a nomad’s travel clutter.

Okay, here’s me admist the notorius Amsterdam, and in a Christian Youth Hostel, very safe and sound. The next street is the Red Light District though I have to say. We visited it today, we didnt dare before being only two girls, but today was okay because we went with two japanese guys that we bumped into at the hostel yesterday night (got to know them very well as we played Monopoly haha).

Red Light District: Hmm. A bit surreal actually, and mostly gross and eeky, dont very enjoy seeing a half -naked girl standing by a red window, with a bed in her back, waiting for someone to tread in… also sexshops EVERYWHERE! But the funny thing is that theres little normal pubs and waffleshops stuck in between, so its like “ooh cute waffles” and then “ooh huge penis!” for people around here i guess its very normal, but to me… so strange and absurd.

Also, Amsterdam = loads of coffeeshop. Which means where you can smoke marijuana… and they are also everywhere. And hobos are everywhere, and graffiti is everywhere. Basically, city = very cheap (in the bad way, not as in price is cheap because its not) and a little scary at some points.

But still, tonight we got a little different taste of it. After walking around for a long time, we ended up in a little local pub where every customer knew each other and where one guy who was some japanese martial art teacher started chatting with us. Everybody so friendly, and made us feel so at home, it was very nice!

Earlier today, we visited Anne Franks house, where she hid during the 2nd world war. It was surreal seeing the movable bookshelf and photos and the actual place where she really stayed! Remembered such an impact she had on me when I was younger… also visited the Van Gogh museum which was MASSIVE. Costed me 10 euro, so we stayed there for hours trying to get every painting in our soul i guess.

Oh, money matter very sensitive because I got my wallet knicked when I was leaving Antwerp. Me, getting off train, bag half open, guy puts hand in, takes out wallet, runs away… me in shock, and looks in bag, wallet really gone, and guy really gone. So. One of those moments you play in your head again and again and so many ways you could have done it differently, but… at least I spent all the cash in wallet earlier that day on shopping… but annoying, had to cancel all my cards. And now i have very little money, which results in sharing dorm rooms with 16 other girls, and eating cheap kebabs and burgers and sometimes bratwurst everyday. Oh well, another experience i guess.

AAAH MICE JUST RAN PAST UNDER MY FEET!!!!!!!

-_-

and everybody else is praying

double -_-

okay ,time ticking away on my meter. It seems harder to get hold of internet than i thought.

Also funny thing today, bumped into two guys who graduated in Warwick.They were in Anne Frank when we where there, and later went to Van Gogh. I mean what are the chances!! small small world

ok, bye for now!!

Antwerp.

The most amazing and stylish town in history of mankind! Sitting in a sea of plastic tableish thing, with computers mushed in between. An internet cafe in Antwerp. Finding here was even more funny, we were about to walk out of the little cafe where I had the most yummy Mushroom Soup (and for 3 euro only!) ever. I opened the door and made like a “oh” shout, because we forgot to ask the waitress where we can find an internet cafe, and the every single table in the cafe turned their head towards us and smiled. One woman said, just ask ahead. So I asked the entire cafe, and everybody helped in answering. Well, what a friendly bunch.

Every little corner of this city is embedded in style, in Brussels we found a little gem here and there. But here, it’s really everywhere. All the restaurants are perfect, tons of designer shops, little cute shops, and everything’s made with care and love. The MoMu fashion musem was awesome!!! Like a dream, so artistic, yet so real. The street we live on in the middle of old town, is covered in little christmas trees with lots of colorful lights. Our hotel is taken out of a romance story. I feel like a little kid again finding her way through the magical world of Grimm’s, filled with candies, mushroom lights and magical churches.

Hello, fairytale land.

Stupid french keyboard, so annoying. Computer really slow; so will update very little: pictures on:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/puttenutt

City very pretty; all romantic; christmas things everywhere… and CHOCOLATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Later.

It’s time again… time for a new trip. Always on the run, that’s me. Today I will be leaving for Brussels, cheap flights from Ryanair, and staying over at a friends which I have not met since I was 12! They were nice enough to offer me pick-up at airport and bed =) Tomorrow I will be meeting Misato, my travel companion at Gare du Midi (train station) since she will be over with train from England.

Trip will be: Brussels 1 night, leave for Antwerp, stay 3 nights, leave for Amsterdam, stay 3 nights, back to Brussels, stay 1 night.

Not too complicated. We will be visiting all the Christmas Markets, skate on all the ice-rinks and buy lots of christmas presents for everyone! Eat tons of chocolate, visit a friterie, try all the belgian beer, waffles, hmm… visit many many many art galleries. Visit Anne Frank’s house, Van Gogh museum, Momu fashion museum… etc. This time the travelogue will be slightly different, instead of writing what we’ve done and what we’re up to, I think we will try to review some of the places we’ve been to. So it will be a little more of a travel guide.

