Shanghai Shanghai

Was nice to have you here little bro! And soon I'll be coming home myself, only 1 month to go now! The weekend was for once pretty quiet, trying to get rid of all that extra we ate at Bali :) Don't wanna look like those other fat tourists at the beach...

Went to see the newest Pirates of Caribbean in 3D here. One thing I'm wondering about China is the size of the movie theaters. They are much smaller here than in Finland! There is nothing like Tennispalatsi with huge screen and hundreds of seats. Maybe one reason is that China only allow to import 8 international movies annually...

Went to a few events last week, the restaurants they choose always have awesome view like this one called Bar Prive with a terrific view of the French Concession. Just gotta love the night views here...

Christmas never dies here :)

Jin Mao, Shanghais tallest hotel

Home in Shanghai again

The buss from Hangzhou airport was surprisingly fast, only took about 2 hours and it was half empty so we all had plenty of space to sleep in it！ Nice to be home again, now have to start planning a new trip. Will com back to Finland in about 1 month and stay there a few weeks with business and holiday mixed. Hope the volcano in Iceland doesn't go nuts...Grillaus ja Saunaaaa!!


Something awesome happened this week, my company won the SOUTH CHINA FORWARDER REWARD　2011! Click on the link to see the article in the newspaper!

Kuala Lumpur - Hangzhou

The flight from Bali left early in the morning and we had to get up at 6 am and go to the airport. In the customes you had to pay an extra 150.000 rupee for leaving the country (12 euros) don't know why. The flight to Kuala Lumpur took 2,5 hours and was nice because plane was half empty and there was plenty of space to sleep.

Que was so slow we almost missed the plane, boarded after 2 calls for "Final Call"

Bye bye Bali...

We transferred flight in Kuala Lumpur and had 6 hours time to hang around the city. The buss to the city cost 1 Euro and was really comfy. A must see is of course the Petronas Towers, they look like 2 giants in steel

Bali - Ubud

Enough of touristic Kuta! We headed to Ubud which is about 2h drive north of Kuta. Ubud has been so much nicer!

We had our awesome Bungalow hotel (SRI Bungalow, can recommend if anyone is looking for a quiet place for about 40 Euros a night) located in the "Monkey Forrest" area. It's called monkey forrest because, well, it's in a forest full of monkeys. When holding food out they went really crazy but otherwise just monkey around :)

Hotel pooooool

Monkey Temple and...monkeys

There are MANY Hindu temples around Bali since the majority of the people are Hindu. We stopped by a few temples, this one here is over 1000 years old!

Nature is rich in Bali and it's like a big jungle everywhere. What is cool to do in a jungle? Rafting!! We went down a 10 km slope for 2 hours. Was really cool! Never done that before. Stefan manage to fall of the boat when it bumped pretty hard into the mountain wall but nothing happened thanks to a quick Kari who pulled him up in 5 sec. The camera in his pocket didn't even have time to take damage.

Was a long and sweaty way to walk down first

Down we go!

On the way home from rafting we stopped by Balis biggest waterfall. It's called the Git Git Waterfall and is about 100 m high. We went swimming under it. It's actually pretty cold and noisy under a huge waterfall. I also manage to drop my sunglasses. Was sure this one weird guy who kept filming me with his phone nicked them but found them later between some stones.

3 fatties and a waterfall!

This has been a really nice trip. Thank you all for making it worthwhile, Kari, Stefan, Frank and Janina. Too bad it was so short!

Bali - Kuta

One of the popular beach resorts in Bali is called Kuta. We stayed here for 2 days and it pretty much sucks. The beach was packed with people and every minute there are hordes of people who wanted to take pictures of me or sell me some useless stuff. After one time to the beach we decided to stay at the hotel pool because it's really nice and calm there. The hotel pool looks amazing in the night!

Bottles

We went to the Turtle Island were they farm and raise turtles of all kinds. They had giant turtles and small ones as well. There was also a funny monkey trying to take my camera.

Patting the turtle!

Giant bats

Snorkeling has always been awesome in places like Thailand and Vietnam but here it was awful. There were no choral, no colorful fish and the visibility in the water was just a few meters. Was almost as crap as diving in Finland.

Had one of the best dinners ever by the beach, sunset and great seafood! Lobster on the beach!

We tried to get these guys to play Lady Gaga or us but the didn't know it, had to settle with a good old Hotel California

Sunset

Evening view was niiiiice

On the way to with a cab we stopped for some special Bali coffee. It's called Coffee Luwak and is made by...an animal. The animal eats the coffee beans and then when it shits them out they make coffee out of it. Didn't taste any special but sure was pricy (about 5 euros)

After 2 days in Kuta we had enough and headed to Ubud. Ubud is more north than Kuta without beaches but much more chill! On the way to Ubud we stopped by Balis still active Vulcano which erupted 2001. There was a restaurant with this view and the buffet was great!

