Diary

As I have many English speaking friends and family I have decided to make this site both in Swedish and in English (phew…).
I’m rushing to get everything ready before we depart on Tuesday so I will not have time to proof read everything. I appreciate e-mails about language mistakes (I am a teacher and want to get it right you know).
Google translate will be my friend through this but the text is not always perfect. I will try to proof read/translate before publishing but I don’t know about how much time I have once in China.
I’m hoping to make updates every day from now and until we arrive back home again.
Enjoy!

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

The itinery

This is the idea of a plan.

Yellow can’t be changed
 

About us & the site

It’s me Pia Nyberg, who makes this site, writes most of the texts and photographs almost all images. These are my great interests although they have sometimes been set aside. I hope to develop this during my next parental leave. Otherwise, I am a sixth-form (high school) teacher of English and Swedish and I dream of combining this with having my own company as a web developer.

Patrik is not so interested in creating things on the computer, he chooses to chat on Facebook. In the daytime he is working in a bank. Banking is what he always has done and what he always wants to do. How easy it is to be a man… The only thing he could wish for more, from life would be to watch Zlatan live and also go fishing more in the summers.
Our Indian princess, Devika, turns four in November. She longs for her little brother and talks about it every day. She loves crafting, painting, dancing, singing, to play princess and to take care of her Cat which is her favorite cuddly toy.
You can read about our trip to India when we met Devika on this page (text only in Swedish).

Liu Qiuhan is our son who we’ll bring home from China in March 2011. He turns two in July. We know a few things about his background and we’ll keep this to ourselves for now.
In general about children in China: as it’s illegal to abond children i China, they are often left in the street nearby a police station or other authorites.
 
We live by the “balloon”.

About this site

Of course, I wanted to record the other of our two most important trips in our lives, as I did with the journey to Devika. This time I chose to not only start a blog but also making a more structured page with everything else. I got this opportunity to practice what I have studied in the spring of 2011, namely, CSS and PHP. This page will then have several purposes: to save memories for the future for us and Liu Qiuhan, to have something to practice my new skills on and last, but not least, for those of you who are interested in following us on our journey in words and pictures.
Other projects that I’m working on you can find on poden.se and pianyberg.se
 

Date: Wednesday 09 March 2011

Weather: Bright sunshine in snow landscape.

Place on earth: Kallax, Luleå, Sverige

Family situation: Missing one. 12 nights to go.

Packing & preparing

I’ve had big plans on my websites but I need to just be pleased with what I’ve done, can’t be a professional at once! Ok, here goes, first diary entry before the trip, the second “life-journey” of our lives. I start now to warm up a bit before the trip.
Feels so strange – and fantastic – to pack things, four tooth brushes instead of three…

 
Not only do I want to make perfect websites in five minutes, I also want to be a professional photographer in a second. Hm. Tough. Anyway, I keep trying out new things with my new camera. I simply love the external flash I have bought for my camera, the light gets so much better.

This is for a personalised memory game me and Devika have started to create, she chooses the objects for the cards. This is her beloved cuddly toy “The Cat”.
 

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Thursday 10 March 2011

Weather: Bright sunshine in snow landscape.

Place on earth: Kallax, Luleå, Sverige

Family situation: Missing one. 11 nights to go.

Making the nest

In order to fit new toys from China and make room for Devika’s old toddler’s toys, Devika was told to put away a bag or two of her things (and tidy up her room…). She was surprisingly happy about all this.

Now, let’s see what she REALLY says when she REALLY understands that she will have to share her things, for more than an hour or so.
 

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Friday 11 March 2011

Weather: Snowing and cloudy in the day. No snow and -3C at night.

Place on earth: Kallax, Luleå, Sverige

Family situation: Missing one. 10 nights to go.

