The Pug Life

It goes without saying that the highlight of a week-long February trip to Sweden relied largely on the friends I was visiting. But this somewhat underscores the significance of pugs.

It's a long story. To make it shorter, Clare's love of the pug parallels my love of the sausage dog. And when we were in China, she had a pug waiting for her back home in the UK. Paddy, the grumpy black pug, was later joined by Noah, the humpy happy pug. It was perhaps an emotional plea by Clare's parents to get her back in the same continent. It eventually worked.

So meeting the pugs felt epic.

Even if they were not keen to have their pictures taken, we all spent a cozy night in cooking and laughing and talking at Clare's gorgeous little studio flat. And for a moment, balance was restored.

Like I said, long distance friendships has its highs and lows. For a week, I got the highs.

Gothenburg

Gemma and I bid a temporary farewell to Clare and Malmo in order to head up the coast to the city of Gothenburg, Swedens' second city. Because Scandinavia, trains were frequent and quick. Three point five hours later, we arrived, eventually making our way across the Gota River, which feeds into an arm of the North Sea. Trade's the thing in this city and ships, cargo cranes and docks dotted the waterway. Frequent daylight- only ferry boats take pedestrians across the water for free and one happened to be right outside our hotel. 

Our hotel also boasted a series of rooftop views and hot tubs, both in and out of doors. Pretty stunning place to perch overall:

The weather was cold but not bitterly so and so we wandered to see the excitement of Gothenberg's various areas. I mean, excitement was muted but took the form of book shops, craft shops and odd statues including one very unimpressed man:

As we wandered, the city seemed to be moving between work and fika and home. And so made our way to the Haga district of town, home to what we hoped would become The Ultimate Fika. As we searched, items of coziness found us:

And given more sun/warm weather/sunshine, I reckon the cobbled pavement would be lined with pets, people and their paraphernalia.  

        

The perk of shortened daylight hours seemed to be the onset of happy hour. We'd been recommended Gothenburg's local Steampunk Bar, called, in fact, Steampunk Bar. We were not disappointed. From the decor, to the friendly multilingual hipster bartenders, to the tragically hip 500-gins gin menu, we spent several hours nattering away.

 

 I mean, it wasn't cheap. Or remotely cheap. But dry ice in your cocktail is good medicine. And so, several gins in, we stumbled slowly home, trying to navigate where to buy bus tickets and not quite succeeding. But no one stopped us and so we enjoyed a free ride back to our little hotel perch.

Malmo

The Copenhagen morning after the night before, we stumbled, only slightly hungoverly, sans map, from one small city to another. Fortunately, trains work efficiently in Scandinavia and Malmo is roughly the size of a postage stamp; the old town lies almost directly in front of the train station. It's charming and laden with history, despite its petiteness.

Our hotel boasted an excellent breakfast and endless coverage of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Sweden does quite well in various snowy events so they cover all their bases. Over the course of the week, Gemma, Clare and I discovered the finer points of training to be an Olympic: curler, two-man skeleton rider, ski jumper. All quite technical and somewhat terrifying.

This perhaps underscores the winter Swedish mindset. There's a lot of inward turning and the streets seemed relatively empty. But people were also at work, at school during the day. Post-these hours, the cafes were filled to the rafters. We learned the fine art of Fika, a comment reserved for its own blog entry itself.

The pictures may not indicate this but Malmo also has a thriving food culture. From tacos to tapas, people like to indulge in some finer dining. It comes at a price and in this way, Sweden lived up to the reputation.

 

 And every way we turned, we were greeted with a quiet beauty. And clear air, blue skies, the total opposite of China, the last environment Clare, Gemma and I found ourselves in at the same time. We took Paddy and Noah, Clare's pugs, for a wander down by her:

 

 

 Passing the 'Twisting Torso' a low high-rise forming a part of the distant Malmo skyline:

 In one of the more commercial parts of the city, we found other charms:

  Including a vibrant art scene:

 Some old-world beauty:

 And a lady with a pigeon on her head:

I won't lie, Malmo's a bit sleepy for my liking. But I get why people like it here. And, at least for the moment, Clare is happy here. It's Shanghai's inverse with better pastries and better coffee.

Copenhagen Reunions

Sometimes the delights of a good city take a back seat to the delights of seeing great friends you maintain a relationship with via WeChat. As such, I stepped off the plane in Copenhagen and into two sets of squealing arms for the February half term break. There was jumping and hugging and dancing in a circle.

