Nellie opened a plastic picnic box this morning, that hadn't been used since we left Korea almost a year ago. In the box with cups, cuttlery & stuff, was my Polar running watch. Yippie! The heart rate monitor strap and the footpod have been laying around here since April, just in case the central watch piece would turn up miraculously. I thought that it was lost in the repatriation move somehow and I've been very close to buy another one. Great, now I can measure distance and heart rate again.

The Korean removal company was very efficient and packed stuff together to optimize space, so they are probably the ones to blaim for hiding it in such a cryptical way. Typical Koreans. Very optimzed in all kind of ways.

I got so inspired by this positive find this morning, so I stopped to buy a new pair of Asics DS Trainer shoes on the way home from work.

I was very eager to get out on the ice this morning to try some skiing there. The lap around the lake is approx 9 km's and the track itself is not very good due to the thin snow layer, but still ... it was much better than I had anticipated. Very very very flat of course, so it was brilliant training in double pushing. Vasaloppet is over some long stretches also extremely flat, so this was perfect training for that event, now only 2 weeks away. 2 laps this morning, then 2 laps in the afternoon, where of one together with Micke & Monkan. Around 36 km's all in all. I will try to find a timeslot during daylight this week, so I can have one more session out there. If we are lucky, there might be some more snow as well. The temperature is perfect, between -2 and -10 during the days.

Started the day with 25 km XC skiing at the golf course in Ulricehamn. Very nice tracks and a pleasant area for skiing. First time there for me. Better snow conditions when you get east of Borås for some reason. It turned into a beautiful winter day with blue sky and sunshine. We went out on the ice on Kåsjön after lunch. Me pushing the kids in the double stroller, while Misia did some skiing. Lots of people on the ice, walking, skating, skiing, playing icehockey, having picnics etc. These kind of days are fantastic, when it's possible to do various kinds of outdoor sport activities.

Have now had a relax in front of the TV with Jim, watching Portsmouth beating Manchester City with 2-0. First win in 9 games for Pompey and of course it happened on the first game after sacking Eeyore (Tony Adams). Just like I predicted some months ago. Some things are just to obvious.

My sister called and congratulated me this evening. I was a question mark. What have I done now? Hmmmmm.... the XC ski world championships doesn't start until next week, so it couldn't be for any gold medal from there. I've been a bit like a Zombie this week, with a very long time zone adjustment from China in my system, without any proper rest or sleep, so who knows what I've done. Hopefully something good and since my own sister calls, it's for sure something special. Personally I'm happy that it's Friday. Worth while celebrating. I actually bought 20 nice roses for Misia, as an early Valentines Day thingie. Red & Yellow mix, very special combination.

The reason why Bibbi called was to congratulate me on my name-day. Not Agne, but Ove. I had no idea and who cares anyhow? No achievement to be named Ove. I wouldn't have picked that name if I would have a choice. Nice of her to call anyway. Cheers!

Stressed home after a very hectic day at work. Hungry as always. Got delicious spinache crêpes for dinner and I ate more than a double big portion. Yum, yum, yum ... Then directly to the badminton training with Oliver, planning to just make him run from corner to corner and go easy myself. That was fine the first 30 minutes. Then I was challenged by an older guy, to play a match. Suddenly I was in the opposite role, acting mouse, chasing a step behind all the time. I almost threw up the crêpes and felt a bit sick, without trying to show any signs of weakness to the other guy. I lost gracefully in the end, but I'm sure that I would have won over this guy if I had eaten one normal portion. Next time I will be the cat. Poor guy, I will make him puke ;-)

Only 3 weeks until Vasaloppet. I'll better make the most of the remaining time and get as much training as possible in to my schedule the next 2 weeks. Probably no skiing as it looks, unless there will come some magic white powder from the sky, so the golf course can be used for something good. I have to keep the running up instead and trust my old experience from skiing and Vasaloppet. The last couple of weeks have not been good for me. To much sitting and to much eating & drinking. It was great to get back home and be able to do some physical activities again. 13 km's yesterday and 17 km's today was just what I needed to remind my body about the active lifestyle it's a part of. It's easy to be tempted by comfort and other easy-to-consume activities.

It was also good to meet Sven yesterday. Full of enthusiasm and confidence. Very focused on March the 1st. He deserves some success, after the tough dicipline he has put himself under. Let's hope that Jörgen is fit for fight again after his rib injury. His mental power will hopefully take him to Mora too.

One week of work in Beijing behind me. Very intensive all in all. Long days in the office, then restauarant dinner and a few hours of sleep. Managed to spend last Sunday on the Great Wall and in the Forbidden City. The wall is always very fascinating. 3rd time for me and what was special this time, was that there were almost no one else there. Winter season and early in the morning on a Sunday. Great scenary and tough work walking up to the wall and then up & down on it. I got back many nice memories from 2007 when I ran the Great Wall Marathon. On a different section of the wall, but that was by far the hardest marathon that I've done. The Forbidden City or the Emperors Palace is huge and it would take lots of time to capture it all, so we just walked through the place more or less. I'm not really a museum type of person. It's always to much somehow. Once in the 80's, I got an overdose of museums, 3 days in Smithsonians in Washington DC with a personal guide that was a friend of a friend, who really wanted to show me everything about the American history etc. I still haven't fully recovered after that experience.

Beijing and China is really taking big steps forward development wise. There are other aspects also, like enviromental & democratic issues, but that's another story. The new airport was super modern and the traffic in the city is now very organized. Yesterday morning, we took the bullet train (400 km/h) to Tianjin to visit a company there. Fantastic transport system and better stations & facilities than anywhere in Europe. China is moving so fast forward and has so much capacity & potential, so "Hold your hats Westerners" ...

Sitting at Bengaluru International Airport, sipping on a Kingfisher beer. The working week is over and we are waiting for the flight to HongKong with Dragon Air. It still feels like work, since the discussions with the rest of the team still circulates around job stuff and that's probably the way it will continue during the weekend in Beijing too. It's been nice to feel the warm climate again. Around 30 degrees in Bangalore. Unfortunately, we haven't spent any quality time outside. We were invited for a big Indian dinner last night at one of the Mindtree's top bosses home. Lots of nice food and drinks. My stomache has been fine all week, even though I've tried lots of local food. Tonight I ate some very spicy Chicken Tikka Masala. I had to leave the dinner table and run to the toilet when my eyes & nose started rinning and the sweat was pumping out from my forehead. My mouth is still burning. Lucky that I didn't go for the real spicy dishes on the menu.