Into the East: April 2015

Monday, April 27

Royal Kingdom of Sweden

Stockholm. The best city in Scandinavia! No matter how many times I come here, it's always like a fairy tale. Like the Paris of north :)Much nicer now when it's sunny and warm too, winter was a bit cold and slushy in December...Was a busy trip and didn't move much around town, just a biz dinner at Gondolen and some walking around old town (a must every time!)

Bye bye Helsinki-Vantaa

Land of a 1000 lakes...and islands

Stockholm incoming...Helsinki-Stockholm is probably the best flight I've been on. Both airports work perfectly, the lounge is awesome and its only 50 minutes in the air. When they serve your coffee it's already starting to ascend.

View from Eriks Gondolen, best restaurant view in Stockholm of Old Town

View from Eriks Gondolen restaurant. Probably one of the best in Stockholm

Morning walk to the office...think blue is my new favorite color

Woman in the sky outside the courthouse

"Alcohol could damage your health" - Nooooo??

Sunset by Slussen

Klara Church

Parliament and old town

Bridge to old town

Maybe you will win the Nobel Prize someday

Gamla Stan, those small alleys

Take a ferry to Djurgården

Keep advancing

Local newspaper office

Main walking street - Drottninggatan

House of knights

Not so sure what this is :)

How I miss the Scandinavian breakfast sometimes. Nom nom nom

Sunday, April 26

FINLAND! I'M BACK (Olen selkä)

Always feels great to get on the flight home, for some reason I also feel that this perticular flight always feels the longest in time...Then again the Finnair planes are not anything special. It's a LOT better than Aeroflot or KLM but compared to Singapore Air their quite bad. There is a new plane coming between Helsinki and Shanghai in October, looking forward to that and hoping the TV will be a bit bigger and better.

Got to go to the One-world lounge for the first time at the airport, thanks for this small upgrade Finnair. Too bad didn't feel much thirsty for booze 8am...

The Shanghai airport is massive but still very slow. The customs line on a Saturday morning was about 1 hour

Finally home! And Monthy came to have a nap with me

And Chem :) Missed you buddy, sorry that I forgot you home

Jetlagged, woke up at about 5 am...The sunrise is gorgeous, it's almost worth waiking up this early every day

Decided to go to the gym running when the sky is so blue! (And also because you didn't leave a key for my bike Stefan). I don't I think I would even notice the that the sky is so blue if I hadn't lived in China for so long where you NEVER see it as this blue. It can be kinda blue, but never anything close to this.

Sökö, what is traffic?

Hanikka Luontopolku

Hey there Mini-Micke. Your awesome, totally beat me in Mario Kart!

Taking the subway...I think this is the first time since 2009! It's still orange-ish and smelly. There is only 1 line in Helsinki so you never need to worry about getting lost. It's very simple and straight forward. IF you still get lost then you deserve it.

My old University had asked me to guest lecture for the International Business Management and Business administration departments about Intercultural Business. I was super nervous about this for a few days. When standing in front of about 250 people I thought oh damn...How will I come up with stuff to talk about got almost 2 hours when my hands are shaking like a rattlesnake. A few minutes after I started talking I somehow managed to put the nervousness aside and then everything started flowing naturally. I hope you all who listened to it enjoyed it :) At least some of you came to give positive feedback, thanks! I think I now beat my stage nervousness I've had since a kid. The thing I most hated in school before was doing presentations in front of the class.

Too bad the picture is a bit blurry...When I studied at this school I would NEVER have thought that I would be standing here speaking. AND that people would be interested in what I have to say.

Saturday, April 25

Nicky Romero in Shanghai

Again one of those quick stops in Shanghai...Much to my luck Nicky Romero happened to be playing just that weekend before I was gonna go again. Had been wanting to go on an EDM gig for a while! Was organized in a place called Fusion. Felt a bit similar to the club that I used to work at in Beijing. Looking forward to some outdoor concerts in the summer :)

Haha first bucket this year

Romero

Drop the bass

Found some really really Chinglish words. Seriously how can someone even find a dictionary this bad?

Friday, April 24

Hello Manila!

As a city Manila isn't really a place where you walk around. Traffic is horrible. You can count with about 1.5 hours + to drive 10km in the city. When going outside downtown it gets reasonable...But all companies are always in the city which kinda forces you to just sit in the car to wait. The infrastructure is in some serious need of upgrade. Set aside the traffic, weather has always been perfect here. And this week a good 32 - 35 degrees warm sun/half cloudy sky is a great change to a cold Tokyo.

Went to a Scandinavian Orphanage farm called Children's Mission. It's been started by a Swedish person many decades ago. Today it's run by an awesome Swedish couple who have done a super job and offered hundreds of kids a better life and education. The Orphanage gets most of it's founding from Swedish companies but every every dollar is useful, you can also help! Just go here and check: http://www.childrensmission.com/

Learning how to fix TV's

Amazing view from Childrens Mission

Even with all the cars, it's still not polluted at all like China

"Eco Park", people chill and have picnics here

When we were driving from Children's Mission to Intramuros the police pulled us over. He wanted to confiscate the license...Well after about 20 minutes of talk and slipping him 10 USD he let us go. Fist bribed police in Manila, check...Intramuros is a small #inside the wall area" that the Spanish colonials build. One of the oldest stone cathedral of Asia is here and it was actually quite the beautiful area.