to London they couldn't fix my seats in Copenhagen). About an hour or so left to spend before they even announced the gate for my next flight I tried TGI Fridays (the only place that didn't only have weird breakfast on the menu) and had a quite crappy burger.

Once again I was early to board, and I found that I had gotten a really nice seat with about 2 meters for my legs, that is until I discovered that people queuing for bathroom tended to step on my feet all the time. Finally I was ready to go to sleep, after being up for almost 24 hours, only excepting the 40 minutes before I left home and the hour or so on the flight to London, I was ready to pass out so I got my blanket, pillow and eyeshades and prepared to stick in my new super anti-pressure problem earplugs (for nearly 100kr at the drugstore in Sweden) when suddenly I realized I had pushed the left one a little bit too far into my ear.

to be continued

dance floors and how to not pick up girls in Sweden

Naive and ethnocentric as I sometimes can be I didn't realize that this was actually an international phenomenon, or at least it happens in Sweden too; that is the girls being crowded on the dance floor. This takes a slightly different shape though, in China the girls actually stay put, being that there are more girls in the clubs than guys so even the really beautiful ones can't pick and chose, not much at least, or maybe that is what they believe, in any case they stay, here the girls run away as quickly as they can once one guy starts crowding them. Eventually this leads to girls giving up and going home with the most persistent guy, no matter what he is like, and not really mattering what she wants.

This of course leads to the impossibility of doing a original dance floor pick up. Now in China on the other hand this kinda works in a very strange way, I've seen how it doesn't work there too, or actually works, most of the persistent guys got a girl in the end there too but I really can't take it, I did do dance floor pick ups in China though but at least I never had to be persistent, maybe it's just my stunning good looks or another subtle charm that I have, but I learnt, especially in Beijing, how it worked and without crowding anyone I had some nice flirts.

nothing to say

Karma

I guess I should be writing about Sandra graduation first but I just don't have energy for it, let's just say that the party was great and Sandra is now a high school graduate, congratulations! :D

Karma is the belief that everything you do will come back to you, eg. if you do something bad bad things will happen to you and if you do something good good things will happen to you, and this also applies to different lives, given that you believe in incarnation too. You could say that the world remembers what you do and judge you for it.

Memory is something that animals have, and humans somewhat better than others, if you do something bad to an animal they are quite likely to return the favor. But what is bad? When it comes to humans we define what is bad on morals, general moral are generally the same for everybody, especially within one culture, but specific morals is highly individual, what one person think is bad another finds normal. For what we consider very bad we have devised a legal system that is supposedly objective morals, something that several people have agreed on what is very bad, graded how bad it is and decided on how to punish people who does it.

Considering how subjective morals actually is I find it rather strange to think of the world as something with a memory and a moral standard to judge your every action, it seems to me this is also something that has been devised by humans to control other humans, to make sure that even humans who will not survive won't do "bad" things, bad according to the humans who devised it that is.

I lived a pretty good life in Chengdu until now, I might have done some bad things according to some people but I think in general I didn't go bad, and according to my own morals I was only a little bad, some times. Then I came back home, I would say I had to leave early due to bad luck but actually that wasn't so bad since I got to join both dad's birthday and Sandra's graduation, what is bad to me now is that I can't seem to find a job and I bothered by a new debt from CSN. So is this bad Karma? I would say not, CSN after my is actually my own fault, I was not a diligent student and the last semester I was studying before I went to China I didn't sign up for courses to take some re-exams but I only took one, to CSN this means that I didn't want to study and now they want me to pay back, apparently not only humans have memories and morals but governmental institutions has as well, and this would actually have hit me whatever I came back or not, same with my very annoying student loan debt.

Anyway, if I can't resolve this in a good way I think the prospects of me going to Hong Kong and work there next semester seem rather bad.

Simple luxury

On Sunday evening Maja, Alexander and I went out to Blekinge to spend a few days at our summer house there, Maja only stayed two nights but that was enough to enjoy the simple luxury of barbecuing spareribs with wedge potatoes and wine and sitting in the evening sun drinking cold beers.

