It's raining again... So schönes Wetter war am Wochenende, wenn auch ziemlich warm (ca. 30º), jetzt ist es etwas abgekühlt aber furchtbar schwül!

Da erzähl ich mal lieber vom Sonntag! Oh sorry, better in english for everybody.
On sunday Rita and me went on a trip to Hangzhou, an 8-million city near by, quite small, isn't it? ;-)
The city is famous for its lake, I thought "only a lake??" but well, being accostumed to concrete landscapes it is something special. But in deed, it has beaten my expectations, the lake is an attaction. First of all, I did not expect so much green around, than it is enourmous (is there anything small in China??) and invites to walk or bike around or take a boat. We took a tourist bus to one place and walked a while, the pity was that there were too many people and annoying tourist trains with awful whistles making there way. The chinese love it to be loud in this way, they don't talk or behave as loud as spaniards, but these vehicle noises as horns, bells of every style and whistles are quite beloved.

Above the hills behind the lake there are some temples and famous buddahs carved in the rocks, this was quite impressive. Well the best you have a look at yourself:

And this guy we found together with other hundreds of funny buddahs inside of one of the temples, no idea what they were thought for.

 And last but not least some photos from the temples:

Updates!

Whow, I have been so occupied since friday, no way to write anything. But now, I've got time, the day was relaxed, I recovered my sleep, tomorrow will be my last theory lesson, on friday the last lab-session and: volando voy volando vengo! On sunday at 9:20am :-)

Since thursdayI have strange happenings that have to do with Germany. I told about the German week they celebrated in the campus, I saw another movie on thursday, "Im Winter ein Jahr", schön, wenn auch etwas traurig. Those film sessions gave us a kind of dejavu, but exist dejavu for different people? I mean that three different people are experiencing the same thing in different days? It is about the bag I won. The next day, Rita won the same. And on thursday, I have been there with Pau and Rita, it was Pau... Now the three of us have the same bag!! No, not everybody there got one, it was  a real lottery! Strange...

The next morning, I rode on my bike to catch the bus and what happens, suddenly the loudspeakers all over the campus were yelling some german "Schlager" I did not know, horrible! Afterwards die Prinzen mit "das alles ist Deutschland", afterwards another song... I felt like beeing in the wrong film...Leider klappt's nicht, das Video hier hochzuladen :-(
But that is not all strange what happened, on saturday night I went out and I met a german guy from Hamburg and a friend of him, an english guy - living in Hamburg. This was the third person from Hamburg, not even Germany, no Hamburg, what does this mean?? Ah and there was also a chinese girl, grewn up in München, she stayed for half a year in Shanghai to learn chinese writing. And she complained about the bad manners of the chinese people :-)

But now something more "vistoso" :-) On saturday I went up to the World Financial Center, it was the highest building in 2009, the one that looks like a bottle-opener. The elevator went up to the 94th floor in 450 m heigth! Then mechanical stairs lead to the 100th floor 474m above the ground. The floor is partly transparent and it took me amoment to trust (you see on the photo that I am standing a little bit like on eggs, isn't it?) Well, simply IMPRESSING, like so many things here. And amazing, you see the houses as if they were models and the other skyscrapers from above! That's the best. I never saw such high buildings from above, so near I mean, it's nearer than from a plane.

Hoy no me salen cosas alegres. Nos ha dejado tirado el coche y cuesta más arreglarlo que vale en el mercado (arreglado). Pero comprar uno nuevo es una decisión muy difícil, necesitamos uno grande y  adaptarlo, lo cual vale una fortuna... :-(

Hi, thank you for your comments! Offline comments are quite ok :-)
Some of them inspired me to tell you more things about the life here in Shanghai, I suppose up to now it sounds more like a description of vacations...
For example, the city itself. I showed some photos, indeed, but those are VERY selected... The most part of the city, the streets you constantly see, are more like in the first photos I published, big buildings of 30 levels or more or old streets with "garage-shops" of every kind (I think I have to make some of those photos, still I didn't because I really already know this from my trip to Chengdu two years ago).
Here you can see some quite strange buildings, dont't ask me what it is...

