Wanted: weekend getaway

The travel bug is back -my feet are itching!

I’ve been staying put for too long now. Need a weekend away. Need a change of scene, some new, exciting environment to get lost in, and the chance to try something new: yes, I’m in the mood for a small trip!

Can obviously only be away for the weekend. Don’t need anything super adventurous, however, some nature would be nice. Any tips/suggestions? Where do I easily go from Shanghai without ruining myself and without spending half the wknd on a train/plane? Is Guilin the place? (not too touristy?) Jiuzhaigou too far away? Qingdao any fun? Xiamen? Xi’an? Or shall I head somewhere small and unheard of?

Share your best travel anecdotes, please!

Where hairdryers become "body-dryers"

One of the big downsides with working full-time is that I am now no longer privileged with the choice of avoiding the gym during peek hours. Instead, I have to squeeze in between naked body parts and tiny gym lockers like all the other working ladies. One of the biggest issues have proven to be that there is no such thing as “getting fresh” after a workout at a gym in Shanghai.

For starters, there is about 45 degrees in the changing room. Steamy, hot and humid air is making me sweat almost more than what I do on the treadmill.

Second of all –the nakedness is making me nauseous. I never considered myself as prude, but I am starting to question my statement. One of the most stupid rules at the whole gym is that girls need to pay for gym towels (5 rmb/towel). As a result of this, no one bothers to use one. I mean, why should you when there are plenty of hairdryers that you can use for free!

So, girls wander around, butt naked to the showers and escape some moments later, still naked but now dripping wet, grab a hairdryer and start drying themselves… from tip to toe. Watching this (not that I do, but it it kind of hard to not see it) is everything but pleasant. Even if I would decide to stay and shower (I always go home and shower), I would not want to touch those hairdryers! Despite the fact that they come with labels (“for blow-drying head hair only!) nobody bothers with obeying the “rules.”

Even though it was pretty much the same story in at my old gym in Suzhou, that place was not as busy (and included some of my best China buddies –gosh, I miss Rocky!), making me miss it tremendously. Shanghai may be perceived as a cosmopolitan city by many, but anyone who’s been inside the female’s changing room at the gym, knows there is still a far way to go.

IKEA on the wknd

Yesterday we did the unforgivable: spent the afternoon at IKEA. Those of you who’ve already visited IKEA on a wknd in Shanghai are probably rolling your eyes/shaking your heads now –and I know I know. It’s unforgivable. To the rest of you –allow me to explain.

To hang out at IKEA is super popular in Shanghai. Not quite sure if the store sells well or not, because far from all the “people who likes to hang out at IKEA” actually shops at IKEA. Sounds puzzling? Well, again, allow me to explain. You see, IKEA, being set out to be the store that caters for everyone, offers a lot of options to personal money spending. Instead of shopping furniture, you can:

• Buy 1 rmb ice creams or 5 rmb hot dogs from the small food shop downstairs.

• Play with your kids at the IKEA child section –plenty of fun toys on display, sorry, to play with. You could actually refer to it as a large, mall based playground! Perfect way for the kids to burn some energy.

• Have a nap in one of the large beds on display (you need to try it anyways, so why not go all in?)

• Have a seat in a sofa, chair or why not on a table (grab a chair cushion and place it under you –as comfortable as a kitchen chair)? Bring your own magazine or your best people watching goggles and you are set to kill a few hours.

• Take photos of all the furniture on display. Or even better: take photos of YOU in front of all the furniture on display!

• Locate a laowai (they are minorities during the wknd, but if you look hard you can still find them), follow them around and make comments about everything they put in their shopping basket (“scented candles for 20 rmb?! Laowais sure knows how to waste money!”)

• Browse the Swedish food shop downstairs –if you are lucky they have jars of nibble freebees that you can munch from until someone tells you to stop.

• Eat at the IKEA restaurant on the second floor. Not the best food in the world –but it’s cheap and you can tell everyone that you’ve been international enough to try Swedish meatballs.

See, IKEA’s so much fun on a Sunday!

Oh, I almost forgot, you can obviously also go there to shop –like we did. And escape 2 hours later –promising yourself that you’ll never challenge destiny that way again. Some survival know-hows if you are stupid enough as us:

• Try avoiding the showrooms and head straight to the market place. Crowded as well, I know, but you’ll win some time, and who knows, you might still be in a recently good mood once you are done.

• Don’t wear anything yellow.

• Wait until the Pudong store opens later this year (?). Two stores in Shanghai will probably ease the numbers of visitors. 

When reading between the lines get tricky

Don't suffer in silence

Sometimes the “don’t want to lose my face”-culture in China simply makes me laugh. Like the other day. We were a big group of friends (mixed, Chinese and laowais) going for dinner. Some acquaintances were new, some old. We met up on the street and started talking about where to eat.

Being a spice-loving gall I suggested a Sichuan place, and received good feedback from everyone except for one western girl who said she didn’t like to eat chillies.

Eager to find a place that everybody enjoyed we continued talking until we came up with a new, spice-free option.

We went, ate, and everybody were happy.

The next day I was chatting to the western girl who didn’t like to eat chillies and we were talking about the restaurant where we had gone.

-Yeah, good we went there, the girl said. After all, one of the Chinese girls later confessed to me that she doesn’t like spicy food either.

In other words, had the western girl not said anything, the Chinese girl would have sat there at the Sichuan place, smiling, hating the food.

Or... hang on a minute...

-Hey, she told me she loved spicy food!! I said. I suddenly remembering a conversation we had had over dinner where she had asked me if I liked spicy food (me: "Yes, I love it!") and she had gone: "Yeah, me too!"

