Trip to "Sweden" (IKEA)
Last weekend, my family & I + Victor went to IKEA in a another city nearby Changzhou (the city where I live). I was so happy to finally go there, now when Christmas is coming up.
My visit was more than I expected. We had a great Swedish lunch with meatballs served with mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam and browns sauce and almond cake – it tasted just like home.
They also had a Swedish food market where I found everything and a little more. I bought the typical Swedish Christmas drink – glögg (mulled and spiced whine kind of). I found gingerbread as well, saffron buns, gingerbread dough, julmust, pickled herring 等等。
I am now really looking forward to Christmas and sharing my Swedish Christmas with my Chinese family who otherwise never celebrate Christmas.
They wrote "hej då" with pinyin like [hei dou] but I think it is wrong, should be [hei duo] - means good bye in Swedish!
再见宜家!
Ooh best ever !
So cold
Even if we don't have any snow here (yet?) you can really feel that it's winter here more than anywhere else. Because here, the coldness follows you wherever you go. It is cold everywhere, except for maybe starbucks.
Some rooms might have kongtiao/热空调 (like air conditioner which makes hot air) but it's on very few places. My home doesn't have any at all, or does not use it anyway. In school the classrooms it is the same, the school is so tight-fisted and only use it some of the teachers office. And what makes it worst is that in the classrooms they also leave the windows open...
This air condition is too expensive, that's why people not use it. But they should really invest in better build buildings and some better heat system which is not as expensive and much more convinient than AC.
R.I.P.
This is really a fear you meet being away from your home and family, that someone will pass away. I can't imagine the feeling and I hope I'll never have too. But today someone I knew had to meet that fear. And I am so sorry for his loss.
Hotpot
However, this saturday I could actually spend time with my two chinese friends and my little sister. We first went to eat hotpot which is a special chinese dish were you have a big pot in the middle, often one part that is very hot and the other part not as hot. It's boiling water with some oil in it and you put different kinds of food in it and wait til it's cooked. Meat, vegetables, fish, mushrooms - it is delicous!
After that we watch a movie at my friends house - but she went away right during the movie to do homework, chinese students and their studies, crazy...,