Kinaturen 2007

If you are not a firm believer of the term: “Don’t kill the messenger”, and am more fond of Leonides’ approach to bad-news carrying messenger by kicking them into a bottomless well; please do not read the following.

Yet again, I reluctantly inform you that we are trying to get more pictures onto the website; meaning that we haven’t gotten them up yet. This, of course, does not mean that we have stopped taking photos, so as soon as we can drop our technical crutch – you’ll get so many pictures that you’ll achieve the unattainable and grow tired of pictures of us.

Meanwhile, here’s a small snack of what we’ve been up to- which will hopefully convey how busy we’ve been and will give you no other choice, but to shower us with forgiveness for not uploading pictures yet.
We have of course kept ourselves busy with site-seeing. This including the revisit to the Tian An Men – which was Great Success! We even walked through The Forbidden City. It is truly amazing that we can truthfully say; we walked through a city located in the middle of Bei Jing with almost 10,000 rooms, protected by 960x750m of 10m high walls, has been secluded from the rest of the world and exclusive to the royal family for the majority of the past 600 years. (It was actually not exclusive to the royal family; concubines lived there, as well hundreds of eunuch servants – so as to not tempt the women.) So it was also nice to say the penultimate sentence of this paragraph, and then still have fertile male genitalia – except for Anne Mette.

We also spent a whole day at the Great Wall of China. We were specifically at Ba Da Ling, which hosts the highest point of the Great wall. To protect the Chinese from the Huns, the emperors had walls built from east to west China; which was later connected to become a 6700km long defensive entity that doubles as a monument to Chinese history. Science tells us it is an urban myth that the Chinese wall can be seen from space, let alone be the soul man-made structure that can be viewed from out there. If, however, this matter was determined democratically, we would unanimously vote for the Great Wall to be given that title. As we constantly observed and remarked; one could randomly select a spot on the wall which we “conquered”, look in every direction, and still see more of the wall in the distance – it definitely has my vote.

For the past two days, Jesper has been feeling sick to the point where we were convinced he was practicing for the audition of the “Exorcist” remake. So today, we decided to go to a hospital clinic that specializes in bowel disturbances where we, within the hour, received results that he had a parasitic bacteria in his system (which he probably acquired from some food). Part of a fast treatment required him to get a specific anti-biotic in the form of a saline drip stuck into his hand for three-hours. So we got our own room, where half of us retrieved Ipods and books from the hotel (we luckily live very close) along with refreshments (water and McDonald’s[which we also, luckily, live very close to]. Four and a half hours after entering the clinic, we walk out with a healthier Jesper, and a bunch of medicine to make sure he endures that state. The doctor is sure that Jesper will be on his toes and ramming his head into the top of doors before we go to Xi An. According to statistics, it would be anomalistic if neither of us got sick. It is of course not preferable, but we got to experience that part and were all pretty impressed leaving us with the ability to recite – ” Saa har vi gjort det!”

For the next week, we have dedicated ourselves to some hardcore-rest to ensure and achieve an excellent bill of health for when we travel to Xi An, and continue through China. Since we are returning to Bei Jing, we have decided to put off all the tourist activities that we lack till then. For now, we will merely blend in (as well as we can) and just be normal Bei Jing-nites.
Pictures can be anticipated!

Due to certain restrictions of the oriental Internet-cafes, we are currently not able to supply you with your vital daily fix of pictures of us on our exhilarating quest, on (bumpy) rails, to China. Since we know your lives depend on it, all efforts to post pictures are currently at work. The employment of half the Chinese work-force is under consideration (of course for the minimum wage of 2 bowls of rice and a banana a day), though at this very moment Jesper is thinking really hard about doing something about it.