Now the million-dollar-question is: 

1. Did she say she likes spicy food to please me?

or

2. Did she say she hates spicy food to please my friend?

Making friends with kids

How to talk to them without coming across as a perv?

On my flight from Copenhagen to Beijing (I normally fly Finnair but this time I tried SAS) I was seated next to a Chinese kid who was travelling alone. As some of you might have guessed, this made me rather ecstatic. During my soon 4 years in China I have had very limited Chinese-kid-contact. Finally I had a whole flight to make a new, 12-year old friend.

Turns out that my little flight buddy George, however, wasn’t as keen as I was. He glared at me suspiciously when I first asked him if he was travelling alone in Chinese. I felt like a perv.

It took some 10-15 minutes before he came around:

-Why is it that you laowais nowadays know how to speak Chinese?

-I live in China, I explained.

-But you are not Chinese? he said, suspiciously. 

-No I am Swedish. But I live in China.

He looked at me for a moment, before he finally said:

-Why?

Unlike most Chinese people I’ve chatted to throughout my time in China, George wasn’t interested in my answer. Instead of looking impressed and happy about the fact that we could communicate in his mother tongue, he looked doubtful and confused.

I decided to do things his way and kept quiet, and as expected, it didn’t take long before he started to ask questions:

-Do you know what the name of this airline is?
(Yes, Scandinavian Airlines)
-Do you know what kind of computer games they have?
(No, I don’t play computer games?)
-Why don’t you play computer games?
(I’m bad at it)
-Why do you have a bottle of water with you?
(I bought it)
-Do you know anyone else on this flight?
(No)

Once the questioning had started I didn’t have to hold back anymore. I asked him where he had been (Trollhättan –he said this in Chinese so it took me a while to figure it out! Not the biggest Swedish city there is!), why he was travelling alone (his parents were still in Sweden), if this was the first time he was flying alone (yes it was, but he had been on airplanes before, he’d visited Italy and France as well as Sweden. Didn’t like these countries as much as Sweden though –yeah, of course I had to ask!). I also asked him if he had to study hard in school (not too bad, he said) and what part of Shanghai he liked best (Gubei –but he wouldn’t say why). He thought the places I liked (Xuhui, Luwan) were boring.

Our conversation was interrupted by a minor drama to our right. A woman seated next to a Russian guy who had taken off his shoes and put his feet on the wall (he had the front seat in the middle of the plane) was upset by the smell and wanted to swap place. Little George watched the drama unfold with great interest.

-Laowais are extremely strange, he eventually concluded.

-Why?

-In the city where I was (Trollhättan), people would say hello to each other even if they don’t know each other!

I was tempted to say:

“Well in Suzhou strangers used to drive past me, stick their head outside the window and yell HEEEELLOOOOO!” –but I kept back.

His comment also brought back a memory of me taking a photo of a farmer in Shuangxi, a country village outside Changsha in Hunan. When I later showed the photo to Rocky, my Chinese friend whose hometown it was that I had visited he asked me: 

“So, Jonna, do you know this farmer?” and I said: “No! Of course not!”
“So why did you take his photo?!” Rocky simply could not understand why I would want to photograph a stranger.

(At this time, I thought about all the times I have posed with groups of Chinese strangers at the Bund or at the Great Wall, but held back).

I was keen to hear more about why laowais were considered so strange in George’s head, but about that time we had taken off and the computer game function was on, so I lost little George. He spent most of the rest of the flight eating candy, snacks (he was constantly offered by the air stewardess who fussed over him), and playing computer games. Some hours before landing he finally offered his candy bag to me, confirming that I wasn’t a perv after all. It felt good, although I am reluctant to admit that I still am to get my head around how to reach out to Chinese kids. Maybe I need to learn how to play computer games?

China standard: travelling with a huge hand luggage

I’ve thought about this for quite a while: are there different rules regarding the size of hand luggage in China? After a countless number of flights where I have watched Chinese businessmen (always businessmen) step on the plane with bags the same size as my main, checked-in luggage, I cannot help but wonder.

The story is always the same. They get on the plane, dragging their giant back behind them (always dragging, never carrying –yet another sign that it is simply too big for being classified as a piece of hand luggage?), locate their seat, look at the overhead locker, realize that there is little or no space, and start yelling for the air stewardess. (Let me tell you one thing, if there is one working group in China that deserves an award for friendly patience, it is the group of Chinese air stewardess). Then they simply leave the bag with her and ease back at their seat. Try the same thing on a flight in Scandinavia, yeah, first of all the air stewardess would not put up with the screaming, second of all, she’d probably send you off the plane telling you you need to check in that large bag of yours.

Since we are on the subject of flying, however, I have to point out that the landing situation has become much better in China only during these (soon) 4 years that I’ve been here. When I first travelled on domestic flights in China I always watched people getting up and gathering their bags as soon as the plane hit the ground. Nowadays, most people actually stay seated until the seatbelt sign comes off. Great improvement. Again, however, when it comes to gathering your bag and getting off the plane: here comes the situation where the businessmen need to take their giant luggage from the overhead locker by themselves, as there is no tiny little air stewardess around to yell at. Funny that they always manage to hit someone (it’s been me, numerous times) with that huge bag, before eventually getting it down.

Until next time..

That's it for now Sweden, next time I return I want this:

Beach walks at Österlen
Summer "fika" in the garden
Country visits in villages so small you can count the population on one hand!
Kräftskiva -the annual crayfish party
Kubb
Summer cocktails
Sailing
Rainy MFF football games (as long as it doesn't snow!)

Summer puppies so cute you wanna take them home with you