SHITSHITSODASHITZERZ!!!

Yeah, I'm coming home, but the thing remains that HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIT ALL THIS MOOMZAS INTO 2 PUNY TRUNKS AND STILL NOT GET MY @$$ FINED TO HELL AT THE CUSTOMS???

GAAAAAAAAAH!!!

MY DVDs, MY GAMES, MY MANGA, MY CLOTHES, MY COOL BAGS, MY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARTBOOOOOOOOKS, NOOOES!!!

*sniff*

pleaze dont make me dump anything, pllllzzzzz *teary eyed prayer*

Still yeah, I'll be coming home in another few days, damn it's depressing. Not only to say The Blue Byes to an amazing numbers of friends varying from good to superfabulusic but to actually pack up the little condo I've been calling home for something of a year now feels like tearing up one of my most precious drawings. I am to fit the creation of home and peace I've worked up this year into 2 tiny trunks and slim it down to 30 kilos for the sake of international flight restrictions - and it hurts, but not as much as saying the goodbye to the people who've come to mean something to me. One year is to short a timespan to forge lifelong friendships of titanuim steel, but it's more than enough for getting them rolling.

But even if I do stay, I'll have to re-do the whole social circle thing since all of us by our nature will abide by the one and uniting law for all foreign students not aiming for a degree, We Go Home. I do realize that things gotta have an end, but if I am to honestly say what I feel, it feels like I could've stayed another 10 years where I am right now and be fine about it. Not because I don't miss Sweden cuz I do, there's nothing wrong with the settings I call My Life over in the far west but somehow, what I have in China feels more attractive, if not incubus-ish so (Hohoho) than ever.

I was unsure if I would ever be able to adapt into The Middle Country before coming, but now at the end of this trail leading back to the mainroad, I'm more and more finding myself wondering if I'll ever adapt to Gothenburg again after this. Maybe because I'm in an age that demands action more than sitting-still-and-learn, but being in a city with a grand 24 million people's population with constant motion have left its dents.

I think I know why I've felt so restless now for so long in Sweden, I've been holding the dices for a trip like this forever but never really knowing how to throw them. But I did;

Twin Aces - or Twin Sixs cus I like that number so much.

OMFG

I need aspirin, or drugs, or a mallet, or a wellpaid troupe of merry SPUTZNIKS to send down the street of ZhongguanCong to hunt down the suckheah merchant for making me throw away two whole hours of my precious time left in China on a huge ass argument over the neckwire to The Lipod. I know those arguments are something that comes with buying stuff on a market here, but shit is it annoying. I was just THIS close to tear him a new one for that shitassed "hey you paid already, sorry pal" attitude, granted, I wasn't any better but AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. I'm the customer! I got what I wanted but I had like to believe that I am dignified to some angst. BAH Grrr BAAAH.

Elseway it's pretty calm around, exams are over and there's like 29524720802 farewell parties to grace. Bleh. For once, bleh.

Kinda annoying when you only want to kick back for once and play some Ico with your pal. And people have started to leave, which is really depressing. I so don't want to go home. You really never knew what you were missing until you kick outta school and decides to take a look around. Can't exactly say that I want back in.

Wowza btw, I found Ico. ICO. ICO=LI-LOVE

Lidia is right now listening to the world's most awesome song. Spitz RULEZ dammit (WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME), now if only Yuuki gets back from Japan with my cds Lidia will be happy-happyyyy-haaaaaaaaaaaaappy-desu. XD

I just found out that the guy everyone have been considering as the idiot of the gang is a frigging SAN-DAN (3rd Dan) Go-player on the Japanese scale. Meaning, I wouldn' be able to beat him even if I had a nine-hoshi handicap.

How can anyone be so good and still seem like such an...idiot?

O_o

Sorry, I just need to be alone now.

Things to be updated about:

I'm studying my pants and arse off, we're learning 70% of the chinese vocalbury in one term, wee.

