28 Apr

06:05

The Alright Wall of China

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We're off to see the Alright Wall of China. Since Thamwika feels that Badaling is too crowded, we're going to a part called Matianyu. It's a place where you get to take a slide down from the wall. Sounds awesome! See you when we get back!
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China, Chinese Culture, beijing, great wall of china, vacation,

14 Apr

09:00

The key to our hearts

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¨
 
All over Mount Huashan golden locks and red prayer ribbons are attached to the chains guarding the drop-off. The locks symbolize eternal love for the people that are the most important to you. 
 
 
We decided to dedicate a lock to our families, to show our eternal love. 
 
 
Bergström Bäckman
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We left our lock attached to a chain overlooking the most beautiful view we could find. There it will hang until it rusts away. Vi älskar er!
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Chinese Culture, IheartChina, family, locks, love, mount huashan,

12 Apr

09:06

On top of the world

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After the seeing the Terracotta Army we sped off on the next leg of our journey. As you might remember, our original plan was to go to Mount Huangshan, but due to miscommunications we ended up on Mount Huashan instead. Well, no harm done! 
 
 
Mount Huashan is one of China's five great mountains and has a reputation of being somewhat dangerous. In recent years, however, safety has been much improved, so we only feared for our lives on some occasions. Mostly the stairs were wide and had sturdy handrails. 
 
 
In the cable car up, just after realizing I'm slightly more afraid of heights than I thought I was. 
 

The cable car took about 10 minutes. We clutched our seats in terror the entire way up. But once we we up on the mountain, we were actually okay. 

 
Well, sometimes the stairs got a bit steep. 
 
¨
 
It was well worth it though. The view from the top was stunning. The temple in the picture can only be accessed through attaching yourself to a harness and shuffling along a vertical cliff wall on a 30 cm wide boardwalk. We unanimously decided that we were okay with skipping that part. 
 
 
A family we met on the way were a bit braver though. 
 
 
After an afternoon of climbing we went to the hotel. The stairs weren't as scary as they look, since you couldn't see over the edge while climbing them. The hotel was really nice! The staff was really helpful and some even spoke some English. We had a hot dinner and then went straight to bed. 
 
 
The next morning we got up at five to see the sunrise from the South Peak. 
 
 
Seeing the landscape gradually appear was truly an unforgettable experience. 
 
 
We borrowed coats from the hotel to keep us warm in the freezing cold. We saw some people dressed only in t-shirts with a thin jacket on top. And they didn't even seem cold! We felt like we weren't really representing our viking DNA. 
 
 
Although the temperature was below freezing in the shadow it was quite warm in the sun. Climbing thousands of stairs kept us quite warm too.
 
Thamwika and I on the West Peak. On the way back I fell down the mountain so we decided it was about time to go home. 
 
We took the ropeway down from the West Peak. The hills got greener as we got further down. 
 
 
We made it! Climbing mount Hua has proved yet again how helpful, kind and caring Chinese people are. Even though we often couldn't make ourselves understood they all did their utmost to help us. As for the mountain, it was beautiful and the view from the peaks was truly stunning. We'd definitely go back if we'd get the chance!
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China, Huasha Mountain, IheartChina, Life in China, Mount Hua, Mount Huasha, xian,

10 Apr

16:37

Terracotta Warriors

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On Friday morning we got up early to get a head start on the thousands of Chinese people we suspected would compete with us to get on the bus to the Terracotta Warriors. We got to the bus station at about half past nine, only to discover that our efforts had been in vain. The square was already full of people who all had the same plan as us. 
 
 
However, I've have to say that this was the most well-ordered line I've seen so far in China. Mostly people push, shove and do everything in their might to squeeze past you. Not here though. The queue coiled across the square in perfect two people-wide loops, under strict supervision of guards with megaphones. There would be no skipping here. Thankfully, queueing only took about an hour and we were soon on our way. 
 
 
Well in the museum, the crowd was thick. The museum is divided into several buildnings, located around a huge square. Before getting to the actual sights we had to pass through a long stretch of souvenir stands and restaurants. With the thought that we had to carry everything we bought up a mountain in mind, we skipped buying a life-sized replica of a Terracotta warrior. As our co-worker Rina said; we can always buy them online. Kind of missing the point of buying souvenirs though.
 
 
Since we were going directly to the mountain afterwards, we did't have that much time to walk around the museum. Therefore, we went almost directly to Pit 1, which is the pit that has been most thoroughly excavated. It was here that everything started in 1974, when seven farmers found the head of a warrior when they were digging a well. The 8000 warriors were buried with the emperor Qin Shi Huang 300 B.C.
 
 
Terracotta pony!
 
 
 Proof that I was actually there. Pit one is about 200 meters long. That's a lot of warriors!
 
 
The excavation is still going on. Digging is still going on in two other pits that we unfortunately didn't have time to see. 
 
 
Taking a rest! 
 
After this morning of speed-sightseeing we continued on to our adventures in the mountain. More to come!
 
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09 Apr

16:50

Qingming, first day

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Well, I guess it's about time to tell you all about our amazing weekend off.
All packed and ready to go!
 
Typical tourist, anyone?
 
We started off by taking the night train to Xi'an. The train was clean, the beds were comfortable and the kids in our coupé were well-behaved. 5 points out of 5 possible! We arrived at eight in the morning, ready for some intense sightseeing. 
We started off by attempting to take the bus to the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, a temple, which is the symbol of Xian. However, stupidly enoogh we didn't have the Chinese name of where we were going, so we ended up getting off way too early and having to take a taxi there. Well, no harm done, it only set us back about 10RMB. The Pagoda was surrounded by a beautiful Peony garden.
 
 
Buddhist temple
 
Lisa's new best friend.
 
