China Road Trip: Defy Gravity, Strange Slope of China

After our last blog post about holiday stress, I just got back from a phenomenal and unplanned 2 week trip to China! Even though I visit China at least 2-3 times a year, I haven’t had the luxury of staying there for more than a week since I was still in single digits. This trip was a mix of business and pleasure that finished off with a one week road trip together with my parents, my aunt, two of my uncles, my 84 year old grandmother and my cousin. The road trip was rather spontaneous. My mother had talked about it casually but it was really last minute we actually decided to do it and planned each day of the trip the morning of. I left for China with the basic expectation of spending some quality time with family but ended up with a rich experience filled with love, laughs, soul searching and adventures!

My grandmother, my mother and my aunt were born in the Liaoning Province of China. My grandfather used to be the Head of Finance of AnShan’s Steel factory, the largest factory in China. My grandfather was then relocated to Inner Mongolia to run another large steel factory. It’s been 50 years since my grandmother, my mom and my aunt visited their home town. This trip was such a unique opportunity for three generations to go back to our roots. My grandmother couldn’t recognize a single thing in AnShan except for the actual steel factory that still exists. The Liaoning Province is located in Manchuria (where the Manchu people lived. The Manchu people ran the last dynasty in China and my grandmother is of the Manchu ancestry).

We visited several sites and these are my top recommendations:

Shenyang Imperial Palace built in 1625, the only other palace outside of Beijing’s Forbidden City.

The largest jade Buddha in the world in Anshan sculpted from a single piece of jade.

Go for a hike at the Qian Shan National Park.

Have a delicious organic meal at a local farmer’s home and eat fresh fruit picked right from the trees.

Take a boat tour through the Benxi Water Cave.

My favorite place that TOTALLY shocked me and probably the strangest experience I have ever had in my life was a visit to Strange Slope otherwise known as GuaiPo:

This is a slope where gravity is the opposite. What do I mean by that? Well, we drove down the slope and put our car on neutral with the engine off, immediately the car rolled UP the slope backwards at a pretty decent speed… This totally did not make sense so I got out of the car and rode a bicycle down the slope…I felt like I was riding uphill or just extremely out of shape! Then, when I got to the bottom of the slope and going back up, I didn’t even have to pedal, the bike naturally rolled up the hill! I am not joking, I know it sounds crazy but you have to experience to believe it! Many scientists have visited the strange slope and there is still not a clear explanation. If you have a chance to visit China for the first time or again, I highly recommend the Liaoning province.

Facing Holiday Stress

I’m posting from Inner Mongolia to introduce a guest blogger this week: Andrea Frigell, a Casall ambassador and summer intern from Stockholm School of Economics. More importantly, she just spent half a year studying in Milan! How amazing… Enjoy!

So, July arrived and most of us go on vacation or at least see the holidays approaching. Suddenly we are supposed to cram all those desirable holiday activities into a couple of weeks of freedom. Hmm, well the truth is freedom may not be an appropriate synonym to vacation, especially not if listening to the general opinion. How to plan this free time? Who to meet? When to do what? When the planning begins, usually we realize time just flies and it’s basically time to get back to work.

I was sitting on the train a couple of days ago, I was really on-the-go, reading some important papers from work, checking my phone constantly, and waiting for, well let’s say a dozen of calls with important people. For some reason, in the middle of this stressful chaos, I opened a magazine someone left in front of me and my eyes soon fell on an article discussing the phenomenon of summer holiday stress. Interesting, I thought, particularly as I realized my own vacation was approaching and I was still in the middle of so many projects, to-do-lists and commitments…

When you google “semesterstress” or “holiday stress” you are overwhelmed with readings on the subject. Mental coaches, career consultants, blogs, lifestyle magazines…they all appear to have a word of wisdom or some thoughtful reflections to share on this.

Best, or at least most relevant, pieces of advice that I came over:
- Reduce expectations: relaxation is about facing life as it is, and too high expectations will ruin the process of getting in a relaxed mood
- Change mobile signal: a subtle but very effective help on the way. You want to be disassociated with your everyday life, hence you should also change those small details that remind you of it.
- Plan your work before so that you don’t have an excess amount of work the week before your holidays start. Remember it takes time for the brain to calm down and relax.
- Consider your acceptance level in terms of how available you want to be when you are away and plan for this. Hard, you may think, but make sure you inform people at work you will be away.

For some reason, the phenomenon of holiday stress seems to be coming back constantly, especially when the summer hits us. The general recommendation seems to be to lower expectations and make sure to calm down at least a couple of days before the holiday starts.

The constant haunt for prestige and built-in expectations plays a huge part in creating the stress factor. We want to return to work after our holidays and tell the world what fantastic experiences we had, what interesting places we visited, and how many activities we managed to cram into these few weeks. And of course, for the sake of our own satisfaction, we expect our holidays to be something extra, something above our everyday life routines and experiences. Not surprising, we get disappointed when these expectations aren’t fulfilled. Such a small thing as bad weather could cause us great anxiety and dissatisfaction. “I could equally well have been working” is a common attitude that results.

