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

Slow Saturday

We woke up moderately early on Saturday. We went around the corner to the western supermarket
to try out the loaf of bread they were offering. Our verdict: Its not bad, but not great either. One can guess what taste they were trying to accomplish.

breakfast

With new energy we met Li and Zhu outside to play some ping pong. We were not allowed to use the indoor tables in the basement of the school, so the ones outside had to make do.
After a few hours of showing our Chinese friends what’s what in the world of table tennis we went inside and started to study and go through  „Slow Saturday“ weiterlesen

Bird’s Nest

Today we met at 9:30 at the company to drive to the Bird’s Nest, the Olympic stadium of Beijing. As usual, Lili managed to surprise us. Instead of parking somewhere outside the Olympic park and then going to the stadium like a normal visitor, we drove straight into the parking lot of the Bird’s Nest, which is located beneath it. We just showed a small piece of paper we got from a police/security officer at the first gate and everyone let us pass through.

After we parked we took an elevator to get to the 4th floor, where the VIP boxes are located. We entered one of them and saw a wall with monitors showing pictures of security cameras. An employee explained a little bit about the control system, from the room we were standing in it was possible to display information about nearly everything that’s electronically controllable. The cameras, water flow, temperature, elevators and so on. We could also step outside to see the inside of the stadium, 91.000 people fit inside. Here are some pictures of the room and the inside of the Bird’s Nest:

„Bird’s Nest“ weiterlesen

Enjoying work

The alarm clock woke us at 07:30. Alex was so kind to go out and buy our breakfast baguettes on his own, so that I had time to wash my hair under freezing *ass water. We waited at 08:30 at the bus stop. Unfortunately we couldn’t take the first bus, even though it was the correct line, but it wouldn’t have stopped at our destination. The second bus arrived minutes later, cramped and full. The drive took longer than usual due to heavy traffic on the streets. Nevertheless we arrived at work on time. Johnny welcomed us and we went straight to work. Our task was to set up a SQL database and expand our knowledge of the syntax and various commands.

happywork

When Lili arrived it again was time for some more gifts. She brought us „Enjoying work“ weiterlesen

Work with surprises

We got up at 7:30 and ate our usual baguette-with-honey-and-nutella breakfast, then we took the bus number 983 to get to our company. We are expected to be there at 10 o’clock, so we took the bus at 8:30, traffic is horribly in Beijing. But we drive along the bird nest and the water cube, the places of the Olympic Games 2008.

IMG_2058For lunch we had some potato stripes with a Chinese sauce as well as rice with chicken in curry style. Again everything was delicious, we also had a yoghourt which tasted quite similar to a normal German yoghourt. Then we were driven to a post office by an employee with a company car (VW Tiguan), because Lukas needed some stamps for his postcards. For only 6 Yuan (1€) you can send a postcard to Germany via air mail.

Lili then met with some other managers of the company to discuss what we will be doing at our time there. And the plan sounds awesome:

„Work with surprises“ weiterlesen

Guo An Electronics

Our first upcoming day working in an Chinese company began by waking up at 7am in the morning. We quickly got dressed and went to a French bakery to buy two baguettes for breakfast. The day before we already bought some honey and nutella, that guranteed a tasty first meal of the day. We met with Zhu at 07:50 to walk together to the bus stop, where we met with teacher Chen. They wanted to show/teach us the route we would have to take to get to our workplace from now on.
It was a one hour drive to our new workplace at a firm called „Guo An Electronics“. The company is located on the 14’th and 15’th floor of the JM International Hotel.

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The working atmosphere seems nice. Its very bright and the rooms are well air-conditioned. The employees work in a small cubicals, but not as cramped as you see in the movies. We met with two employees Hang and Gong, unfortunately neither of them speak English. That is why the content of our conversation remaineded at a bare minimum. Quickly they set up two cubicals for us, but that was it. We hadn’t really been assigned a task or anything. Everyone was very forthcoming and friendly but lacking a real plan for us. Before lunch a female employee approached us and greeted us with:

„Guo An Electronics“ weiterlesen

School is over

So that was the last day of school, tomorrow we will start to work at the Guo An enterprise, we still know nothing about it, except we will meet with Mr. Chen at the bus stop at 8 am.

