food – afib@china

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

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 🙂

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

Mischa Maisky & Bamberg Symphony Orchestra Concert

Today we went to the Beijing Concert Hall to listen to the Mischa Maisky & Bamberg Symphony Orchestra Concert together with Lili and Kenny. But first of all we had dinner at a nice restaurant rated with five diamonds (whatever rating that is).

As usual it was delicious and we actually managed to order just a little bit too much, we nearly finished everything.

Then we drove to the Concert Hall and first had a look around at the outside. Afterwards we passed the security check and took our seats. The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra played A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Mendelssohn, Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op. 85 by Elgar and Symphony No.5 in E-flat Major, Op 82 by Sibelius. For me as non-musician it was a new experience, „Mischa Maisky & Bamberg Symphony Orchestra Concert“ 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

798 Art Gallery and German Dinner

Today after work Lili, Kenny and Johnny took us to the so called 798 Art Gallery not far away from our school. We took a look around and visited some of the galleries. The 798 Art Gallery is a big district where a lot of artists have a showroom, there are also some nice restaurants like the „Schindlers Autoladestelle“, where we went for dinner. But first some impressions of the 798:

Then we had our first real German food in seven weeks. It was just awesome, we had Weißwürstel, potato salad, bread with liver sausage, lard and cheese, a kind of Schweinzhaxe and most important „798 Art Gallery and German Dinner“ 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

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

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: