wow...

...I just think I feel like blogging again.
I stopped in July, and quite some time has passed since then. I don't know what made me look at this page again- probably the notion of not having all my little "literary contributions" saved on my harddrive... and being afraid of having discovered them as lost in cyperspace? Or maybe just a horrible day (the first day this week I did not have my new pink Marimekko umbrella which I got for my birthday in my bag and of course it rained all day)? Or a horrible argument I started myself (and can thus only blame myself for)? Or just the fact that I am really tired but do not want to go to sleep? (I should though)

Considering my resistance of leading a frequent existance on the internet, which I feel only projects a second reality, quite inferior to the "real" one- just using the word "reality" already implies the status this medium plays in peoples' lives which I think should as such be complementary rather than self-fulfilling and explanatory, content-creating.

But maybe I never created this blog as a temporary platform (as implied by the interchangeable name, but who cares about names anyway when you can link it all on your toolbar, how practical!) Should we (care)?

out-blogged

Yeah yeah, I haven't been keeping up with writing.... but to tell the (momentary) truth: I am burned out with writing! No more! All the nice sarcasm is lost - for now(or the time to create it in thoughts), and without it, writing is a chore, no fun.

To the point: back in Finland on Sunday...

Just a quick hello.....

... to say that I am in Bangkok and alright, except for my big toenail on my right foot, which has died off completely and was pulled out today. Bloody and painful - much more so than wat i had thought! Yes, I know, I am lazy keeping up with where I am and what has been going on here. And no time is no excuse. I think I just need some space to digest all the impressions before writing about them - and even now it seems a bit fake, generalized, crammed. Mayeb I put too much thought into it?

I flew to Bangkok in the beginning of last week and spent two days in this huge city going around various markets and the must-see touristattractions, i.e. all the temples. Everything takes some time, especially since a lot of water (and thus a toilet in regular intervals) is an absolut necessity: it's too hot and humid to feel good without! Moreover, public transport is only efficient in the eastern part of the town with a cool skytrain carrying passengers above (most) rooftops (yielding some greatpictures) and a brand-new subway line. The west relies on boats, tuk tuks, buses and taxis only. A complete chaos!

Thursday last weekI left by bus to Cambodia - google for the Poipet border crossing and you will come up with a lot of horror stories about scams, 18h- bus trips etc. One reason I was a bit freaked out... well, everything went fine (yeah, the road is dusty and bumpy) and I got to Siem Reap the same evening. I spent two days at the Temples of Angkor - an amazing experience- and then went back the same way. What is there to sayabout Cambodia? One of the poorest and least developed countries of the world (according to the UN, 2004). The official currency is the Riel, but nothing moves without USD. Until recently, there was 1 (one!) ATM in the whole country (in Pnomh Penh). The roadsare dirt and turn into mud each afternoon when it rains. Kids are selling all kinds of stuff for "uon dolla" everywhere. There are a lot of beggars which in the evenings are kept out of the "tourist" part of Siem Reap with fences. The nature and cultural heritage are amazing. Still digesting the combination....

And now I have to run to pick up my suits. Tomorrow I will be on my flight back to HK!

What I hate

rice

people slurping their food, burping

chinese tours groups with guides who carry headseats but still shout as if they had no microphone.

the craze for kitsch.

s e r v i c e a t t i t u d e

chinese or any Asians, who in any weather tend to walk around with umbrellas - a good alternative to sunlotion, but since most of them are tiny (in length) the umbrellas always threathen to punch out my eyes. I do not like the thought of that.

quequeing at the bus counter. watch your sides and use elbow tactics (FCFS).

spitting and the sound of the spit being generated in the throat of the person in question.

people throwign their trash... literally anywhere.

bargaining with someone who does not like to play the game.

hospitals in china.

carrying around toilet papaer 24/7.

artificial made-to-be tourist attractions - a result of the cultural revolution.

white is rich and rippig them off is ok.

red bean coconut milk.

night trains with only hard seats available.

skies made invisible by pollution.

historical ignorance.

individual and collective ingnorance. Stop bumping into me!

westerners in chinese exile who think they can make the world better by smoking weed and living in Dali.

hello kitty!

thank Jayavarman VII I am going to Cambodia!

The Orange Juice Index

Below: View on the Skyline of Shanghai from the Pudong district. Shanghai is huge- by far the biggest city I have ever been to (approximately 17 million inhabitants). After: Jack, our friend from HK (he studies at Shanghai Jiaotong University, is originally from Xi'an) with whom we were staying and his girlfriend. After a long night out singing karaoke and partying we had a great dumpling breakfast! Above: View on Tian'anmen square. We spent altogether 4 days in Beijing, which was enough, just because of the pollution (as you can see, it is pretty foggy in the picture). This was one the first day (Monday). We spent one day at the Temple of Heaven and walking around Qianmen, one day on the wall near Simatai (below). The weather was great and we walked 10km on the wall, which was partly crumbling so badly that we had to climb down. There were no tourists -we saw maybe 10 other people except for us- which was the good part, but since there were no tourists, walking was sometimes really difficult because of the condition of the wall. A good tradeoff however!

