NO WAY AMERICA!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ3RrqBqk14

Ritan Park - Wall climbing

Another free day before work! Today I was suppose to go wall climbing with Linda in Ritan park.

I came to the park a little too early and in the park there was this screaming chinese guy. I started wondering what's this dude's problem was so I went to check it out. Turns out it was not "random screaming", he was reciting texts from his english book. Problem was that his pronunciation was so bad that I could not understand ANY

THING. I was almost about to tell him that "我什么都听不懂 " (this sounds better in Chinese than english) but that would have been a little evil. I mean he was trying REALLY hard...

When I study a language I dunno if the best solution is to go to a pa

rk and scream the text from the book as loud as you can and try to memorize the whole thing. I got a picture of this guy! :) Hilarious....They really want to pass their english exams (IELTs or TOEFL) here so they can go abroad to study. Unfortunately only a few make it (i can see why)

The climbing thing didn't really work out, their biggest climbing

shoes were 44 (china 44!) which probably equals to a 42 in Finland. I could barely get the damn thing on my food because I have 46! So, so much for that climbing session. The guy who was in charge of the climbing said he might get bigger shoes in the summer but I doubt that...So much talk here, nothing ever happens. And don't take other peoples word for anything.

Niko, Toba and Tommy, check out the logistics of this bike!

Party on

This weekend has mostly been about exploring the nightlife of Beijing. Start with friends at my place because I live just next to the biggest bar area. The roof is an excellent place for people who smoke, picture of the backyard looks nice in the night. No more staying out until 8 a'clock in the morning for a little while again.

Yesterday I went to a club called QiQi Banana where the dance floor is moving and bouncing. I took some pictures there but it was too dark. Obviously it was also forbidden to take pics because the bouncer almost took my camera...I had my ears ringing for a few hours when I woke up but it's fine now :) It's so easy to stay out late here in China because the clubs close very late, don't even realize and suddenly it's morning.

The breakfast I had today was awesome. It's a world wide food chain around called Elements Fresh which we surprisingly don't have in Finland...Sunshine and +20 degrees in Beijing today!

1 more week

I got all the documents for the final phase of the visa. The Chinese government gave me a passport for foreigners in China and it also includes the working permit. Looks really cool! When I get it home I will post pics! Nokia obviously paid for the whole thing because nobody asked me for money (about 600 euros)

So next Friday the 2nd of April Seba's finally gonna start working!

Original plan to start working: January 4th or 16th --> April 2nd.

3 damn months I've been waiting!! Aaaargh, this calls for champagne and whiskey cola!

The sky is actually quite blue again...Bye bye sandstorm

Clear blue sky

Sandstorm over! I got this sudden idea of going up on the roof of my place so i went to look for a way. On the 26th floor there was an open window to climb out from. The roof is a great place to chill out! No sounds from the traffic, quiet breeze of air and no people. Almost like being home, great place to go when in need of relaxation!

The building is so high that I could see the CCTV tower from the roof! Looks a little odd, the chinese people call it "the underwear building" because it looks like a pair of boxers. Was designed by a famous Dutch architect.

Some english teaching today and that's about it. Tomorrow Husse and Linda is coming back from their trip so I guess it calls for a few pints of beer! :)

More sandstorm

Went out in the morning for shopping etc. Feels like I've been eating sand now even though I used the scarf as cover. The kids in the school beside my building were singing (long live chairman Mao and the communist party) and hanging around the school yard as usually. If i was a parent I would not let my kids go out in this kind of poisonous weather without any mask or cover...

If second hand smoking is bad, this is lethal! Pics from my flat...

J-Rock

An old classmate of mine is back in Beijing and asked me to join a small Japanese rock concert. The bands name was Tripple Nipples, 2 girls jumping and screaming about ice cream on the stage. The gig was totally hilarious! The choice of clothes was also pretty interesting, only wearing Duct Tape and something that looked like a feather miniskirt. Gogo Tripple Nipples, 加油！ After that is was off to Sanlitun for the afterparty with Timo and home at 5:30 in the morning. Today has mostly been about sleeping...

Next week on Thursday im going to the police to fix the last visa stuff, jee! Soon work!

Thank you Hon/Hyan!!

Thanks for the most awesome birthday present I ever got! I could never come up with something as "innovative" as this.

Yellow Beijing

Decided to go to the gym before teaching classes at 9 today. When I opened the window today morning it was totally YELLOW outside. A huge sandstorm had just hit Beijing. Sand was everywhere and it was so windy that I had to lean in the winds direction to get any forward. Wow! What a storm! The cars and street are totally covered in Sand :) Used my scarf as a gas-mask but my throat is still coarse...

