Monat: Mai 2015

Late night foto report

Hey, Lukas here, back again with a new HDD. Today the Dell technician brought a new HDD. After a few complications I just now managed to get my beloved notebook working again. Its almost bed time here, so I’ll make it quick.

Today we met with Tina and Lili to go to the Forbidden city a palace from the ming and later qing dynasty. We did the whole tour, starting with a walk up the Tiananmen gate, through the forbidden city and ending with climbing the Jingshan Hill, from where you are able to overlook the entire city.

It was extremely hot outside. We took a small „cabrio“ taxi to a restaurant, which is famous for their Kung Pao Chicken. A dish, which we grew quite fond of. And yes, it was the best Kung Pao Chicken. The chicken meat so soft, it almost melted on your tongue. By sheer luck we took the same „cabrio“ taxi to take us back to our car. Lili took us to a 6 story high mall, where we desperately shopped for souvenirs. Tomorrow we will go to an art gallery and later go to a place, where they serve German food (and beer). Alex is very excited 🙂

Now its bed time, please enjoy the slide show. Shot with iPhone5s and Nexus5 …

Pictures:
„Late night foto report“ weiterlesen

Yesterday’s dinner

Today we woke up a little bit hungover, due to yesterday’s feast.We took our bus to get to work and continued our AutoCAD-plan studies. We also discussed the plan for the rest of the week, tomorrow we will visit the Forbidden City and on Thursday we will eat some German food in the evening. Lukas also called the Dell customer support and with the help of Kenny he was able to arrange a hard drive switch for tomorrow. So after we come back from the Forbidden City we will pick the Laptop up and we will all be happy again 😀

Happy we were also during the dinner yesterday. It was the wedding celebration dinner for Justin (Lili’s son) and his wife, and it was a giant one with a lot of drinks. First we drove to Lili’s home to get a ride to the restaurant, which is located on nearly the opposite of Beijing. Although there was a lot of traffic we only needed 45 minutes. In the restaurant we had our own separate room with two big round tables. We were nearly the last ones to arrive, the room was already filled with Chinese people, mainly friends of Lili. After everyone found their seats the waitresses began to bring in one dish after the other and everyone started to eat and drink. Our table stuck to German beer and French wine, the other table enjoyed mostly the Chinese 50%+ liqueur. To conclude the evening we also had to drink some of it, meaning three small glasses in three minutes. And in China it is tradition to always finish your drink in one swig… Then  „Yesterday’s dinner“ weiterlesen

Trying to remain calm Monday

On Monday we were invited to an overwhelming dinner, because the son of our hostess got married. We were picked up at around 4pm to drive to our dinner reservation. A lot of old and young met to celebrate the wedding.

This entry will end here, because this motherfu**#** piece of fu****** crap hunk of metal dell notebook decided to end his duty early with this message:

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You can only begin to fathom the amount of coc*$#suc***$$@ing madness inside of me right now.fuc#####**#*## bitc***### cun###*** Fuc\\\\¢¢¥¥ hor-&&#%%#-#&&#$&¢€€®©©£¥^¢^^^¥£¥¢^¢™@&&#&#$&#-@-@

Let’s hope together for a better tomorrow

Lukas

Chill Saturday

Today was a slow day. We slept for many hours and after breakfast we relaxed in the sun outside of our school with temperatures around 33°C. This is going to be a very short entry, because our school wifi is not working anymore and in half an hour the wifi shuts down same goes for the showers.

At school there was a Cambridge English test for kids in primary school going on with many parents waiting for their kids to leave the building. Because the internet traffic for our mobile phones ran out due to using it outside of Beijing :/, we bought more prepaid credit (3€ for 1GB data traffic) and with a few complications we at least have internet on our phones now.

