Acrobatics, Durian & the Olympic Village

Hi, there.


On Wednesday the university sent the herd of sheep, also known as the Norwegian students to see an acrobatics show, which was pretty neat.

My classmate Anne
(and my thighs in the bottom corner)

She's brought her husband
and two sons
(a three-year-old and a six-month-old)
to Beijing for this semester
at Peking University,
which has been a dream of hers

I can barely hold my head above water,
and I don't even have two kids to take care of
- in addtion to the demanding classes
and tons of homework

I don't know how she does it

She's superhuman
and an inspiration

Silje showing the teacher
her impressive rubrics skills
during break

Jørgen

On Friday our speaking partner Zhou introduced Lars-Jørgen to the smelly fruit Durian.

Lars

Later the same afternoon she was heading back to her hometown
near Sichuan to visit her parents
- she is so sweet and worried that she wouldn't get to
see us for the next two weeks, and said that she's miss us

Zhou, Lars, Jørgen and I - one big happy family! (?)

The Durian fruit was not a big hit
among the palefaces

But we had bad luck with the durian - it was very bitter
I hope you give the fruit another chance, guys!

Creepy cafeteria guy (lady?)
at school

I want to snuggle a plump Asian baby

On Saturday I went to the Olympic village from the games in Beijing in 2008, mostly because I felt obliged to do something productive during the weekend, considering that most of the time is spent downing frozen margaritas and keeping guys at bay while sweating it out on the dancefloor.

Well, the visit was short and sweet, as I got off at a subway station at one end of the park and spent 20 minutes walking through it to the other end to the next subway station, and then went back home.

I make a lousy tourist.

Mmm, mistery meat!

Enjoying a piece of melon on a stick

The bird's nest

This is the guy you pay to hug your kids

Judgement Day

Today is judgement day, according to some Christian fanatics.

I've put the day to good use.

Still waiting for the rapture, though.




Yesterday Lilly, Lotte and I took our teachers Wang and Song to Taste of China for some Dim Sum, as a thanks for their hard work this past semester.

Lilly

Song

Lotte

Wang

Food approved

Then, the stupid waiter, noticing how I was constantly taking photos, insisted that he'd take a photo of us.

I hate photos like these, all with forced smiles.

Blah.

And then he also said that I "needed to get a better camera" and that he didn't like Nikon, and asked why I had the camera setting on so and so, and I was like "take the fucking photo and get lost, I don't give a rats ass", through gritted teeth.

Often when people see you've got an SLR camera, a lot of idiots automatically assume you've actually got an interest for the technical/material stuff (these people are often the same ones who buy and flash fancy and expensive gear, even though they're hardly able to use the stuff - let alone able to actually capture anything in their photos).

I take pride in my humble gear and for setting an example that you don't need a lot of fancy and expensive equipment to take decent photos.

Just look at some of my shots at the right hand side bar on this blog - those are all photos taken with my Nikon D60 (the cheapest SLR-camera they had in the store when I bought it more than two years ago) with either the lense that came with it (don't even ask what mm blah blah I don't know) or a portrait lense with manual focus. And then I edit the photos using "Photoshop for idiots", aka. Adobe Lightroom, because I think it's fun.

Chicken feet

On this final day of earth's existence Vidar and I started the day with a fierce match of Warhammer.

My geek of a boyfriend.

I naturally beat his ass
by throwing this piece of, ehr, hill, like a frisbee,
knocking down all of his figures
(that's how I roll)

The see-through shirt was used as
a distraction, of course

But wait a minute.


Where have you seen those eyes before?




Wait for it...

(Photo source: http://funwavs.com/movie/pictures/haley-joel-osment/)

We'll probably get kids who can see dead people.

Look at this stupid sweater.

I actually paid good money
for a sweater that's both see-through
'and' has a big built-in hole
in the back

Hey, it hangs in the store,
I'll buy it.
Obviously.

Then I met up with this crazy (cat-) lady on a Oslo-run to buy groceries at the Asian market shop;

my momma.

Just what I was looking for!

Out in the parking lot, immediately after securing the goods, we had ourselves a little picnic in the car

Eating Durian,
the fruit with the odor
that has been compared to
garbage, old vomit and suage
Mmm!

It takes an acquired taste,
but I've grown up with this fruit
and love it!

My mom really loves durian,
check her out,
gnawing at it for dear life
in the background

Mangosteen,
one of my favourite
Asian fruits

So sweet and juciy!

Our picnic came complete with a nice view:

Mom offering the peeing man a rambutan

Then we decided to move our picnic to a place with a drastic change of scenery:

The Norwegian king's castle in the background

It was freezing cold, the wind was blowing and we were the only crazy people having a picnic - particulary right in front of the castle, with all of the tourists huddling past us.

I love my mom.

She's so stubborn, often choosing to walk upstream, almost out of spite. "We've gotta think for ourselves, Keena, and do what's best for us - to hell with other people and what they might think".

If you think I'm crazy.

Well, I got it from somewhere.

Spicy salad
with shrimps, beetroot,
caroots and other stuff

Then, we walked past a bed of tulips and it was my mom's turn to shriek "hold it!" and grab for her fancy photo equipment, safely protected by her hi-so "camera bag":

God,
no matter where she goes
she looks like a tourist

Then we stumbled upon two girls smelling the red carpet outside McDonald's, or "planking", if you will.



They got embarassed when I started to take photos of them and asked if I was "taking photos for a magazine".



That's the difference between me and mom when taking photos. She looks like a tourist, I get asked if I take photos for a magazine.


High five!