The beer city

After my friends went to Qingdao and told me tales of great beer and sandy beaches, I have been dreaming of going there, so I jumped on a plane in Xi'an and left for the City of Beer. 

The journey to Qingdao was everything than easy; the flight was delayed, the airport bus was delayed, the bus stopped at the wrong stop, I asked for directions and was shown the wrong way and in the end I ended up taking the taxi, which brought me to the completely wrong place. The only positive thing was a lovely sun set on the bus and that I made it inside the hostel before the typhoon rain set in.

Xi'an

I might have showed you the terra cottas, but here's the rest of the pictures from Xi'an.

Every hostel should have a pet, and this is Doudou the turtle - of course named after Doudou the hostel dog in Beijing. First he didn't like me, but after a few days we were best friends!

Terra cotta-otta-ye-ye

New day, new opportunities, new city - or something like that. Anyway, the day before yesterday I arrived slightly hungover and very tired here in Xi'an, but I'm not easy to stop, so yesterday morning I got up really early and went on a guided tour of the terra cotta army right outside Xi'an.

First stop on the tour was the tomb of the first emperor Qin Shi Huang. If you can see that mountain thing in the background I can now tell you that is the tomb. It's man made and this is the closest we got. 

Tiantan

My days here in Beijing are coming to an end, and I figured it's time to do the last sightseeing in stead of sitting the hostel all day. I've been to the Temple of Heaven before, but I met to guys and they really wanted to go there, so I went with them.

A big activity in Tiantan is playing cards and majiang, and everybody line up to look at the game and also to criticize the way they're playing. Quite interesting.

798 Art District

It has been another rainy, smoggy and to say the least moist day in Beijing. This is the city where I spend all day sitting the hostel, stalking people on Facebook and eat food, because I consider the city as conquered. Yes, I feel like I been to every place all the tourists should go to and some more, but when I woke up this morning I suddenly remembered there is one major place I haven't been to so far; 798 Art District. 

A very rainy day

Rain. Raaaain. Raaaaaaiiiiiin. Seriously, I have never seen so much rain in my entire life. It has been raining all day, and I suspect it's closer to 20 cm. There's not much to do in Beijing when it's raining, so I spent the day testing my rain gear when I walked between the bar and the bathroom.

Amelia, one of the staff in the bar, loved my rain gear so much she had to try the whole outfit. I'm pleased to say it works really good!

Looking for a place to stay

So, it's been a whole week since I left Norway, heading for China. My God, it feels good to be back! Everything is so cheap, people are so polite and the food tastes so good. It has also been a bit strange to be back, a lot of things have changed; Huaqingjiayuan is closed up, you need a key to get in (or just sneak in behind someone like I do) and all the staff at Helen's is transferred (I actually find this the worst).

A returning redhead

So, here we go again. In about six hours I leave Norway, head for Denmark before I end up in my favorite city - Beijing! The bag is far from being packed, but I can't do anything but walk around like a zombie doing nothing. Why? I got butterflies!

It's time to pack, I'll update again sometime after I arrive in Beijing. 再见！

London Calling

So, Lisa, Vanja and I stayed a couple of days in London together and here are some of the pictures I took.

 Lisa and Vanja at Oxford Street

 St. Paul's Cathedral

Family trip

While I'm here in Norway, packing my stuff, waiting for visas, health certificates, HIV-tests and so on, my wonderful family went to Ullared in Sweden, and here's the picture I got from them.

Don't they look lovely?