A new experience and an old one.

No, I do not think I have writers block, I just don't feel like writing anything for my blog!

But.

One more word and yet another gesture and my left hand raising up to touch my beard and give it a good scratch. Because it is a new beard - some weeks old now- and man it is itchy.

But it also feels nice to touch it and it is a new experience to me. I have had beards before but never a full one like the one I am growing now, so it is quite new. I've had moustaches and a silly little string beard and also one of them kind of moustache that goes all the way up to both ears. But never for real. It has always been for the fun of it for a month or so. And mainly in Movember. For the joke of it.

But now it is in the midst of the beginning summer -if you can say so - and this time I think I'm serious about it. All the way to the day I get sick and tired of it and shave it all off.

It is interesting to see how a real serious full grown beard will influence the way people perceive me.

One thing I haven't really thought about before now is my new ID card.

So what has happened. I am now a permanent Hong Kong resident with the right to stay and work here on a permanent basis without a two year work visa. So, one day I went to the immigration for the final short interview where I got my new rights and also ordered a new ID card as a permanent resident of the Hong Kong SAR of the People's Republic of China.

I said before I might shave my beard of again one day when I get sick and tired of it, right. But now listen to this. The day I was at the immigration to order a new ID card they also took a picture of me for that card, and that day I had the beginning of a beard. Not just some small thin whiskers, but a real full grown growth of beard hair on my face. Imagine I shave it all of and then decide I want to go to on the train to China, the real China. In my passport I do not have a beard but on my Hong Kong ID I do.

As a permanent Hong Konger I think I can get a 5 year multiple entry visa to the real China. But, at the border to real China they are also somehow more fierce with inspections and things has to be clear and because us gweilo's to them all look the same, I might have some trouble explaining or seeming to be the same.

However, leave those worries to the time when they get real. In the next couple of months I am not going to go on the train to China, perhaps in about a year, for Easter.

In one months time I am going back home to Denmark for the first time since Christmas 2013 - 14, and for the first time in the summer since 2010. 7 years ago.

2011 was Japan. 2012 the USA. 2013 Spain. 2014 Mongolia and Japan. 2015 Scotland. 2016 Italy. First think I'm going to do is to go to the supermarket to buy herring and cheese. Then go to a hotdog stand for a hotdog, followed by a visit to a bakery for some "Danish pastry" which ironically is called "bread from Vienna" in Denmark. And this, I think, I'll repeat every single day for 3 weeks. I am really looking forward to it. What I might not like is the extra kilos I'll be wearing after the 3 weeks back there with a diet like that, and the trouble of getting all the ketchup and mustard and remulade and curry sauces out of the full grown beard.

But maybe that is going to be the time to shave it off again when it gets too unhygienic and greasy.

I'll still wear it in the picture on my new ID card though. And on this one.