The two days Alexander and I were alone we kept enjoying these simple pleasures and also added the somewhat aristocratic game of white-wine-archery and of course swimming in the not-yet-warm-enough-lake and just major relaxing.

We did actually do some good too; all the lawns are newly cut, I watered some plants for mom and exercising by walking around the ca 10km circle around to Ettebro and back, and of course sun tanning.

All in all we had a great few days, despite the mosquito bites, and I hope we can do it again next week.

The aristocratic way of doing archery: With a chardonnay by the setting sun.

Back home

Back home I spent the first day just hanging with my sister and Sofia and later in the evening I had dinner with them and mom and dad. The day after was a lot more eventful with meeting loads of friends for real Swedish pizza and then drinking too much, first at the restaurant then at Maja's, Sofia's and Madde's apartment in Klostergården and then later at Mat's place also in Klostergården and then finally walk in to town to have a real Swedish kebab at kebabvagnen, and take a 150kr taxi back to Bjärred, I really do miss cheap drink and really cheap taxis. It was the first time to meet Sandra's boyfriend Varij, that was quite interesting.

More things going on on Saturday with dad's 60th birthday party and all the family coming over, I was a bit hangover half the day but was fine in the evening, just really tired. The party was fine, lots of gifts for dad, among them was mainly an exclusive bottle of Cognac that we tried later on, I also got to give my gifts I had brought, unfortunately we have to wait for the correct ones for cousin Anna, aunt Gordana and uncle Per, they were all wrong. We had great barbecued lamb and sausages and a great cake and things too, I was actually worried I would start gaining weight already but it was still OK the morning after. For some reason everybody was really tired so everybody went home early and I slept around 11pm already.

Trafikstockning i Ettebro

There was a car stopped by the roadside when we were driving out from the summer house today, the driver was talking to a man by the road and I think we had to wait as long as 30 seconds before we could move on. Life is just good sometimes.

The journey

My travels started early on Wednesday morning with meeting the landlord and return my keys then taking my over 30kg luggage, some 7kg backpack and a small paper bag with two gifts that was not light at all (remember this when you think of me struggling through the Hong Kong metro system later). I started off with going around Chengdu a little to say a final goodbye to Li Min and then I went off to the airport, I taxied all the way so at least I didn't have to worry too much about the luggage carrying yet. For once I was not late to the airport, which was very fortunate since I was over 10kg overweight and had to pay a 210Yuan fine to get it onboard, that was totally worth it. Once through the security I had some time so I had my breakfast, a 45yuan sandwich. Then of course I nearly missed my flight anyway (exaggeration) because I thought it was from gate 9 and delayed but it was from gate 7 and on time, but I found that out quickly enough and boarded well on time.

Two hours and another half -breakfast later we landed in Shenzhen and I decided (against better judgment) to investigate alternative means of travel to Hong Kong, it turned out to be a great idea, they have an express shuttle bus that goes all the way to Hong Kong and makes several stops and it costs only 90yuan, and to this they actually had quite good service, really helpful staff and stuff like that. So I took the bus to Hong Kong instead of dragging myself to Shenzhen and around on the metro there to get to Hong Kong and take trains and stuff there to get to Central, instead I got to Jordan, only two three stops away from Central but that was more than enough.

Getting around in a very crowded metro system in Hong Kong is troublesome enough without luggage, and with the previously mentioned luggage it is not easy at all, I did get to Central easily enough but the in town check-in I was looking for is in Hong Kong station, about 5 minutes walk (read 15 minutes with luggage) from Central, and with some minor judgmental errors I had to walk back and forth a few times and pay entrance (buy a ticket to another station) again before I finally got there.

British Airways is great actually, they have at least until November this year no fine at all for luggage under 32kg, and after that they will have a fixed fine of £25 over 23kg or something like that, which is not too much, compared to those that have like €10 per kg too much, which sucks. So I got through with my luggage without any issues and stored my hand carry there for 200HKD and was off to meet with Joyce. First I went to Mong Kok to buy my graduation gift for my cousin Sandra though, can’t tell what it is or how much it cost but it was fun to barter for and I think I got it for a fair price, and really quickly too, this was after a brief complication to exchange money first though, were I accidentally went to the stock exchange instead of the money exchange but I soon found a bank that could help me at least.