Winter day and winter evening

I really hate winter, snow and cold (living in the wrong place?) and unfortunatly I have managed to make our daughter feel the same. Today when she saw the snow outside our winter she said:
– Mum, what if little bro’ doesn’t want to come with us as we have so much snow?
After discussing it, we decided to not tell little bro’ about the weather in northern Sweden.
We sure will enjoy 20C in the daytime and 16C in the night time when visiting Guangzhou!
Ok little bro’ this is what Devika does in March and for you to do too (16 sec):

And this is your home (36 sec):

While Devika stays at her grand dad and Gun-Marie tonight, me and Patrik went on a “thing” with his work tonight. It was a three course dinner in a Swedish wig wam (!) on the ice, the ice of the Baltic sea! Quite extra ordinary for me! When you needed the loo, you hade to go outside and ring a bell, then you could jump on the “WC-shuttle”. This was a snow mobile that took you to shore and there a house with a toilet. The most amazing thing was that when I got out from the tent, the sky was full of northern light and bright stars! Just fantastic! I didn’t bring my camera so here’s some photos from Brändö conference who organized the evening:

Wig wam on the Baltic Sea (without Northern light)

Inside the tent

We had to sing “joik” before we entered the tent. Joik is a traditional laplandic singing method and it’s strange but exotic. It goes like “yoooooo yaaaaaaalllllaaa lllaaa youuuuu lllaaa la la”. Or something like that.
Just found a joik on You tube and it looks very similar to what we experienced tonight.
Now, this was truly a special night for us, not a normal night. Normally we watch TV or chat on Facebook but well, I suppose you should get in touch with your culture at times.
 

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Saturday 12 March 2011

Weather: Bright sunshine in snowy landscape.

Place on earth: Kallax, Luleå, Sverige

Family situation: Missing one. 9 nights to go.

Stressed but happy

It’s been beautful weather today but to be honest, with all the travelling ahead, I felt that I just wanted to be indoors preparing things. We’re on schedule, but still, feel a bit stressed… only a few more days left!
Tonight we have watched the final of the Swedish “Song festival”. A TV-show that has been going on for some weeks, in order to send one person to Germany 14th of May to the big Eurovision song contest. Devika loves to dance during the programme, this is her pyjama-dance:

 
The winner, Eric Saade, will do well in Germany. There were some other good songs too actually, although I wasn’t keen at all in the beginning. Ok, little brother, this is what you will hear on the radio when you come home:

• Eric Saade
• Sanna Nielsen
• The Moniker
• Danny

 

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Saturday 13 March 2011

Weather: – 10 when we woke up, snow. Later bright sunshine!

Place on earth: Kallax, Luleå, Sverige

Family situation: Missing one. 8 nights to go.

Japan

It is absolutely terrible what happens in Japan, really. Dad asked me whether I was worried about our trip but I thought no, Japan is soooo far away.
Well, now with the possible vulcano outbreak on its way I checked the map a bit more thorough. Hm. Beijing is not that far from Japan in comparison with the distance Iceland was from Stockholm last autumn. The world is not that large after all…

 
Hm. Suddenly Japan feels close. Stockholm airport and other European airports was closed quite a bit when the ash cloud was about…

 
Anyways. Can’t do much about this, we’re going! I found some left over “Glögg” tonight that me and Devika shared. It’s like a hot drink with lots of Christmas-spices in (look for it at IKEA). This you need to drink together with gingerbread, which we did. Christmas is only 9 months and 11 days away so why not?

Eyelashes to die for…

 
Today my son, I have really missed you. My lap felt empty, I want you here. Now. At the same time it has felt as if I have sparkling water in my veins, am so excited, only 2 more nights to go before we leave…

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Monday 14 March 2011

Weather: No idea, too stressful to think about it

Place on earth: Kallax, Luleå, Sverige

Family situation: Missing one. 7 nights to go.

What a day of stress!

It started of quite well . Aimed to work on a website and a task in my course. Had trouble focusing, I was just so “itchy”. Or with Alison’s words “like a headless chicken”
Our organisation called to just check up on us and see if we had all the papers ready. All but one, the TA!!! Realised then that it was about 30 hours to go and no TA. Without TA, we can’t get into China. Stress… The thing was that I knew we had it, only that the post hadn’t delievered it yet.
TRIED hard to do something sensible until 3pm when the postman normally comes, but it was hard…. At 2.30 I thought I’d burst. 2.59 I started to call the Post HQ and six calls later I hade tracked down our Postman Pat. It turned out that he was new at work and really late… 4.30 he turns up, guess how I was feeling!