In Beijing we had to have the infamous Beijing duck. And we paid 30 yuan for an orange juice- from then onwe measure everything judging for whether it is a complete rip-off in terms of the "Orange juice Index". 30 yuan for one litre of juice....ok, food for 1 yuan? A bed for 20 yuan? Perfect...

Below: Terracotta warriorrs in Xi'an. Amazing, but a lot of tourists... much better was the arab quarter (2nd below): a chaos full of people (a lot of them in traditional clothing and head scarves), streetfood, bikes.... Xi'an has also big city wall and old towers (Drum and Bell Tower) and temples worth visiting.

Below: Tibetan monastery in Shangri-La. We came here yesterday with the night bus from Kunming (we flew from Xi'an to Kunming), which was a very interesting experience (unfortunately I cannot upload more pictures). Shangri-La : A place that does (should) not exist, lies 3220 above sea level -the nights are cold (around 8C), the days windy- is a town in north-western Yunnan province, close to the Tibetan border. Or well, in China, the border does not officially exist, so one might call it Tibet. Everything is inTibetan and Chinese, most people are mixed Naxi/Tibetan, there are some Han of course as well. Pretty remote. The monastery seemed like a little Lhasa.

Hong Kong - Shanghai - Beijing

I can't see my blog! Am trying to figure out, where my last entry ended, but the page won't open. Probably Chinese censorship! (everytime you enter the internet in an internet cafe you have to show your passport...) *just kidding*

To start from the beginning (or a bit later): I am traveling with Erkki (my flatmate-turned-travel-companion). We booked tickets for Shanghai last week on Tuesday and left on Thursday to Shenzhen (cheaper (domestic) flight from there). The time in between was really busy with booking my onward flights to NZ, cleaning the apartment (which we got in a terrible fight over since I felt I was doing it all on my own; men are just all lazy or then I just "put my priorities wrong"), packing (i.e. throwing stuff away). The ususal. I left with two backpacks (a 10l and a 20l one, not much for 7 weeks!) but have diminished my belongings further (now to about 1 backpack, let's see how much I buy!).
Shanghai was awesome! We had 3 days there, of which we spent one in Hangzhou in the bordering Zhejiang province. Hangzhou has a huge lake (West lake), formerly a lagoon, with a lot of temples and pagodas. (interesting?) The other two days, we went to Nanjing Road, the People's square and up Jin Mao Tower in the Pudong financial district, which consisted of merely a couple of rice fields around 10 years ago. Coming to speak of high buildings, this is the 5th highest or so in the world (and after being in HK I have seen or been on 5 of the top ten highest buildings, only missing the Empire State and everything in Chcago. Weird to think that a lot of the skyscrapers are actually in Asia!). We took a lot of time getting around- Shanghai is huge (by far the biggest city I have ever been to). Finding the right bus or train and buying the right tickets is sometimes challenging especially since I have forgotten most of my Chinese (if it was ever "my" Chinese) except for the numbers and "thank you". Shanghai will be also remembered for the BEST dumpling I have ever had! Thanks Jack!

One day was spent with Erkki's friend Jack on the campus in the Shanghai Jiaotong University (in English: The Shanghai Normal University of Transportation, one of the top universities in China.... what a (c******** translation!), having a 5 hour dinner at a Xinjiang restaurant (no pork, great food!, a lot of booze....), meeting a lot of friends friends and going to sing karaoke until 4 am! It was one of the best nights; I felt very much at home and seeing Chinese culture at its purest *smile*.

Sunday night we hopped on the night train, but got only seats, no sleepers. The train stations work perfectly, there re waiting rooms assigned for each train from which everyone enters the platform and is led to one's carriage and place. The night was long and a bit sleepless, but we got to Beijing early on Monday morning, which left the whole day for sightseeing.

After finding a hostel, I went to Tian'anmen square and the Forbidden City - massive, amazing... Exciting the north gate, I took some random bus east and got out at Dongsi from which I walked a couple of kilometres south to Wangfujing. The smog and heat make walking quite strenuous. Head, throat and eyes start hurting. I fell into bed after a short night in Sanlitun (Beijing LKF) and good kebab pizza (???).

Beijing is apart from the major sights like any other Chinese city, nothing special. I thought it would be much more problematic. It is big, but still easy to get around. A lot fo construction going on, as everywhere else in the booming parts of China. The smog is worse than in HK, that as the only minus. A lot of beggars and others trying to sell you things, but I guess that is normal. And it is not cheap - ok, we are "Chinese" students with our HK student IDs and get a lot of things cheaper (that was one of Erkki's clever tricks), but still: food, entrance tickets to sights... the money goes!

Today we went to some clothes and silk market to order a suit for Erkki's dad who had provided us with all the measures. The bargaining took 40 minutes or so, but we got the price for a kashmir suit down to 1500 yuan... I guess it is ok (they said we are "almost" Chinese). After that we went by subway to Qianmen, where the LP indicated a shopping street -everything was however empty and ready to be torn dopwn. Would be interesting to know, what will stand there next (and when) - everything in China changes so fast! We walked to the Temple of Heaven park which was very impressive ( a lot of tourists though) and continued from there to the silk market, a mall a la Shenzhen (been there, done that... a lot of little things nobody REALLY needs, but I had to buy pearl earrings for one ten yuan anyways ... But I have to limit my shopping just because I do not want to have to carry everything with me!). From there back to the hostel and off to get tickets for the night train on Thursday to Xi'an. And now trying to organize our trip to the great wall tomorrow....

