THE STORY ABOUT THE SUMMER PALACE IN BEIJING

Once upon a time in China, 

two Swedes were on a tourist trail,

searching for the not-at-all-hidden treasures 

and ended up in the Summer Palace in 

BEIJING

What waited them was not lurging mystery 

or etheral fog tucking the grounds in 

with acients stories, 

no, 

because the two Swedes had been out for quite a long time now

and were frankly quite tired of old buildings 

so they did what they do best

and strolled and strolled and strolled 

and took staged photos and ignored the signs in broken English 

and ate one or two really disgusting hotdogs

(seriously China, what do you put in those?!?)

and the day was not perfect 

or forever memorable, 

but quite nice and comfortable 

and visually pleasant 

and that is certainly good enough

15 THINGS WE LEARNED IN THE TRAVELING YEAR OF 2016

When we decided not to start university right away, we knew we still had a lot of knowledge coming our way. In the three years that has passed since school, we've learned more about ourselves and the world we live in that we could have in any geography lesson or therapy session.

We made a few discoveries and even more mistakes, and when we sat down to summarize this year, it was quite clear which bigger, and smaller, things that impacted most on us.

And now we want to share this with you, good people that we are, so you don't need to do quite as many mistakes as we did this year, but also to give you a shortcut on amazing things that you can learn about your own abilities while traveling.

Read and be aghast. Or amazed. And leave a comment in the section below.

ON THE TOP OF TIANMEN MOUNTAIN, CHINA

Our problem is our ambitions being too high sometimes.
For this post we originally wanted to do a whole guide with prices, tips, maps for this day of ours on Tianmen mountain  - Tianmen means heaven in Chinese - in Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province in China.

But then time goes so so fast and editing photos is a betch and we were back in Sweden again, back to 9-5 and laundry times and trying to keep floating. And our fenomenal advice and anekdotes from the day were left in the fog on the hill tops.

But you know what? We have to remind ourselves that Something... not quite what we had in mind is still better than Nothing at all.
So here it goes. This are our best pictures from the day when we knocked on heaven's door.

LISEBERG - SCANDINAVIA'S BIGGEST AMUSEMENT PARK: Day 1

This summer, we've been fortunate enough to spend two picture perfect days in Liseberg, one of Sweden's biggest tourist attractions (for a good reason? we'll see...) which also, coincidentaly, happens to be where we both work.

In Gothenburg, almost every kid is crazy about Liseberg. It's the place you go with your friends on your first outing by yourself at thirteen, and it's the place to bring your first date at sixteen. In our childhood, one of the highlights of oth summer and winter was to go crazy on rollercoasters for a whole day, or stroll around and taste as many types of candy as possible in the cozy christmas market.

One might think that when you go to an amusement park every day all summer, it's not that amusing anymore, and in the beguinning of this summer, we were ready to agree. But working in happyland also has its perks - free tickets for us and our friends. So we decided on reliving our childhood utopia and do a real thing of it this year; tourpasses for everyone, tons of ice cream and a positive attiude even though the tolerance for turning upside down seven times in a row had drastically decreased since our youth.

And you know what?
It was as perfect as it could be.

TRAVELING THOUGHTS: ABOUT OWNING THINGS

I, Felicia, just came home from a month-long trip to North America and upon entering my room in dads appartment, I just felt like crying - not because that I hated to be home, or that I missed my overseas family (well, not only), but because the room looked like a bomb of things had exploaded inside of it.

There were things on the chair, things on the windowsill, things in heaps in the corner, and even if Jonathan had done a terrific job cleaning the floor, the room felt more like a storage unit than a place were we actually spend our life.

Have I always owned so many things, 

so much clothes? 

Do I need all of these things, like, really? 

Well, I knew the answer to the last question right away. There I stood, with all things I'd needed in four weeks, in just one suitcase. Of course I didn't needed any of the others things for my survival, but there in the doorway I suddenly realized I didn't needed any of it for my happiness either.

A perfect example of things you don't need but is oh so tempting to buy anyway. Pictures from our post on Baefong Lake in Zhangjiajie, China

BEST PICTURES FROM OUR TRIP TO NORTH AMERICA

A fantastic month, with all its ups and downs, has come and gone, leaving us with nothing but our memories. 

...And of course a harddrive overloaded with pictures. 

For those of you who doesn't have energy to read all the text, here's the story of our trip, told in photos.

TOBOGAN AND ZIPLINING IN HALLAND

So we went south in the most wonderful way possible - we went to visit Felicia's aunt in the tiny community Kvidinge in Skåne. Tagging along were also Felicia's sister Julia, 19 yo, and her brother Victor, 15 yo.

Coming from a somewhat stressful, modern city like Gothenburg, going to Skåne makes it feels like you're going back in time, or that the time has stopped. All three of the Axelssons have always visited Skåne during summers and family bithdays, so that might be a reason for the nostalgiac feeling.
Last year, we invited Jonathan to this tradition and soon it became a must even for him.

When arriving at aunt Cina's idyllic house that is pretty much equipped with everything you'll ever need in a Swedish summer, like an outdoors hot tub, a strawberry garden, a glassed-in porch, it was hard imagining finding a reason for even leaving the grounds.

