My journey to Sweden.

Hi there. 

Most trips, I think, have something worth mentioning, and so does this one. 

I had 17 hours in Shanghai and I didn't want to spend it sitting at the airport. 

As soon as I cleared the customs there was an airport service person who hooked me up with a hotel room. (I am sure he got some provision for doing so) 

Well anyway.. 

I ended up in the hotel owners husbands car together with their 2 year old son. The kid was everywhere. Standing between the two front seats while the car speed down the road, or laying on the floor right behind the drivers seat. I was treated with some yogurt. 

10 minutes later I walked into a hotel that gave me vibes from how I think it is in the poorer quarters of a Russian suburb. Still... the room was OK. 

When I walked in through the doors, the hotel personal saw my guitar strapped to my backpack and asked if I would be preforming. I said I could sing them a song or two after I had left my bags in my room, and so I did. 

Wang Le Hom - 不知道的是

Guang Liang - Tong huali. 

Then I sang an English song, but they didn't really care for that. 

I returned my guitar to my room and went out for some late night snack. 

This is my time in China displayed in photos. 

This is where I bought some barbecued octopus and CHICKEN... I didn't think about the bird flu until way later.... 

I walked past these guys... 

 ... And soon they looked like this... Hot as fricking Hell.... I thought that I might run a fever, that's how hot it was. The restaurant people thought it really funny and laughed allot. Then later they told me that the food they gave me was not as hot as the food they usually ate. 

 At this sea food restaurant they had this... 

Its not a crayfish.... Its not a shrimp.... WHAT IS IT? 

Here they kept all the food. The sea living creatures were already dead and was kept on ice, 

and the lake or river living creatures were kept in aquariums.

 On my way back to the hotel room I bought some firecrackers... turned out they didn't have a fuse... I haven't had the courage to light one up yet.
I also passed this place.

 I just found out that its quite difficult to write a comment on here. Soo... If you do want to write me a comment, you can do so by writing to my email, and I will post it on my blog :) 

My Email... 

ove.holmstrom@gmail.com

Stay awake. 

Love Ove 

On my way home.

Leaving a place is never easy if you leave a part of you behind. I just said good bye to Jason. As was expected, I cried a little...
At the airport was also my good friend Esteban. He goes back to Mexico in some days from now. Im really grateful for the good times him and I have had.
Thank you MOXIGEREN.
As for Jason, as soon as he has left the army in August, he will join me in Sweden.
I asked him what he wanted to do while in Sweden.
His answer... He wants to go fishing. Sooo... I guess we will go fishing :-D

In september Jason and I will return to Taiwan. Im looking forward to that, cause we will live together then.

Well...
Stay awake
Love Ove.

SETTLERS

...after Jason and I came back home from Jiufen, Esteban came over for a game of Settlers. 

When Jason happily exclaimed that he had reached 10 points (after stealing the longest road card from me) I flipped up the university card and the library card to reveal that I had had more than 10 points for quite some time. Still I hadn't revealed the cards and thus don't think that I did win. They did however. So... Jason thinks that I won, and I think that Jason won. What do you think? 

Ohh... Now I have had readers from MADAGASCAR too :) 

Stay awake

Love Ove 

Spirited and away

How many of you out there have seen the Japanese cartoon "Spirited and away"? I know my little brother Marcus and my friend Esteban has. Both of them like the movie allot. I did as well when I saw it. 

Why do I bring this up? Because Jason took me to the place on the north east coast of Taiwan that inspired the maker of the film to make it - Jiufen. 

Here comes my experience of Jiufen presented by photos. 

 View from Jiufen

View of Jiufen

Jiufen has an Old street. It´s probably this street that inspired "Spirited and away"

Jason and I had some food here. I ate the best Squid Ball Soup I have ever had. 

For the people who have seen the movie.
I left before the lights were turned on... 

Traditional Chinese lanterns. 

In the midst of all the people and commotion, there were three cats... 

I love how you can see it´t tooth. 

There are no comments that can do this dog justice. 

He probably inspired some of the characters in the movie. 

Jason

And me.

I had a great time, I didn´t turn into a pig and I did leave before the lights were turned on. 

All in all a great day. 

Thank you Jason for taking me there. 

Stay awake. 

Love Ove

32 COUNTRIES

Hi

Because I am studying for a final I have tomorrow, this will be a very short post. 

I do however want to tell everybody how happy I am that my blog have had visitors from 32 countries. 

In my statistics info I get on this blog, I can see from what countries my readers come from, and yesterday when I looked I saw that I had passed 30 countries. Today I had yet another country visit my Blog (Mauritius) 

Well I am very happy about this and I wanted you to know this. 