Lidia got herself a favorite Accessory Designer. HOMO LUDEN'S: Free, Happy, and Dinstinct. Just the name deserves the nobel price.

We've been hitting a heat bitch, everyone walks around at least half-naked, which is good.

Worldcup on a campus with 120 nationalities rocks damnit, I'm never watching this event in Sweden again, why should I when you can enjoy the view of dancing koreans, brawling germans, jumping Ghanans and a minor Swedish riot from your local bar, second floor, 150 metres from school? The Japs are crying damnit, poor Hido-chan and Yuuki.

I just finished 80% of my reviewal material with another two weeks to the big kahooza, I must be ill.

I know it's gonna be a working relationship when you ask someone to go snacksshopping for tomato Pretz and they return with two bottles of red wine. Same color.

Boo'Frikking Yakka.

"So, you're leaving in another month or so aren't you?"

Of all people who could have reminded me of this, she does, of course - my hairdresser. It's true, funny thing but I have been cutting my hair at exactly the same place now this past year, and by exactly the same person. I really hate to get my hair cut, I'm totally fine with a friend doing it for me but having a stranger poking around my head with scissors - and in China's case, knifes- makes me downright uncomfortable. The thing is that a professional haircut cost you 10 rmb instead of 200 swc here. So in the face of cold commercialism, the devil wins out.

I cut my hair about once a month, which've made me more or less one of her regulars (I hate to admit it, but I'm such a slave to habits) in that twenty something square metres big, secondfloor studio - built like an atelje - room she calls her working place. With three mirrors, five employees, Asia's Joy-pop toplist blasting and chairs that are in desperate need of repairs, the room gives you a pretty down-to-earth look on how that group of Chinese youths who didn't op for a brilliant university career goes about their lives. Can't say that I had want in on this turf of chinese society but they don't exactly seem to be the misery-club our parental generation believe they surely must be.

Now, I'm fond of this hairdresser of mine. I don't know her name but she knows how to do her job, and she knows how I want her to do it. In other words, no tedious chit-chat. I like casual talking, but some hairdressers just don't seem to get the idea that not all customers wants to talk about the meaning of life while sitting wrapped in a chair and having their hair - my goddamn religion - falling around them like errant snowflakes. "Hey! Yeah, you in the orange shirt, I'll be cutting you.". She also has the tact of a runaway dumptruck, and the charm of your average chinese street runt bitch-ified.

Maybe it would have come as a lesser surprise if someone with a little more refined speech pattern had reminded me, but however it may be, the fact struck me with the subtle grace of a falling piano - hard. I'm going home in lesser than two months and I really wish I could have been happier. Cuz I'm not. It's strange how little effort it sometimes takes for you to attach yourself to people, tastes, things and life in general. And it's weird to think how easy it really is to build yourself a new life somewhere else, across the globe, and be kinda fine with it.

I do miss Sweden. Clean air and forests are as romantic as I'll ever get and home in finality is where the heart is, but right now I really don't want to think about it. I don't want to go back, I have to, I want to - yet not. Conflict.

"Yeah, I guess so." I chuckled.

"And you still won't let us re-do your hair, for only a grand 170 rmb?"

"Tempted, but no."

"Pity, you got so much of it. I could make you look like your favorite manga character." She said, and sounds almost whiny.

"I'll think about it, how about that?" I laugh.

"Bah. There, we're done."

"Looking good."

"I'll see you in June?"

"Sure, we will"

There is good weather, bad weather and Swedish weather.

I hate my life. HatehatehatehatehatehatehateHAAAAAAATREEEEEED CONDEEEEEEEEEEEEM!!!!

AAAAAAARGH!!!

38 degrees Celcius, I repeat 38 F***ING DEGREES CELCIUS

I'm gonna die die die die *dead*.

*cry of despair*

Anything but heat. Please god you glorious piece of holy wakkaness. No heat, not in May. July isn't even here yet, we CAN'T have 38 degrees already... >_<

Lidia is sad

Aaahw gawd...