Finally, in my hands, THE documents

All our papers that we must bring to China. There he is…

After all this I started waiting on Patrik. At 6.20 I called him and guess what, he had smashed the car! AAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!! Luckily he was not injured apart from a bit swollen in his hand, due to the airbag. The car has to go (not a day too early…). Thank you and good bye dear Volvo!

It’s worse than it looks
actually

First airbag I have seen

What a day…
Have tried to relax now in the evening. Watching the news which is all about Japan and the nuclear accidents. Very calming…
Went on to make a memory-game instead, to surprise Devika with in a couple of days. The cards consists of things she knows from home. It also serves another purpose, to teach little bro’ some Swedish 🙂 Click here for cards in Word if you want to copy it (switch to photos of your “words” if you want, used pics sized 150px x 150px) or a PDF here. Not really a perfect template, but something.
As Patricia writes in her blog (who also will be travelling tomorrow), it’s so exciting for us but probably just another day for our son. We will be flying with the same plane as Patricia and family tomorrow. Not only do we go on an exciting trip to bring home our son, we also get to know lots of new people!
I really really miss little bro’ so much… it’s so wrong that we are so far apart. But
S O O N . . .
Thank you all for comments in the guestbook on e-mail and FB.

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Tuesday 15 March 2011

Weather: Bright sunshine

Place on earth: Kallax, Luleå, Sverige

Family situation: Missing one. 7 nights to go.

Departure day!

After a stressful yesterday, I woke up at 5.30. No point trying to have a lay in, too many thoughts in my head a day like this!
Almost everything is ready at home so I’m hoping to do a bit on my web course before we leave. Picking up Devika at 3pm at her kindergarden (which is 1 minute from here!). Leaving at 4pm for the airport (7 minutes away). Off to Stockholm at 16.55. From there to Copenhagen and from there to Beijing at 21.05. We’re hoping to meet the Riselius family somewhere along the flights. They’re bringing home their son from Guangzhou too but from a different children’s home.
We will land in Beijing at 13.05 (all times local of course). A guide will meet us at the airport and bring us to the hotel and then, tourist attractions (and shopping!), here we come!
Little bro’ when you arrive home, this is what yours and Devika’s playroom will look like:

Your sister is not that pleased that the presents are for you…

Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!! Exciting!!
IF IF IF China for some reason consider my domain as a riskful site, here is where I’ll be blogging instead. The text is unfortunately in Swedish but I know that this one works down there. You can always look at the pictures 🙂


PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

The flight

My hormones are going crazy, I get moved by nothing… find it hard to see boys and talk about children. But soon this will peak, only a few more days…
Learned today that our son is much larger than we thought, 82cm tall and 13kg. Tiny Devika is 92cm and 11kg!
Here’s some photos from the journey the past 24hrs.

The three of us

 
When we were going on our third plane, from Copenhagen to Beijing, we met with the Riselius family who are too bringing home a son from Guangzhou.


Princess Alma-Li Riselius on the plane

The cheese is called “lillebror” which is little brother in Swedish 🙂

After a night on the plane with little sleep we landed safely in Beijing. Large and nice airport!
The Riselius family will go to Shanghai now so we said so long at the airport.

See you again in Guangzhou!

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Wednesday 16 March 2011

Weather: 7C accorging to the pilot, 14 according to the guide

Place on earth: Beijing, China

Family situation: Missing one. 5 nights to go.

Arriving in Beijing

The guide Lili met with us at the airport and took us to the hotel, about 1h in the car from the airport.

Nice hotel – on the inside

The room, not tidy for long with us around

………………………………….

Jet legged we grabbed a cab and went to Wallmart. Once there we were starving so…

… we bought some Sushi…

… that we ate outside. Very sophisticated!