I think the theme with this trip will be ;; ART ;; whatever form it may be. We are both artsy people, and would sit all day in a cafe just listening to the music and jotting down a few words… or finding all kind of small, alternative shops, the little glimts of love that’s spread out around the globe. So it’s like a mission trip, to find the beauty the cities have to offer in our eyes. Maybe we will even get some inspiration.

So; follow us along and see what we find! (& don’t forget to comment so we know what you’re up to!)

Misato and me back in Warwick. Eating tofu from our own home-made hotpot. Yum.

Early in the morning, alarm rings and everyone falls to sleep. Except Janie. So I’m down here uploading photos, anyway… Jen and Em have joined me now. The only bad thing about sharing a room for four is there is only ONE bathroom, which means everyone wants to go last in the morning and first in the night.

Yesterday we went climbing THE GREAT WALL. The bus left our hostel at 6.40 and it was 3 hours drive to that part of the wall called Jinshanling. From Jinshanling we were suppose to climb 30 towers to Simatai, around 9 km and 4 hours of hike. We thought Huangshan had strengthened us, and Great Wall should just be an easy piece of cake. But like always, haha, no… Great Wall was hard. We went to the parts that were no reconstructed so the millions of stairs were all ragged and broken. It took real concentration sometimes to look where you are stepping. We also forgot a little about the sun, since it had been rainy and cloudy the couple past days. No one remembered to bring sun block, ay ay ay. Everybody are burning torches today, worst is Julian. We will be getting after sun and kylbalsam as soon as we see it.

Here are some of the pictures on the Great Wall.

Our minibus at toilet stop.

We had to walk past a little village and their crops to get up to the wall. That alone took 30 min.

Great Wall in the beginning of our hike.

Great Wall in the end of our hike.

Jen and Em in a tower.

The old parts…

Julian on top of Great Wall.

All of us!

We got back at the hostel around 7PM and then headed straight to the night market for food!!

After that we even got some lovely foot massage that we all fell asleep at during the end. That’s all for now, and people don’t forget to comment!!

After a night’s sleep on the fast train from Shangha to Beijing including card games and lots of snacks, we arrived 7:00 in the morning to the capital of China. Our Downtown Backpacker’s Hostel even included pick-up in their room price (60RMB) so everything was so simple. A guy met us at the station and drove us to the hostel, where we are now. The people in our room haven’t left yet, they are very slow… so we decided to make use of our time. We took a walk in the neighbourhood, pretty small hutongs. Beijing has a whole different atmosphere, compared to Shanghai, there are like no skyscrapers. We’ve left the futuristic “Gotham City” (we saw Batman Begins yesterday in an Imax theatre) and come to the capital that tries to preserve the old. Anyway, now for the pictures that haven’t been up since a long time.

Back in Hangzhou, singing kareoke. Very concentrated.

The first day in Huangshan, before we climbed the mountain. We went rafting!

This is a-top of the mountain by some peak (it has a famous name that we’ve forgotten now because there was so many of them).

From the top we took cable car down a spring where we took a dive. No, just joking. We just posed for the tourists.

The next morning in Huangshan we woke up 3 to see sunrise. This is when it was dark and FOGGY!

Then it got brighter, but the winds were still howling. Here almost blowing Janie away…

We held on though and climbed and climbed. Here we climbed the “199 steps to find your love”.

From 1864m we went down all the way to the ground, passing these steep parts.

And before we know it we’re by the bund (or waitan in chinese) in Shanghai. Here you can see the Pearl Tower and also Jinmao Tower tallest on the right where we went to for the highest bar in Asia (87th floor).

We did some shopping in Yuyuan Bazaar.

And the big moment of meeting EDISON!! (He’s the guy on the left)

Finally we are now sitting in this building. The cozy little hutong hostel that is every backpackers dream. Well, at least all the thanks and praising scribbles covering the walls says so. We’ll see…

Tata for now, we’ll try to update more now that we have such good access.

P.S. Clara, we see that you might have felt a bit lost in the world there for a while writing that e-mail. But good news is it’s not what you think. The mail must have disappeared somehow. A simple explanation to a cryptic riddle. We actually like you very much (and same that to all that follows our trip and supports us) and miss you loads. Not long now till we’re back with you in Sweden.

Finally! We have computer and internet again. Emelie is sitting beside me (Janie) now in Captain Hostel in shanghai. Since last we’ve been in Hangzhou, with Jen’s family, visted West Lake, biked on the Bai Du, seen acrobatic show in the evening, sang kareoke (Julian singing Jingle Bells and other kids songs) and we’ve shopped for lots of money. Emelie has learnt how to bargain, sort of.

