February, 2009

day 27 - kuching, malaysia

Submitted by spw on Thu, 02/26/2009 - 07:23

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haudihou,

Soo, almost a week gone here in Kuching. Got roof over my head and a bed under my ass, so things going according to plan. :)Anyhow all going well with one exception, the weather. It still needs some adjustment from my part, as I'm still not capable to cope with the heat and the humidity. You can't go out without sweating your skin off, you would think that you've been jogging for a mile or two but no, just been walking for 3minutes. :)

Yeah, in other news, uni starts next monday. This week gone with registrations and some medicals they had me go through. Also been fighting against some nasty little clerks at Sampo Bank. They still refuse to give me a chance on paying my international student deposite, whyyy. . They in someway declines my payments. geesh . .

But I'm off now to sweat some more.

day 20 - singapore

Submitted by spw on Thu, 02/19/2009 - 05:36

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Last night or day going, tomorrow my "final"stop for this call.
Heading to Kuching, Malaysia tomorrow at sometime (dont have a clue, prolly have to check, hehe).

Been burning my skin here and see some night sights.
Went to the Night Safari yesterday here, which is basically a Zoo with lights turned off. Which is nice, no doubt about it, but they could've but something more there too. They also had a show which were "shown" every 30minutes, it was the same every time, and was a bit boring (for me anyway) in the end.
I also went around the city esplanade park and saw some huuge and not so huge buildings with weird looking architecture. Also again, almost burned my skin.

off ..

day 17 - singapore

Submitted by spw on Mon, 02/16/2009 - 10:48

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Greetings from Singapore. . it's +32 degrees and cloudy.

Haha, came here yesterday, and I have to say, thank god I had a hoodie on because it was ONLY +33 when I walked out of the plane. Had to take a taxi to the hostel because I seriously could not bother to walk and take a metro. Not for the Finns, this weather.

Okay, been a long time since I last time wrote something so.. I'll update a bit.

I spent 4nights in Hong Kong. After the night out and the excursion to The Peak, on Friday we headed out to Macao. There's some pictures from there. Its like a small Vegas in Asia, you have to take a ferry from Hong Kong and need to go through some passport checks. It was a nice place to go to as IT was so full of lights and huuge casinos, AND of course money. You could see that We were in a wealthy place where they spend a lot of money to improve and make their buildings look more attractive. I went on playing a few rounds of roulette and lost 50euroes. woopsiee.. that's a lot. hehe.. After that we headed back to our hostel at 9pm .. or something like that. .

Then on the next, when it was VALENTINES day, I ALONE headed to see the Big Buddha, which is on top of a big mountain (as you can see from the pictures down there). I seriously couldn't see anything, the first "bad" weather day, sunny but rainy as well, and foggy as hell. I was so spooky going up there wit a cable car, as you could only see about 1m forward from it. I was so waiting for a monster to grab or something like that.. ( I've prolly watched too many movies). Yeah, after the trip and the hike I had to go to the hostel and sort my shit out because I was leaving to Singapore on Sunday.

And Now I'm here. :) Today went pretty well, went to the beach for few hours and walked around a bit. Its too hot to walk long ways out. . but I'll do some of that tomorrow..

so laters ..

day 15 - hong kong

Submitted by spw on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 12:05

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day 14 - hong kong

Submitted by spw on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 12:04

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day 13 - hong kong

Submitted by spw on Thu, 02/12/2009 - 09:57

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First of all, pictures coming a bit later so . . sorry's about that.

Okay, I've arrived to Hong Kong, or yesterday already to be exact. After the dreadful trainride, with a bunch of chinese, I took a nap and then headed out to see what kind of nightlife HK has to offer. Me and 4 of my flatties were guided by our receptionist to some "weird" places. First one was packed with asian girls and women, I mean the age-range was something like 16 to 50. Yeah, there were underage girls also, and btw, we were the only guys there (We first thought that the receptionist was pimpin' us to them or something). At the "club", they had free drinks for women and free food for all, also there was two shows which involved a very loosely dressed girl and two kapoera guys. After that we headed to a place called buddha, where there was room for like 30-40 people max and they played all kind of progressive trance there with volume turned up. Also the place was located on a very "mysterious" alley. . :)

After that we headed back to the hostel as it was already 5am. . thank god because I really didnt have the best wake up. I think I've eaten something thats having a riot and messing with my stomach. Not the best feeling atm. Anyway, I headed out to the highest points in Hong Kong, the so called Peak building. . I'll add photos from there when I get them out of my camera.. so till then.. byee

UPDATE: Photo's

day 10 - xi'an

Submitted by spw on Mon, 02/09/2009 - 10:49

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day 10
xi'an

Jeppulisseen ja niin..

Okay, last day going on here, and tomorrow morning I'll start heading towards Hong Kong by train. 26 hours on the train. :) only. So, hopefully I'll get "good" cabin people, I wouldn't want to be in a same one with smokers or something like that.

Yeah, weekend was good, went out on Saturday, and saw some nice clubs. Weird thing is that most of the bars/clubs dont offer drinks at all or only offer them through a check out shop that's inside the bar. So you have to buy a vodka, wine or beer bottle always. They don't make any drink .. weird.. after the club run we, me and a few "flat" mates here in the hostel went to eat. There's like loads of different vendors outside at night making food for only 3-5cny, so cheap to eat, but not sure if it's "healthy" food.. not sick yet..

Also saw some sights here in Xi'an, like the bell and drum tower and the 7 different shoppin' malls that surrounds them. :) hehe.

Then again today I did some exercising and took a bike. Me and 3 of my hostel friends went bicycling around the city walls, you can literally drive on the walls. They go around the main center of the town and its 17km long. Very nice way to see the town from high up, also the weather today was perfect, +12. Damn, I had no battery on my camera so have to wait to get the photos from the other guys.