After we got up and ate our breakfast, we joined the JAVA class again. Today we learned about overwriting and overloading of methods. We already studied this, but since it has been a bit in the past, it was a good revision for us. For lunch we had some beef noodles, they are the best in the canteen. After a little break, we joined the physical education class and played football and table tennis. At the beginning of the lesson the teacher gathered everyone around and told something in Chinese, then we had to run two small rounds around the basketball fields. Afterwards it seemed like everybody was doing what he or she wanted, some were playing basketball, others played badminton and we decided to play football. While playing with the Chinese students, you could easily tell that basketball is the main sport they play here…

When PE was over we had our last class, which was networking. Since we had no real task, we asked Li Xu to show us how to crimp LAN cables. After he did we tried for ourselves and were quite satisfied with our work.

„School is over“ weiterlesen

Beijing Roast Duck and kTV

On Sunday morning we were greeted by Li, Zhu and our new closer friend called Lee Xu. We walked towards the subway station to drive to a place where we would eat breakfast. We, again, had no idea what to expect, but after a few minutes in the subway an a short walk we  arrived at a more expensive restaurant. We were seated at a very nice table and were told we would eat the famous Beikjing Roast Duck. Besides the duck we ordered many different side dishes and rice. The first dishes arrived quickly and were served by our waiter, which age didn’t seem older than maybe eleven.  Everything expect one dish was fking amazing. The flavors, the spiciness, the fresh ingredients, the perfectly cooked meat. Just wow. The kicker of course was the roast duck itself.  Covered within a small pancake wrap together with slices of cucumber and sweet bean sauce:

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Here’s a video of Zhu showing how it’s done:

„Beijing Roast Duck and kTV“ weiterlesen

Temple of Heaven

Today we decided to visit the Temple of Heaven. After our breakfast, which was baguette with butter, we took the subway to go there. We were accompanied by Li and one of his friends, unfortunately I forgot his name. The subway was quite full, no possibility to sit down after our exhausting visit of the English Corner yesterday. But nevertheless we arrived at our destination and payed 35 Yuan (5 €) entrance fee.

First we visited the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, according to our travel guide the hall is the „most complete and greatest building of Chinese architecture“. Here are some impressions of it:

The ancient emperors sacrificed here to pray for good weather and a rich harvest. „Temple of Heaven“ weiterlesen

English Corner Endurance Test

On Friday we awoke in our room, which sadly was still cold.
The heater only seems to work for about 15min and then shuts itself down.
We headed towards the canteen to get something warm to eat for breakfast.
We were to afraid to try something new, thats why we settled on chicken burgers,
we already knew were a treat to eat:

burger

Afterwards we were off to electronics class, where we learned about logic gates.
To our surprise we actually understood some of the material the teacher tried to teach 🙂
A glimpse at the teachers computer screen revealed, that she had the tools to watch
the screens of every student in the room and remote control them:

eye
Even though they have those surveillance tools, they don’t really seem to care 🙂

For lunch we had our trademark beef noodles, that we grew very fond of.
For me it’s the best thing we have eaten so far.

While working on our network design we had to create with real Cisco devices,
we were told that afterwards we should go to the English Corner together.
The English Corner is located in the Remni University campus. It’s a small park
where Chinese citizens, foreigners and students gather every Friday afternoon to
practice their oral English skills.
We did not really knew what to expect and as soon as we set foot on the premises
we were approached by dozens of Chinese citizens from every angle. They were coming at
us like bees. Soon two large crowds gathered around me and Alex and we nearly
talked to them two hours straight. The conversation topics ranged from German Education,
to German History to the Chinese former „One Child Policy“.
It was overwhelming and exhausting, but very educational and
definitely helpful for our English skills!
Exhausted, but pleased we took the subway home, grabbing a cold Yanjing Beer on the way.

Gallery:

 

Till next time…
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