Ni Hao
You gotta love chinese people!
More pictures to come…
Archive for November, 2007
Waking up after a heavy night
Cough cough, spit, zzzZzz, argh!
That’s pretty much the sounds from our dormroom in Chengdu at the moment.
The time is 16.19 and so far I’ve done alot in hangover-measures.
- Got up and showered.
- Walked like 500 metres to get some Jiaozi(dumplings) for breakfast.
- Washed my clothes and hung em up to dry.
Now we’re probobly just gonna crash in the sofa and watch a movie.
There’s just one thing I have to tell you guys.
Just before we left Xi’an we went out to eat with Fabio and Olaf at our favourite diningplace, located in the muslim quarters in the town.
Just before we left we gathered practically every employe there was. That means, 15 very small girls, one boy and the manager, and then we took a picture of them.
The next day I went to a studio and developed 5 of the pictures we took from the restaurant. We went back that night to the restaurant and gave them the photos. Man where they happy.
That didnt cost me alot of money, but it felt damn good to make a whole bunch of kids that happy. 
It’s the small things that counts.
UPDATE:
Now we’ve arranged with the cruise-company, and we got the tickets ready and waiting for us.
We are gonna try to get up around 6 in the morning. At 6.40 we have to leave so…
I’ll update when I get a chance. Take care!
Ciao
Beijing -> Xi’an -> Chengdu
Hey folks!
I’m tuning in from Loft Hostel in Chengdu. Great hostel with free tv, pooltable and internet. A bit chilly rooms though, but thats not where I intend to spend most of my time. Not like Gejke 
We went to an irish pub in some fishy neighbourhoods this night at around 2am. We watched the Euro Championships qualification, England-Croatia. England lost, and there were ofcourse mostly english people. And at the same time Sweden made it. hihi
We stayed at the pub til six in the morning, and then took a cab to our hostel again.
The thing with riding a cab in China is that they don’t know any english at all.
You have to be prepared with a handwritten note or a flyer with the adress of where you’re supposed to go. A bit tricky, but that’s nothing compared to order some food from a wall, written only in chinese
We came to Beijing on the 5′th, and we immediately checked in at a hotel, paying 50kuai (1kuai = 0.1euro) a night. Pretty cheap! Although they were renovating the whole hotel we had a great time, visiting the Forbidden city and Tianamen square. The best memoryfrom Beijing must have been when we went 160km up the country to walk the great wall. That was a great experience. When you look out on the landscape infront of you, it’s really hard to understand that you’re really actually there. That’s why I took around 420 photos from that day
If you’ve seen The Lord of the Rings when they shoot the landscape-scenes, that’s pretty much what we watched for six hours.
We walked 8km on the wall from Jingshaling to Simatai. Just before Simatai we took a break, sat on the wall, and watched the sunset. That’s a feeling I hope everyone should experience!!!
We spent ten days or so in Beijing. That’s also where we said goodbye to Mic and Baldy, the two aussies we met in Ulan Baataar. Two guys who made our lives richer with feelings. Great times!
The train to Xi’an took 11 hours and we slept on the train on whats called a “hard-sleeper” and now I know why. There’s three beds from top to bottom, that makes 6 in one compartment. That also means, very little spaces to move on, and freaking hot.
I got to sleep about 3 hours that trainride, but I could’ve done worse. There’s Soft-seat and Hard-seat to choose from aswell
Xi’an offered a great hostel, great nightlife and the terracottawarriors. That’s pretty much it.
A nice town, but I don’t feel like I have to go there again.
Xi’an was also the town where we said goodbye-for-now-and-see-you-soon-again to Fabio, as he left for Shanghai.
The three of us swedes can honestly say that we’ve met some of the best and funniest people on the earth, in just 1 month. Fern, Sharif, Baldy, Mic, Fabio and last but certainly not least, Olaf! 
The history of Xi’an is that it has been the capital of China for 11 dynasties. That’s freakin long time. The name Xi’an stands for “Gate to the west” (Xi=west, An=Gate).
Around the city is a wall which protected the city from outsiders
The emperor of China in back then, Qin Shi Huang, who where the one building the terracottawarriors, also decided to build the great wall. He also made China the country it is today. And China was run from Xi’an at this point of time.
This is what I’ve learned, and I probobly remembered it wrong, so please comment me on my lies
Anyhow we went to the wall surrounding Xi’an but we thought the 40kuai entrancefee was to much, to we turned the back on Xi’an and took the train to Chengdu.
Another hard-sleeper 
This time I got 3 hours again. So, 18 hours, three noodle-soups and one bacteriainfected plate of rice/beef later we arrived at Chengdu north railwaystation.
Immediately we felt the change of the air. Something good had happend to us. Then we walked outside and felt the smog in the air, and everything was back to normal.
No, joke all I want, but Chengdu is a great city.
Me and Goulpe went out for a stroll today, not inviting the heavily sleeping Gejke. We came back 5 hours later. Talk about a good stroll. Just walking around, looking at people, at things, shops, people again, traffic, people on bikes, people on mopeds, people people people. They are everywhere. They are so small, and so funny. They are allways happy, and if they arent, then just give them a smile and they sure will be!
I love chinese people! Happiest people alive! And there’s so many of them. 1,6 billion to be exact!
More to come from this big loving country!
Zàijiàn
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