Then it was finally off to TST to meet Joyce, but since I had been so quick with everything that I got there about 30-45 minutes too early, and in that time I managed to distract myself with looking at some “name card”, a small paper card where some guy wrote a Chinese version of a western name and sold it for 25HKD, of course I couldn’t find Johan so they insisted I’d tell them my name and soon I had told them my Chinese name too and they had written it down and I had to pay the 25HKD for it. Eventually Joyce got there and met me and we went off and ha dinner with Almen and Ariel, after which they followed me to the check-in to get my hand carry and take the airport express, which I first missed because Almen insisted we should take photos together first.

So I got to the airport a little bit late, but it was OK, I was not late for the flight only had Charlotta wait for me a little there, I think she survived that with and major troubles. That was pretty cool though, a pretty much chance meeting on a big international airport with an old friend from the time back at electro engineering. This is around the point where my brain stopped working properly and I was thinking I had a bit more time than I had, so after I’d left Charlotta and gone through the security I went to wash up and stuff and I was ready just in time for when I though the gate was opening, but of course that was the time when the gate was closing, which I realized when I was walking to the gate and found the signs saying final call for my flight. I even met some ground staff urging me on to hurry there. I did (once again I have to say) get on the flight just in time, some of the attendants seemed a bit annoyed at me but they will survive too.

12 hours later I had finally seen National Treasure 2 and slept just about enough to be happy I landed in London Heathrow and struggled my way through the airport to my connecting flight and a close to 2 hour wait. £3 for half an hour internet by the gate and some rest later I boarded yet another flight and was nearing the end of my over 32 hour journey home, I tried to sleep on the plane but it even though it was 5am local time it was closer to 12pm in China and my personal time so that was basically impossible. We landed a bit early and I had to wait a bit for mom and dad to come and pick me up, and as usual they had problems finding the right terminal and which parking lot to go to but at least they finally found me and could get me home.

Around 11.30am on Thursday morning Swedish time I finally got back home, after over 32 hours of which most was spent on a BA flight between Hong Kong and London and in Hong Kong itself I was finally home. And nothing had changed, it still feels like time has been standing still since I left on August 8th 2007, almost 10 months ago.

I’m home!

Obviously

Well obviously I made the decision already since I'm in Sweden now and staying in our summer house with Alexander for a few days, I can still update a little bit about the very hectic week before and the adventures of travelling home:

I actually made my decision earlier than planned which was pretty fortunate, it turned out late enough as it was anyway, the tickets I had found back home was from Chengdu to Shenzhen for no more than 800yuan and then from Hong Kong to Copenhagen with a transfer in London for about 4500HKD, which adds up to about 4000SEK or a little bit less in Chinese Yuan. These had of course 3 days later (Wednesday two weeks ago now) gone up in price, the one from Chengdu to Shenzhen had maxed out at 1500yuan and the other one changed to around 5000HKD instead ending my price at about 5000SEK instead. I really couldn't have waited anymore or the prices would probably have doubled after that, since I really had to go home for my dad's birthday party or half the point of going home would have been wasted.

So the adventures began and I had to start packing, it was really though in the beginning, mostly I spent the first few days after my decision meeting up with some friends and say goodbye to them, I managed to squeeze in lunches and dinner just about every day and even joined a birthday party of an American friend on Friday night but after that I really had to start packing up my stuff. First I packed all my excessive clothes and blankets and stuff that I wouldn't need urgently in Sweden, all this added up to two big boxes of 11kg each which I sent to Joyce in Hong Kong so that I have some stuff already when I get there, in the high hopes of actually going there, the funniest part of this to pack was some vacuum bags that I put my blankets and pillows and some towels in, they pretty much turned hard as rocks after a few minutes of pumping, very cool. I managed to send all this on Monday, plus cancelling my apartment contract getting me some money back, getting salaries for almost all my work and still have time to meet up with friends.