This is where the major problem comes in. We are unable to truly relax and appreciate life as it is, in its simple form.

Just like in so many other instances of life we are faced with the challenge of finding a balance in anything that we put our mind or body to, and it’s definitely not an easy challenge. It’s easier working with the extremes than the “fair enough”. You do need planning in your life, for the sake of managing time, but life also needs spontaneity to make it interesting (slash worth living). Somehow Italy taught me this, to better grasp the moment and reject part of my Scandinavian ambition for too much planning and structure. How do I find the best recipe blending planning and spontaneity? Well, your recipe is probably different from mine, but let’s call it Carpe Diem with a little bit of good planning. The art of planning for a longer summer holiday lies in the ability not to plan overwhelmingly and still make sure you do get the chance to fill your time with the things you love and may not have time to devote yourself to during the rest of the year. Keep in mind what the basic reason for going on vacation is for you, where most people would probably argue it’s about capturing new energy and inspiration. For one person this means to see the world in three weeks, for another it’s equal to staying in the summer house reading books all day long, not brainstorming on any larger projects than what to have for dinner or which next great novel to delve into. Keep it simple, listen to yourself, and make it simple when it isn’t. Most importantly, stay honest with yourself and your needs.

Whatever it might be, take a moment to think again; what really makes you feel good? Find the valuable moments when you do enjoy yourself and feel inspired. Most often these situations are the most simple ones. I see the clichés flowing here, it’s a pity isn’t it, but for some reason I got the impression such clichés were needed just to remind you (and myself) of their importance.

My source of inspiration. I love this pic from Casall’s SS09
catalogue, particularly since it combines the sport and the place that I love:
running on the island of Gotland.

What’s your recipe for relaxing during the holidays? Please feel free to send me an e-mail at andrea.frigell@casall.se or share your opinions with me on facebook.

Back to basics: Muesli

Muesli is probably the most common cereal at the Swedish breakfast table. The number of brands and flavours in any grocery store seems endless.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day so eating a super nutrient-dense meal is very important! Most branded cereals are full of sugar and additives, so switching to natural muesli mixes is something the Swedes have perfected.

Muesli is great to eat with yoghurt, milk or as we do in Sweden with “fil”. The base of muesli consists of rolled oats with numerous additions such as rolled rye flakes, wheat flakes, nuts, seeds, berries and fruit. Whole oats are great source of iron, dietary fibres and antioxidants. Here are some ingredients that are super healthy and great to mix up to keep things always interesting:

Seeds and nuts:

Flax-seed: very rich in Omega-3, beneficial for your heart and helps avoiding cancer.

Sesame seeds: a good source of calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus, vitamin B1, zinc and dietary fibre.

Sunflower seeds: an excellent source of dietary fibre, protein, Vitamin E, B vitamins, and minerals.

Nuts: nuts can be super beneficial for your health and the characteristic that most nuts share in common are richness in fibre, antioxidants such as Vitamin E and selenium, fat - but mostly monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats (e.g. omega 3) great to lower cholesterol, and protein.

Fruit:

Bananas: super rich in potassium

Peaches: rich in carotenes, potassium and gives a sweet taste

Apples: great source of dietary fibres and vitamin C

Berries:

Strawberries: a great source of vitamin C and antioxidants

Raspberry: High in ellagic acid, a phenolic compound that may help prevent cancer, inhibit the growth of cancer cells and stop the growth of some cancers. Also high in antioxidants and vitamin C.

Blueberries: called the antioxidant powerhouse


A great way of enjoying muesli in the summer is roasting your own muesli, and adding the seeds of your choice and then adding fresh berries and fruit. You can also add some honey for a sweeter taste. A breakfast tasty enough to be a dessert! But when fresh berries and fruit are scarce here is a great recipe for home-made muesli, a great way of avoiding the unnecessary additives in the processed ones:

2 tbs reseed oil
0,5 tbs liquid honey
1 tbs cinnamon
5 dl rolled oats
5 dl rye flakes
0,5 dl crushed flax seed
0,5 dl peeled sesame seeds
0,5 dl sunflower seeds
1 dl pumpkin seeds
100 g roughly chopped hazel nuts
100 g roughly chopped apple rings

Mix oil, honey and cinnamon. Pour the rolled oats and rye flakes in a spacious bowl and add the oil mixture. Mix well and scatter over a roasting pan with oven paper. Roast in the middle of the oven in 225 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. Stir the muesli a few times during the roasting. Let the muesli cool off and then add the rest of the ingredients and put the muesli in a jar with a tight seal. If you put in a vanilla pod the muesli mix will absorb a nice flavour.

Enjoy!