Accomplishments and Pizza

Today we woke up at 06:30am. We were told to be at the other branch of our school at 8am. We arrived early and our new teacher greeted us and quickly put us to work. Our task, as promised, was to build a fully functional Bluetooth Speaker. At first we were overwhelmed by the scale of the project, the amount of parts and the circuit diagram. But with excellent help from our new teacher everything went smoothly and after a few hours we had a finished and working piece of audio equipment. It has buttons for power, volume up and down, next and previous track and pause/play.
The whole workshop was a total success, they even bought and brought lunch for us <3

Do05

After work the teacher gave us a box of parts for us to bring to Germany. We have 25 DoItYourself Kits now. But I don’t know if the OSZ-IMT has  „Accomplishments and Pizza“ weiterlesen

English Class, Workshop and Gaming

This day did not follow the schedule we anticipated. Yesterday Teacher Chen visited us in our dormitory. He told us that he wishes us to exclusively attend school this week, especially for a workshop he finds suitable for us. We were able to negotiate one day for us to visit our company for the last time, say goodbye. So today we went to school at 08:15. English class was on the agenda. The teacher quickly separated Alex and me for us having more language skill impact on the class, I guess. We had a lot of fun at English class, listening to the students trying their best to squeeze out a sentence or two. Due to exhaustion some students literally feel asleep 🙂

dienst09

For lunch our new best friend called Jason invited us to „English Class, Workshop and Gaming“ weiterlesen

The Biggest Pizza in Beijing

Today we took it slow. The temperatures outside are rising and it was best for us to do useful stuff indoors. After breakfast we started to clean our apartment, wash our laundry and organize souvenirs and gifts. Once in a while we stepped outside and I improved my piloting skills with my Quad drone, now practicing in „expert“-mode. Oh boy, believe me, this thing is fast and agile.
Because our food and water supplies were running low we also headed to Lotte Mart. Beforehand we made sure, that our Lotte Mart was offering our new favorite discovery: coco-tea. A freshly prepared cold beverage with different options, lemon, orange, green/back tea and much more. It tastes amazing and helps fight the heat. Here is a picture of my „Green Tea with Lemon“ in front of a  5L 42% alcoholic beverage also known as „Chinese happiness“:
5
After we showered, we decided to try out a new restaurant adjacent to the one „The Biggest Pizza in Beijing“ weiterlesen

Indian Food and Christmas

Today we arrived early at work as usual. With the help of Kenny we ordered a lot of things online, which we will bring back home to Germany. In China alibaba and jd.com are very common websites to get goods very cheap and fast. After lunch Lili and Kenny took us to buy even more souvenirs in a huge mall. Every store in the mall had at least 3+ employees who follow your every step, blabbering and doing everything in their power to sell you stuff. Wandering around the mall in some moments you have to restrain yourself from performing a roundhouse kick to free yourself from the surrounding salesgirl drones. Fortunately our trip was not in vain and Alex found something to buy bargaining the price down to about  „Indian Food and Christmas“ weiterlesen

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

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

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 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

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 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