 The fact is, when you're passing through the streets, it's always crowded, there are soooo many people all over, you hardly find some place to be alone. (That's another reason why I wanted to go to the island)
So if I had to live here, I don't really know where. The city is in all places, but probably one could find a good and quiet flat, let's say an oasis where you could escape from the city noise. The flat where Antonio and his family lives, e.g. is quite good! He lives in the 14th floor of a 32 stories building which is quite luxurious. It's in very good condition, has a concierge, a private park etc. but it surely costs its price! For "normal" salaries this would not be possible.
In spite of the noise and crowd there is also the smog... Most of the days are cloudy and you never really know if this is humidity or smog... Actually I do not smell it, sometimes in Madrid it is worse, but I notice a strange effect in my throat. It's a little bit like bronchitis, it is hard to breath and sometimes my throat is filling up with mucus such that I feel like have to spit... Maybe this is the reason why everybody is spitting around in the streets?? Well it's not such worse, that I could not stand it, but I'm happy to get away from here in two weeks and not to breath this air any longer. Maybe the air in Madrid is not better, but there at least I can look up the smog values. Maybe you have seen people in the news walking around with masks. Some of them put them on because of the bad air, some of them, I think, for not contaminating others with their bacteria. Actually, I brought some masks, more because of my fear about the H7N9 virus. But I tried it one day in the traffic and I don't know, but it is worse, you cannot breath at all with it! So, standing the smog as I can...

Clemens also  asked how I could live inbetween the chinese people, being so different and tall :-) That's a very good question! Answer: in part I am used to it inbetween the spaniards ;-) OK, the spaniards are not looking at me as if I had come from another planet and there are also no groups of young girls hiding their mouth and giggling, there are also no people shooting photos of me or trying to catch a photo with them AND me on it... Sometimes they are asking, mostly not. So I am used to be a stranger but not THAT stranger. For one month it is ok, but for longer, I clearly would not want this feeling. I think it could also be very difficult to make friendships. But my tallness is no problem, there are also some tall chinese (boys) and everything is made high enough (metro, entrances etc.) also the bed is standard size and has a very good matress. Only the chairs and tables... Here in the hotel I'm sitting very badly in fron of a desk on a stool which is much to low, and also in the university the chairs are too low and have no possibility to wind them up although they are office chairs.

Well, it's half past nine and I'll go out now to the city to see some of the markets (fabrics, pearls, fakes, whatever) as it is raining, it's the best I can do!

Ja, ich war vorhin in dem Film mit Franka Potente in einer Doppelrolle "Blueprint" im Rahmen der Deutschen Woche, die hier gerade auf dem Campus veranstaltet wird. Hat mir leider gar nicht gefallen. War irgendwie flach und das Thema gar nicht schön. Naja, wenigstens deutsch ausser dass der Ton so schlecht war, dass ich die Hälfte gar nicht verstand. Aber danach, der Hammer, wurden unter den Eintrittskarten Taschen verlost! Die Karte hat ja gar nichts gekostet, hatte aber eine Nummer. Tja, Tausendernummern verstehe ich aber noch gar nicht, hab dann mein Kärtchen einer Chinesin vor die Nase gehalten und BINGO! Habe eine Tasche gewonnen! Ichgewinne ja sonst nie was, heisst das etw, es bricht eine bessere Zeit an? ;-) Naja, die Tasche ist leider etwas schwer, gar nicht so mein Stil, könnte man vielleicht gerade noch für Sportsachen verwenden, also vielleicht lasse ich sie hier, wenn der Koffer zu schwer wird mit den ganzen Mitbringseln...

Sonst war gestern und heute nichts los, gestern 2 Vorlesungen und heute auch zwei, hintereinander auch noch, und die wollten noch nicht mal länger Pause machen... Naja, wenigstens war es der Teil, den ich am liebsten mag. Morgen muss ich auch nochmal ranklotzen, Donnerstag hab ich frei, da geh ich nochmal bummeln. Braucht noch jemand was von hier?

Hoy tuvimos una comida hispano-alemana en casa de Antonio, degustación de ibéricos  Kartoffelsalat, pan tumaca de Pau y pimientos caramelizados que aportó Rita. Todo muy bueno, me puse... vamos.
Mañana me levantaré otra vez a las seis que pena, se acabaron las vacaciones. Pero bueno, tendré dos días llenos de trabajo pero una buena recompensa el martes por la tarde: una película alemana con mi actriz favorita Franka Potente! Es que por casualidad han organizado una semana alemana en el campus: http://cdhk.tongji.edu.cn/userfiles/2013%20DW%20Programm_web.pdf

Oye, si lees esto podrías darme algún comentario u otro feedback de vez en cuando, es muy unilateral...