To give y’all a taste of the journey; here’s a quick insight of a selected 3 hours, of our first day on the transsiberian rail. It commences with the meeting and greeting of 3 American marines, a Brit (who has sold all material possessions and on his way to Australia), and of course us. Since the 8 are still in Russia (and the time being only 16:00), our colourful cast goes through the custom introduction fase Russian style – with a shot of vodka. Like a mutated dog who tastes human blood for the first time in a bad horror-movie, their attention is immediately averted to scout how much vodka they collectively have – 8 bottles… It has to be mentioned, that we contributed 4 bottles which was bought with the full intention of the lasting out the whole trip, with the thought of possibly bringing some home. Little did we know a vodka frenzy was in place. The 8 bottles miraculously, yet promptly, disappeared in 3 hours – a feat only challenged by few other legendary Russian introductions (e.g. when Vlad met Olga), and by David Copperfield’s trick of making the Statue of Liberty disappear. It must of course be noted that the “few other legendary Russian introductions” have very little credibility and no record of it actually happening. We hope this is enough of the rail quest for you guys to chew on but in case it isn’t, here is a update of our first days in China.

Against all odds we find ourselves intact (except for our hair) in the capital of China, Bei Jing. We are immediately assaulted by Dun Jack’s family and thrown into a hotel for a much needed bath. Besides being a more than cheap hotel, it is conveniently placed in the vicinity of Dun Jack’s aunt – for the much needed washing of our clothes. After being cleaned and proper groomed, we are almost presentable to Chinese society. This being our first night in Bei Jing, EVER, we decided to eat chinese (even though McD was near by). Dun Jack’s family took us reserved a room for ourselves at an extravagant restaurant for a classic Chinese dinner with Bei Jing’s most known dish – the Bei Jing Duck. Though the 3 white people were quite accomplished at utilizing chopsticks, DJ’s family still managed to find more than several occasions to laugh at them. All feeling ashamed of themselves and slightly fatigued by all the laughing, DJ’s family compensated by picking up the bill and introducing them to some 56% rice-wine.

Our first Entire day in Bei Jing was dedicated to some tourist sites, Tian An Men. With some unfailing irony, Bei Jing decided to rain as we stepped into the bus – for the entire day. We took a weak attempt at visiting Tian An Men but decided that we photograph better when the sun is out and go back tomorrow. Instead, we keenly observed Bei Jing city life from a mall, eating approximately 3 lunches and bought some shoes. DJ’s aunt then treated us to an exclusive spa for the wealthy where we fit right in. An hours luxurious massage was had and we were regenerated. We then decided to try chinese fast-food for dinner and go post some pictures where we found out how we can’t. We have full intentions of returning tomorrow to Tian An Men fully reinforced with newly bought umbrellas and long-sleeves.
But we all hope it doesn’t come to that…

Edit: Inserted pictures

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Hej igen

Saa er der endnu en beretning inden vi i aften snupper toget gennem sibirien. Vi havde en ret spaendende aften igaar – paa russisk restaurant. Vi aftalte at spise middag med de to gutter fra odense paa den russiske restaurant der ligger lige udenfor vores hotel. Vi lagde haardt ud med at bestille et vodkashot til at starte med – man er vel i Rusland! Det blev fulgt op af et gratis shot fra en dame der sang russiske folkesange (tror vi… det var meget autentisk i hvert fald..). Herefter tog vi den fantastiske beslutning at koebe en flaske vodka til deling mellem os alle seks, lidt senere akkompagneret af endnu en flaske. Det hele blev skyllet ned med et par oel hver, og saa var bunden vist lagt for en utrolig aften…

Efter mad og masser af vodka gik vi op paa Kristian og Toegers vaerelse (det hedder de altsaa, de to fra odense), vi kan ikke lige huske hvorfor. Da Dun Jack ikke var klippet helt kort nok, og de havde en trimmer sku vi liiige trimme Duns haar. Det gik saadan set fint nok og blev ganske yndigt. Det var foerst da vi ogsaa lige skulle trimme Kristians haar, at det gik galt. Nogen havde taget afstandsfaetteren af, saa det blev lige pludselig MEGET kort. Og i den fine brandert vi nu havde koerende blev det til at de andre naturligvis ogsaa skulle have saa kort haar… Det blev udfoert paa Jesper og Hannis vaerelse, da vi havde larmet for meget paa det andet hotel og fik besked paa at vaere stille.