*SNEEZE*

I'm sick.

And not in the usual Lidian way (twisted, mild sadistic but somehow artistic). I'm down with the grandmother of all colds in MAY, which annoys the hell out of me since it's a blazing 28 degrees outside and I have to stay indoors to nurse a dripping nose and a throat determined to forcidly reject my lungs. Colds stays the same wherever you are on the earth. The worst thing, is that it turns out that an indonesian classmate lives diagonally above me, of course, she found out about my condition and has offered to make her grandmother's witch-brew or something which is supposed to have amazing expultation effects - on the cold or the person, I don't know.

It involves toads and I was to polite to refuse. Help.

There is always Digital Devil Saga and Suikoden I suppose. And homework, aw god, the homework.

Now Lidia is both sad and si-

*ATJOOO!*

Screw it, I'm going back to bed.

Great, my teacher in Spoken Economic Chinese (or whatever) is a class A nutcase. Verbally lambesting half of the class which already have taken off on on prolonged holiday trips to the half of the class who are actually there, attending her excuse for a lesson like the mindless lemmings we are in the face of revoked exam-rights. Then of course, she blamed us for taking up to much time, hesitating with answers when she's the one who has been holding a twenty minutes sermon.

I love traditional Chinese teachers, glorious bunch of sex-deprived fuckheads the whole bunch.

Aside from her, life kinda rocks. H-O-L-I-D-A-Y yo, starting off with a Thai-dinner tonight. Imagine my surprise when the both girls arranging the brauhaha revealed to my ignorant butt that formal Thai cuisine doesn't have coco-milk, at all O_o.

-1992-

"Grandmother, were you always this old?" The girl asks. The old woman stirs from her daze, turning her gaze from the bundle of soon-to-be jumper to the child who sat reading at her feet.

"...of course not my dear, there was a time when I was even smaller than you." She smiles, her face cracks up in a withered smile. The child thought she looked like an old tree from her story book.

"A long time ago, again?"

"Very long ago, when the world was very different."

"How was the world different?"

"Well for once, I was a princess" The girl gaped at her.

"For real? A real princess?"

"Yes, a real one. I and my brothers even had our own chrystantum garden"

"A big garden? Like the one we saw at the palace?"

"Very much so, and we had our own peach trees to eat from, so we had never need to go hungry" The old woman chuckled, and patted the child's head. The girl however, was not satisfied.

"Where is this garden?"

"It's gone"

"But why?" The girl asked, poking the old woman's leg in impatience.

"Because the world changed, and that garden belonged in the old world" The old woman let out a long sigh, and the child thought she was no longer looking at her. She was, but she wasn't seeing her, not in the same way at least. She opened her mouth, but was interrupted. "Now, I know you are going to ask why."

The child nodded.

"The world changed because it had to change, and because there were people who wanted that change for different reasons, both foreigners and Chinese. And in time, I came to want that change as well"

"Didn't you want that garden?"

"I didn't, in the end"

"So, you didn't want to be a princess either?" The girl frowned when the old woman only laughed and shooed her away from her sitting place.

"Go and get the comb from your mother, we need to brush your hair again"

"But..."

"Go"

Although a bit grumpy, the child went to fetch the comb the old woman had asked for. She had not been satisfied with the story, maybe she would ask grandfather to tell one later. Before leaving the room however, she turned around to face the old woman.

"Grandmother, if you were a princess, wouldn't you have become a queen?" The old woman smiled.

"Maybe, maybe not" The child made a face at the vague answer.

"Did you want to be a queen?"

At this, the old woman's smile faded into blankness, to be replaced with a face of stony determination. The child suddenly became very afraid, since she thought grandmother suddenly reminded of the witch in the book, the one with a face made of cold steel, when the old woman replied in a tone that matched her expression:

"No, never"

And the child dared not to ask further.

*********

-2006-

I never thought I would regret my choice of not having long hair.