Tuesday was another hectic day with loads of new problems, this time I packed stuff to send to Sweden and it soon turned out that I couldn't send some things that I really wanted to send; my magnets was in a too big box and couldn't fit in the largest box China post has for international service, I bought a bigger rice cooker for mom and dad that they refused to take because it was an electric device, the same went for my own smaller one of course, so basically the only thing I could post was soft stuff, the magnets had to stay in Chengdu with a friend there and the rice cookers went with me in my luggage. Finally I ended up sending one big box of 11kg by ship or over land and one smaller box of about 5kg by air, where I had some stuff that I wanted more urgently back in Sweden.

Another problem I ran into on Tuesday was my China Telecom deal, I had apparently signed to have Internet and telephone for 12 months, even though I was quite clear with them that I might not even stay for more than 5 months, so instead of giving me the deposit and one month's worth of internet back they wanted me to pay for two more months, this ended up with them not getting the modem back at all and me not paying or getting any money back. I also managed to get my third hepatitis B shot before I left; it's really a lot cheaper in China than in Sweden so I really had to use that opportunity.

I managed to finish up my packing and with a friends help even clean up my apartment to a pretty decent level. I had sold my oven to Aaron, an American friend, and basically given him all my kitchen supplies. Aarons also got a lot of other kitchen stuff, as did Li Min, my very close Chinese friend who helped me out a lot all my time in China and especially the last few days, and Jiao, another close Chinese friend, got some too and she also got to take my magnets for safekeeping and my router and gym membership to try to sell them.

And then on Wednesday morning my journey started so I must say goodbye Li Min, Aaron, Lily, Nicole (Yin XiaoLin), Jiao, Bella (Tingting), Luna, Kelly, Aileen, Betty, Ivy, Alon, Rabia, Anna, Vivian, Ryan, Andrew, XiangXiang, Monica (Duan Shuang), Elizabeth (Tian DanZhi), Lucille, Nicky, Lily (another Lily), Linger, Sue, Yaya, Tina, Paul and Tiffany and the other peace corps people, Linda and the other bartenders at Paname and other places and of course all the teachers in and kids in all the schools I've been working and everybody else I might have forgotten to mention.

More about the journey itself in a coming post!

A tough decision

Because all of these aftershocks and the general mood here in Chengdu almost all public school are still closed, this of course leads to me not work which renders me rather worried about not getting enough money for my travels later. I have tried to budget things but if I start working on Wednesday I will still only have about 500 yuan left for my flight ticket back to Sweden, and given how easy it is to do good budget plans for travelling, at least for me, I would say I'm pretty much screwed.

If things are not getting back to normal very soon I have started considering an option, I might actually go home now, well at least within 2 weeks there are still a lot of things to take care of.

Cons for this is that I won't be able to go to Singapore this summer, I won't go to Shanghai either to see Linna and Nana, and Wenying of course but at least I saw her last week. Also my plan was to stay here until June 28Th and leaving a month early I have to quit all my classes, which might make my employers here upset but considering the circumstances I guess they wont argue too much about it. The worst thing is still leaving prematurely, it's on pretty short notice and I will hardly have enough time to say goodbye to my friends here.

Pros for this is that I will be able to join dad's 60Th birthday party, I will make it to cousin Sandra's high school graduation and I might be able to take an exam or two in June. I might also be able to get a summer job, which is both a pro and a con because I had really been looking forward to my first free summer in about 7 years.

I will make this decision before Friday night.

The biggest thing is still my plans for next year, I have for long been considering going to Hong Kong next year and work there for some time but as it is now I will hardly have enough money for it, if I do get a good summer job I might be able to get enough money to actually do it, and not only that I might also be able to visit Singapore on my way there after all.

Between earthquakes and storms

We just had some drinks at the Hemp house garden, Hemp house's own little outdoor serving area, when suddenly a heavy wind rose and started shaking all the parasols and not long after it had started raining heavily. We, who had been considering giving up for a while already decided to ditch the place and go home so we headed down for the street to get a taxi. We stood there looking for a taxi for about 30 minutes in the rain, there were not many out and most of them were taken and the few that weren't ignored us for some reason.

