Vardagsmat, a blog in four languages; Svenska, English, Español & Português.: October 2008

Städdag

Jaha, så var det då dags för städdag i radhusområdet. Det var faktiskt många som trotsade det kyliga vädret och den regntunga himlen och gav sig ut med räfsor och krattor. Jag plockade upp skräp och lyckades faktiskt få ihop lite intressanta grejer förutom omslagspapper och tomburkar, nämligen ett halvt paraply och en navkapsel!

Sedan krattade jag löv kring de närmaste husen och på egna tomten. Det satt fortfarande några gula löv fast på trädet på baksidan så jag ruskade det ganska ordentligt så alla lossnade och segnade ner på marken - så slipper jag kratta fler löv iår! Men att det skulle vara så svårt att få ner löven i soppåsen?! Hade inte räknat med det.

Steg 1: Kratta ihop en lövhög.
Steg 2: Använd krattan för lyfta i löven i soppåsen.
Steg 3: Fundera över den matematiska ekvation som bäst beskriver varför 90% av alla löven hamnar utanför påsen när man försöker få in dom i densamma!

"No leaf! No leaf! No leaf in the BAG! Yeah!"

Gabriela ville hjälpa till att få ner de sista löven

"Det är skitkul att se pappa bli frustrerad! Hehehe..."

In Johannesburg

First time ever I have been to Africa! Too bad I did not have time to see much more than the office, the hotel and a restaurant. The best memory from this short trip was a visit to the Nelson Mandela Square and the Lekgotla restaurant where I had a nice rib eye with lekgotla fries and a spicy Harissa sauce (like Sambal Oelek but hotter!). Lekgotla serves interesting meats like Springbok and Ostrich and the cuisine is a mix of all Africa so the meny is quite large.

Maybe I will be back in February, then I will try to see a bit more of the country!

Taking a break at the office terrace

Workshoppin'

A drummer/dancer at the Legkotla restaurant

My view from the hotel. No elephants or lions in the immediate surroundings!

El otoño llegó

Los dias se hacen cada vez mas fríos. Fuera hay una explosión de colores; las hojas van de verde a amarillo y rojo para después virar marrón en el suelo tras haber caido de los árboles. Es todo muy bonito, especialmente en días de sol.

Sin embargo, la transición es muy rápida, en unos instantes ya pasó todo y vamos tener una capa blanca de nieve, cubriendo todo...

Verde y amarillo

Silvão con nuestro monstriño

Rojo

Marrón

In Beijing. Again!

Third time in Beijing in five months! I Stayed at Crowne Plaza near Bird's Nest but I think I like Sheraton Great Wall of China more, it is cozier somehow. I bought a Chinese kitchen knife (one of those with an axeshaped head! All chefs use them in China) at a local grocery store. Visited Silk Market with some colleagues but did not dare to buy electronics. I need an M2 memory card for my mobile and the saleswoman tried to sell me a 4Gb card for 250 yuan; sounds cheap but what do you do if it doesn't work a week later?!

After the seminar the local staff invited us for a sightseeing, very nice. We went to a museum that showed Beijing as a city from the early days up til now. Very interesting. On one of the floors they have built a model of the modern city, in intervalls the main lights in the room are dimmed and thousands of little lamps light up the city. If you took away the smog you would get the same view from an airplane at night!

Model of Beijing

Then we went to a palace close to HoaHai lake, the palace was built the same way as the Forbidden City but ten times smaller and was the home to some powerful person hundreds of years ago. The palace was nice but I liked the garden the most.

The number of animals on the roof slant of a house shows the importance of the owner. The highest number of animals on a house is eleven and the only house that has that many is a house in the Forbidden City.

The likeable garden.

Then we took a bikeride in the hutong. Hutongs are the old (poor?) neighbourhoods in Beijing, many low residencials made out of concrete, cramped together. Sometimes the streets become so narrow it is hard for the traffic to pass. This is not a biggie for the bikeriders though who scream and shout at everything and hardly ever stop. We paid 200 yuan for a rider to carry two of us in each cart. Me and a colleague built like myself sat down in a cart but the rider just shook his head and we understood he thought we weighed too much together, hehe. Henrik went to sit in another cart and my lightweighted colleage Sarah joined me instead.

After all these activities we were hungry and dinner was eaten in a small restaurant in the hutong, across the main street of HoaHai Lake. Very cool. Not all food was good for a "Westerner's taste buds" but most of it was great and the atmosphere and the nice conversations made it the highlight of the trip.