I selskab med to flasker vodka, cola og pizza fra roomservice (man kan jo ikke lade vaere naar det er saa billigt!!) blev foerst Hanni, saa Dun Jack og Toeger helt korthaarede. Jesper var lidt mere genstridig, men de fik ham ogsaa klippet til sidst ved at bruge jackass tricket.. Senere tullede jeg i seng, mens de unge herrer tog paa stripbar paa hotellet – med masser af lapdances mm, saa vidt jeg kan forstaa… :o)

 Vi havde det ikke voldsomt godt her til morgen kan jeg afsloere. Men  nu har vi vaeret paa McD og spise ornli meget mad. Det er der vist ogsaa et par billeder af. Desuden har vi faaet taget billeder af slumkvarteret bag hotellet, og alle de smaa boder hvor de saelger ting. Plus en masse ladaer! Brageren…

Saa jeg har nu den tvivlsomme glaede af at rende rundt med et par skinheads… De har dog koebt kasketter og hat idag, saa de smaa soede hoveder ikke bliver solbraendte.

Haaber alle har det godt derhjemme – vi har i hvertfald masser af godt vejr og hoejt humoer!

Russiske hilsner fra de fantastiske fire i Rusland

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Opdateret Mosvka billeder, de nyeste er paa de sidste sider…

Saa er vi ankommet til Moskva! Der er i oejeblikket ved at blive uploaded billeder, saa der skulle meget gerne vaere et nyt fix klar til alle jer nyheds-hungrende personer derhjemme!

Vi brugte det meste af dagen i gaar efter ankomst paa at udforske vores naeromraade – ikke mindst fordi, vi ikke vidste hvor metroen ind til centrum af Moskva gik fra. Det ville naturligvis vaere naerliggende at spoerge nogen, men russerne er umaadeligt daarlige til engelsk. Vi fik os da en dejlig lang gaatur ud af det, dog uden at komme naermere, hvor metroen befandt sig.

Den fandt vi saa i dag, efter at have faet nogle directions af et par odenseborgensere (wtf?), vi moedte hernede. Turen gik derefter til Moskva, hvor vi fik set Den Roede plads, Kremlin og en spandfuld umaadeligt store kirker! (min computer g0r nu opmaerksom paa, at der kun er5 min tilbage, saa jeg vil fatte mig i korthed).

Alting er billigt her – Big Mac Menu for ca. 20-25 kroner, Room Service midt om natten scrambled eggs og bacon for omkring en tier 🙂 Og saa en fantastisk 4-retters frokost (eller business lunch, som den hed) for 250 rupler (omkring 55 kroner, hvilket svarer til prisen paa foernavnte bigmnac menu i DK!)

Men det bliver nok sparsomt med updateringer de naeste seks dage (ud over en eller to i morgen maaske) da det nok ikke er netcafeer, de har flest af i Mongoliet!

Det var alt fra nu!

Mange hilsener fra de fantastiske fire iRusland!

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PS. Der er lagt billeder op fra Kastrup i lufthavnen, kan findes paa galleri siden..

Ja, så er vi taget afsted, eller det vil sige næsten.. Jeg sidder stadig hjemme, men om 15/20 min, så er jeg taget i lufthavnen, og det håber og tror jeg da bestemt de andre er også. Nedtællingen siger under 2 ½ time.. Så nu er det altså rigtig snart snart..

Jeg satser bestemt på, at vi opdaterer denne post før eller siden, eller måske skriver vi bare et helt nyt indlæg. Til sidst er der vel ikke andet at sige end:

Farvel, vi ses igen om 8 uger.