The rain was still very heavy but rather than just standing there in it we decided to take a walk to a "nearby" McDonald's at TianFu square, only about 40 minutes walk it turned out, actually the goal was not TianFu square, I thought there was another one on the way there but that one was not a 24hours one. The one at TianFu was though but they were closed anyone, the staff was there and it was lit, but they had locked it up and when Aaron asked about it they claimed they were "preparing" for the 5am breakfast, it was only about 2am then.

We finally did get a taxi each then and not long after that I was home, just about 2 hours later than expected. Turns out there was a rather big aftershock just before the storm started, I guess it was just strong enough to be felt where we were but all the taxi drivers must have felt it.

Day after

Today has been really really boring, first I hardly got any sleep because people kept messaging and calling me, I guess it was hard to sleep anyway because the weather has been really bad, this high pressure humidity that just makes you feel sick. And then all my classes were cancelled today, I suspect they will be tomorrow as well, so I basically slept until 11am and then had like boiled eggs for breakfast, since I actually didn't have anything else and the elevators were still turned off so I couldn't really go out anyway.

There were a few more aftershocks expected during the day and one of the actually managed to make an impression, I was watching a movie then though and it only lasted for like 10 seconds but I think it felt as powerful as the original quake. I spent the day watching South Park and a movie and I baked bread, which turned out great by the way.

In the evening I decided to go out to find some Internet, which the lack of is basically the reason for my extreme boredom these days, and to my extreme joy some of the elevators were up and running again, this made me happy mostly because I ran into some human fesis on my climb up last night, that was NOT pleasant.

Anyway, news has changed and the quake is now deemed to be 7.9 instead of 7.8, there are around ten thousand dead instead of the mere 100, which is horrible by the way, and all of Chengdu is basically stopped, not that anything has happened here. Mostly people has been treating themselves bad, they don't dare to sleep and hardly even stay inside the buildings, I personally find it perfectly fine though.

The world is shaking

It was about 2.30pm, I had gone home from my classes early due to a really bad stomach ache that nearly prevented me to stand up in class, in later reflection I think it might have been a warning sign for what was to happen later but I rather think it's just because of my recent travels to different food cultural places. So I was lying in my bed when suddenly I heard squeaking machinery and suddenly my room started shaking in an uncomfortable wobbling way. I was wondering to myself what the hell was going on with the subway construction or whatever and rose out of bed to check what was going on; the crane outside was swinging back and forth and that looked pretty scary, I saw people running around down on the streets and I started hearing the voices of my neighbours as they where gathering up and running out.

I did actually bother to go outside my door too but didn't bother to go any further, I was tired and from what I had seen on the street I figured that it would just be safer to stay, so I went back to bed and started to try and contact people, which didn't work out too well. Staying in bed worked perfectly fine actually, but contacting people was harder, the only one I managed to get a reply from was Joyce, and she couldn't find anything to tell me.

The main shake was actually pretty big, they say it was 7.8 in the epicenter and around 5 here in Chengdu, and on the 20Th floors I could feel it quite heavily, the only lasting effect I saw in my apartment though was my cutting board that fell over from it's standing leaning position over the sink and into the sink instead, that took about 2 seconds to correct, so basically no, I didn't feel scared: if my shelves with classes could hold up I figure the concrete building must manage as well.

I have no prior experience with earthquakes so I have nothing at all to compare to, the time it lasted seemed pretty long, like a few minuets, but the power of it didn't feel so bad to me, compared to what I've seen in movies and stuff at least, haha. I stayed in my apartment for a few hours after the main shock and there was an almost constant vibration in the building, I though it was just the building keeping shaking out of pure resonance or something but it turns out there have been as many as 44 or even more small aftershocks.

At about 5.30pm a friend messaged me and told me there would be another big shock at 7pm so I figured it would actually be safer to leave before the chaos started again, I got a pretty good view of the traffic chaos from my window, so I gathered up some stuff, like my passport and laptop and other important things, and headed down the 21 stairs (since the main entrance was blocked for some reason and I had to go down to the parking spaces under the building to get out) and went out for lunch. I had still not found anyone who could speak English so I had my hopes on a Taiwanese guy that has a small restaurant near my place, but of course he was closed so I went to the next door restaurant instead.

