New photos

go check out the China photos on Flickr.

First day back at work today, not bad at all! JD meanwhile has been painting kitchen so its now mostly white.

Shopping

What I brought home (excluding presents, as I dont want to spoil the fun)

Custom made:
1 thin silk dress
1 dragon pattern silk dress
1 cashmere jacket
1 duffel coat
1 suit jacket
2 suit trousers
1 skirt
5 shirts

Other stuff:
1 woolly hat
1 pair of woolly gloves
1 pair of long johns
1 turtle neck
1 Casio Excilim (incl. memory card reader, 2GB card, tripod, 2 cases)
1 DS Lite (20 games included and 8GB card)
1 chinese stamp thingy with ink
1 chinese painting
1 set of chinese lions / dogs
2 sets of chop sticks
1 red and leather bag
1 black / purple handbag
1 glittery handbag
1 two strand pearl necklace
1 pair of pearl earrings
1 pearl ring
1 pair of Nike shoes
1 year of the rat memory card
2 books
1 silk jacket

I did leave some clothes behind and with the one new bag plus an extra one that Co brought with him we did manage to get home.

Kitchen

The new kitchen is almost done, just needs painted and tiled - the nice builder will be back to do the tiling once we have purchased them. Painting is my to do - good to keep me busy now that JD is off to Stockholm.

Here are a couple of photos. I miss the red a little already.

Quick China update

Shanghai - great place! lovely people (Ida, Marco and Eleen) helped us around town and to make some great shopping bargains, when leaving the bags were overfull. Xintandi is the way forward, wouldnt mind living there...

Train to Beijing - 12 hrs, very nice, best food so far and we did try and drink them out of beer, but no luck

Beijing - freezing! but wall very pretty in snow, as was summer palace, temple of heaven and of course Forbidden City. Kalle's Japanese restaurant recommendation was very very good, the most interesting entrance to a restaurant ever. We bought new bag as old ones couldnt cope any more. Tsing Tao good, but Yanjing just as nice, being Olympic sponsor and all.

Train to Hong Kong - 25 hrs, not busy at all so we spent most waking ours in the restaurant trying different dishes and again trying to drink them out of beer. No local beer which was a bit sad, but Carlsberg seems to go everywhere.

Hong Kong - so far its been great, we have learned a new dice drinking game and we are shopping more, have asked Co to bring extra large suit case...

Shake 'n'Burger

We have a burger place around the corner from us (I would like to call it a 'joint') which we have been going past for two years now but never tried. It turns out that quite a few others have seen but not tried either so when I told them that is where we were going to dinner tonight I was asked for a review.

It looks quite American small townish on the outside, a little run down both inside and out but with a charming man inside taking the order and cooking the burgers. I had a standard cheese burger with dill pickle and tomato relish, very nice! Along with this I had chips and chocolate shake. A great meal all in all.

JD ordered a double cheese and bacon burger, with wedges and vanilla shake. The surprising thing is that the burger wasnt a 'tower' built burger but two burgers next to each other in a giant bap. Intriguing.

We are definetly coming back, I think I will stay with the basic burger and go for black cherry shake, but JD fancies the Hawaii burger with pineapple. Each to their own.

There are a surprising number of Shake 'n'Burger places in the world it seems as I got 1,260 hits on Google for the phrase. Wonder if they are all as charming as ours.

Stuff

We have ripped the kitchen out as a new one is to be fitted in Jan, we thought the floor was causing a smell after our washing machine leaked a bit on it but now it turns out its the drains. So Dynorod has been round, done the tututing of a professional service person and said that they have to come back to do the full filming later this week. Am worried. To take my mind off it I have photoed my new gear stick hat.

Home

Am back in England, its colder here than in Stockholm funnily enough. I got up at 4.30 to take the 7.05 flight so I could go straight to the office. A great idea in October when I booked the ticket, less ideal today. My bag weighs 0.8kg less than when I left, so I brought presents for about 8 persons and they obviously gave me about the same amount back.

Most interesting present: knitted "hat" for the gear stick
Best food: Cardamom crunch Marcus made for the apple pie
Best drink: Hot Mint Cocktail at Ljunggrens
Best moment: Karin realizing the mobile phone box actually contained a mobile phone
Best purchase: three paper stars for the window, half price at Otto Dahlin