Schlagwort: Axel

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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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