今天我。。。

。。。只玩儿游戏和练习中文。

Old (wise) man Jonas

Thanks for the party yesterday Jonas-san. We're half way to 50 now! And Happy Birthday!

Back Home in Finland!!!

After a LOT of hazzel and stuff in Budapest I'm finally home! It was a long and bumpy road...

The customs had some problems with Hyans papers at the airport (because she was traveling without a real passport) but let her pass after a few phonecalls and so on, thank god for the finnish embassy! Never felt so thankful to anyone before and they charged 0€ after all the help they gave. So she got on the plane to Beijing and all was good...and then for my part.

My plane left 3h laters than her's and when i was checking-in they could not find my reservation on the plane...At this moment i though I'm stuck in this god forsake land forever. Turns out that they just had some technical problems with the internet payment. Had to go to Finnairs office to pay the trip again and THEN i could go and wait for my plane. I haven't seen this many finnish people at once for 7 months now! Mika Häkkinen was sitting in front of me in the plance, pretty short guy :) And the best thing on the place was Meatballs in a cream sauce with potato mash! Long time no eat such stuff.

When i came home the first i did was take a long sauna, last time was in april or something...
Home for around 1 month now! Damn cold here btw....

Updates on the passport problem

After trying EVERYTHING with the Finnish AND Chinese embassy the result is still the same, NO WAY. With the travel document China issued at Hungary there is just no possibility (meiyou!!)to get into Finland, the only option is to fly back to China, get a new passport, get a new Visa and then fly back to Finland. And that's exactly what we are going to do. Go ALL the way back to China to pick up a new passport, stick a Visa on it and leave again, i guess this must be the single MOST environmental friendly solution! Would you agree on this green solution Niko? I bet SRH would have liked this solution as well :)

Today i had a hard time choosing which Burger King to go to :P

Aaah, Chinese Embassy you retarded or what?

Ok so here's the deal:
If your a Chinese citizen and lose your passport abroad your really in the pickle! It takes 3 weeks to get a new passport to an European country from the Chinese Embassy. The only thing the Chinese Embassy does, is write you a travel document which is not valid in ANY European country, which is very very useful, right?

How to deal with the problem --> The fastest way to get a passport from China to here (Hungary) is contacting the police in CHINA and have a relative or friend to send the passport over with DHL.
I seriously wonder what's gonna happen if a lot of Chinese start losing their passports abroad? They're forced to stay Quarantined for around 3 weeks because the travel document the embassy gives isn't even valid to go home to China from the current country of stay, in this case Hungary. Incredible!!

Just have to pray to the Holy hand of a old king in Hungary (1200 years old, picture) that everything will turn out fine and we will get the passport before our plane leaves to Finland from Riga.

Hungary - And the setbacks keep coming

Been in Hungary - Budapest 3 nights now. Very nice city but a lot of houses are pretty broken and looks like a post soviet city that never really was completely rebuild...But by the river bank of Donau the view is fantastic, will post some pictures.

Then to the bad news. Yesterday the bad luck started, Hyan's passport was stolen from the hotel room. This is so nostalgic and so not cool, same thing happened to me 2 years ago in Shanghai. The Chinese embassy didn't offer much help but will maybe or hopefully give some paper tomorrow that the finnish embassy then can sign.

Yesterday i went without a ticket to the subway because it was late and i didn't have any coins for the machine where you buy tickets, when i came out of the subway there was of course the ticket checker. She started talking about police business or pay 6000 HUF (25 euros) We went to the ATM but something just seemed suspicious with it so i told her let's GO to the police station, she insisted that some random police would come to that dark alley. Was i gonna wait at some dark alley 23.30 in Budapest? No! So i just ran for it, been avoiding subways now :) Free subway ride but it was pretty freaky in the night.

Never thought i'll be coming to Hungary before and now I'm stuck here now for a while before we know how to fix passport stuff. So awesome that i already fixed AND paid all the hotels in advance which i can't go to now.

Deja vu

Berlin Pics

Forgot to upload some Deutchland pics earlier, here we go...

- Berlins concentration camp.
(Arbeit macht frei means "Work gives you freedom/工作给你们由自")

- A memorial for the holocaust
- Das Berlin Mauer!

Czech republic - East block

Just arrived to Prague after a few days in Berlin!

Berlin was one of the best European cities i have ever been too. Clean, cheaper then Finland, nice people and so much history and stuff to see. Berlin wall, memorials and other "significant" buildings, will upload some pics later.
Also went to the first concentration camp called Sachsenhausen which was located just outside the city 30 min with local train. Was there in the evening so the place was totally deserted and a little creepy and the gate to that place said ARBEIT MACHT FREI like in Auschwitz.