Luckily, Cina is a master at finding things to do and we left for Kungsbygget, a ski slope that turns in to a tobogan/zipline in the summer.

FENGHUANG - AN ANCIENT EXPERIENCE?

In the middle of Hunan Province in the middle of China, there is a whole town that is UNESCO-marked for being the same all these years, I think it is over 400 or so. When planning the trip at home, this seemed like a wonderful little adventure out of our usual comfort zones with beautiful scenery and the authentic chinese feeling we feared we weren't going to experience in Beijing and bigger cities.

STREET ART OF GOTHENBURG

In the last couple of years, we've enjoyed street art around the world as a highlight of our trip. Just take Lennon Wall in Prague or the mosaic wall in Hanoi as an example. So when we started to explore our own city, we started seeing street art everywhere.

Why not photopraph it then, we figured, and off we went.

CAFÉ REVIEW: ORANGE n BLK

ORANGE N BLK 

We stumbeled upon this newly-opened gem while walking around in inner city photographing street art.

 Here's our thought, pictures and stupid comments.

GOTHENBURGS BREAKFASTS: Kafé Vanilj Review

We love to eat big breakfast here in Sweden, at least according to Ula in the 2005 major-failiure movie The Producers. One of our favorite things to do in our apartment is to have long morning-breakfasts scrolling around on our computers, making the morning proceed for longer than lunchtime.

The most important part of these morning are each others company hah no. It's of course coffee. Sitting with a cup of coffee playing the Sims 2 while Jonathan is looking at Yogcast playing Civilisation (a.k.a perfect nerd-morning) is plain heaven.

But sometimes we socialize - no, really, it's true. And this morning I decided to take heaven outside of our home and into the city. I met up with Ida for trying out Kafe Vanilj's hotel breakfast.

THE GREAT WALL - BADALING SECTION

The last day of many many on the road, we decided to do something... quite memorable. Let's go to the Great Wall to finish this 8 weeks of in glory, we said to each other and scrolled the internet for a good last-minute-tour.

GORGEOUS GOTHENBURG: TÅNGUDDEN

Trying to convince ourselves that the beauty in the world is not limited to unfamiliar contries, we went on a stroll down Tångudden and Nya Varvet as tourists in our home town.

FAIRYTALEIC FRANKFÜRT IN PICTURES

Before finally arriving on familiar soil again, we had one last stop. Initually, I had planned on spending our 12 hours in Frankfürt the same way I'd so many times before: walk the streets of this narrow airport from one side to another until I found pretzels. But I've been blessed with an intelligent boyfriend who thought to seize the opportunity to see some Germany, and off we went.

It was a beautiful day, sunny, with a clear blue fairytale sky to match the wooden houses straight out of Hans and Gretel. We were not prepared for european weather though - exiting Haupfbanhof station 9 o'clock caused for some shivering in the cold air. But soon enough the warmth of midday struck upon us and we continued strolling with content.

BEAUTIFUL BAOFENG LAKE

WHAT: 
A boat ride on scenic lake in luscious colors.

36 HOURS IN CHANGSHA - A FIRST IMPRESSION OF CHINA

Our moving hearts have led us to the last part of our trip; China.

Arriving in Guangzhou airport yesterday for a six-hour stop-over, we started to realize just what kind of advenure we were up against. On the airport, everyone spoke English, if somewhat bad at times. That's okay, we are not perfect either. We took a cappucino/double espresso at the airport that costed us more than vi spend on food on a day in Thailand, but except that, all was right with the world. We were given the bill immediatly after ordering, which was strange for us, but we just laughed, said "I guess we're in China now".

MALAYSIA: KUALA LUMPUR IN PICTURES

4 days in Kuala Lumpur, 

twelve million pictures of the towers 

and a lot of running away from monkeys. 

TALES OF ASIA: Handeling the chaos that is Ha Noi

ON THE 6TH OF APRIL, WE ARRIVED IN VIETNAM.

It was way too soon to say goodbye to Kuala Lumpur, but when you are stupid and listen to people telling you not to spend a week there, you get what you deserve, I guess.


At first glance (on Wikitravel), Hanoi was frightening. The storys there about taxidrivers taking you to the wrong place and threatening to beat you up were endless, and standing outside the airport with little to no knowledge about the country, we started to wonder what the frick we had gotten ourselves in to.

LIVIN THE SUITE LIFE IN KUALA LUMPUR

Oh ramen. You come in to my heart, my mind and most importantly my belly and there you found your permanent place. I will always cherish and care for you. Until I find something else Malaysia is wickedly talented at making. Then I will probably have an affair with that as well. But don't worry. I will always love you. 

One might wonder why I'm talking to my food. First, it's because I'm a nutcase. But secondly, it's also because it was the first thing I ate that didn't made me want to throw up.


We arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) yesterday, exhausted after 11 days in misery.

ART IN PARADISE BANGKOK

WHAT: 
An art museum where profile pictures are created, silly poses are striked and a few hours easily fly by.