When I came back home there were these 4 chinese guys sitting by the window, looks like china "Hobo Backstreet Boys HBB" :D

休息吧

今天真是有点儿无聊。我一个人在家里上网，打扫和看电影。我的工作签证还需要等5天，当你在中国申请文件那是个特别慢的过程！ 我已经等这个傻的签证大概三个月！ 慢慢慢，烂烂烂！

还有我不能去国外旅行因为我没有护照。我的护照在那个签证公司。。。如果我要去旅游只有一个办法：坐火车和失望酒店不需要签证当我托运的时候。。。

下个星期我终于应该是会上班儿，欧塞！！！

今天我拍照我的房子，房子的公园儿有一个网球場，在夏天我应该去试试一下儿

你们看得懂吗？

Backstreet Boys!

Backstreet "old" boys did a gig in Beijing but it pretty much sucked. Ok there were the olden goldies songs but the whole show looked like they could not care less about it. There was some random guy sitting on the stage doing nothing and they didn't even bother to change clothes a single time even though it had a few "timeouts". One of the guys even said Fuck twice during the show but I guess the chinese audience didn't understand that.

Which reminds me of the audience...During the show you are NOT allowed to:

1. Stand

2. Jump

3. Move from your seat (please remember to take some glue with you)

If you do any of these things there is a horde of 15 chinese guards pushing you down on the seat or dragging you out of the stadium. I mean where is the fun in a concert when you have to sit like a cold dead fish. Makes the whole concert atmosphere lame.

These guys should quit singing, what are they now, 40? They said that the've been singing over 17 years now, long time...

Apart from the bad things I would have loved to have you there Niko to sing-along those old SHANGHAI hits from long nights at Party World :D "I don't care who you are, what you did....." aah, good ol' times!!

See you soon 香港

I got up really early today and went by buss to Clear Water Bay which is a awesome beach. In the summer they have diving courses here and if I'm around at that time I have to give it a try!

I never knew there were so many beaches all around Hong Kong, the city is a mix of city/beach resort place.

After the long ride to Clear Water Bay I went to see Alice in Wonderland IMAX version just in case it would be censured in Mainland. (Mainland is all cities of China except Taiwan, Macao or Hong Kong) Like always Tim Burton made a great movie so go watch it!

Waiting at the airport now, this is one of those great airports with Free WiFi with unlimited use. All airports should have that, even St. Petersburg in Russia has!

Husse just came to Beijing this afternoon and we are off to Sanlitun in a few hours. 15h of sleep in 3 days and I'm a little tired but I don't care at all! I got all the visas and papers fixed now and this week or next week will be work work at NSN, finally! KICKASS!

The Peak & Night Market

Hong Kong's landscape is very steep, there are hills everywhere. One of the highest places is called "The Peak" from where you can see the Hong Kong island and Kowloon. View is really awesome, in fact it was so nice I went there in the morning and evening.

My plan was to go to Macao today but there was so much fog that most boats were cancelled or delayed. That will have to wait until next time. It's gonna be nice to see how Asias "Vegas" looks like.

They have a night market with everything from you could possibly imagine. For those people who have been to Pat Pong in Bangkok, this is pretty much the same without the "red light" stuff.

Kowloon & Lan Kwai Fong

Lan Kwai Fong is a bar steet area in HK, much like Beijings Sanlitun but more foreigners. All the bars here are foreign owned and they actually play good music and not this crappy 90ties techno crap which is what you most of the time hear in Beijing...

I went to see a Buddhist temple where they had hundreds of preyer notes hanging from the roof and strange incents burning. The temple was thick with good smelling incents and it was very different from the other Buddhist temples I've been to before.

After that I went to see Sun Yat-sens home. He was sort of Chinas president before the communist party rose into power in China. A guy who wanted peace and unite China into a great country. He succeeded in doing that but 20 years after his death the communist party took over with Mao in charge.

In the evening I went by boat over to Kowloon which is the northern island of Hong Kong. They have hundreds and hundreds of stores there! It looks just like in the movies at this place.

It's been 26 degrees today and I love wearing shorts and slippers :)

Heard there is a snowstorm in Beijing at the moment, too bad I'm here enjoying summer :P

Disney Land!

I just had to go to Disney Land when being in here. I was much more awesome than i thought! I found some random chinese people from Beijing and hanged around with them the whole day. Was much better than alone and good chinese practice :)

Disney Land had shows, rides, parades and all kinds of things that would have been really cool to see (even cooler if i was a kid!)

Was out yesterday to check some bars with Daphne and her friends. Hong Kong is awesome for party, came home 7 in the morning and feeling like a winner today!