A SMALL LECTURE IN BERLIN CULTURE feat Adrian Kreipe

In one blurry Hoi An night, Claudia and I happened upon this German guy, who was first only known as German guy. Little did we know by that time in the pre-gaming bar with all of the drinks that we should later encounter German guy several times before leaving Hoi An, and in one of these glorious rendez-vous frozen in time, German guy told me about Karneval der Kulturen.

Very good night, I think...

Frankly do not remember many details. 

Photos by @claudianguyenthe

By then, I had learned how to pronounce his name the german way [Adrian = aht-ree-ann] and since we were good enough friends to invite him over to our homestay's porch, I thought we were good enough friends to set up a meeting in Berlin two months later.

Genderswaping done right

Photo by @claudianguyenthe

We also had a very nice photoshoot. A

drian turned out to be a perfect prop slash pouty model

My original plan was to go see my aunt anyway so would he chicken out or suddenly realize I was a weirdo, I would still be fine exploring Berlin on my own.
On the afternoon on the day of the festival I jumped of S-bahn at Fredrichstrasse and found a familiar face waiting for me. Two things happended literally immediately: we started talking, and we started drinking.
"As long as you are not actually on the tram, you can drink everywhere." Adrian said when he saw me sceptical face. "Welcome to Berlin!"

This is just one of many things I got to encounter with the following days...
Scroll on down to see the whole list of

BERLIN CULTURE 
QUIRKS AND PERKS

! WARNING TO SENSITIVE READERS !

(MEANING: MUM): 

I will seem like I drank a lot this trip, 

(...which I kind of did...)

but I am an adult and I was in Berlin, 

so I had to embrace the culture. 

SPONTANIOUS STREET PARTY // ABOUT GOODBYES

I have a plane ticket to Europe in eight days and no clue wheather or not I should use it.

A lot has happened with me the last couple of days. I've gone through so many emotions I've stopped hold on tightly in all the turns and just started let life throw me in whatever direction it pleases.

...Okay so that's not really true. I tried like a mad man to take the wheel again but it is hard when there are so much dragging me into different paths.

I've said goodbye to two of the nicest guys I've ever met. I didn't realize before then the road gives and the road takes. I thought I'd found some kind of paradise without any consekvenses.
Oh how young I was only days ago.
I'm currently in a state of trying to accept that life is like this at times. You win some and yes, you also lose some.
This text is so overflowing with clicheés now I think I filled the quota for a lifetime.

WHEN LIFE IS COTTON CANDY COLORED

We sing too loud from the public showers, too loud and completely out of tone.
We run around in our underwear, make childish sexual jokes and throw chips at each other.
We are ten and have our own treetop house, we are fourteen and sleeping in bunkbeds in the summercamp. We are Swedish camp, devided two and two in the daytime, we make time fly like kites in the sky.

WHY K-POP WASN'T ENOUGH

Life is food. Food is life.
Seriously, I kind of knew this prior to Vietnam, or I thought I did.

Then, silantro entered. Coriander. Lemon grass. Banh Mi. Pho Bo. Fresh spring rolls. Che. Anything dipped in fish sause.

Ca Phe Den. Ca Phe Saigon. Ca Phe Trung. Ca Phe Sua.

These magic words are 'Open Sesame' to a world of never-seen-before flavour experiences.

But unfortunately, talking more about food would require some kind of pictures to keep you from finding a better blog to read, and I have just been way to eager to eat the lovelies in front of me to give in to the Instagram generation-way of thinking.

So instead this post will be about... Well, you'll just have to scroll on to find out.

SLEEPLESS IN HUE

They hate us. We can feel it as they Tetris  around the backpacks to make room for our huge suitcases. We fidget in false embarrassment, because after all we are Swedish and we are raised never to make a fuzz, but really, no annoyed faces could ever make us go back to backpacks.  We've both tried the backbound traveling already and do not miss the odeur that bag could produce after a few weeks, nor the impossibility to keep a structure or find that specific piece of clothing. 

Hue has been a sleepy stopover, although I still have a hard time falling asleep sometimes. 

After rushing Hanoi, we've slowed down to recaps and find some kind of second wind. 