Read a horrible book by a German author btw. About a rich women finding the love of her life, who uses her as a cash cow for his ex-wife-turned misstress. In the end he kills her (and himself) by poison in their summer cottage in rural Spain. Literary worth little; content awful. Don't read!

Bureaucracy netvigates

First of all, an official announcement: The dragon boat races are TOMORROW and the day has been declared a PUBLIC HOLIDAY in Hong Kong, so the whole city will be there! CRAZY!

Check out the webpage (I learned how to do a hyperlink now) for info on the race, the teams and sponsors and, most importantly, the results http://www.dragonboat.org.hk ! Our goal is to beat at least one team in our group (Expat Men A) so let's see if that works out.... but I guess the Finnish organization is more concerned with the sufficient supply of beer inbetween the races (I think there will be a minimum of three races)- or at least that is the impression I got from past comments (and the mass of some of our team members, they seem to be gourmets in the simple meaning of the word)- it's going to be relaxed and fun and hopefully the weather will go along (otherwise waiting in wet clothes might be slightly uncomfortable). Go Nordic Dragons!!!

Referring to the title of this post, an alternative wielding more explanatory power, should have been: “On how to acquire possession of a Netvigator Broadband Internet Service Termination Request Form”. I spent 2.5 hours today trying to get hold of a representative of our broadband internet service provider – I have been trying to do that for the past two weeks since the contract has to be terminated 1 month in advance. Anyways, after unsuccessfully dialing through the rather confusing customer service hotline, which seems to be the only way to get in touch, since my emails got no response, and after listening to five different stages of explanations in bad Chinglish, each time choosing a different number, I ended up with a taped voice telling me that I should go to http://www.netvigator.com/ to download a “Service Termination Request Form”. Or alternatively they could fax it to me. No fax, try the net. Of course I could not find the form. So I called again and it took me some time to again find the right “path” ending up with the right tape. Well, I ended up googling for the form and finding it- unfortunately downloading it was not possible. How annoying!!! Can’t they use the technology they are (indirectly) selling? Is it so difficult to talk to a real person? I got soooo angry… so I again called the hotline and just started pressing random numbers # and * signs… until some other tape “recognized” I might have “technical difficulties” and connected me with a “technical support officer”- FINALLY a REAL person! I got him to take my number, call me back and then after mutual agreement my property agency to fax them a self-made termination request (no need for the stupid form) valid ASAP! Turns out that they need to pick up the modem from us (I thought we had paid for it?)- well, that’s not my problem anymore (I just need to get their payments OFF my Visa bill!). It helps a bit to know that other people had similar experiences shattering any perception of customer service and perceived value for money. And they were as angry as to write about it.

http://www.cw.com.hk/computerworldhk/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=177442

(Stefan Hammond, Computerworld, Hong Kong).

Anyways, again a prime sample of Chinese/HK bureaucracy: for everything, there is a form or a paper you need to sign. And things move VERY slow. Some examples: I picked up my student Octopus Card two days ago: I was allowed to pick it up after 1 month of processing, the stamp on the card was dated 3 days after I had handed in my request. I wanted to deactivate my student card at the admin office today (we are supposed to do that I was told): everyone was out for lunch at the same time (and this is the case with the Housing Office, the Student Affair’s Office or any other Office between noon and 2 pm). Erkki collected all his change during the term and we wanted to pay with coins for food (since the bank did not want to change coins into bills) and they would not sell us food (hey, it’s MONEY!). Well, enough of that! But fact is: HK people love rules and formalities (be it showing up for the final presentation in a class in a suit or taking student society year photos with everyone in suits or naming every society with a name consisting of at least 10 English words-the more complicated the better, right?). But Finland is not better in some aspects (just thinking about Elisa Laajakaista and their customer service hotline in which I spent 45 minutes queuing just to get someone completely incompetent to tell me to go to a store…)

Otherwise the day was great: Erkki turned 25 and we started the day with some good breakfast (pancakes). Iina, Jussi’s girlfriend, left after spending two weeks here (1 week in the Phillipines). Peace is back, but can’t go into details! *smile* I booked a flight to Shanghai and will be leaving from Shenzhen on June 1st together with Erkki, Martin and Jiri from the Czech Republic and Jack from Xian. The current plan is to spent 4 days in Shanghai and then to take the night train to Beijing. I have 3 weeks in China and I really need to see those two cities, Xian, Chengdu and Yunnan province.

Campus is empty - so is the computer room. The Swedish girls (Alexandra, Matilda, Josefin) and Mike (the first exchange I met in HK) left today; most of the Canadians and U.S. people left on Sunday and Monday. There’s some of us left, but not many…. I am trying to look for flights to NZ now. And meanwhile the boys are getting drunk on absolute lemon sitting right next to me in the barn (computer lab).