Later, there were cupcakes and sparkling wine, served to us by an American expat who'd grown up in Romeo, Michigan. Small world indeed. I think she squealed when she got to the bottom of the 'where are you from' question.

Copenhagen's weather didn't exactly play nice but we didn't mind. From lunch, to a brief wander to walk off Gemma's Ho Chi Minh to Frankfurt to Copenhagen jetlag, to our hotel's 'Honesty Bar', we set the world to rights in the way that only true friends can.

 

Too many gin and tonics and a pizza ordered directly to our hotel lobby later, Clare threw in the towel and returned to Sweden, a feat that sounds much more exotic than the actual 20-minute train ride it is. Gemma and I retreated to a room with ample heating, donning hoodies and big socks, and tucked ourselves into a pair of single beds. Because friendship is a warm pair of fuzzy socks.

 I love my people. Even if I only get to see them once in a blue moon.

Backdating Mania

In the event that anyone is still out there, I've spent the majority of the Christmas holiday backdating the blog. From summer 2016 I've updated Malaysia, Borneo and Japan. From Chinese New Year 2016, look to Australia. And since I'm way procrastinatey, look to Sri Lanka from Summer 2015 and Korea from October of the same year.

More to come as the Christmas break wanes.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year too; may 2018 be your (and my) best year of travel yet! 

NYC: Embracing our Inner Tourists

For brief spates of time each day, we threw caution to the wind and went full tourist. We visited Macy's Santaland (but did not stay to see Santa). 

 We had coffee near Times Square.

We booked ourselves a matinee performance to see the Radio City Rockettes. I can confirm that there were legs for miles. Miles. But the show was a real feel good.

We hung out in Rockefeller Center and took pictures in front of the NBC Studio window, the one where they film The Today Show.

And we decided to book ourselves on the NBC Studio tour. As far as tourist things to do in New York, the studio tour is one I'd recommend wholeheartedly. I'm not a big SNL watcher but the inner workings of a TV studio are pretty fascinating. 

You're not allowed to take pictures during the tour itself but we got to see where the Nightly News is read, where Saturday Night Live is filmed, where Emmy Award winning sound technicians work. Our final moment on the tour itself involved doing a 'live' broadcast for the upcoming Winter Olympics. We were in front of the Green Screen, using the microphones, doing the voice overs. For lack of a better word, it was fun!

And so. We left New York with a million things still to see. We only scratched the surface of the museums; we only had one D'Agostino salad; we didn't make it into the New York Public Library. So we've put it all on our to-do list for next time. We will be back and this time, we won't wait so long. 

New York's Green Spaces

Perhaps New York's best worst kept secret, the High Line didn't exist when I lived in Manhattan. The concept was simple enough: convert disused railway lines and viaducts into an elevated park. Cities like Paris have done just that. And so in 2005, the idea was sprung; in June 2009, the first section of the park was opened. 

We picked up the trail at its start, just three blocks south of my old school at 14th Street and Gansevoort Street. The path winds its way around buildings, apartment blocks and above lanes of traffic up to 34th Street. This idea charmed Paul immensely. He loves a cityscape and he loves a green space. The High Line does both immense justice. 

We caught glimpses of graffiti.

Communist flags and art:

And fancy touches to remind you that you're in the greatest city in the world.

Buildings loomed up ahead:

And the river opened up to the West. Magnificent.

Central ParkThe city's other big open space loomed large in Paul's imagination too. Because the weather was so good, we took several strolls through various parts of the park. In a final jaunt, we tried to find the ice rink made famous by lots of films. This proved more difficult than we expected but we were greeted with more blue sky views:

Weather earlier in the week wasn't nearly as sunny but that didn't stop us from seeing: a Castle!

On the Upper East Side, we made our way past the Boat Basin, a place I used to sail remote control sailboats in the sunshine. Although the boats were packed up for the season, we took moments to enjoy the many statues that celebrate all things literary.

In the lower part of Central Park, we took our time to enjoy the many buskers singing and dancing their way through the park. Paul doesn't particularly appreciate the sublime beauty of our world travels but every time I caught him looking up, he had that look of confused joy on his face. How could this place be real? How could he have never been here before? 

And not that I needed to be reminded to stop and appreciate my surroundings, but seeing this place through Paul's eyes made you appreciate it that little bit more. This is where I fell in love with city living. How could I ever forget it?