Year: 2007

The flight back to Sweden from Munich was great. The weather was beautiful all the way up to Stockholm. I love sitting by the window on a clear day looking down on the countries we pass. It is like looking at a map but better and I love maps. It is fascinating to look at the small villages and how they are connected, the colour of the fields and by looking at buildings and how the cities are constructed you can see where the center of town is. This time we passed Berlin, Bornholm, Blekinge, we saw Öland and Gotland and I got the best view of the center of Stockholm. I could even see the building I live in. As we were passing the sea between Germany and Sweden I was looking at the boats and how the waves were progressing through the water and how the waves from several boats were interacting. This was one of the best flights I can remember.

It always surprises me when I realize that people actually know something about Sweden, we are after all a pretty small country. First thing that happened when I got off the plane at Incheon, Seoul was that I met an interesting immigration officer.
– “You Spanish?” he asked me.
– “No, Swedish.” It’s only there with big letters on my passport…
– “Ah, oh, Sweden. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I love Sweden!” Ok, he made a mistake but he doesn’t have to pretend to love Sweden just because of that.
– “Lasse Hallstrom!” (Famous Swedish movie director)
– “Oh, you know Lasse Hallström?!”
– “Yes, favourite director, great movies! Ciderhouse rules, Chocolat…”
– “Yes, I liked them too.”
By now he had finished stamping my passport and wished me a great stay in Korea. Funny how the people you least expect starts to talk to you about Lasse Hallström.

My last taxi ride today before going to the airport was an equally surprising experience. As soon as I had gotten into the car and explained where I wanted to go the driver asked me where I was from. His reaction was similar to the immigration officers; – “Oh, I love Sweden! Abba!” Since his English was just slightly better than my Korean this is where the conversation ended. But he immediately started to look around his car and eventually found what he was looking for, an Abba tape (yes, cassette tape..). He played the tape and together we sang along to Abba for the rest of the taxi ride. He looked very happy when he dropped me at the hotel and so was I.

Like in other parts of Asia the Koreans like everything to be cute and pretty. On our way to work we passed a road construction site where they had dug a deep hole in the middle of the street. To avoid accidents they had of course put fences all around it. This was not the unusual thing, what surprised me was the beautiful flowers they had decorated the fence with. In what other country would you find this? Also the motorway bridges were decorated with flower as you can see in the picture. Amazing!

Normally for us cartoons are considered a bit childish. Not in Asia. Even big serious companies have cute characters on labels and signs. The company I visited has a winking dog (picture) who is waiving his little finger on the tape that they plug all ports on your computer with (extreme security policy). What would a warning sign for a construction site look like in Europe? Probably it would just be text, maybe a sketch of a man without features and expressions falling down a hole or something similar. In Korea it is a cat wearing a helmet and white gloves telling you what to do and not to do. Different…

It is an experience to go by car in Korea. The traffic is heavy and crazy and I am glad I did not have to drive. Red lights for example do not have the same status as in Sweden. It is not uncommon that they drive although the lights are red as long as you let the pedestrians pass first and then drive very slowly. It is like if you sneak your way over the intersection no one will notice.
This morning we even saw an argument on the street. One taxi and one truck were driving onto the same road from different directions. I guess at least one of them was not following the traffic rules. They started shouting through the windows but this was not the end of it. The truck driver stopped in front of the taxi blocking both lanes and all traffic. He gets out and they start arguing on the street in front of us while we were waiting for a green light. It looked like the truck driver actually wanted to hit the taxi driver but he didn’t, instead he just left looking very angry. In Sweden just honking would be offensive…

This week I am on a business trip in Korea. They nice thing about travelling with work is that you get to stay at better hotels than what you would normally do. Although I was very upset when I found out that the sauna at our first hotel was for men only! What is that all about?? I know it is out of the question to have a mixed sauna, but men only?! Upsetting!

This weekend I decided to take Friday and Monday off and head up to Luleå in the northern part of Sweden. This is the place where I went to university and also where my sister Viktoria lives with her husband Janne. I almost did not make it due to a strike at SAS which of course started the same day I was leaving. Thankfully there is one more air line operating this route and it was good enough to run extra flights for us unfortunate people who got stuck. This air line also had a very suitable slogan, “FlyNordic – the way it should be”. I didn’t notice it on the way there but when I went back to Stockholm I saw it everywhere. They also had a big poster saying: “The best thing about Stockholm is that it is so easy to get back home again.” He he, they are not really impressed by Stockholm up here. Good reason to try to practice that accent I picked up while living here for five years… 🙂

This is a very good season to visit Luleå. The temperature is about the same as in Stockholm but it is light all night long, the trees are just turning green and there are no mosquitoes yet. I still can not get used to watching the sun set when you are finishing dinner around 10.30 pm and then see how it is coming back up just a few hours later. Fantastic! There is something very special about the light up here (accept that there is no light at all in the winter…) and the way it affects your life. In the summer everyone wants to spend as much time as possible awake and outside compared to winter when you want to get indoors as soon as you can. Life is just different in the summer, people have more energy and seem more positive and happy. Winter in Luleå has its charm though, the crisp air, the snow and of course the amazing northern lights. The picture shows the view from my sisters apartment in the middle of the night in May.