A comb, a story and a grandmother are all it takes to change the fundamentals of a person - for ten days.

Believe it or not, I had to visit Nanjing again. My grandmother really picks the worst of times to visit her brothers and pretending to be the respectful grandchild she wants me to be, I had to comply - doesn't mean I have to like it thou. It is a common wellknown fact that I really dislike this city, for no other reason really than that the population consist of a group of rude, shrewd and arguable smelly gits. Or so I remember it to be, 2003. I ate my feet, both of them.

I have to mention to those of you who are unfamiliar with Chinese history that the city of Nanjing is China's former capital, and it was the capital for a very good reason. Located at the bays of the ChangJiang river, the city belongs to China's wealthiest region, Jiangnan. A region famous or having China's oldest culture, rich in the traditional arts and blessed with good soil that seems to be able to grow anything from all over the world thanks to the mild climate (I didn't know China grew olives, seriously). The Jiangnan region is also blessed with a huge amount of natural rivers which makes irrigation and logistics piece of a cake. Compared to Nanjing, Beijing really seems like the most misplaced city in the world. There are only three bad things about this place, the winter, the midsummer and the Sino-Japanese war.

Middle China's winter is very mild, most of times it feels no worse than a chilly Swedish autumn without the rain. Quite a pleasant treat really as the temperature stays around 10 degrees celcius, IF only the houses had had a central heating system. Yes, you read that right, there are NO FRIGGING RADIATORS. So if you have 8 degrees outdoors, the chances are that you'll have 10 degrees indoors, an amazing difference by two whole degrees. Normal refrigators maintain a average temperature of 7 degrees for best preservation effects, which -I- neither need nor thrive in.

As for the summers, I've spend July in Nanjing 4 times, 38 degrees celcius with 100% humidity. Do I need to say more?

Then, there is the Sino-Japanese war. It was rumoured that the old Nanjingnese was the most civilized, well-wersed and intellectual people in all of China, which frankly must have some ounces of truth in it considering that the majority of the "geniuses" gang consisting of famous poets, authors and calligraphist of the old are from here. And to speak frankly, there are none of them left. Do the math. What is left and living here now is a later invasion from Anhui, Shangxi, Yunnan and Sichuan.

But however ill I have spoken of this place, the geographical truth is still a fact. Nanjing is a perfect place for a capital, if only the communist party had realized it some fifty years ago and not recently when Beijing began to run out of water. Nanjing in spring is nothing short of pleasantly beautiful. The greenery, climate and the best city-reconstruction I've ever seen have given the place a boom one could not have imagined ten years ago. I hate to admit it being the notorious Beijing-descendant I am, but my hat goes off to the people who decided to give this place a face-lift, 'cus successful they truly are. I am humbled.

Some of you might already have seen this, but share - I will.

Star Wars III The Revenge of the Sith - Chinese Sub Translation: The Backstroke of the West

http://www.winterson.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

Enjoy very much, I did.

Most of you knows that I hate pink. But on the contrary to Lidian popularity beliefs it is NOT because of that it is girly - I'm serious, I don't mind girly the slightest as long as I don't have to wear it. I do mind however that 35 years old women dress up in the extreme shades of it to get their dumb asses to look young and virginal again (zOMFG NOOOOOOO, I got wrinkles!!!! now I have to wear pink to get proper laid!!!!!!!)

Pink looks good on cherry flowers, babies and summer kimonos.

Pink DOESN'T look good the SLIGHTEST on 28 years old male cousins.

The Li Clan Family Lunch on the Courtesy of Annoying Aunts:

Lidia: Hey, how are things goi.... OMFG OMFG OOOOOMFG, YANG, WTF ARE YOU WEARING???????????

Yang: WHAT?

Lidia: HAAAHAHAAAHAAA, YOU LOOK LIKE A STUPID PANSY!!!

