Yet another post in English. Read part 2.

An early morning last Spring i slowly walked through the streets of Beijing. I’d been out partying with a bunch of Chinese friends. The sun had just come out, it was cool but not cold, and there was a thin fog over the city. I was alone, no one was awake other than a few street cleaners, and for a few minutes I was completely lost. I had no idea what was North, South, East or West.

I found a Starbucks that had just opened. I didn’t ask for directions. Instead I sat down, alone with a cup of coffee, gazing at the skyscrapers half swallowed by the fog. That very moment was one of the best of 2014. I felt so free. I will never forget it.

The year is almost up and I’ve collected my greatest moments of 2014.

Winter

1. The New Year’s Party – New Year’s Eve 2013/2014 was one of the best. We were a large group of people gathered in a villa in the outskirts of Playa del Carmen, Mexico. The music was loud and everyone was dancing and laughing. Just before midnight Joselo, the guy I hung out a lot with and who I’ve mentioned a few times in this blog, ditched his friends and took a taxi to the villa to be with me. It was the perfect New Year’s party.

2. Alone in Stockholm – I was in a tiny hippie apartment in the Old Town, where my friend Jessica lived. I sat in the window and watched the rooftops of the old buildings in the heart of the city. During my week in Stockholm I met with several friends and relatives which was great, but the highlights were those moments when I was alone, just enjoying being there.

3. A park in Mexiko City – We sat down at a cafe in a park in Mexico City, the city that turned out to be a mix of super modern Singapore and historical Paris, not the dirty slum I was expecting. It was one of those perfect ”fika” moments as you’d say in Swedish, where you’re just enjoying life.

4. The trip Cancun-Toronto-Beijing – Also known as the around-the-world trip that failed. I took me three days to travel with a night in a hostel in Toronto, Canada. The idea was to physically fly around the globe, but it turns out that the shortest path from Toronto to Beijing is via Svalbard (the island North of Scandinavia), not via Alaska as I had guessed. Fail! A great memorable moment, though, was when I had checked in to my hostel in Toronto in the middle of the night and went for a city walk in the freezing cold. I was only wearing my yellow hoodie as I didn’t own a jacket, but it was totally worth it just for the experience. The following day, I also walked on the glass floor of the famous CN tower.

Spring

5. The Walking Dead – The game, not the TV show. An odd moment for this list perhaps, but it was an emotionally strong one and the most memorable game of the year, by far. I was alone in the apartment. I had just finished the first episode of season two (the game is divided into seasons just like a TV show). The credits were rolling and beautiful music was playing. In the game you play a 10 year old girl in a very violent and grown-up world, and you have to make morally hard decisions. I had just killed my best friend, a dog, because he attacked me like an animal when there was no food left. At that moment I just sat there and had to let it all sink in. Emotional!

6. Shanghai skyline – I have a fascination for big, modern cities. We took the high speed train across the world’s longest bridge to Shanghai. A lot of great moments there, but my most memorable was standing at the riverfront watching the business district on the other side. The most amazing city skyline I’ve ever seen!

7. Having lunch on The Great Wall – We went on a two day hike on The Great Wall of China. Second to hot air ballooning in Cappadocia this is the coolest touristy thing I’ve ever done. The greatest moment was on day one when we sat down on top of one of the tower ruins – most parts of the hike was on unrestored parts of the wall, with no other people around – for lunch. Simply amazing!

8. Visiting Hiroshima – I thought the highlight of our trip to Tokyo and Hiroshima, Japan, was going to be standing directly under the spot where the first atom bomb exploded. That experience left me surprisingly unmoved. What did move me a lot though was the nearby museum. An entire part of the city, the one closest to the center of the explosion, has been turned into a gigantic memorial park. In it, there’s a memorial museum. I rarely spend a lot of time in museums, but we spent hours here. It was very emotional. Hiroshima itself is today a large, modern city completely safe to be in.

9. That morning in Beijing – The one I described in the intro of this post. It was a truly magical ”big city-lonely man” moment.

10. The worlds largest ghost city – I took my mom backpacking for a few weeks, which in itself is an unusual mother-son experience I guess. Our first stop was the city of Ordos, the worlds largest ghost town. It’s in Inner Mongolia in northern China, close to where Genghis Khan is buried. The city was built to host millions but only has a couple of hundred thousand inhabitants. A large part of it is in other words deserted. The large streets and crossroads are completely open with no cars. Loads of apartments stand empty. Most memorable, though, turned out to be the fact that there are no white people there whatsoever. We took a taxi from our small hotel to the city center. The lady driving us was extremely happy and took a selfie with us. She waved as she dropped us off and drove away.

11. Walking the worlds ”most dangerous hiking trail” – ”Most dangerous” is an exaggeration by media as you’re attached to the side of the mountain with climbing gear. But it was a truly breathtaking experience! The most memorable moment here came just when I finished the tricky part of the walk. I dropped my empty water bottle and everyone’s hearts stopped. Everyone became dead quiet and watched the bottle slowly bounce in the wind against the mountain side, down into the nothingness that was below us. Once out of sight, everyone started laughing. We all shared a moment of excitement you can’t get on TV.

12. The taxi trip in Chengdu – For some reason, a memory that stands out from our backpacking trip is not the Pandas in Chengdu, the Terracotta warriors in Xian or the river cruise in Chongqing. It’s a taxi trip best showcased in this video on Instagram. It was another one of my beloved big city experiences.

13. Having dinner with a bunch of drunk Chinese people – On the final stretch of the backpacking trip – this trip as a whole was probably the highlight of the year, with several memorable moments making its way onto this list – we took a cheap river cruise. We were the only westerners. No one spoke any English. We ended up at a dinner table with a bunch of our fellow passengers. Not sure how to eat the strange food we did what everyone else was doing. A man around the table took out a vodka bottle and started offering it to the rest of us. Everyone said yes. I didn’t fully realize what it was until it was too late. They all got a bit drunk.

Read part 2 with highlights from the summer and autumn.