Then on the 7th we took a bus to Huangshan (Yellow Mountains) at 5 in the morning, and arrive at noon. We went rafting that afternoon, was beaaautiful. Janie and Jen’s raft won over Julian and Emelie, Chinese rules!! (Em: we let them win, we had a better technique for most of the way). Next day woke up 5 again and climbed aaaall the way up 6.5 km of stairs and reached 700m . We stayed overnight in a mountain hotel high up among the misty heights. We saw monkeys too, they were friendly and did not jump on us. On the third and last day we woke up even earlier, at three!! It was all dark and foggy and very very windy. That didn’t stop us. We put on our yellow, pink and grey raincoats and headed out without flashlights (we had minor accidents, em stubbed her toe dont worry its fine, and had to borrow lights from other tourists). We reached the peak to see sunrise, but there was none. All that day we climbed around the mountain in the fog (that is the peaks are in the fog). The highest Lotus peak was 1864m and we went all the way up!! From there it was way down, and in a few hours we ran down at least 100000 steps. Our legs today are not feeling very fine. And we hate stairs.

The climbing was all yesterday, today we reached Shanghai by bus from hangzhou at noon. The hostel is GREAT! Right by the bund, and we live on the highest floor, right by the bar that has the best view of Pudong with the Pearl Tower! Now we’re gonna go get some dinner, then head for the highest bar in the world… after that we’ll see.

We all say hi to people in Sweden!! Thanks for the phone calls moms and dads. We’ll try updating tomorrow and see if we can put up some photos. Miss you all!

Again we’re in a hurry to make this update snice we’re on our way to the unknown in Huangzhou to join up with Jen & Em. The train leaves in a little more than an hour and we’ll get there tonight. It’ll be fun to get a change after spending some great time so far at one place. Now we’re on with our trip. EXPLORING, tjohooo! Also before we get on with the photos, want to thank for all the comments we have received so far… and especially from Janie’s mom. Love you mom! Anyway, now that we leave the safe shelter of Janie’s family, we do not know when our next chance to get a computer with internet is, and there’s even less chance that we can update photos. Although when we do, we wish people will post comments!! Here we go…

This was on Thursday when we went shopping and took a little break a Starbucks.

On Friday we had our first night out. First an arcade place, we won a green drink! Thanks to Janie standing by a game machine that had winning points in it already.

Then we went to a bar where Julian got served Bloody Mary, except the bartender didn’t know what tomato juice was and thought everything made out of tomatoes would be the same. What Julian got was a glass of ketchup with a selleri stick in it. Seriously, KETCHUP! When we asked, they admitted it was KETCHUP.

After that bad experience with China’s coctail menu we went to a cafe with swings called “rbt” (stands for rabbit). There we had some ice cream.

Yesterday we went to Lin Mountain Buddha which is an hours drive away and 100m tall. The weather was steaming and 40+ under the sun. The kids all melted away, although Mimmi was quite strong. They stayed at the foot while me and Julian climbed up to the Buddha.

Julian by THE hand, it’s luck to touch it.

Janie and her Yifu Baba saying a few prayer with incense, one for happiness in the family and the other for peace.

Is Julian really taller than Buddha?

Four times a day they have the “9 dragons bathing the birth of Buddha” show. Music was played very loud and the fountains sprayed higher and higher…

After visiting the Buddha we went and ate lunch by a small restaurant by the Tai lake. Mmm, lake food, tasteful.

In the evening Janie’s little aunt invited us for dinner…

… and we got to eat HUGE meat pieces. Julian had two! And he’s fat too! (haha) No wonder he’s not hungry today.

So yesterday was packed and filled with plentiful food, for both body and soul. Now we’ve finished the first “stage” of our trip, and will continue with even more surprises! Goodbye for now, wish us well!