Yang: BE RESPECTFUL TO YOUR OLDER BROTHERS YOU RUDE OVERSEA-WEIRDO, AND DON'T YOU READ FASHION MAGS??

Lidia: AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAA, CAMERA CAMERA!!!

Yang: YOU'RE RETARDED!

Lidia: YOU LOOK RETARDED!

Aunt: YOU BOTH ARE, NOW SIT DOWN, STFU AND EAT MY DEAR RUNTS!


Imagine that, but in Chinese. I love my relatives, they're great, they go for 30$ a piece if you're interested.

Gotta go and buy traintickets, going to Nanjing again. Sigh.

OMFG LIDIA YOU STUPID BLONDE WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THIS TO YOURSELF!!!???

NOOOOOOOOO!!!

NOOO!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAARGHHH!!!

zOMFG!!!!

BOOHOOOOHOOOOO!!!!

YOU FORGOT TO DO THE LAUNDRY AND NOW YOU HAVE NO SEXEH CLOTHES
.
.
.

I have to stay home today... T___T

I have all the respect in the world for schools like Yale and Harvard, but sometimes one really has to wonder how the american schoolsystem approach the fine subject of Geography.

Golden lines to be remembered, and seriously scared by:

American Guy 1: "...just north of the English-French border I s'ppose..."

American Girl 1: "We went with boat from HongKong for a whole night, Nepal maybe?"

American Guy 2: "...Prague must be a cold place, I mean you guys are practically up there with Russia."

American Guy 1: "...come on, Corsica or Sicillia - same maffia."

Lidia's personal favorite:

American Guy 3: "Sweden? Yeah I know, it's the capital of Oslo!"

I don't know about you guys but I suddenly have this overwhelming respect for the Swedish Junior High education.

I'm having one of those days. It feels like someone is constantly poking me with a nail from behind to get my lazy arse in gear to do something. ANYTHING.

Lidia is bouncy.

Those days are rare, but they do drop by a couple of times a year now and then. People who have had the misfortune to cross me those days usually walk away with a party-drug suspicion, which is rather accurate since I can barely contain myself to sit still for even half an hour those days. So what to do when your schizofrenia kicks in while being in Beijing?

You go shopping (YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT, BITCH). Destination Xidan market.

Spoils of Today's Battle:

Konoha Leaf necklace (I'm teh g33k)

T-shirt which says "Sweater" in front with a pink skeleton

L4yer Cak3

Digital Devil Saga

Grand Theft Auto- San Andreas

Orange stripped socks

PineApple on a stick (now eaten)

3 kg Mango

7 bags of Algrens Bilar (OMFG, I FOUND IKEA, THEY HAVE SWEDISH CANDY, LOVE LOVE LOVE)

*******
My cousin says that my shopping habits are UFOish, I don't understand.

Well, hospital went better than I thought. Lady luck seems to like me, my wrist got twisted but nothing major, heck I am probably lucky considering that we went down in the middle of a crossway together with 7856295257 cars who all luckily were moving at the speed of 4 km/h. I don't know where the goverment has been putting all that fatass OS money but the traffic sure ain't getting better.

Still, it doesn't change that I frigging hate hospitals. Wherever I am across the globe, I still seem to be unable to coop with the feeling of being inside a building with a lot of god-wannabes in white robes and a legion of other sick people. Basically, you are subdued to a lot of people who are supposed to know the best for you, pokes you with needles, gropes and fondles you wherever they want and often ending it with an overeunthuiastic "Good job!" when it's obviously they who have been getting all the action. It creeps me out.

But ok, bandaging a wrist don't take all that. Friend got concussion, poor gal.

Chinese traffic is like Chinese food in many aspects, very very unpredictable in everything save that it pisses people off.

I need sushi, and some green tea with relaxion herbs... at 2 am.

Good people of earth, I present to you Lidia's wisdom of the day:

"Never, EVER drive a moped in Beijing at 7 pm"
- Lidia Li, from ZhongRiYouHao Hospital

You'll die.

