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!