I wrote a whole long entry, and then my uncle accidentally closed the window. I had not saved. …>_< ... I will make it short now, because me and Julian are going out soon, to check out Wuxi's nightlife. So my feelings towards coming back to China with Julian. There are no problems, the problems I thought might be problems were like cultural differences (bad fart jokes from the chinese side and so on) and also the whole bringing the first boyfriend to your BIG family thing. But none of those were any problem, the only thing was the language. Well, I did think that would be a problem. I feel like my head is on the verge of exploding with all the language and dialects. I speak Swedish with Julian, because we are used to it, but we have to speak English if someone can understand at least a word. Then I speak Wuxi dialect with my family, but other people also speak Mandarin. So I have this four swimming in my head all trying to connect with each other. There's also the attention thing. I try my best to translate everything for Julian, but then when three other relatives are talking different things to me at the same time, maybe I "ignore" him a little. He's very sensitive to that. Anyway. It becomes that I have to speak double amount and sometims have so many different things in my head. But it's wonderful when you get time alone, when we went shopping yesterday for example. He bought 4 shirts, 1 shorts and I got some clothes and a back pack. We had all afternoon just with each other, and I could devote full attention to him. The thing is not everyday can be like that when you live at home. At home it's family. That's what makes this trip a little different, we have like moved from home in Sweden to home in China. At least for 10 days. Usually when we travel, we go to a place, do as much as we can and then leave... but now we've had plenty of time, and some times even afternoons at home with nothing much to do. However all that will end tomorrow when we will visit Ma Mountain to see the Lin Shan Buddha (more update on that), and on Sunday we are off to Hangzhou and then round trip with Em and Jen. So no more home days for us. I'm really used to living here, it amazes me how fast I forget the dirt on the floor and small stands along the road. Also the stares that we receive, they seem to diminish day by day. It really feels like home, except so much more rei-nao (hot noise) and cramped. I think Julian's gotten use to things too... except for the language. My grandma keeps saying how she wishes she could talk to him, but it's impossible. There's no way to understand. See, language can be a great barrier for understanding. Haha. I was gonna keep myself short. Good luck to that, now I'm done... have to check on how Julian's doing again. ^_^
Sunset tonight, photoed by my uncle. The colors are not fake! Also just to add a little what we did today, we had lunch in a Si Chuan restaurant with my kindergarten teacher and then I cut my hair. Nothing fancy, just a little thinner and shorter.

We haven’t posted in a while, have been busy (or rather lazy sometimes) and it doesn’t help with the addition of Mimmi. She will be hanging around with us until… tomorrow, when all Janie’s cousin’s tests are over and they can finally be free. Well at least for a few days, before they have to go back to school, or start doing their summer homework. Anyway, there’s a bunch of stuff we have done, we chose some pictures from each occasion and like always we’ll write a few lines below.

This is Nan Chen Shi in the middle of the city. The buildings are built old style, and it’s packed with restaurants and small shops a la market style. We went there on Saturday night to shop last-minute-surprise-present for Mimmi. Julian bought a keps too, the same one that Jay has!!

The next morning Yifubaba (Janie’s uncle-in-law) and Ayimama (Janie’s aunt) took us for a ride around Tai Lake, the big lake in Jiangsu stretching from Suzhou, Nanjing to Wuxi. We passed lots of fruit sellers along the way, mostly selling a red berry fruit called Yang Mei. It’s the right season for it now, so of course we also bought two big buckets of them.

Yang Mei. A little sour but mostly sweet.

After our ride around Tai lake and with the trunk full of Yang Meis and peaches (they are also very famous for Wuxi, and are big and juicy this time of the year) we drove to a restaurant to eat “hot pot” or fondue. Each table has their own electric boiling pot and you just put in all the fresh vegetables and meat in it, when it’s cooked you pick it out and eat with your own mixed sauce. Mmm.

We have also gotten time to do a little shopping… shopping x 70, actually.

Yesterday we went to Li Yuan Park, a big place with many pavillions and small bridges, built few hundred years ago. When we arrived there it was in the middle of the day and were three cars in the parking, the sun was up and it was HOT. We have no choice but to go in, and pose for pictures like this. There were hundreds of beautiful lotuses though!

Mimmi in Li Yuan.

The old houses that once functioned as a place to live, but today is just a museum.

The pavillion you see in the picture is one of the four “season” pavillion (probably the winter one). We had to hide in the summer pavillion because the storm came, and rain poured down. The bright sunny 40 degrees, turned into windy, howling 25 degrees in a few minutes. That’s rainy season for you in Wuxi. It was wonderful sitting in the pavillion watching the rain pouring over the lotus and the storm roaring above. There was even lightening, which scared Mimmi a little bit.

The clouds were also a bit freaky. But nevertheless sooo awesome!

That’s all for today, now it’s one in the afternoon, and we are so tired. Went out in the morning to try and post some postcards, but found out the post office has closed down. Came home and had already sweat like pigs. Anyway, today we think we’ll wait till the sun dips its head before heading out again.

Reply to Em’s “so what’s best about China so far?” question: Well, that it’s hard to give an answer to without being boring. Of course people are nice and so on and so on, but if I shall answer something unexpected it has to be the GREEN RUBBER ICE CREAM! Those were hilarious. It’s like an ice cream that when you lick it, it turns from frozen into a rubberlike substance (jelly we believe) and then it waves/wiggles back and forth on the stick.