Kategorie: Peking

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

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

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

The Ming Tombs

Today we visited the Ming Tombs together with Li Xu and the parents of my friend. They picked us up at 10 am and one hour and 50 km later we arrived at the first gate of the tombs.

The Ming Tombs is the cemetery of the 13 emperors of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the whole area is about 80 km² large. After this first gate we walked down the Main Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs, a long avenue with twelve stone-animals on each side, one crouched and one standing. This way it looked like the animals would stand up for the dead emperor while he was carried down the way. After these animals there were also six stone-humans on each side, also for giving farewell to the emperor. „The Ming Tombs“ weiterlesen

The Summer Palace

Today was the day, where we would visit the Summer Palace. We ate our toasts and were ready to leave, when teacher Chen gave us a surprise visit. He wanted to know if everything is ok and we assured him, that we are totally satisfied with our stay in China.
We took the bus to the bus station where Lili and Tina, a friend of hers, picked us up to drive us to the Summer Palace, which is located in the north-west. A ~3km² area consisting of the Kunming Lake and the Longevity Hill. The Lake is entirely man-made and the dug up soil was used to build the Hill. With Lili and Tina we climbed the Longevity Hill, walked alongside the Kunming Lake and later took the ferry back to where we started our trip. Its a very beautiful, calm and peaceful place contrary to the noisy and busy city that is Beijing.
summerp001

More pictures: „The Summer Palace“ weiterlesen

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

To endure the bad breath

Hungry we walked to the bus stop. We forgot to buy additional toasts.  After waiting almost 20 minutes for the correct bus to arrive, we were pleasantly surprised by a very swift bus ride ~30 minutes. That must have been some kind of record. The problem is the unbelievably bad stench rushing by your nose frequently, caused by the bad breath of almost all passengers, words can’t describe. While finding yourself in crowded and smelly setting like a bus ride, you begin to let your mind wander. Maybe I should buy a family pack of mints or gum, carrying it with me at all times to offer mints to the ones in need. A friend of mine called this bad breath phenomenon:
„The downfall of the Chinese society“.

20 minutes early we arrived at the office. Just after we settled in Kenny and Lili were delighted to let us in on the  „To endure the bad breath“ 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

Chinese friends and presents

When we arrived at work we were greeted by Lili who was very concerned about my wellbeing. She brought some cake, Chinese medicine and heat pads. At lunch we discussed the plans for the days to come. We agreed to visit the Forbidden City on Wednesday and next week we will be traveling to Shanghai from Monday to Wednesday to visit the city and additional construction projects of our company. Because of all the gifts from Lili she offered to drive us back to school after work, which we gladly accepted.
At school we met Zhu who informed us, that a package had arrived for us. Alex‘ mother sent us a lot of Germany themed gifts, which we will be handing out as a thankyou to the ones who treated us best. For the company we now have poster of the Brandenburg Gate, for which, with the help of a friend of mine, we will get a frame custom made. We are certain, they will put it up on the wall in their office. It is going to look marvelous!
While resting in our dormitory a Chinese student came to our door to meet us. The young Chinese student called Ding Tong had no problem with making himself right at home. He thoroughly searched through all our belongings while making a comment from now and then.

IMG_20150504_222937In return he helped us translate and explain to us the various Chinese medicine we brought home. When his friends arrived to pick him up, we scheduled a Ping Pong duel with some of them. Allegedly they are quite good – we’ll see about that 🙂

After showering we ate dinner, delicious rice with chicken and chili for Alex and good old Vollkornbrot imported from Germany for me – less delicious.

Lili promised us to take us to a foot massage this week, hopefully tomorrow 🙂

See you
Lukas and Alex