Go out and play?

First I want to tell Susanne; no hard feelings, it is OK to call me at 01:40 as long as you have good news to share :-)
It may look like I am online on Skype but I am not. It just appears that way because incoming calls are forwarded to my cellphone if I don't answer within 10 seconds. But please, feel free to call me, just bare in mind that my local time is CET+7 or UTC+8.
Congratulations once again, honey! I hate to say it; but I told you so. We will be in the same business if everything works out well!

The weather outside is absolutely wonderful! People are extra happy today, the birds are singing and the campus is filled with gardeners who makes the beautiful surroundings ready for summer. You can really feel it!
So what am I doing? I am sitting in the apartment being a good student, and that makes me a bit dull. I do want to go out and play! My face could use some sunshine right now, although being a bit pale is considered to be attractive here.

Here are two photos of my living room view:

I must continue with my studies. At 19:00 (in 2.5h) I will most probably meet up with my friends for a dinner and then go bowling, depends on how the next 2 hours goes. I have never tried that before and I am really looking forward to it. The camera will be joining me for documentation. For the next 3 days I will bring it where ever I go because the weather allows it.

First sign of summer

It is finally here! I am talking about the summer. As I have mentioned in previous posts; Ningbo was very very cold the past week. But now that seems to be changing. Right now we have a radiating sun on the sky and it looks like it is 25°C outside, but it is really only 5°C and a bit windy. But, the good new is the weather forecast shows 16°C tomorrow and 24°C this weekend! We are going on a trip to the beautiful West Lake located in Hangzhou on Saturday, so the warm weather is mostly welcome. I am very happy about that, because it gives me a chance to use my camera in the beautiful surroundings. Tomorrow I will look for a nice and handy camera support.

Anyway, this post was meant to be about food, summer food. With the topic I did not mean the sun or the heat, I meant another sign of summer. Can you imagine anything more summer like than strawberries? We tried the first Chinese strawberry yesterday and it tasted wonderful! I have always been a big fan of Swedish strawberries, but the Chinese ones tastes as good or even better. Perhaps that is because it has been a while since we had them.

Simon with a Chinese strawberry

While shopping yesterday I noticed something in the shelves, something more usual than strawberries in March; blueberry flavored crisps. Because I promised myself to try new things I just had to give it a shot. Maybe this is the least weird thing that I have tried here, but still...

Surprisingly, the crisps tasted quite nice! I will get another bag next time I am in store, for sure.

Blueberry crisps

I just came home from a health examination. That was needed in order to extend my Visa. I will tell you all about that experience later. Now it is time for Chinese class, "Listening and speaking". Zai jian!

First day at school

The past week was some kind of introduction and yesterday the courses started for real. The exchange students began at 08:00 with "International Business" and we who only study Mandarin began at 09:50. A very nice surprise is that we can also choose up to 3 extra courses for free if there is enough space left in the classes. Of course, this is an opportunity I cannot miss, and I am amazed that the other Swedes don´t follow the same line. I applied for the following 3 courses:

• Chinese Economy
• International Trade Operation
• International Business

The only sacrifice is that I must go up 2 hours earlier every morning, 06:15 instead of 08:15, and that is nothing compare to what I will receive. Since I only could chose 3 extra courses I had to miss "International Finance" and "International Management". Hopefully I am still allowed to participate in Chinese Taiji (Tai Chi) on Monday evenings.

As I wrote before we began at 09:50 with Chinese "Intensive reading". Basically the goal is to learn how to read and write Chinese characters. It was easier than I thought, but then I have a technique that works very well for me. The class started with pronouncing the vocals and we were suppose to repeat the sounds after the teacher. I must admit I felt a bit silly at first but then started to enjoy it. We all felt like 1:st graders again, haha.
Because of the cold a 2 hour long lunch break was very welcome. The heating inside the classrooms is very under-dimensioned. Today it's only +2 degrees Celsius outside and windy. On Friday there will be +18. Weird, right?