In the afternoon friends of Alex picked us and Li up to eat Hot Pot. This Hot Pot however was different than expected. We solely ordered ingredients (3 kinds of mushrooms, chicken, pork, beef, shrimps, bacon, squid, cauliflower, broccoli) and they delivered everything in a giant perfectly cooked bowl for us to eat out of. It was the perfect dish. Because no matter what  „Chill Saturday“ weiterlesen

Back from Shanghai

For now I can only provide a short entry, the WiFi in our building isn’t working and so is our own cabled one. We tried everything we could, but there is no way for us to fix this 🙁

Today we took the train back to Beijing and Lili and Kenny surprised us with first class tickets! Instead of the usual 3-2 seats per row we enjoyed a 2-2 seats per row combination. Also the chairs are a little bit more comfortable. As usual we used the journey to sleep, the last days were quite exhausting. At 4 pm we arrived at Beijing and were taken back to our dormitory by Lili’s son. During the ride we had a look at the skyline of Beijing, which is not nearly as impressive as the one of Shanghai, but that’s because the Bejing government did not allow tall buildings until some years ago. So Shanghai as a ten year advance and Beijing just needs some more time for a beautiful skyline.

„Back from Shanghai“ weiterlesen

The last day in Hangzhou and Shanghai

We awoke in our 4 star hotel and quickly headed towards to breakfast in the 2nd floor.
The breakfast buffet offered everything one could have asked for. We ate toasts with fresh marmalade, fresh fruits, eggs, bacon and orange juice.
After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and our driver picked us up to drive us to Leifeng Pagoda, a very tall ancient tower with an amazing view from every floor. Around the tower is a lovely park with a hill full of miniature buildings, statues and a bell:

Next we left Hangzhou and drove to back to  „The last day in Hangzhou and Shanghai“ weiterlesen

Shanghai III – Hangzhou

Today we traveled to the city of Hangzhou, located south-west of Shanghai. But first we had a delicious breakfast in our five star hotel. They offered toast, marmalade, honey, fried egg, bacon, a lot of fruits, some Chinese stuff and a lot more.

Then we drove to Hangzhou. The ride took about three hours on a very good and smooth highway, but the speed limit is 120 km/h. And we had to pay a toll of 9€ for it. We arrived at our hotel (Haihua Hotel), which again looks great, we have a perfectly fine room with shower and toilet for ourselves. Life in luxury! „Shanghai III – Hangzhou“ weiterlesen

Shanghai II – picture day

We awoke, each of us in their own room and met at 8am to eat breakfast in the hotel. Shortly after we checked out of the hotel and our driver named Chen gave us a ride to two of our companies project sites. One of them are twin towers, one a bank, the other for an insurance company:

twinsThe total investment adds up to around 8 billion Yuan. Each tower has a height of 250m with 55 floors. They use a handy technique, where they work their way upwards, using something best described as building blocks. Floor by floor they move higher, finishing one complete floor every week. The towers are planed to be finished around the end of 2016. Kenny and the engineers showed and described everything about the planning, the parts used and the building procedure. the most interesting of cause were the cable management. Copper, Fiber, cable ducts and how all fits and works together. Vast number of pictures ahead „Shanghai II – picture day“ weiterlesen

Shanghai I

Today we said „Goodbye“ to our by now beloved dormitory room, because we will spent the next three or maybe four nights in Shanghai. After the (maybe) last toast breakfast for a few days we took the bus to get to Lili’s home. Her friend Tina, who visited the Summer Palace with us, was so kind to give us the ride to Beijing South Railway Station. We already knew the place since we also left to ZiBo from here. Before boarding the train we met with Kenny and bought some hamburgers to have for lunch later. At 11:10 am the train left with ten minutes delay, still better than in Germany the past days I guess 😉 The ride was quite comfortable, you have a lot more leg space than in a plane or in the Deutsche Bahn. It took a little more than five hours to get to the Shanghai Railway Station. We slept most of the time, but when I didn’t I took at least one photo of the speed the train was driving most of the time.

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305 km/h, that’s about ICE speed.  „Shanghai I“ weiterlesen

Rainy Sunday

Today it rained cats and dogs all day long. There was little for us to do. We cleaned our room thoroughly and began to prepare for our trip to Shanghai. Both of us washed our laundry and packed everything necessary.
3For dinner we picked up take away food from the restaurant, where we eat very frequently.
We both tried some new and different dishes and both were downright delicious.
This is the restaurant, kinda low-priced, ~2€ per dish:

Because of the Irish weather, I’ll keep this entry short, Irish-style.

Stay tuned for our first impressions of Shaghai
Lukas and Alex