I FAIL AT BEING A STUDENT DAMMIT.

I CAN'T BELIEVE I fell for stupid group pressure applied by DECEITFUL MONGREL SON OF A ARSY WENCH my wonderful friend from Switzerland who has been nothing but a gentleman, manipulating my obvious weakness for RPG games to the max while flashing one after another juicy bootleg game in front of my eyes until I developed a personality disorder over a wrongly blended Frozen Margarita (It's supposed to be crushed ice, not mushed for chrissake). The dumb thing about being in the land of Bootleg is that your eyes drool wherever you go, mine has been dripping for some days now since we visited a newly opened marketplace where I saw lotta lotta lotta of munchy stuff my pathetic, starved excuse for an artist's soul has been lusting for since...well, whenever you hit artpuberty.

Yoshitoshi ABe artbooks, lords of lords, I was down on my knees crying of joy with my treasures in hand. Lain ate my soul, and she still has it. Damn you Omnipresent piece of Godlihood.

I bought a Playstation 2 (thanks to my Swiss), which I've named PlayaBoy#6 and we all know he is gonna screw my grades over. Soul Calibur III ownz.

I just saw Memoir of a Geisha with some friends, kinda liked it, kinda not. First off, Zhang Ziyi looks as much of a jap as I do althou I'm sure she would make a better Geisha, and Ken Watanabe will ALWAYS own all. The only thing I really couldn't stand was a lot of the other chinese in the theater hall. I mean, YES the Japanese DID screw us over in the war, raped Nanjing to pieces, reduced Manchuria's population with 40% and a whole lot of other Hitlerish crap, BUT DO YOU FRIGGING HAVE TO TAKE THE HISTORY LESSON INTO THE THEATER??? SURE, westerners should learn that the Japanese weren't the poor, nuked victims the japanese govement seems want to believe, and I'm sure your hot, french girlfriend wants to know how passionate you can be about your mommyland - but the rest of us doesn't necessarily want to hear about it while watching Sayuri dance.

To be honest, I can't claim to know a lot about Japan, about Iaido and Kendo and manga yes, but not the country. I really love certain japanese things yeah, just like I love Italian food, British manners and Azorian architecture, but I also dislike a great lot. But despite that I can still respect the story, life and fate of a woman who traveled down a path very few may ever touch and understand without involving a lot of post-war political bullshitting - and I am just as much of a chinese as the fuckhead in front of me was.

Why even watch the movie at all if you feel so godamned victimized? Why don't go over to the Japanese ambassady and set yourself on fire at their front door instead? That makes more sense to me than ruining the movie for a whole hall of people who happens to be there for the actual show.

Lidia angry. Lidia hates selfproclaimed victims. Lidia burns them on stake.

Elseway, the week was totally enjoyable. The weather has gotten warmer and all, a bud and me has been brewing a plan on buying a tricycle and run a taxi service with only white people as drivers. How about that for a novelty idea?

My, my do the weeks fly. At least I got an awesome holiday to blame on this time, cus awesome, it really was.

First off, no, I wasn't able to go to Tibet and Lhasa, mainly because the airtickets cost mucho moolah and it takes a frigging week to get there by car. Railway should be up and running in July this year, how convenient of them to finish it just when I am going back to Sweden. I did however go to Shanghai, Nanjing, Xining (+ Guoermo), Dalien and Qingdao (again!). Quite a trip I tell ya.

Shanghai was pretty standard fun, Partycity #1 in all of China, we went there first which proved to be a grave mistake since the place makes time and money fly like a teen on ecstacy. The good AND bad thing is that the city is the chinese equivalent of random worldwide metropolis, grand, fabulous and costly but not very chinese, at all. And the food stinks. I've never really understood why, how one of China's most prominent city - which is a whole economic superpower on its own - can have food that is practically inedible (well, ok, the Shanghainese themselves eat it but...). What Shanghai -don't- lack however, is a lifetime's worth of bars and pubs, which = Lidia Happiness.

