Stockholm!

After the tedium of a long and somewhat dull train journey the evening before, I was up early to plan the day’s fun and games.

Stockholm is a quite spread out city, and so we had to sit down and compute a route across town that hit all the shops we wanted to see in as efficient a manner as possible.

Finally over breakfast and a pot of Green Gunpowder a realistic timetable emerged.

New toys…!

We started off on the island of Södermalm, and popped into the Kina Li supermarket, to buy some Chinese teacups. Well, that was the plan, anyway. I just happened to spot 4 cups and a cebei (sometimes referred to as an “easy” gaiwan due to the fact that it sports a handle and a spout) in a set, and so bought that instead.

We then headed back into the centre of town and paid a visit to Grace Tea House. This rather wonderful combination of tea shop and tea room sells some of the nicest teaware and good quality teas you could ever lay hands on.

Grace Tea House, Stockholm

I was like the proverbial kid in the chocolate factory, and it took great restraint to come away with only a 10 year old Pu-erh brick and a small tin of authentic West Lake Longjing. Write ups for those two will follow shortly.

At any other time I would have flopped down in the tea room for a session with the good stuff, but unfortunately we were on a tight schedule, and so off we went.

After further pit-stops at British butchers Taylors and Jones, as well as a speciality cheese shop, it was time to head back to base, where, after a refreshing pot of Green Gunpowder, I was ready to don my chef’s hat and start cooking the evening meal…