Kategorie: Peking

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

All you can’t eat

This morning we awoke earlier than usual for a Saturday. We had planed to go to the Ming Tombs with friends of Alex, but unfortunately the trip with the car would cost us 4-5 hours there and back. We were on a tight schedule because of the dinner we would eat at Lili’s later in the afternoon. We agree to postpone the Ming Tombs for a week and eat „breakfast“ instead.
The restaurant was located not far away from our school. We took our friend Li with us to act as our translator. The last time we had a meal with them, it was way to much and we took home more food than we ate at restaurant. This time would not be different:

It has to be some kind of torture. The amount of delicious food in front of you and you are too stuffed to take another bite. As always we asked to „All you can’t eat“ 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

Happy Valley

Today was a day free of work, because tomorrow is the first of May and many employees do no need to come to the office. Only the more important ones do. We picked this day to be the day we go to the amusement park located in Beijing called Happy Valley. We anticipated, that today the park would be less crowded. We were right only to a certain extend.
Happy Valley is located south-east of Beijing. Our Chinese version of google maps called Baidu Maps predicted, that a trip to Happy Valley by public transportation would take 1 1/2h, because of an uncompleted subway traffic network. The right choice was to take a taxi and that we did. 6€ and 20min later we arrived at the place of fun and adrenaline.

IMG_2453
The park covers an area of over 560,000 square meters and has „Happy Valley“ 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

Cheesy & Furious 7

Our daily morning routine was interrupted by the locked door of our dormitory. Normally these are only closed during the night, but sometimes, the older ladies at the counter lock them, when they take a break or whatever. We wanted to catch our bus, but we couldn’t. We spent a few minutes trying to find someone, but in the end we managed to find the door opener, pressing the button through a window of the office.
We caught our bus and it was a surprisingly fast trip due to unusual low traffic. The sleeping overweight snoring Chinese business man next to me obviously felt sad, that he could not cuddle with me for a longer period of time.

In the office we got to work while drinking a freshly brewed coffee. Soon after we were allowed to attend a staff meeting. We did not understand a word they said, but everyone was cheerful with a big laugh now and then. For lunch we had a tasty duck leg with a lot of side dishes.

After a few additional hours of work Kenny, Johnny and Lili drove us to see the new „Cheesy & Furious 7“ 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

Physical exercise Sunday

We woke up late on this Sunday. After enjoying our breakfast toasts we grabbed our sporting goods and spent hours on our schoolyard exercising. Like always we had spectators. This time it was a young Chinese boy who did not bother to watch the show from only a meter away.

We rewarded ourself with a few episodes of our favorite TV show. While inside our dormitory building I met a new student who told me, that he would not have school tomorrow, that he has one day off per week! To my doubting question, if he only had four days of school per week, he corrected me and answered that he has school on Saturday and Sunday too 🙂

We ate our lunch at our school canteen, long lost beef noodles:

nomBefore going to shower we cleaned our entire room and did the laundry. One could practically eat of our floor at the moment, but not for long. Anyways … I am going to end this short, irelaxed blog entry here.

After all, it’s Sunday.

Lukas and Alex

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

Slow Friday

With little sleep we fought ourself out of our beds this morning. Still groggy from last days marathon we finished our morning routine and went to work. We enjoyed a strong coffee from Lilis coffeemaker and began to further improve our AutoCAD skills. A little while later we were called into the meeting room, where we discussed the plan/activities for the upcoming week. We decided on the following:

  • Monday: Kenny will prepare more project plans for us to take a look at
  • Tuesday: We will visit a Tesla Motors car dealership. Hoping for a ride or even a test drive
  • Wednesday: After work we will eat and then go to the cinema with Kenny, being invited to dinner with Johnny afterwards
  • Thursday: Alex and I will visit the Happy Valley Amusement Park
  • Friday: national holiday – láo dòng jié – Labor Day

After a delicious lunch with fried rice we went back to our work. Kenny was so kind to let us „Slow Friday“ weiterlesen