After the lunch break we had a class in "Listening and speaking". Sadly, this lecture was a bit confusing and I am not sure if we learned that much. The teacher jumped from one thing to another before we really understood the previous. She spent some time writing characters on the border and quickly asked us to forget it, since the class is about listening and speaking, not writing. This procedure was repeated a couple of times until we decided to throw some questions in her direction.
I understand is she was nervous so I do not judge her. Teaching a class full of foreigners the same age as herself cannot be easy. I am sure that the next lecture will be much better.

Vincent and Veta

Celine, Emilie and Marisol chatting during a break

Lunch break is almost over. It is time for my first class in Chinese Economy. One thing I love about China is; nothing is impossible. I applied for the course 2 hours ago and can start directly. I am really looking forward towards the lecture but try not to have any expectations.
I am tempted to spend the evening with my friends but I really must stay at home to study Chinese characters and the distance course of statistics.

Early Saturday morning

Every day I wake up to the sound of birds and enjoy it most times, but today it was a little bit to much. Usually they are just a few birds but today they sounded like an army so I could not sleep past 06:50.
Maybe I am getting superstitious or the Chinese are right about Wakening of Insects. Actually, yesterday was the first time I saw an insect here, spooky.


I think it is time to write some about the food here in the province of Zhejiang.
Let me start like this;
I did not come to China to start a new life, but maybe a new chapter. In order to do that I need a open and positive state of mind about everything, including new food. I used to be very conservative about food, not willing to try new dishes. This has not been the case the recent week in Ningbo and I enjoy it a lot!


The evening of the arrival we went to a traditional restaurant famous for spicy food. Excellent start for me, I need spicy food. We gathered around a table and ordered several dished that we shared. This is a very common way of dining in China and personally I think this is just wonderful. Anyway, I decided to throw myself into the new culture so I ordered pig feet with chili, and I must say they were delicious. The pig feet is the dish with lots of red chili in the picture.

I already made up my mind, Chinese food is great! I love it! It tasted nothing like home, not even close to the food in Swedish/Chinese restaurants.


Next day we had lunch at a new shopping mall called Wanda. The restaurant was famous for meet with big bones. We ordered a pork with the bones along with 7-8 other dishes. It looked like a piece of a leg from a pig with meat, fat and ligament still attached. For a reason we received a short sucking straw from a waitress and surprisingly we were suppose to use it for sucking out the bone marrow. Did I try it? Of course I did! It did not taste that much, really, but it was not bad.

A get-together on Tuesday evening. Shot was taken with Simons Iphpone

Vegetables in China always looks perfect. Even the smallest food stand on the street serves vegetables that looks good enough to be in commercial. If they spot anything bad in the food it will be thrown away immediately. Bad food is bad for business, and lots of people are making their living out of it. My favorite vegetable dish is haricots verts with chili. Delicious!


More about Chinese food to come, but enough for now or this post will be enormous. Yet I have not tasted anything bad. It is the other way around, I love the food here. In Sweden I had some stomach aches for the past 2 years or so due to something, That has completely disappeared!

Dinner. All food on the table costs less than 20 RMB (~20 SEK)

Afternoon at Ningbo Museum

Today the class got together for the first time for a trip to the Ningbo Museum. There were people from different parts of the world, such as France, Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, Japan, Korea and Sweden.

The bus took of at 14:20 and headed for the museum. We were supposed to leave at 14:00, but of course we had to wait for the Mexicans and the French. The museum was only a 3 min drive away from campus so the bus felt unnecessary.

Luckily cameras were allowed inside the museum so I could play with my friend Mr. D5000. Even flashes were allowed. The museum showed Chinese history and culture. The building itself is very impressive, but this day were under heavy rain so I did not want to risk the health of my camera for a picture.
We had a tour on 3 levels inside the museum. We saw items like ancient bamboo jeweleries, swords, cannons and pieces of old ships. Since ancient times, Ningbo has been a valuable port and still is today. They even had a section of dinosaurs which was impressive.