Prague is as cool as i remember it, castle on the hill and nice alleys in the old town. People are supricingly helpfull here and speak english too. Internet is for some reason busted in my hotel so i had to sneak to the hotel next door and leach on their Wifi :)

Luxemburg - A Really small place

Train from Paris to Luxemburg early in the morning after just a few hours sleep. This backpacking life starts to get a little annoying when you have to drag the stuff with you everywhere. 2-3 days in each town and then on the road again. I only had a few hours to spend in Luxemburg because the train to Berlin left earlier than expected. There is a place in downtown called the Kircheberg which is a hill with a big cathedral where the Luxemburg people had their fortress. For combat purposes a long time ago this place is perfect, there is a deep valley surrounding the place and there is NO WAY anyone could make it up here while some archers are shooting down. The train from Luxemburg to Berlin lasts for 9 hours, it's a long and booooring ride.

France - Red Wine and baguettes

Fabulous Paris! So many museums and so much history. The first evening i arrived i took a walk along the Seine river that flows through the city. The view by the river is so beautiful! Almost all the must see things can be spotted from here: Notre Dam, Eiffel Tower, The Louvre and The Grand Palace etc etc.

When in Paris one must see the Mona Lisa and that's what we did! It's a pretty small paining hanging alone on a huge wall. So many people are taking pictures with flashes of it, i wonder how long it will keep it's color...
In the Louvre there are many other things that are much more amazing than this small picture, for example the Hamarabi stone (the thing that made it possible to translate ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs). After going to the Louvre i really feel like watching the Da Vinci Code again even though it was a pretty crappy movie.

The subway in paris is logistically really really good, it has stops everywhere, BUT it's really dirty and noisy, a lot of weird people can be spotted here as well...No matter where your hotel is you will be able to travel to all the attractions in short time.

After seeing a few museums, and walking around in town to look at the local Parisian tourist attractions we head the old Kings summer palace in Versailles. The place is just 30 minutes outside downtown with a train. I must say this guy had the taste for summer cottages, the place is so big and built so to say "VIIMEISEN PÄÄLLE". Inside there are huge hallways covered with massive gold and paintings. The garden is many kilometers wide and has an own labyrinth and a few big ponds.

France was great and beautiful but i don't think I'm coming back there for traveling purposes again, all the museums and sightseeing spots are very crowded it's a really touristy city and expensive.

Belgium - City of Chocolade

Belgium - Antwerpen and Brussel

Early in the morning we depart nice Holland to Belgium. Never been here before so i have no idea what to expect. First we go to this smaller town called Antwerpen for some frolicking.

Antwerpen:
First impression is really nice, the train station is huge, old and really beautiful. We walk for a little while and find a church called Saint Jacobs which is the most beautiful thing i have so far ever seen. It is full of detailed stuff and we are the only people in this huge huge building, the scene and feeling is really mazing here. If your ever gonna travel to Belgium you better make a trip to Antwerpen. There is also the palace cathedral in the center of the city which is the biggest in western Europe. Handmade chocolate is gooooood here! Around 4 euro per 100g and you get the best choco you ever ate!

Brussel:
The train from Antwerpen is pretty fast, only around 1h. First task is to locate the hotel which proves to be really easy. Booked the cheapest hotel i found on the internet and you get what you give. The rooms look like 1970 from east germany and there is no toilet in the room, only a shared one in the hallway. The reception guy is kind enough to give me a room with a shower, no extra charge (wonder how crappy it would have been without it). Brussel has a lot to see like the mannequin piss, old churches and cathedrals, they are not as awesome as Antwerpen but still nice.
Only a few of the people i see in the street look like Euopean here in the town, so many ethnic minorities, not at all like Finland.
I hate walking around with my huge backpack that weights about 15 kg, feels like being back in the army, nostalgic. After 1 night in Brussel we head for Paris - City of Love!

Den Haag and Red Light at Night in Amsterdam

In the morning we went to Der Haag to check out some more Rembrandt paintins and Vermeer paintings, Haag also had a nice beach (mostly germans spending their vacation there). Saw the Girl with the pearl necklace and the autopsy paintings by Vermeer so now i can say I'm very knowledged.
Went to drive around in Wassenar which is the most expensive area in Holland, the houses are huge with even huger yards. Rent for a 2 floor 150m2 apartment is around 3500 euro in this are...Buying a house there is a few millions....nice. Also got the camera fixed here in Wassenaar, a total damage loss of 37 euros in total.

Got pisst of at a friend tonight: I bought a backpack for a him in China because it was cheaper and he had asked me to, but i had to bargain for it, use many hours to get it and so on AND then bring it all way to Europe. Finally arriving in Europe or Holland we made up a meeting at the Amsterdam train station at 22.00. Guess who never showed up??, wow, thanks dude! I mean i got the bag all the way from china for you, and then all the way to amsterdam and paid 40 euros for the train tickets and used 2h in the train and you just don't show up. I waited 2h in the cold train station having a blast of a time, 哎呀！！傻逼！！！！

After waiting for 2h i went to take some photos of Red Light distirc in the night, pics added.