Bought lots of sugery snacks (bad idea!), some toys for Qiuhan and a stroller.

Inside the shop

Home with sugar…
Wish we had bought some decent food as Devika woke us up at 23 and here we are, wide awake, at least she is…
Off to bed and read something about the Wall which is where we are going tomorrow.
Being egoistic: wishing and praying that the winds won’t blow from Japan to here…

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Thursday 17th March 2011

Weather: Sunny, 14 according to the guide

Place on earth: Beijing, China

Family situation: Missing one. 4 nights to go.

Outing: The Great Wall

Will do the short version in English with mainly pictures. Gosh it takes time bloging and I still feel there is more to say!
Went to the Great Wall at Badling. The driver took us very close to the cable car which was perfect.

Us three

Wow… over 3000km wall!

Patrik the lazy bugger didn’t make it to the top but I did 🙂

Found snow at the top in a cellar

Some parts are so steep!

Chinese guys wanting to be with Patrik

The girls’ parents wanted them to be with Devika

Diddi on a camel for 10 seconds and 20RMB

Stopped at a Jade factory on the way there. Got this things, one ball each for the children. The ball symbolizes family so this was a perfect souvenir for this trip!

Suitable for our wallet.

For other people with different purse: apx. 300,000RMB

A little cheaper, apx. 70,000RMB or was it 700,000?

Stopped for lunch at a place where they made and sold very nice enamelware.
An art from the 15th Century and Beijing.

Teapot for me and the rest for the kids🙂

Before the hotel we stopped off at where they held the Olympic Games in 2008.

Dragon hotel = 7 stars (!)

The thing itself.

Another arena built for the Asian Games 1999.

The guide booked me in for a massage in our room! 1,5 hr for 220RMB.

Hotel massage

When I had the massage, P & D went to the pool.

Compulsary swimming hats in China

It’s 1 in the morning and I MUST sleep now! The Summer Palace tomorrow and other things…
 

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Thursday 18th March 2011

Weather: Cloudy, don’t know temperature

Place on earth: Beijing, China

Family situation: Missing one. 3 nights to go.

Outing: The Summer Palace

Got two Gucchi-watches for 40RMB on the way to the palace. As long as they last the trip in China I’m ok 🙂

Haha, Gucchi!

The Summer Palace is truly amazing. How poweful the emperors have been… The lake is man made during 800 years. The “mountain” behind us is the mud from the lake.

On the top of the “mountain” youcan see the where the emperor lived. Or the “princess” as we said to make it more exciting for Devika.

Devika was not in a good mood this morning. I tried to be funny and feed the toy Panda. Fell to the ground…

Lili has just save Devika and I’m trying to pull myself together

 
Moving back to the palace. There are miles of corridors with hand painted ceilings. This was made in order for the emperor to be able to walk around without catching any rain.

The high threshold protected the emperor for the devil

The emperor’s boat made of marble

The grass is soon green here! Saw peach flowers too today, wonderful!

Went to a place where they sold real silk. Lovely things all of it! Next time we’ll buy quilts and sheets for 2400RMB but this time we bought some traditional clothes for Qiuhan and some bits and pieces.

Devika is slowly getting used to all the attention she gets

Devika choose pizza for dinner tonight. Had to go in a cab 10 minutes and the fare was 13RMB one way.

“Wow, a pink house” Devika said about the shopping centre

Went to “Big pizza” and it was ok. Something strange about the cabs, they often refuse to take us when they see the address of the hotel. The guide said it might be because they soon finish and don’t want to go the wrong way. But 6 drivers? And at all hours of the day we have experienced this.
Started blogging 2 hours ago, been interupted by my darling who too woke up. Had to shorten the English text again but well, you see the photos anyway. Now it’s 6.30 and I’ll try to catch an hour’s sleep before breakfast.

”I put the crown on dad to make him relax”, Devika tells me. And oh yes, he certainly did! Sleeps like a log 🙂

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Saturday 19th March 2011

Weather: Cloudy, don’t know temperature

Place on earth: Beijing, China

Family situation: Missing one. 2 nights to go.

