Visa smisha

More Visa problems, i'm so damn stressed out about this!!!!! More paperwork and more time, but I wanna start working and I hope Nokia doesn't ditch me because I take so much longer time than expected...January has been the worse month ever! If I don't get the job because of the Visa I have NO idea what I should do......

Finnish Winter

January is always the coldest month in Finland. At the moment it's -19 degrees and occasionally snowing. Been very beautiful but also DAMN cold and I really want to avoid being outside. Today and yesterday was mostly about fixing paperwork and other necessary things.

In the winter we have a holiday called "Laskiais Sunnintai" which means Ski and sled sunday. On this particular day it is a tradition to ride sleds with friends or family. Food for this day is Pea soup and Laskiais sweet-rolls which are filled with cream and jam (picture) and they are really good! You can buy them for a few weeks on this holiday, after that they disappear from the stores until next year again, don't miss your chance!

I still didn't receive the Visa papers I need for the working permit...Original plan was to start working the 3rd of January but still waiting for them to fix it. Have to give them a call tomorrow and ask if they can send it to Finland ASAP so i don't have to fly to Hong Kong next week and apply. But then again i've never been to HK so it would be nice to make an extra trip there.

Chicago

My cousin played in a musical play called Chicago (also a movie). They had been preparing it for 2 years with her drama group and it was really great. Amazing how well some 17 year olds can perform :)

Finland is around -20 degrees and pretty snowy...Just when it was getting warmer in Beijing I come back to the winter. I really don't want to go out that much but have to get some paperwork done while I'm here. They have these new ID cards in Finland now that replaced our KELA cards and when we travel in Europe passports are no longer needed. Will go and get myself one of those cards and also report my stolen camera from Paris airport, it's gonna get cold!

Beijing - Amsterdam - Helsinki

Everything went smooth with the apartment and I now live close to Dongzhimen on the 21st floor! The view is really amazing from the window, specially at night! I always wanted to live in a high building ever since i came to China the first time. Maybe a little expensive but hey, life should be enjoyed!

I'm transferring flight in Amsterdam, it's a nice and comfortable 10,5h flight and I'm flying with Souther China Airlines so the seats are the smallest you can find. This is a little different than the business class I had 3 weeks ago on Air France…BUT it's also CHEAP! :) Will have to wait in Amsterdam for around 2h but that's ok because it's one of Europe's best airports and has a lot of shops and restaurants.

I found this really cool winebar at the airport called Bubbles so I just had to sit down and sip a few glasses of white wine while i was waiting...

After 16 hours flights I finally arrive at Helsinki 23.55 tonight. It's Husses birthday so I go straight from the airport to his place to PARTY!

Apartment hazel

Today morning i was suppose to get the keys for the apartment and then move in before i come to Finland. BUT ofc there was some problem. The owner of the apartment was an Irish guy and he does not live in China. He had some lawyer girl who was really annoying and asking a lot of questions about everything, it was like a job interview to get an apartment. The lawyer was suppose to report back to her "master" if I was suitable for the place...So i could not get the keys to the place and I don't want to have it because if there is a problem I have to deal with this annoying lawyer while the owner is in Ireland...

Finally the agent showed another apartment on the 21st floor which was exactly the same so now I guess that will be my new home :)

Found a great restaurant, funny name :)

Karaoke

Yesterday night we went out for some karaoke with a few people. Like always you have your own little room with 2 microphones. There is also a buffet included in the price and food is pretty good. Very different from the finnish "stand in bar alone super drunk and sound terrible"

Tommy came for a quick visit to Beijing for 12 hours so I took him around the city. Chose a good day because it was stormy and really cold. The flags on Tian An Men were flapping hard, never seen anything like it. Was nice that you guys came by! Would have been great to have you here a little longer time...Hope you have a great time in Thailand!

