One picture says more than a thousand words - here's a picture nuke, my friends. Enjoy. (Also, it takes about 3-4 min to upload one pic, so yeah, there's some serious effort and time involved)

Xiang Shan (Fragrant Hills)



This is the view on Beijing close to the mountain top. Yes, the haze is the pollution. We went hardcore and climbed all the way, whereas a lot of people simply went both up and down using the mountain lift.




This reminds me of one of the many tiny islands (more like big rocks in the water) in the Stockholm archipelago with no vegetation to speak of, but tons of sea gulls resting on it. This was at the mountain top, that was barren save a few pine trees. At this point, I'm beginning to think that overexposed Chinese scenic spots aren't all they're cracked up to be.




All these people are wildly photographing and gawking at about three squirrels. The squirrels weren't even wild, either. Someone had set out food for them. They would have a blast in our neighbourhood in Sweden, with the regular deer visits, pheasants, rabbits, cats and hedgehogs.




The sun (picture taken from the minibus). Sure, it was cloudy that day, but it was also smoggy enough so you could stare right at the sun without any particular discomfort. Now that's cool, albeit in an unsettling way.


International Culture Festival at Beida - 28 October 2006

It was an absolutely amazing day - almost 20 C in the sun, a huge event with stalls representing almost every country in the world (Afghan-, Kazak-, Tadjikistan, Azerbadjan, oh and including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao), and an entertaining two-hour medley show with performances from different countries. Highlights included a South Korean tae-kwondo/street dance performance (hardcore wooden plank-kicking followed by Westlife-esque dance moves, made all the more awesome by the giggly comments from two Chinese girls next to us), an Indonesian greeting ritual (performed by four women sitting, crawling, and playing pattycake with themselves as they sang. Very cool and repetitive the first five minutes, the next 15 mostly repetitive), Mongolian music, Spanish dancing, Thai dancing and a Chinese tea performance, easily the coolest one despite its apparent showyness. I don't know much about Japanese tea ceremonies, but I've heard they're quite serene, harmonious affairs. The Chinese performance was apparently derived from tai chi, which basically meant a guy performing tai chi moves holding a giant tea pot. It sounds slightly ridiculous, but with appropriate background music, it was still pretty cool.




Azerbadjan girl.




The Democratic People's Republic of Korea stall. Need I say more? Actually, I do. Up until that day, I had no idea one of my class mates is North Korean. And not only is he North Korean, he's a North Korean physicist. There are so many inappropriate jokes running through my head now...




Where all other country stalls had pictures showing their country's scenic spots, cultural heritage, crafts work, etc... North Korea had this.




And pictures like these. It was like a window into the past, specifically, China around fifty years ago. In the middle of the bustling, modern, cosmopolitan atmosphere, a part of history left untouched.




The interior of the Swedish stall. The girl, Ellinor, has studied Chinese for three years and is pretty much fluent.


Engrish, Yen Fetish Halloween Party



In Chinese: "Value your life, stay away from drugs."


798 Art District, Dashanzi, Beijing - 10 November 2006

For those of you too lazy to click the link: The 798 Art District in Beijing is an area in central Beijing with lots of art galleries for contemporary, modern and controversial art. The area used to be a Soviet-inspired factory area, and the factories are now housing the art galleries. The contrast between modern, edgy art and run-down, 50s Chinese factories and industrial surroundings is one of the most striking characteristics of the area, at least in my opinion. It's been scheduled to be torn down several times (the area is close to the airport, very attractive and the real estate company owning the factories wants to build office buildings there), but for the time being, it's there.

This is an amazing place. Despite the fact that it's lost some of its "struggling artist, underground artist area" image (almost all signs were in Chinese and English and the Western-like cafe's accepted Visas), it's still a place of mindblowing contrasts with an edgy feel to it. It has yet to enter that exploited stage that inevitably happens to a popular place in China, and if becoming more mainstream means the area will remain, then in my opinion, keep the tour buses coming.




Easily one of my favourites. It's a statue in front of one of the art galleries.




My friend Nico in one of the installments. Me and Hannah snuck onto the CIEE's (an American scholarship program) tour bus. Not only did we save 10 RMB each (subway fare), it was real comfy as well.




Example of the surroundings. The graffiti was awesome, I'm going to try and come back some day just to take pictures of all the cool graffiti.




Some factories are actually still in use, hence the workers.




Art piece amongst factory pipes.




Artwork about Tiananmen Square 1989. Also the only picture I asked permission to take.




Nico and Hannah contemplating the graffiti. See how awesome Hannah is? By being in the picture, I mean?




In Chinese: "Out of bounds for men". I can see the leap in logic...



Just a really, really cool painting. And a cool scene.





The red characters mean female and human. The grey areas of the Mao portrait are old pictures from the Culture Revolution and other events in Chinese history. Almost every picture was like a calm punch in the gut.. strong stuff.




So me and Nico stumbled across a huge art gallery where you could contribute yourself. I suck at painting and drawing, so I just scribbled some Swedish, whereas Nico went nuts with Western calligraphy and Latin.



Coupled with his fluent Chinese, the art gallery owner was in complete and utter awe. I was as well, actually. It's a liturgy, btw.


Alright, I'm beat. Hope you guys enjoy the pictures, I know I enjoyed the events.