Outing: Huton, tea-house, Pearl Market

Today our guide was off duty but somehow we managed to book her to go and visit the hutons and there a family who lives there, followed by a teahouse and the Pearl market.

Going with Rikshas

Our Riksha peddler, interesting face

Hutons

Inside one of the hutons visiting a family

Rich people’s hutons, you can tell by colour, statues and that the stairs are higher, all symbols of money/power.

Girl teaching us how to make traditional Chinese tea

Got to go to bed now as we are leaving for Guangzhou in the morning but here’s some photos. My computer/camera has beeen playing up so this tiny blog took me 2 hours 🙁
We learned about the Pearl market that it’s not as cheap as it used to be only a few years ago plus everything they sell is the real McCoy, the get heavy fines if they sell fake this days. Ended up buying some jackets of a good Swedish brand and some bits and pieces. I think Patrik is satisfied with the shopping until we go home but me, I look forward to Guangzhou which is said to be cheaper…
AND to see our son on Monday, unbelievable!
Oh, tonight we finally we met with Alison and her family! Really great! We “met” through the Yahoo-list and we are getting a child each on Monday from the same orphanage. No pics though, l brought a camera I bought from the market – with flat batteries…

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.

Date: Sunday 2oth March 2011

Weather: Cloudy, 22C?, humid air

Place on earth: Guangzhou, China

Family situation: Missing one. 1 night to go.

National flight

Left Beijing this morning, the city I have quickly come to like although I hardly know it at all.

Major sugar snack at gate, Devika chose a box with 5 cakes…

Am currently writing from southern China, the 4th or 5th largest city with about 11 million people: Guangzhou, previously called Kanton.
We’re staying at an island called Shamian Island which during long peiods of time has been occupied by Europeans. At times, chinese people wasn’t allowed there at all. The architecture is influenced by Europe.

Our hotel Victory, photo taken from land

The hotel feels luxorius in the loby but the room is quite worn down. Ok thoug, friendly staff. They and the few people we met so far seem to speak a lot more English than in Beijing.
Saw about five wedding couples having their photos taken. Apparently today is a good day in the ”lunar-calender” to get married on. Devika thought they were princesses and were very happy to see them…

So beautiful, so young…

Found a great restaurant, ”The Orient Express”,with good food and service (based to the right from Victory). I felt as if we were in a film I expected people like Michael Palin or Humphrey Bogart to enter and smoke a cigar. The photos don’t do it justice but anyway:

Lovely palms outside – I LOVE SUMMER!!!

Within 24hrs: dad of two…

Big sis Monday 21st of March 2011

The last calm supper for me?

 
After dinner we went across the river and the”Apothecary market”. The market itself had just closed but some shops were still open. It thought they sold snacks for dogs but now I actually think it was for humans. Traditional medicine?

På håll: hundmat

Closer look: Snakes, seahorses and god knows what else!

 
Devika wanted to “be a baby” tonight. Kind of last chance. We did the work: feeding, gruel and nursing her. I wonder what she will be like with Qiuhan…

It’s been hard putting Devika to sleep. But now finally, 10pm…
Lots of thoughts in my mind but I feel surprisingly calm. Tomorrow we’ll be the family that we want it to be… feel so happy!
But… what shall we call him!!?!??! still haven’t decided!

• Kasper?
• Max?
• Maximilian?
• Oscar?
• Alexander?
• Zacharias?

Ok, here goes, it’s so close now, this is our boy, photo taken 2,5 months ago:

Ours… in a few hours…

Now: bed… so it will be morning… At 4.30 pm we will be a family of four! That’s 3.30 GMT.
Ah, one last thing! Saw this ad for Coca-cola in China. It probably says something typical for Coke but what stroke me was that they gather round the popular Chinses Hot-pot 🙂

PS. You cannot comment on each blog entry as I haven’t added that function (have no idea on how to!). I would love tons of comments in our guest book however.