Everyone knows what I think of Nanjing. If my grandmother didn't live there, I had probably burn the place down. (The others liked it thou...)

Xining, the capital of the Qinghai province, the second most poor province in China. Located 2200 m above sea level on the chinese High-platues and between the mountains that eventually goes on all the way to Tibet. I don't think I've ever seen such povetry, and NOTHINGNESS, even among the moving population in the big city slums. This place truly has nothing, and grows close to nothing if it hadn't been the hard work of the farmer population. There are only chains of red coloured mountains, with absolutely no trees, which ebbs into canyons or valleys of equal emptiness. It is scary to think that there actually are people living in the countryside here, feeding and living on what mother nature provides, which if I am to be honest can't be a lot.

But stll, I guess you can never judge books by the covers. The yellow/red coloured mountains are simply gorgerous in the morning when bathed in the first sunrays, I was lucky enough to see this due to the low oxygen halts, sleeping proved to be quite a challenge since my body kept kipping after air that wasn't avaible. We passed though a few villages on our way to Guoermo, and it felt like that despite living under conditions that would have been a challenge for a seasoned combat marine, those people were still a lot more helpful, and kind than anyone you would meet on the streets in Beijing and Shanghai combined. It humbled me, truly.

And the food kicked ass. Long live Qinghainese hotpot.

Five weeks pass fast, and especially if you're running a traveling tour agency at the same time, to short if asking me. I had loved to visit Yunnan and Xingjiang too, but there simply wasn't enough time (on the other hand, I've never had a problem with skipping have I?). School has already started as I am typing. I don't know what it's about yet thou, haven't been there much aside from the sign-up procedure and to the local pubs. (Everyone is back, who cares about learning?)

Lidia's back in Beijing, at your service.

How time flies... even the exams went by like close-ranged fired bullets while the studying period seemed to never have an end. Time is truly relative. And yessir, Student Lidia 509345 Li reporting in, I passed everything with an average that will make mommy proud. Whew, don't ask me how I managed Chinese Culture which I thought I had failed for sure when I didn't even know the names on the two furthest passes of the Great Wall - who cares anyway?

My main courses rocked and ruled, no other words for it, I magically managed to learn 900 signs in lesser than three weeks, which is quite scary considering that I only need 4000 or so to read decently. I mean sheesh, what were I doing in Sweden for 15 years when I can manage this in 2 weeks and 5 days? Another funny thing is that the teacher who I thought despised me (Morning habits, I usually don't regain my human form until 9:30) graded me with a soaring 96%, I -don't- recall bribing him but... oh well.

Anyway.

Five weeks of vacation. I repeat. FIVE WEEKS OF VACATION.

Why YES I do have plans but as for now, lets just announce that the Lidia Travels AB - Beijing Tours traveling agency is now officially open. Customers must give TWO weeks notice before coming so I can re-arrange my other plans to suit your needs. You who are already settled for a date knows how to reach me, pick up from airport can be arranged if needed. Breakfast is not included.

-*-*-

Lidia Travels AB offers you guided and pleasant company for The Forbidden City, The Great Wall, The Palace of Heaven, The HUGE-Ass-Square of Heavenly Peace, Wangfujiin, Xioushui Market for Everything Replica and Bootleg, Zhongguancong Electronic Market (3 days trip), Panjiayuan Market for Everything Fake Ancient China and Mao's Masoleum for the Very Left Winged.

Payment will be required by any of the following means:

1 kg of Bissot's Wine Gum

Belgian Chocolate

Swiss Chocolate

Cocktail olives (snacks)

2 bags of Estrella or OWL's sourcream potato chips (Lay's, Pringles or any American brands will be promptly ignored)

-*-*-

As for my own plans, well, there is Chinese New Year of course but aside from that I and some pals have agreed onl adhering to the wisdom of the ancient proverb:

GOOD GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN, BAD GIRLS GO TO SHANGHAI