Shanghai - Hangzhou - Kuala Lumpur - Bali

Holiday!! Stefan wanted to have a beach holiday while in Shanghai and I happened to find pretty good tickets with Air Asia. Today we have been a looooong 20 hour on our way passing 3 cities and many customs.

The first stop was Shanghai - Hangzhou since the airport which Air Asia uses is there. The reason why you fly from Hangzhou and not Shanghai is the price. Hangzhou is about 300 km from Shanghai but it's really fast and convenient to get there with the bullet train that does about 350km/h. Only took us 50 minutes to arrive from Shanghai to Hangzhou.

Last time I was in Hangzhou was in 2007 with Peiffin and Koli, was a great trip btw. We went on a boat ride in the famous "West Lake" which for all Chinese is a romantic place because there are so many love stories behind it.

Took a drink at House 79, small strange place

Chinese made car, Nixon has been in it back in the days! Hangzhou airport

From Hangzhou we flew to Kuala Lumpur where we had to wait 5 hours and then take the plane to Bali - Kuta. But finally in Bali! It's 32 degrees warm and sunshine! This will be awesome!

Indonesia from Air

Kuta beach, 5 min walk from the hotel

Black Scooter Market

I wanted to buy a second scooter for Stefan when he came here and found this add on the Internet that was selling for a pretty good price. They had a nice model I've been looking at before for 1000 RMB as used. I wanted 2 of these. The price for a new in a store is around 3000 RMB. I decided to call they guy and check it out. He said that sure he has the model, just wanted me to put a deposit sum of 100 RMB into his account so he knows I'm "In". Cool, no problem, 100 RMB there we go. After that I was suppose to go and meet him so he could bring me the scooter. I went to the place we agreed and he called me and asked what I was wearing (I must have been the easiest thing to spot from a mile since there was not a single other blonde 185 cm foreigner). Well I tell him I'm wearing a blue tshirt and shorts, he says ok. I wait 10 minutes and he calls me again and says I have to put the money on his account because this is not very leagal thing and he is risking to get into jail by doing this. Ok, so stolen scooters...I said no way, I'm not gonna put in 2000 RMB into your account before I see the scooters and he says that these are the rules. Now comes the gamble, should I put the money in and see what happens or just leave it and forget about the whole deal?
The driver that had the scooters also called me and said he had seen me standing in the road but he could not give the scooters yet before he got permission from his boss. So, what to do? Was thinking for a while and then decided to Risk it, what the hell, let's see what happens! So I put 2000 RMB into this guys account to see if he is gonna bring me 2 scooters...10 minutes passes and he calls me again and says that I have to put another 3000 RMB as deposit or the deal is off. The driver will give me the deposit money back when he brings the scooters. At this point I decided to call the deal off and he said that the 2000 RMB will be returned to me within 3 days to my account. We'll today is the third day and still no 2000 RMB added to my account. My landlord said he knows how to handle the situation with the police. I'll continue the story later :)

Just had to try this and see if it's actually that easy to buy stolen stuff here. People advertising it on the internet and the police don't care at all...

Finland World Hockey Champions 2011!!

The last week my VPN had some problems and I wasn't able to log in to the blog since it's still blocked in China. Once I asked a police official why it was blocked. She then asked some people in the polic about it and the answer was "The server is broken" Well the server has been broken since May 2009 now....After the VPN started working Blogspot was under construction for some time. But now back online again!

Last week was pretty chill, nothing much happened apart from normal work routine and gym. Stefan came to Shanghai on Saturday! Thanks mom for all the great stuff you sent me, the fresh Raspberries were awesome!
Sunday night was a great night for the whole nation! We finally won the Hockey World Tournament after 16 years! Way to gooooo!! I think all the Finnish people in Shanghai was in Big Bamboo watching it, they showed it live here. The match started at 2.30 am and when it ended everybody were in extacy and so damn happy that we had won. We won 6-1, murskavoitto!!! Some videos can be found here:

Finland - Sweden match - Uploaded a few Videos on Youtube

Shouting, dancing on charis, applause, yepp that's the sound of World Championship :)

There are so many good restaurant here in Shanghai and you can always find anything you want for a failry resonable price. We went to Teppanyaki again. As much as u want of any kinds of meat and fish for just over 20 Euros. The day after that we went to Latino which is a Meat-Buffee with as much of meat as you want for 25 Euros. I'll be really fat when I come home this summer....“Human Statue" outside The Apartment

How to wash your hands in 5 steps, I'm so happy I finally know now!

We went driving around Shanghai with scooters. I now got 2 and it's perfect in the warm sunny weather to cruise the streets! The Bund looks great in sunny weather!

Stopped for a coffee at the old lighthouse by the Bund