Long way from China

Johan works as a system engineer at a company who orders lots of parts from china. In almost every delivery a can of tea or anything tea related are sent with the delivery. There are no tea drinkers at that place, lucky for me because my love brought home some extra nice things the other day. 

First there was a wooden box with a big parcel with tea. Inside the box were also a folder in brown paper with lots of mandarin text (that says nothing to me). I immediately saw it as paper ephemera, lovely to use with my old swedish style fire crackers (not the glitzy ones you have elsewhere).

There was also a spoon thingy inside. A heavy piece of metal that you can paddle around the tea leaves with. The pattern on it reminded me of a dragons breath.

 Then there was another large parcel. A tea set, yay! I don't know much about tea ceremonies in china but they should be sipping it in small sips because the pot and the cups are tiny.

A plate with a tray on top was also following. I think it is suppose to keep the tea warm. The cups are hollow, I mean double walls, maybe for insulation.

I will not use this set for tea, not during this particular season. Instead I saw a perfect set for glögg (glühwein, mulled wine). The pattern is even a winterlandscape with red cottages, very similar to a swedish winter landscape exept for the asian twist of the houses.

I have my 40's birthday in 1½ half week, and my son is also having a birthday. I just baked some saffron buns, typical swedish christmas treat. I rolled them with a mix of sugar, vanilla and butter and white chocolate chips, they are darn tasty, I can tell. They will go right in the freezer, otherwise they will dissapear.

I have been working a lot to get sparetime for my seminars, I try to work 9-10 hours these days but it is exhausting. These weeks with no kids is almost only work and studies. There are some amazing moments though. A friday two weeks ago, I was the last one at work. The factory was dead silent and lights out, I think it's nice to walk trough the silent and dead calm halls. The factory lies by a big lake, some says it's Faluns most beautiful place to work at (well if you look outside the windows, it is). This evening I could only agree. On the backyard the lake was completely calm and showed me a mirror view of the amazing sunset. This photo is taken by my cellphone without any filters.

Half an hour later the yellow had turned to red and the sky above was purple, but at that time I was too tired to bother. 
I have some rest to look forward too soon, and I love to study, so I'm fine with working long days.