Hårfin uke

Glad november! Årets fineste måned! Dette blogginnlegget er for å opplyse om en viktig forandring i undertegnedes og undertegnedes roomievenninnes liv. En dag i forrige uke tok spontaniteten overhånd, og vi tok henholdsvis saksa og extensionsene fatt og fikk nytt hår! Silje, med sin røde Bieberklipp fikk lange mørkebrune lokker på Koreamarkedet, som hun deretter klippet av i passende sekretærlengde. WOW. Sykt hott. Tonje gikk amok på frisørsalongen ved matvarebutikken, og klippet sitt lange hulderhår i en asymetrisk page/bob-lignende sak. Også sykt hott. (Lars ser fortsatt ut som seg selv, tror vi, vi har ikke sett ham på en stund, ryktene går om han har funnet seg en halfblood med lange ben.)

Det var meningen at vi skulle legge opp klare fargebilder av forandringen, men det er lørdag morgen, og vi ser ut som vi bor i en brønn. Dere får takke dere til photoboothbilder, i svarthvitt, enn så lenge.

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Chinese mid-autumn festival

We're becoming the cool kids who have so many international friends we have to blog in English. No joke. Last Monday was the Chinese 中秋节 mid-autumn festival which used to be a family holiday to celebrate the end of harvesting and beginning of darkness. Nowadays it basically just gives us a day off from school. (Which is great!)

According to the old Chinese lunar calender, mid-autumn festival is the day the moon is said to be the brightest and roundest. The moon symbolizes family unity and you're supposed to go back to your family for dinner. There are to be red lanterns everywhere, even flying ones in the sky, and people put paper boats with candles on the lake and make a wish. Basically, you have a nice meal and then you go out to look at the moon, eat mooncake (a sweet pastry) and spend time with your family and friends. We had been talking about this mid-autumn festival in class for a whole week and we were all pretty excited to go out and see the what ancient Chinese culture had to offer us. Lars was imagining it to be like Norway on the 17th of May, we weren't quite sure about that, but we didn't want to hurt his feelings so we didn't say anything.

My teacher told us Houhai lake would be a good place to celebrate the mid-autumn festival, so a bunch of us jumped in a taxi and met up by the waterside. Houhai is a really nice area with bars and restaurants all around the lake. There were a little more people than usual, but other than that it looked exactly like it does any other day of the year. No extra lanterns, no candles, no ornaments and decorations, no overjoyed Chinese families looking at the moon and most importantly; no mooncakes. We couldn't even see the moon because the sky was gray from pollution. Needless to say, we were all extremely disappointed. It seems like Chinese people don't bother to celebrate. Maybe they are to busy working. Maybe we should have gone to the countryside. There are a lot of maybes.

I dont know. I just know that we went to a rooftop bar and drank over-prized tsingtao and ate sweet popcorn (and I hate sweet popcorn). But the more beer came to the table, the better our mood. We saw a red light in the sky, though we're not sure wether it was an airplane or a flying lantern, and newly made friends from our new classes kept on arriving. At the end of the night we'd had a great time. And that's when I figured out that it doesn't really matter what our surroundings look like, the point of the mid-autumn festival is spending time with the people you enjoy, in our case: our great little Beijing family of awesome classmates. Which means we were doing exactly the right thing.

And that was today's moral lecture. Here are the photos.

TWIST AND SHOUT

Oppskrift på kongevors: roomies, rare hatter, kald øl og twistemusikk fra tidlig 60-tall.

Vi har aldri vært så svette før.

Musketeer 家i Wudaokou, Beijing

Endelig har vi fått oss leilighet! Den ligger i 22 etasje, toppetasjen, og er veldig fin om jeg får si det selv. I går spratt vi vår første pils i sofaen, en 600 ml Tsingdao til hele 3 kroner. Vaskemaskinen fungerer, begge toalettene likeså og vi har fått vannlevering, strømkort, gasskort og internett. Alt har vi fiksa på kinesisk! Bra, hva?


Vil dere se hvor fint det er her? Vi setter forresten pris på at dere som er inne på bloggen vår kommenterer. Ellers vet vi jo ikke om dere faktisk leser. 

Panoramautsikten vår

Silje sitt rom

Tonje sitt rom

Lars sitt rom (han har såklart ikke rydda..)

Fin stor stue

Så høy er bygningen og vi bor helt øverst. Det er så høyt at det nesten svaier litt.

Vi er i Kina selv om dette så i overkant amerikansk ut. Denne kassen med øl kostet 36 kr. Lars er veldig flink til å bære øl.

Hvis dere vil sende oss noe i posten kan dere sende det til:
Beijing City Hai Dian district,
Cheng Fu Road 20 Hao Yuan
Di Zhi Da Xue, Building 47
Room 2203
100083 Beijing, China

Et hot tips er å printe ut denne adressen på kinesisk og lime den på. Så vet vi at det kommer riktig. Disse kineserne vet dere...

中国北京市海淀区
成府路20号院
地质大学47号楼
2203 室
100083 Beijing, CHINA


Hvis dere skriver inn dette: 中国北京市海淀区 成府路20号院 地质大学47号楼 i google maps kan dere se hvor i Beijing det er. Vi fikk ikke til noe street view, jeg tror kanskje ikke de har fått lov til å gjøre dette i Kina enda..


Ja, hva synes dere?