THE STORY ABOUT THE VISA, THE ANGRY MAN AND THE SECRET PLACE

Oh, the aliveness of Ha Noi. It strucks me with surprise every time, every day. There are scooters honking and cars driving and women in hats selling fruit and dogs sleeping on the dusty pavements. And yet, with all this aliveness, I find my inner calm here.
"It's weird." I told Claudia yesterday as she licked on her forth ice cream for the day, "that I've only been here once and yet, somehow I feel at home. Ha Noi is home in a strange way I can't explain."

We talked about nyckelböcker the other day, a Swedish word meaning books that is really written about a real person but the names has been changed, but the direct translation is "keybook". A famous podcaster had got it all wrong and thought it meant books that really captures the essence of ones soul, and now, he described in one episode, he felt like he missed the word that he once used as "keybook", as he had applied "key-" to many other things that he thought described him perfectly.

Ha Noi might be the keycity for me.
It's so vivid, so alive, it's talkative and cheerful but yet, there is this island-vibe slowing down our steps and makes us stop and smell the flowers (slash, the smell of loveliness from the endless amazing food stalls).

Yes, the pace is slow but the options eternal. The other night we were out partying and bumped in to... well, probably everyone who was out partying in the whole city, but mostly we hung out with these two guys from London, one of which had already stayed in Ha Noi for 10 days and had no plans on leaving. I totally related. Claudia keeps asking when I want to leave the city, of course, but I have no answer.

LIKE, - EVERYTHING! - WE DID IN SEOUL (In Pictures)

Tomorrow, it has been 8 weeks. If not 8 weeks was a long time in itself, I am also approching a milestone: In the next couple of days, I'm breaking the record for the

Longest Time I've Been Away From Home.

Maybe that's what's haunting me, subconscious thoughts about if things will be different, harder, now, when home is further away time-wise?
I've had trouble sleeping since Shanghai, been up some nights crying and tossing and turning. The other night I simply laid on the floor because I was sick and tired of pacing back and forth in the bed. I actually fell asleep there.

I miss home. I miss wine with friends on Andra Lång and morning coffee, Swedish brewed, in dad's apartment in Majorna. I miss not having to 'make-the-best-of-every-day', because I see it like this: sleeping late and doing nothing is something I can do at home, so I better see as much as possible while here. I have a habit of wanting to return everywhere just to collect the sights I missed, but this time I want to be done. I don't know when or if I'll have a new shot at going to Asia anytime soon, and it's just plain stupid not to suck in every moment.

There we were again. Making the best of the time. And of course you should. But when not sleeping and not having time enough to write, I simply don't feel as motivated at exploring as I want to feel.

Still, we have pushed. We have done stuff here I Korea, believe you me. I even present a LIST of things we've yet done here.

BEST OF HONG KONG

Life has been a fastforward-sequence from a romcom these last couple of days. I can't even remember the last time I put up the computer. Thailand? May be. You simply have no time for editing and writing when the scene around you is a technicolour festival.

It's now about two weeks ago we left Thailand to go to Hong Kong. Since then, we haven't had one single island-style day, which might not be so odd since we've entered East Asia, the buzzling euphony of colours, flavours and feasts for every sense.

Our time in Hong Kong has been fast-flying, exciting, wuthering and fantastic. Being such an expesive vacation-place, my wallet is glad we did not stay longer, but my heart sure is crying.

DYING IN SELF-PITY/ FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF KOREA

This day has been a real pain in the butt. I woke up feeling shittier than ever before and I had a really hard time moving. I was afraid I was going to either faint or puke if I moved too quickly and in the back of my head somebody had detonated a bomb. My nose was running, my throat both sore and filled with... Something disgusting and I couldn't breathe, which is really the trigger for Bitchmode-activate

Oh, and I also lost my voice so Julia is thrilled not having to listen to my jabbering. Yay for her yes we are all very thrilled for her sake.

17 DAYS IN THAILAND: Budget and saving-tips

This post is an extract from the whole Asia budget which I continuously update. 

You can find the original post 

- HERE -

Oh Thailand. You blow my mind every time. How you can be so gentle, so open, so warmhearted and still so breathtakingly beautiful and unbelievably inexpensive.

In this post I counted for EVERYTHING, everything, we bought and ate and paid for our 17 days here and put it in to neat piles so you guys easily can track and get a picture of how much your own trip would cost.

I mean, everyone doesn't have a spare account solely for coffee..

In the end of the post there is a list of extra tips to make your trip even more affordable!

I'd be happy to hear your thoughts after reading.

Kisses!