Miscellaneous things

There are a few more things that I have to talk about in order to keep you up to date. The exams that we have written so far were alright. I can’t say that they were outstanding, but there is nothing to worry about. The last few weeks have been pretty stressful, but somehow we still managed to go on a hiking trip last weekend. And I even took the time to finish the book that I had started ages ago. Pictures of the hiking trip to the yellow mountains will follow. Just let me catch up with everything else.

One of the most useful things that I have bought so far is a new cell phone and a contract with China Mobile. It is very cheap compared to Germany. We pay 2.70€ per month and we have got 160 free short messages. No matter if you call another cell phone or a home phone, it only costs about 0.2 cents per minute. I think it is essential to have a cell phone in such a big city and it has been very useful so far. If you want to call me, just write me an email and I will tell you my number. I just don’t want to post it on this website.

I promised to upload some pictures of our apartment. We like it a lot and it already feels a little like home. Don’t worry, I have already decided that I won’t stay here for the rest of my life. However, this doesn’t mean that I don’t like it here!

On these two pictures you can see my room:




The living room with a huge TV (it was already here before we moved in):



The kitchen:



Here you can see the four of us while having breakfast:



So much for the apartment. One other thing that I have not talked about is school. I am taking both engineering and Chinese language classes. The engineering courses are called “Design and Manufacturing II”, the corresponding project and “Fluid Mechanics”. I really like Fluid Mechanics. I am even thinking of doing something similar later for a job. But that’s just an idea. The language courses are tough. I feel like I have understood the basics of the language, but now there is so much vocabulary that has to be memorized. I got to know a Chinese girl (Annika is her German name – Chinese students often give themselves English or German names in order to make it more convenient for none-Chinese people to pronounce their name) who studies German language and she gives me private lessons in Chinese. Today was our first lesson and it helps a lot. She is very good at explaining the grammar. Unfortunately, our teachers at the university don’t speak English well enough to explain the complex rules of grammar. I am glad that I met Annika. She is also planning on telling me more about Chinese culture which I am already looking forward to.
You can see my university schedule in the next picture. The yellow courses take place at the campus in the downtown area. We can walk there and it only takes about 20 minutes. The green courses are on the campus which is situated a little outside of the center of Shanghai. We take the subway to get near the university and then our bikes in order to get around on campus. It takes us about 80 minutes to get from our house to the lecture hall. If class starts at 8am we have to leave our apartment at 6:30am which is way too early for me. While being in the metro, I read a lot. This way, I don’t waste the time and additionally it doesn’t seem to take so long.



University is much different compared to Germany. The first thing that I had to get used to is the compulsory attendance. And because in the engineering classes we are the only four western students, it is impossible to skip the class without the teacher noticing it. Furthermore, we have to hand in homework once a week and there is not only one exam at the end of the semester as we are used to, but there is a midterm exam and also some quizzes. My first thought was: “Welcome back to school…”, but by now I feel like I have successfully adapted to the new system. Hopefully, the grades won’t be too bad at the end, but we will see.
By the way, these are the bikes that we have bought (next picture). Everyone has got the same one because that way we could get a better price. We paid around 15€ which is very cheap, but I have to admit that it is not the greatest bike that I have ever had. At least they are not likely to be stolen because of their low value.



IN: I imagine that I have gotten better at the Chinese language
OUT: homework and studying vocabulary

Sightseeing in Shanghai

The weekends after we have written an exam usually consist of sleeping, sightseeing and having fun. Since we have not had a whole lot of time of getting to know Shanghai, yet, we use those weekends to see if the “Lonely Planet” is right about all the sights in this city. One of the things that you have got to see when you come to Shanghai is the so-called People’s Square. It is a place where it is always crowded and in the nearby People’s Park you can take some time to take a break and sit down. The area is surrounded by skyscrapers and we were pretty impressed by the architecture. Doesn’t the building in the second picture look like it would fit into “The Lord of the Rings”? ;)





From this place we started walking into Nanjing Road – the main street and known for its great opportunities to go shopping. I don’t think that I have ever seen that many people in one day. And whenever there are crowds of people, locals will try to sell you something. “Have a look! DVDs, watches…” or “Rolex, Rolex” are one of the sentences that will start annoying you once you have walked into the street. But our hard work for the Chinese language course paid off and we were able to tell them that we did not want to buy anything. I took a few pictures, but then we decided to head to the even taller buildings of the city and watch the sunset from up there. A few picture of the area that I have just talked about. In my opinion, the second one is very typical of Shanghai. You can see the contrast between an old building which seems to have been there forever and a very new building in the background.







We walked to the “World Finance Center” which is the world’s 3rd tallest building! It looks like a huge bottle opener and the view from the top is amazing. We were a little late for the sunset, but it was still a great view. Of course, I took a few pictures in order to make you jealous :) In the first one you can see the bottle opener right next to the former city’s tallest building. In the second picture you can see us at the very top of the building and in the third one you can see the amazing view which you have from up there.







Last weekend, we treated ourselves with a ride on the “Maglev” train which is also known as the Transrapid. It was quite an adventure and I must say that it felt a little scary to basically fly over the city. 431 km/h is just incredibly fast! You can see the train in the next picture:





There are still many sights to see and luckily there is also some time left to have a look at the rest of the city. However, I think on the next free weekend we will plan a trip to a place outside of the city. The countryside is waiting to be explored…

IN: German engineering (Transrapid)
OUT: all the annoying people who never seem to stop bugging you because they want to sell their souvenirs and other junk

Big City Life

A lot has happened since my last post. By now, we have successfully moved into our new apartment!! It’s great, finally a place that feels like it can be a temporary home. Believe me, it was not easy to find an apartment in the downtown area of Shanghai with four bedrooms for only 5 months. Oh and of course we could not even say one sentence in Chinese and the majority of the realty agencies did not speak English. So here is what we did:

The process seemed to be the same in every agency. They offered us some apartments with only three bedrooms instead of four, but then just before we were ready to walk out of their office, they found an apartment that sounded worth looking at. We decided to get help from our Chinese friends who were a big help because we were not able to negotiate in Chinese and they were there to do the talking. One decision we had to make was whether we wanted to look for an apartment near our campus which is situated in the downtown area (this is where we have to go for our language course) or near the other campus where our mechanical engineering lectures take place (disadvantage: far away from the center of the city). The decision was fairly easy and we all agreed on the possibility downtown :) After spending a lot of time walking around and going from one agency to another and looking at many apartments, we were able to decide on one of them.

In the next picture you can see the four of us with a Chinese friend before signing the Chinese (!) contract. We had to pay the first rent and the deposit (27000 Yuan) in cash and the largest banknote over here is 100 Yuan. It was strange to walk around with so much money, but everything worked out and we are happy to live in the area that we have chosen.

After we had signed the contract, we invited the guy who helped us to negotiate with the Chinese landlord to have lunch with us. He also translated the contract and made sure that everything was correct. This was the first time that we ate food from the Hongkong area. You can see all of us during lunch in the next picture. I loved the various dishes and drinks and besides it felt good to have a nice place to stay for the next few months - great day! Pictures of the apartment will be coming up soon…

IN: our new apartment and neighborhood

OUT: the slowliness of this internet connection