More amsterdam pics

Rembrandts home and treasures in his old house from the 1660s, Cannabis Ice Tea (didn't taste much) and Coffee Shop super energy drink。 Our smashed car window :)

Amsterdam - A place like no other

A train in the morning to Amsterdam. A tour by the channels with a tourist boat for the first hour, was not that special, just crowded and hot. Checked 2 or the worlds most famous artists. Van Gogh museum and Rembrandts home. The Gogh museum had around 200 of his original paintings and was pretty impressive (not that i know anything about art...)
The rembrandts house was really cool, apart from paintings there was a room full of his treasures which consisted of old weapons, armors, roman statues, huge snake skins and other animal relics...

Then comes the red light district...streets are covered in sex shops and small rooms with women inside waiting for clients... Negotiating price with them is more or less 50 euro suck and fuck. Didn't manage to take any pics, they don't really like cameras there...

Drugs are legal too, a lot of shops here sell magic mushrooms, cannabis seeds, cannabis and all other sort of stuff that makes you high and whacky. I bought a drink of Cannabis Ice Tea but the effects were pretty...limited. The ice tea only contained 0,01% THC.

Also managed to break the camera by smashing it into a wall, luckily the lens is intact and only the cover is busted, need to find a camera shop somewhere...good that i have a small back up camera :)

If the water level would rise up around 40cm half of holand would be covered with water...just look at the picture and you'll see that people practically live in the water...

Arriving at Holland

After a 10h unpleasant flight with China Eastern Airlines we arrive in Holland - Amsterdam. The flight was really crappy, dog food served, 2 screaming kids most of the way and a really hard landing. The plane was old and didnt have any movies to watch while flying. Can't recommend CEA but it was the cheapest...

My parents friends came picking us up from the Airport, living in their house just outside Der Haag. Lovely house and really quiet. Got a little jetlag because of 6h time difference and woke up as late as 5 in the morning.

First day we went to Gouda to check out how a traditional old town looks like. The oldest buildings here was from around 1400-1500 century. Some walk around here and then to the biggest port in the world, Rotterdam.
There are 10.000 ports for boats to dock and pack their cargo, it's huuuuuge. This town was totally bombed by the germans in the second World war and everything thats visible is pretty much build up after the war. Dutch people were given the chance to surrender to the Germans but they refused, so Germany bomed them and their share of the Second World war lasted for 12 days nad after that everything was a mess....so maybe a wussy surrender would have been a better option. We went to the highest tower in Holland (185m,wow) and while we were there checking out the view someone had broken into our car by smashing the drivers side window. Luckily it was an idiot thief or then he was just blind because he left the navigator in the car and didn't take anything else either. OR then he was interrupted while doing he's evil deed.

Back in Europe, Back writing

Finally able to write again!!

My blog has been blocked in China so i haven't been able to write on it for a while, now to make a long story short and sum up what's been going on lately.

1.At my English teaching company they asked me to go on Chinese television, and of course i agreed to it! It was a 2h show broad casted on BTV1 talking about cultures of east and west. There was this Switzerland guy whos name i forgot who had been studying chinese foot massage for 36 years on the show. He came to display on my feet how the massage is done and asked me to say if it hurted or not. If i had pain it meant that different parts of my body was unhealthy. He told me my troat is in need of some medication and strangely, that morning my throat had been a little sore because of a too cold air conditioner in the night, pretty impressive. Ok, so i did the show and got some cash because i was wearing my company's t-shirt on the show.

2. Did 2 interviews on finnish radio Radio X3M about (ironically) my blocked blog. On the live show we checked which sites could or could NOT be opened in China. At the moment all Blogger addresses are cut of and you-tube is completely shut down...

3. Hede came to China and we had a blast! Good times singing karaoke and so on, checking out the tourist stuff and went to the great wall the 6th time...

4. Celebrated Hyans birthday in an awesome restaurant and the biggest private room and hugest dinner i ever had, AWESOME. Pictures will follow.

5. Passed all the Chinese exams with an average score of 80 in all test (written,spoken,listening)

6.Moved away from my Wudaokou apartment and packed everything i have into boxes, was surprisingly much stuff. When i come back to China i have to find a place somewhere around that area again, can't say i'm seeing forward to fill in all those contracts and papers at the police again.

7. Im in Europe now doing a 2 month long trip before going back to Beijing. My schedule is Holland-Belgium-France-Chzeck-Germany-Poland-Latvia-Finland-Norway-Sweden-Estonia and then the last day of August back to Beijing for additional Chinese studies.

Anybody should be able to leave comments on the blog now, just choose the ANONYM field when wanting to comment.