Autor: Alexander Balke

Grand Epoch City & Massage

Early in the morning we started our day with our usual toasts, sadly we couldn’t find the ones we bought after the cinema in our Lotte Mart. But still much better than donkey in the morning 😉 We didn’t take our usual bus (No. 983), instead we took the No. 420 bus to get directly to Lili’s home. The plan for today was to visit a finished project of the company and then to enjoy a foot massage afterwards. On the ride to the project Lili gave us some details about it. The name is „Grand Epoch City“ and is used mainly as an convention center during the summer. The Citic Group, which our company is part of, invested about 500 Million Euro into this project. In a total area of 2,85 km² there are three or four hotels, a 18 hole golf course, two Buddhist temple, restaurants and a lot of parks. All hotels together have a capacity of about 4000 people.

After a car ride of about 1½ hours we arrived at the City and were picked up by a electric cart to bring us to the first hotel. We were greeted by the manager who took us directly to the dining hall where we had lunch in a separate room. The food was again so much we took most of it with us. And we guess it must have been some really expensive food, there was fish, jellyfish, lamb, pork, beef, pigeon and salad. It was a feast again!

After lunch we visited one of the presidents suites and could get a brief glimpse of the live of the rich people: „Grand Epoch City & Massage“ weiterlesen

Taking a shower in Beijing

Today was just a normal work day, so it’s time to give you a little insight into our daily routine concerning body hygiene.

At the end of each day we take a shower, but it is a bit different compared to Germany. First of all we do not have a shower in our room. That means, if you want to take a shower, you will have to walk across the yard to another building. So at the end of our first day here, we had an appointment with Zhu & Li who wanted to show us the showers. When we met, there were also 4 other students with them, who were introduced as „school mates“. So we went to the shower building in the ground floor, first floor is for the girls. Inside the building are just some lockers and a big room with two walls in the middle. At each wall there are about ten shower heads with a small device beside them. So we all undress, take our shampoo and most important the card we also use for the food at the school with us. To start showering, you have to place the card on the device beside the shower, then water will run. The price is about 0.5 Yuan per minute (that’s very cheap).

GOPR7643 „Taking a shower in Beijing“ weiterlesen

Relaxed Sunday

After yesterdays feast and due to Lukas stomachache, which got better today, we didn’t do a lot this day. We slept till midday and enjoyed our breakfast. After the cinema on Tuesday we have been to a supermarket where we bought some toast which now turns out to be the best one yet. After toasting it is not only crispy on the outside, but also on the inside. Very yummy 😀

We also wanted to play some table tennis but unfortunately it was too windy outside, so we mainly enjoyed the sun and also joined some Chinese students who were playing basketball.

Only two stations away from our dormitory is a Walmart so we decided to go for some grocery shopping there in the afternoon. The Walmart covers two floors, the higher one is non-food, the lower one is for food. At the non-food floor we searched and found some hooks for our dormitory. We decided to take the cheapest ones, which is a four pack for only 1,10€. And they are still in place where we stuck them. Let’s see for how long…

At the food floor we looked for the mentioned toast but we didn’t make a find. So we walked around and inspected the offers, buying some sparkled water, a kind of orange juice, some chips and well known Magnum ice cream. We could have also bought alive frogs and turtles „Relaxed Sunday“ weiterlesen

Doppelkopf

Today we got up quite late since we had no big plans. After our delicious breakfast we played some computer games and relaxed a bit. Then we went to the Indigo Mall and bought some water, detergent, Nutella and toast. The 1st of May is a free day in China as well, so it was a bit crowded everywhere. But we got what we were looking for and headed back to the school afterwards. For lunch/dinner we had some beloved beef noodles from across the street, cheap and delicious.

We also tried to take a shower, but unfortunately the shower times (meaning when there is water) were not the usual ones for a Friday, but the ones of the weekend. That means between 7 and 9 pm, so we were too early.