Then I went out to where I am right now, outside a closed Starbucks where I have both power and a wireless connection to play with (the biggest reason I went out at all was actually that my Internet at home was disconnected when I got back from Shanghai, probably because I haven't paid for it in a few months). Here I finally met some people speaking English and I managed to get my Internet running and got the information I felt I needed, so right now I'm pretty satisfied.

The quake itself had it's center around 90km northwest of Chengdu and about 10km underground, it reached a maximum of 7.8 and about 5 here in Chengdu at 2.28pm local time. The official death toll right now is 107 people and more than 37 more are injured, the first numbers we saw was 4 and 5 dead students (I think primary school or middle school students) somewhere, there are also new about some 900 students are buried under their school buildings but it doesn't say much more. From BBCnews.com

I did not experience any problem with power and water, out of the ordinary that is, my building loses power once in a while and when it did today it was nothing that couldn't happen any day, except perhaps that the whole building was out of power and not just my apartment, which is partly why I decided to stay in my room since I actually get light from the windows there. It might be that I actually live in a pretty good building, considering I had power all throughout the quake and when I lost it I actually got it back in about an hour or two.

I have actually been a lot more afraid than this, and probably with good cause, just experiencing the normal every day traffic here, I've had more than a few near death experiences so far. Saying this probably doesn't sooth the mind of a scared mother but what I'm trying to say that this is not really anything to worry about.

A very weird night in Shanghai

I met some friendly people at the hostel right away and sat down to drink with them and at about 2am a few of us decided to head out to a club, I have heard good things about Shanghai clubbing scene so I really wanted to check it out for myself. We went to a club called bonbon where we would get entry and free drinks for 88kuai each, the club was really skanky (I think this word actually doesn't exist in English but it sounds very right), hard to explain in a good way actually but try to visualize: first the guard was definitely the largest man I've ever seen, he was easily 2.20m tall and proportionally big, he seemed a bit retarded too, a quite scary first impression. In the club itself there were loads of cheap looking Chinese girls, a few overly intoxicated western girls and loads of overly intoxicated western guys, and some Chinese guys too of course. They played hip hop music and had it's own MC for the night and the whole scene was very American, at least to me. In Chengdu we have a lot of western bar, western style places with western music and western people, this was probably the next step; a western club.

We got there pretty late though and the place started thinning out and pretty soon my friends were the only people on the dance floor. I got bored of it and started checking out other groups of people and sat down with one such, I talked a little to a few people and suddenly a girl, I think she was American at least not Chinese, asked me very rudely who I knew there, when I replied no one she just said "then go away". I was totally stunned by it, never before have I encountered anything like it, especially not in China, so I said sorry and left, now I'm totally disappointed at myself for not coming up with some better and wittier reply but I was a unsober and chocked.

A Portuguese guy we met there took us to another place when we left bonbon, I think it was just called Dragon. And that place was really shady. When we got there we were the only customers, but there were quite a lot of pretty girls there, one of our group, a Philippino guy claimed the girls were also Philippino but we never got that confirmed. The Portuguese guy started out buying as all drinks and he really spent a lot of money on us, I bought a beer by myself later and it was 50kuai, he must have spent over 300yuan to keep us there so I started to suspect that he might actually be working there, I'm not sure he heard me when I asked but he said yes.

A lot more foreigners turned up and just about all of them were just really really rude, not a single Chinese person got there except the people working there and when the Portuguese guy started making weird suggestions to my friends, like if they wanted to sleep with him, we left, he was very gay.

Back at the hostel one of the guys showed us his toy he had bought in Hong Kong, a teaser disguised as a torch, we played with it for a while, not stunning anyone but seriously considering testing it, at least after reading up on it a little, but the night caretaker overheard us and confiscated it, which resulted in a huge conflict which I felt responsible for since I had actually held it and showed it to the caretaker when he came up to check on us. We kept arguing with him for quite a while but it was really hard to get some understanding between them since the caretaker didn't speak any English and the other guy didn't understand Chinese culture, I finally manged to convince him that he would leave it at the front desk until today so I could argue with the English speaking staff instead. All went well finally and he will get it back when he leaves on Monday.

Damn weird day!