Here comes the list of all the countries. (If your country isn't in the list, it can be because Blog spot only shows the 10 most visiting countries of the day) (I list China and Hong Kong as two different because that is what Blog Spot does) 

1. Australia

2. Bangladesh

3. Belgium

4. France

5. Hong Kong

6. India

7. Indonesia

8. Israel

9. Italy

10. Japan

11. China

12. Malaysia

13. Mauritius

14. Mexico

15. Netherlands

16. Norway

17. Pakistan

18. Panama

19. Poland

20. Romania

21. Russia

22. Singapore

23. Slovakia

24. Britain

25. Sweden

26. South Korea

27. Taiwan

28. Germany

29. Thailand

30. Turkey

31. USA

32. Ukraine

Yeah  :) I am so happy about this :)


33. Canada (This is a later addition to the post)

If you click on the map I think you will get a bigger picture. 

Stay awake

Love Ove 

Ove the SUPER HERO???.

Maybe everyone wants to be a super hero at some point in their lives. But if YOU were a super hero, what would your special ability be? 

My super hero ability would be to be able to get people to understand each other and to feel empathy towards other people. With that ability I think I would be able to change the world. 

I used to have a real "super hero ability" but it disappeared after an operation. 

What was it? 

I used to be able to pee whenever I wanted too. 

How did I accomplish this? 

I poked my belly button with my finger and I would have to pee. No matter how recently I had gone to the bathroom, I still could pee. 

When would this be a good super hero ability? 

At the hospital. 

Hey sir, Would you be so kind as to pee in this cup. We have to run some tests.

Well that is when my super hero ability was great, and I miss it... 

Talking about super heroes... there are also super villains... 

Kanske vill alla vara en superhjälte någon gång i sitt liv. Men om DU var en superhjälte, vad skulle din speciella förmåga vara?

Min superhjälteförmåga skulle få folk att förstå varandra och att känna empati för andra människor. Med den förmågan tror jag att jag skulle kunna förändra världen.

Jag brukade ha en riktig "superhjälteförmåga", men det försvann efter en operation.

Vad var den?

Jag brukade kunna kissa när jag ville.

Hur gjorde jag detta?

Jag petade min navel med mitt finger och jag sedan behövde jag kissa. Oavsett hur nyligen jag hade gått på toaletten, kunde jag fortfarande kissa.

När var den en bra superhjälteförmåga?

På sjukhuset.

Hej, Kan du vara så vänlig att kissa i denna mugg? Vi måste köra några tester.

Det var är när min superhjälteförmåga var fantastisk, och jag saknar den ...

På tal om superhjältar ... det finns superskurkar också ...

Stay awake

Love Ove 

Var vaken

Goa hälsningar Ove

Formosa Aboriginal Cultural Village

Today we bought a multi ticket. We got free amount of boat rides, a two way gondola ride and the entrance fee to Formosa Aboriginal Cultural Village. I had a really good time even though the rain often came down with a vengeance over us.
This is what we manage to do today
2 boat rides
3 gondola rides
Shoot with bow and arrows
Shoot with blow pipe and arrows
Eat indigenous food
Watch aboriginal dancing
3 times in a free falling thrill ride
2 rides in a roller coaster
Watch a One Piece 3D movie
Listen to Christmas music
And
Buy souvenirs.

Here comes some photos

SunMoon Lake

Hi. Right now I am in a hotel room in SunMoon Lake in the middle of Taiwan. I am here with my good friend Esteban from Mexico.
To get here wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Why ... Because it's mothers day, an contrary to how we do it in Sweden , which is to just call our mothers to say hi, people here seem to go home to visit them. How did this affect us ... All bus tickets sold out. All ordinary train tickets sold out. We ended up on the high speed train. And it was fast.
The train didn't take us to SunMoon Lake, it took us to TaiChung. From there we had to take a bus.
Well here they gave us a room filled with hearts. Very romantic hehe. And the bathtub was cool. The kind you sit in.

More reports come tomorrow.

Getting close to the end...

Hi there. 

Today I went outside while I had a break between classes. The sun was shining. I felt the the smell of flowers in the air coming from the jungle close by. 

I went back in and finished the days classes. 

After the classes there was a reward ceremony for the movie competition. The film me and my class made got a prize. We got the Honorable Mention Award. I have no clue as to what goes into that title, what made them choose our movie for that prize, but they did, and the prize money is enough to by a serious cake. 

Today I got word from CSN (Swedish board for economical support for students) and they told me that there is nothing that would prevent me from keep studying Chinese. So... in the fall I will study Chinese as well. Have already been admitted to another university. 

But before I start scribblings Chinese characters again, I will spend the summer in Sweden. I am really looking forward to that. Most of all I am looking forward to introduce Jason to my family, and to show him my country. 

Stay awake. 

Love Ove.