I went to see an apartment which was really nice and close to the Nokia office. Rent is just over 400 euros but i have to pay 5 months in advance. PLUS i have to pay for my visa and some extra cost it brought which is about 800 euros. So now I'm totally broke, or i don't even have enough of money to pay for everything. Need to change some euros into rmb in Finland because the chinese government is taking a 10% cut these days which makes the exchange rate REALLY bad! Money money money....

Hutong Pizza

Went to Houhai yesterday for lunch. There is a lake in the middle of Houhai which is frozen now and a lot of people were ice skating there and using some kind of weird sleighs to push them self around, looked pretty funny. In Houhai there is a place called Hutong Pizza which has really huge and awesome pizzas.

Have to find an apartment now close to Nokia so the next few days will just be about moving and getting my stuff out of Zhong guan cun...Damn i hate moving! Gonna make a 1 year rent contract now so I don't have to move my stuff for a while again...

Nan luo gu xiang

The small Hutong road with a lot of art shops and cool bars. In the summer you can sit up on the rooftops enjoying 1 euro beers! Today it was damn cold but still always as nice to walk...

I went to a shop to bargain for a thing. the shopkeeper said 5 kuai when i asked the price. I said 1 kuai and then she said free. I mean, WHAT? That was the strangest bargaining i ever had. She says 5, i say 1, she says free!

The have a new type of Mao Obama shirts available here :)

Weekend!

Got a lot of sleep last night but still pretty tired after going out the day before yesterday. James came back to Beijing and we had to take a few drinks. Ended up playing Resident Evil 5 until 4 am in the morning with Absolut Vanilla and Coke...

Today is all gonna be about teaching some english and study for my final exams next week. Don't think i'll do very good in the exams after skipping 2 weeks of class in Finland and showing friends around town but it doesn't matter, I studied to get a job and now i have.

About the job, it will start when i get my working visa fixed. They told me to prepare some extra papers which I did and now i have to wait a few days for the chinese government to process my papers. When i get the papers from the chinese government i can come back to Finland and apply my working visa.

I'm coming to Finland the 23rd in the evening at 23. Husse, it looks like I'm gonna join your birthday party! :)

Found some yummy looking street food close to the Forbidden City, the main gate is really huge! This place was build for hundreds of years and it's is the oldest, biggest and best preserved historical building complex in the world.

Weird job

Yesterday I got a message from a chinese guy who gave me a job in recording an audiotape into finnish last summer. He asked me to help with some finnish writing now that was suppose to take 90 minutes. Why not! So i went there today and had to write 1011 finnish words from a USB writing pad. It was kind of hard to get the letters look good on the computer but maybe that's because my handwriting sucks...The last 150 words were just random letters put together like ÄEÖEREÖK or some examples i took a picture of here. One of the strange jobs I've done...

After that we went to make some custom made suits and shirts, I made a black slim fit suit and a dark blue shirt for 100 euros. Will be done by next thursday for fitting and checking that it suits me. After the suits we walked around the Hutong area next to Tianmen and the place looked pretty cool, had a bowl of noodles for 2,5 RMB which is around 25 cents, cheap dinner!

I can't upload pictures from my apartment anymore for some strange reason, will be a little delay with them until i move.

Morning workout!

On my way to school today i saw this old chinese man running in shorts and without a shirt. Outside is -16 today and very windy, that kind of weather that makes you wanna stay inside. This guy must be immune to cold!

Flooded toilet

Yesterday our bathroom was full of water. The toilet had flooded and the drainer was stuck. We used up all the towels and sheets we had in the house to get the floor dried. But the water had come out of the toilet into the bedroom and gone under the carpet which cannot be removed (kokolattiamatto).

After a lot of towels and sheets all the water was dried up and we put on the washing machine to wash all the towels etc, after all, it was TOILET water that we'd been drying up, Fresh!

The washing machine flooded shortly after this because we wanted to wash to towels and sheets from the toilet water. It was just by random i went upstairs and saw water-masses coming out of the toilet, again! We had to shut of the washing machine but could not really dry the water, just had to make a "dam" (picture) by the door so that the water could not get out of the toilet into the bedroom and under the floor and into the air ventilation system. A plumber came in the middle of the night but he was helpless. After a while the sewer suddenly started working and the water went out from the drainer! Jess, what a night.