After walking around the Pagoda for a couple of hours it was time for lunch. We got some dumplings accompanied with this drink, which was the only one the restaurant offered. It tasted kind of like flour and sugar dissolved in water. A quite peculiar taste...
 
 
After lunch we quickly moved on to the city wall. It was finished in 1644 A.D and is the world's largest city wall. As you can see from the picture it had started to rain by the time we got there. Don't worry though, we came prepared. 
 
Awesome rain capes! 
 
After walking around the wall we made our way to the hotel. 
 
After a bit of rest we went out to get dinner. We got to order the food from an iPad. Pretty hih tech. Sadly, the food wasn't all that. After dinner we went back to the hotel to sleep. We had a big day ahead of us!
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07 Apr

10:30

Office Life

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According to contract our working hours are 8:30AM - 5PM. As we mentioned in an earlier post, in China it is colder indoors than outdoors and that's why it is so nice to have this little park outside our office, where we can go out and warm up ourselves.
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06 Apr

09:00

Finding Mr Right

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This saturday I went to the cinema with some co-workers while Thamwika was at home nursing a cold.The movie was a Chinese romantic comedy, which, thankfully, had English subtitles. The movie tells the story of a spoiled Chinese girl who comes to Seattle to give birth to her rich lover's child. She gets stuck in a house with two other pregnant Chinese women and when her lover runs out of money,she faces a hard time trying to take care of herself. Luckily, she finds solace in driver/doctor Frank, and the rest of the movie follows the twists and turns of just about any other rom-com ever. 
 
Apparently, Chinese women giving birth in America is a quite common phenomena. There are special birthing houses for Chinese women, called maternity mansion, where they can live while waiting for their delivery. Children born on American soil automatically get American citizenship, which opens up a lot of doors that are unavailable to Chinese citizens. 
 
A funny thing about the movie was that they turned on the lights in the auditorium in the middle of the last scene. It was like the attendants were saying "Okay, now you know how it ends. Go home!". Another, not so funny part was the constant ringing of mobile phones. One guy sat looking at his ringing phone until the caller hung up, without turning off the sound. Gaah! 
 
Even though the movie was quite cheesy, it was actually okey for a rom-com. The tickets were 34RMB, which is fairly cheap. However, we had to pay four yuan extra because the movie was longer than two hours. Three minutes longer to be exact. Weird!
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03 Apr

07:11

Is there anyone out there?

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Nantong has a population of over 7 million people, almost as many as the entire Swedish population. The only thing is, we're not really sure where they all are.
 
Hello?
 
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China, Life in China, nantong,

01 Apr

06:30

Honk-honk!

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Anyone who's been in China knows how much people love their car horns. Anyways, so we think that we've cracked the code behind all the honking and you can read about it here: https://yabroad.com/blog/2013/03/28/chinese-mysteries/
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22 Mar

10:03

The Lotte Mart

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For our everyday needs we shop at the market right next to where we live or at some or the restaurants or stores on the streets outside. But when we need to buy essentialities like a bedside lamp or wine we go to the Lotte Mart. Lotte mart has basically everything you need, from computers, to clothes, to food. Also, they have really good cookies. 
 
So what do they have in stock? Fashionable shoes, of course.
 
 
The fresh fish section holds all from large piles of squid to fish heads. 

If you fancy something a little fresher you can pick your dinner from one of the fish tanks.
 
Frog tank
 
They also have a HUGE selection of tofu-snacks, as well as loads of candy, a five meter wide and 2 meter high shelf of soy sauce and fresh fruit and vegetables in heaps. 
 
Choosing can be tricky when you don't understand the labels. Coffee or coffee. Hmm...
 
Tonight we're gonna enjoy the heaps of cookies that somehow always seem to find their way into our cart. Tomorrow brings a well-earned lazy morning and some more work on our thesis. 
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15 Mar

08:03

In Nantong...

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... you can join old ladies dancing in formation on the street at night

... you offend people if you tip them

... it's colder inside than outside

 

 

... you can by your clothes at A&M and carry it home in a Dior bag

 

... t-shirts carry deep, but totally confusing, messages

... you have to bring your own toilet paper if you want to tinkle

... life is simple and food is cheap

 

 

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11 Mar

17:34

A Shanghai Night

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We took this weekend to do a little exploring in our new city. Shanghai can be described in one word, crowded! And of course very very beautiful. We got to enjoy the city skyline from a fantastic lounge called Jade on 36, which is on the top floor of hotel Shangri-La. Grooving Tiffany was singing and we ran into other Swedes with the most interesting stories.
 
I can really recommend Jade on 36 for anyone who visits Shanghai. I think I might like it even more than my all time favorite place 230 5th ;-)
 
Crowd at Nanjing Road
 
 
Lisa and the Skyline 
 
A dream for a jazz-lover like me
 
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05 Mar

14:42

How to get a taxi in China

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Find a car that looks kind of like a taxi.

Wait for the driver beside the car for a couple of minutes. In the meantime you can look at funny fruits at the market or practice avoiding being run over by a tuktuk or two.

When the driver arrives, show your notes of chinese characters that says where you want to go. Smile and nod.

When the driver looks confused and points to the distance, smile and nod more and point to the car.

Get in the car. Smile, smile, smile.

Gradually realize that the car is quite fancy and in fact doesn't look anything like a chinese taxi. At all.

Doubt yourself and everything you know. Keep smiling though. Can't back out now!

Get out of the car at your destination. Realize you've just tricked a nice chinese man into driving you to where you wanted to go in his own car.

Wait for hilarity to ensue.
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05 Mar

14:37

Every journey...

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... starts with a stamp or two.
 
 
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China, Chinese Culture, IheartChina, Life in China, Shanghai,