The tour took about 1.5 hour and afterwards we went to meet some Chinese students for introduction and some conversation. It felt weird when the students applauded while we entered the assembly hall. The conversations were a nice exchange and I met some new friends. The Chinese students seems to be very eager of making new friends, so I got a few extra numbers in my cellphone and contacts through MSN and Skype. My Guanxi is growing. It's a Chinese expression for personal network of influence.

This day has been very intense; meeting new friends and receiving a large culture injection. Even if it's Friday evening I will most probably read a book and fall asleep early. I am exhausted.

For more pictures from the museum, please follow the link to the album on Facebook.com:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=208160&id=692125169&l=cc49c600ed

New camera!

I am sorry for not updating the blog this week. Blogspot.com is blocked for some reason here in China and my VPN-connection has not been working for the last couple of days. I am trying a new one and hope fully this one is more stable.
Another thing before I get to the subject. Calls to my Skype account (hanfre79) are forwarded to my cellphone if I don't answer within 7 seconds or if I am offline. It is free of charge for you but costs me 0.2 öre/min or 0.02 Euro/min so it is very cheap. Feel free to call me but please have in mind that I am in a different time zone. (CET+7)

I wanted a camera for quite some time now and pictures is something I really want to bring back home. Since I forgot my fathers camera in Göteborg I decided to buy a new one. My first choice was Nikon D3000 and noticed the price was about the same as in Sweden. But for some reason the Nikon D5000 is much cheaper so I started to reconsider, because you can film in HD with that one. The prices differed a few hundred Yuan between the stores, but 2 Chinese friends showed me a pure camera store that was about 600:- cheaper. After a good night sleep I went to buy it. For some reason they gave me discount so it became 1000:- cheaper  than the others. Along with the camera I bought a lens, 4GB memory card, UV-filter, anti back light and very practical bag. All in all for the price of ~5500:-

Can't want until the weather is good enough for some pictures. Not it is about 10°C and rain. Last night we had quite a show outside. The thunder was so intense that we thought a war was going on. Flashes every 5:th seconds. Beautiful to watch but messed up my sleep. They say that this happens every year at this night to wake up the hibernating insects. Today is known as "The Awakening of Insects".

Later tonight I will update the blog with pictures and stories about food, shopping ect. I wanted to do that all week. See you soon!

Dutchmen, soured milk and smoked almonds

We gained Internet access earlier today, that's why I am writing so late. I think I will begin to write about the trip to Ningbo. Even though I landed less than 3 days ago I have experienced enough to write a book. Things as shopping, food, culture etc will come in other posts soon enough.

My start in Gothenburg almost ended up as a disaster. I have done some really stupid things in my life, but this really takes the biscuit. Before the departure I had tons of stuff to deal with, that stressed me up to the limit. I have been on the edge of being burnt out before and I could feel some of the symptoms. I am sorry for all the things I did not manage to do before the trip. I will deal with them later this week.
The day of the departure I woke up early, quite alert, but my body refused due to stress. I really had to kick my self started to arrange everything in less than 3 hours. Somehow I got the time of departure wrong. In the car on my way to the airport I checked the new printed tickets, and they said 12:25 and not 12:55! After a bunch of calls and 140km/h ride to the airport I managed to check in with 1min marginal....phew!

The flight to Shanghai via Amsterdam was quite nice. First time in a jumbo jet. I tried 2 new things that I very much enjoyed. The first thing was smoked almonds. Wow, fantastic! I had them along with a nice bottle of wine on the plane. Smoked almonds are new on my list but pushes popcorn down to number 2. The other one was soured milk with cherries that we had for breakfast. I tasted soured milk as a kid but did not like it. Now 25 years later I must admit it is quite good, but it does not beat the almonds. The food in general was superb and the staff were wonderful. Although the stewardess on the flight to Amsterdam was understandable. We did not understand a single word she said about the safety instructions. She sounded Jiminy Cricket on crack.

I have so much to write about but I must start somewhere. Since I promised pictures I must provide some. The picture here is from the bus to Shanghai City. More to come, although I forgot the camera in the car at Landvetter, Gothenburg due to panic and lack of time.
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