Some Chinglish signs

I found some funny signs around in Beijing, haha! All of the indoor signs were actually taken inside the toilet next to the Olympic Stadium. Kinda strange isn't it, the place where millions of tourist gathered in 2008 and they could not even find a proper translator :D

Niklas just came to Beijing today to help with some teaching here for 3 months, great choice! I remember my first days in China, they were....very messy and everything felt VERY foreign...And there was always the language barrier, I'm happy those days are over.

Birds Nest

We went to check out the Birds nest the last day Husse & Co stayed here. The Olympic stadium had an small indoor snow-park! There was also this "pallomeri" as big as a normal swimming pool with 7 bigger balls in it (those kinds that you see in the gym for stretching or doing sit-ups) Anyway, they had made it into a hinder course so that you had to try to jump on those bigger balls and come over to the other side (does this explanation make any sense?). Most people who tried only passed 2 or 3 but it looked pretty funny.

Around the olympic area they kept playing all those olympic songs on huge speakers and it was almost like the Olympics were still here, they were really happy to have it here!

Lite på svenska

Ok, eftersom det handlar om saker som jag inte vill att nån chink ska läsa om så skriver jag på svenska.

Fick igår mail från ett företag som hjälper mig med att skaffa arbetsvisum här i Kina (kan inte börja jobba förrän det blir fixat) och dom skickade en lista med saker jag behöver.

1. En översättning av min CV till kinesiska och den ska dessutom ha en officiell stämpel från ett kinesiskt företag att översättningen är äkta. (man kan kuulemma bara betala 10 euro extra åt dom och få stämpel på vad man vill också)

2. Översättning av mina Arcada papper så att dom vet att jag har gått i skola....+ den officiella stämpeln såklart.

3. Ett intyg från min tidigare arbetsplats i Finland att jag har jobbar över 2 år med det som jag ska börja med här i Kina. Här kommer probleemin! Jag har inte jobbat i Finland över 2 år i något företag som har med Logistik att göra...På Aktia var jag nog på Logistik avdelningen men det var inte yli 2 år...

Företaget som jeesaa mig säger att vaihta lite datum och työkokkari bara. OK! Nu har jag liitchi byt datumichin i mitchi eget työkokkari för att kunna ansöka om työviisumiii, haha! Och dom BAD mig göra det. Svar vaffö va: "alla andra gör det åxå". Det är fint att människor är så rehtii här...

Nu vet jag hur jobbigt det är för alla människor som flyttar utomlands för att fixa alla dokument. Var idag också till sjukhuset som ligger 20km borta från stan och hamnade gå igenom 8 olika prover. Tredje gången dethär året...Dom har dessutom lyft priset från 340 RMB till 650 RMB...great.

Nojoo, men dagens lättare "kinesisk västerländsk mat dryck" Lite bilder från en Kinesiska restaurang som imiterar Italienska mat. En Ananas fylld med Pasta,ris,kött,räkor + lite konsiga provrörs drickor som smakade konstigt...Kaffepuddingen är en av dom bästa sakerna jag hittat här. Pris tillsammans ca 5 euro.

Lama Temple, and COLD

Went around to the mandatory tourist attraction places. The Lama Temple is a temple for Buddhists, people go there and pray when they wish for good luck or respect the dead. Today the ground was very icy and slippery there, better pray for less slippery ice!

The small round thing picture is a "push-and-pray" machine. You push it and it goes around, gives you fortune! You can probably see that the surface is all worn out because thousands of people have been touching it...

I wore too little clothes today and it was a bit chilly in the wind, luckily a lot of the time was spent in subways because there are no free taxis because most of the drivers seem to prefer staying at home in this snowstorm. Subways were so full that there were people pushing in the passengers to the carts, too bad I didn't take a picture of that...

I should go to Thailand like last January! Beijing is no place for winters....