But now I'll head out to buy some "supplies" for the train ride and then to the Big Goose Pagoda. LAtersssss

UPDATE: Photo's

day 8 - xi'an

Submitted by spw on Sat, 02/07/2009 - 02:31

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day 8
xi'an

Morning,
Today was the first "wake up" at Xi'an. Now I'll head after this to the city to see what this 8million people "back-alley" has to offer, prolly nothing but.. the terracotta's, that I saw yesterday already.

Yeah, I came by train yesterday, like I mentioned from Beijing to Xi'an. It left about 9:24pm and reached Xi'an at 8:25am. I (thank god) had a pickup from the train station by a hostel employee.. I would've otherwise definitely got lost and so on. So, after the hassle at the hostel and the registration for the room was done, I hopped on a bus ride to the terracotta warriors that was arranged by the hostel. There I saw the famous warrior things and had a extremely boring tour guide explaining all kind of tidbits about them, I even saw the guy who founded the first head that ultimately lead to finding all of the 8000 of them, uuuuuu sooo exciting :). After a while we headed back to the hostel.

We have our own pub and a bar and a small restaurant here, so you can easily spend a "night" here talking to other traveler's, like I did yesterday. Drank some beer, talked some rubbish and eat a few dumplings. .

so laters taters...

day 6 - beijing (to xian)

Submitted by spw on Thu, 02/05/2009 - 06:29

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Heya,
Yeah today I´ll be heading to Xi´an at 9pm and I´ll arrive there tomorrow morning. We´ll see what kind of train ride that´ll be as I don´t have the slightest idea what type of seat I got, and you really never know whose gonna sit or sleep on the seat next to you.

Yesterday I went to the Forbidden City where I saw my first Finnish people in China, The Glorious moment. Yeah, and I walked there about 3,5hours. Geesh, in the end I knowingly left the place after that, even thou I missed and didn´t see some places. You can easily loose a half day there if you have the nerv and strength to battle against the Chinese tourists. The place is almost fully packed with them.. come on, don't they have anything else to do than bother me when I´m walking.
Yeah, after the "hike" I went to the closest chinese place to eat, and for my surprise CocaCola there was more expensiver than the food, almost double actually. Foods price was 12cny and Cola was 20cny. hahaha, ridiculous.

Last night I also headed to the commercial "street" Xidan, to see what they got to offer. And for my surprise, everything, from Abibas to Dolge Cabbang, every kind of fake product were sold there, it was 5 floors of shops and stalls. And yeah, also there they offered women "hello sir, wanna have a woman" to me. I don´t know, if its just my pathetic smirk or my huge belly that attracts them towards me. hehe. Ou, it also could be the fact that I'm not chinese. . hmmm

But yeah, laters ..

UPDATE: Photo's

day 4 - beijing

Submitted by spw on Tue, 02/03/2009 - 09:43

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Hooters..

Hooters of Beijing, high point of the day. With the low point being that I forgot my Camera to the safe box, and didn't get any pictures from Hooters. Ou yeah, I also went to Jingshan Park where I saw some weird old people dancing like it was their last day. They were listening to all kind of american pop, from Christina Aquilera to Pink. hehe.. weird people.

In other news I got my first invite to a secret tea room. :)) "Sir, Sir, come to secret tea room. very good tea we have for yuuu, come. Sir Sir, come." Very secret I could've been, so secret that I wouldn't have come back from there. Also, yesterday after my hike I went to the shopping malls to see some clothes and I got a nice offer from a "pimp", he was offering me women from a catalog. "You want a woman, you europe man" .. hahah, was his punch line. :))

But thats it for today, for now. . . .

day 3 - beijing

Submitted by spw on Mon, 02/02/2009 - 13:20

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day three behind, just came to the hostel from the restaurant. I had to get something too eat as I hadn't eating anything but biscuits durin' my hike. :) Yeah, I woke up at 6am local time and 6:30 the bus left towards the great wall of china. The trip took about 2½ hours to go there by car so it would've been a great opportunity to sleep, Would've. :) Anyway, we reached the destinations, and me, plus 8 others and the guide started a hike from one "tower" destionation to another. The whole hike was 8,5 kilometers and it overed 30 towers and lasted about 4½ hours. It was cruel and hard as hell, with the climate being a positive bonus (only a bit of wind, and mainly sunny). You wouldn't belive what the condition were for most parts of the wall (check the photos), and what was the elevation we had to walk. There were some HUGE stairs some for tiny people. hehe. Anyway after a 4 hour walk we reached the destionation, from there we took a "string"glider thingy down and there headed back to the hostel (after a few beers of course).

This really was a wonderfull and awesome day, I really wouldn't belive that I was there, as the scenary was so magnificent.

But all for now and see ya

day 2 - beijing

Submitted by spw on Sun, 02/01/2009 - 10:42

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Yeah, first "morning" here at the Peking youth hostel has or was an experience. Cold as hell, and so on. The hostel doesn't' believe in heaters so we only got like a "air heater" on the left corner of the room, to keep us warm (thank god I'm from Finland). But even so, the hostel is awesome. It's built inside a Si-He style courtyard house, which is located next to the Forbidden City and Tian'an Men Square. They have preserved this like it used to be (prolly that's why they don't have any heaters).

Today I went to the Olympic area where they held the 2008 Olympics, saw the bird's nest and the water cube. There were still people coming all over CHINA to see it, and it was like the Olympics hadn't gone away. It was the same when I went to the Tian'an Men Square (World's largest market square). It's been a bit different here, when like comparing to other major cities I've been, as there's in every corner a baggage check where they xray my bag and so on. :)

But I must be of to the night market. . .