One of Lukas friends did invite us to play some Doppelkopf at her flat, so we tried to catch a taxi to get there. Which was more difficult than expected, we tried for more than half a hour without success. Since it was raining it wasn’t the most pleasant thing to do…

IMG_2455 „Doppelkopf“ weiterlesen

Tesla P85D

0-100 km/h in 3,3 seconds, f*ck yeah!

But first things first. After our usual breakfast we took our usual bus and were again lucky, the traffic was not too bad. We arrived perfectly on time at work where Kenny had some interesting building plans for us, about a construction site we would visit in the afternoon. Soon after lunch (delicious as usual) Lili took us to the south-west of Bejing, which took about one hour. We met her son who arranged a test drive of the newest Tesla car, the Tesla P85D.

It is a fully electrical four-wheel drive car with 690 horsepower generated by two motors, one in the back and one in the front. Nearly everything in the car is controllable using a giant 17″ touchscreen. There are no „normal“ buttons for controlling for example the temperature or the sunroof. You can choose how high or low the suspension may be, how far the sunroof may be open and so on. Here are some pictures:

„Tesla P85D“ weiterlesen

Work and a (violin) concert/performance/theater

As usual we started out day early in the morning and ate our beloved toast breakfast. We took our crowded bus and got to work right on time, being the perfect example of German punctuality 😉

Kenny had some network plans for us to take a look at and also showed us some testing equipment for fiber and copper cables. We also talked about the difference between multi-mode and single-mode fiber cable and which is used in which case.

networkplan „Work and a (violin) concert/performance/theater“ weiterlesen

Art, Sport & Beijing Duck

We got up quite early to meet up with Daniel, one of the friends of Lukas we already met last Saturday. He took us to his art studio, where he had to pick up some things for a trip he will start on Monday. We took a look at his sculptures which were standing around inside. Here are some pictures of it, if anybody wants to buy something, just let us know, we will pass it on to Daniel 😉

„Art, Sport & Beijing Duck“ weiterlesen

The Great Wall

We climbed the Great Wall!

After our breakfast, which is now toasted toast with honey and Nutella, we took the bus to get to Lili’s home. There we met Zu, a former tour guide and perfect German speaker. Together we drove to the Great Wall at Mutianyu, about 70 kilometers northeast of Beijing.

When we arrived there Lili bought the tickets although we offered to pay for them. But it seems to be Chinese habit to pay for everything when you have guests. The ticket office is about three kilometers away from the wall, so we had to take a shuttle bus to get there. After the bus stopped, we separated from Lili and Zu because they didn’t want to come with us on the wall. So we took a cable car to the Great Wall and started to walk to the left.

„The Great Wall“ weiterlesen

Back to Beijing

We started our day early in the morning and surprisingly without hangover. Kenny took us to a small restaurant to eat breakfast. It consisted of a hot soup in which we threw pork, vegetables, mushrooms, an egg and most important ricenoodles. Then we mixed everything and had a really tasty meal.

Afterwards we took a look at an other project of the company. It was a furniture store, but it was still a construction site. But nevertheless we took a look around and tried to image how it might look in the future.

Then we changed the side of the road and went inside a furniture store, which was already finished. The architecture looked quite the same, so that’s maybe how the construction site might look after finishing. „Back to Beijing“ weiterlesen

Hot Pot

After our usual breakfast we went to Lotte Mart to buy some table tennis rackets, yesterday we borrowed some from Li & Zhu. As usual on a Sunday it was very crowded, but we found what we wanted and payed 58 Yuan (10€) per racket, which is best china quality meaning mine already lost some of the wood at the grip…

But nevertheless we then played for good two hours and also met a Chinese girl/woman who asked to play against us. Of course we agreed, at first I tried and then Luki, but we both had our problems with her style of playing. She really knows how to play table tennis! Here are some pictures of us struggling against her: „Hot Pot“ weiterlesen