Hey, ich würde mich freuen ab und zu einen Kommentar von meinen Lesern zu bekommen, wenn hier überhaupt einer mitliest...

Hey, it's saturday, and we had an excellent trip outside Shangai to the seaside! But first I have to tell what I did yesterday.
In the morning, I prepared my monday class, in the afternoon I went with Pau to see the "Urban Planning Exhibition Center". We expected to learn there something about the future of Shanghai, how the city is planned to be etc. But in this sense it was a little bit disappointing. It is an impressive building (como no...) of about 6 floors and we climbed up one after another searching for the interesting things. Mostly there were historic photos, comparisons of before and now, but it seemed that the small history (only 100 years) has been blown up a lot. Finally we got to the floor with the model of Shanghai, that was really impressive! The complete inner ring of Shanghai is build showing existing buildings and approved future buildings up to 2020.

By "night" it's even more impressive:

We even found the campus and our guesthouse! Although it is not totally exact...

After that exhausting visit, it was time for a beer! Pau had the idea to show me a terrace where he has been before, with view to the Pudong skyline. Great! But those hotels on the bund are not for poor people... We had a good beer, but also paid a good price, about 8€. More expensive than the dinner we had afterwards in a normal restaurant... But look a the view! It's my favourite photo up to now:

Lust auf mehr?

Na dann! Nach so viel Beton, war uns heute mal nach Natur! Gibt's das hier? Das wollten wir auch wissen. Gut dass es Internet gibt, ich habe herausgefunden, wie man auf die Shanghai vorgelagerte Insel "Chongming" kommt, und so machten wir uns auf die Odyssee. "Grab a bus from the Exit 6 Metro Stop of the Science and Technology Museum, give them 12rmb, and one hour later you will arrive in Chen Jia Zhen ( 陈家镇) in the east end of Chongming Island." Und es stimmte wirklich! Dort sollte man nun ein Taxi nehmen und zum "Dongtan Wetland Park (东滩湿地公园) fahren, hab mir das zu hause alles minutiös copiert, denn wer weiss wer da noch Englisch spricht... Der Taxifahrer konnte dann auch perfekt meine chinesischen Krakeleien lesen und ab ging's, ne weitere halbe Stunde über die Insel. Aber es gab wirklich grüne Flächen zu sehen, Einzelhäuser, weites Land... unglaublich fast. Der Park war dann super, richtig schön angelegt mit Holzwegen durch Schilfgewässerlandschaft und Blumen, Blumen, Blumen überall, hauptsächlich Mohn und wunderschöne Kornblumen. Wir haben uns ein Fahrrad gemietet, natürlich wiedermal nicht meine Grösse, funktionierte aber und hat total Spass gebracht!  

Die Rückfahrt war dann nochmal klasse... Es gab ein Taxe, aber der wollte aus irgendeinem Grunde nicht. Ein anderer Fahrer (kein offizielles Taxi!), der gerade Leute herausgelassen hatte, machte uns dann einen Festpreis. Da es so viel war wie auf dem Hinweg willigten wir ein. Buf, der fuhr noch schlimmer als der erste, immer mitten auf der Linie, überholte Lastwagen wo kein Platz war... und dann kamen wir irgendwo lang wo wir vorher nicht waren! Es sah nicht danach aus, dass er uns hereinlegen wollte, eher, dass er nicht verstanden hatte, wo wir hinwollten. Wollte daher der andere nicht? Dachte er wir fahren ganz nach Shanghai? Nein, wir wollten ja nur wieder zum Bus... Gut, dass ich mein neu erstandenes "Easy peasy chinese Buch" dabei hatte. Wir suchten schnell heraus was Bus heisst, ich zeigte nochmal meine Krakeleien und er sagte Ahhh! Und schlug einen anderen Weg ein. Phu... Dort angekommen geleitete er uns dann noch bis zum Ticktschalter, super nett, wollte aber dafür dann 10 RMB mehr haben :-) 

Es war ein super Tag, nur gut, dass ich jemanden für diese Trips begeistern konnte, alleine hätte ich das ja nie gemacht!