My stay in Shanghai, London, Milan and Hong Kong

Pictures taken on Putuoshan Island

Here we go!

As promised, here are several pictures from our weekend trip to Putuoshan Island:

Almost two month in China

The time goes by very fast... I can't even believe that my time here in Shanghai is almost over. The only time I recognized it was when I tried to arrange my return flight to Munich the last days.

As for now I am not sure whether I will fly back home on August 31st via Frankfurt or on September 08th non stop, since Lufthansa will reopen the direct connection between Shanghai and Munich from the beginning of September after the SARS issue...

...Anyways, my last working day will be August 29th, so if I might not fly back home end of August I will probably fly to Hainan with some friends I am hanging around here in China. Hainan is a beautiful island in the south of China with lovely beaches and a lot of fresh air :-)
In this case I would stay there for a week in order to relax a bit after my 3 month stay in China. However, as for now I haven't decided yet, so we will see what the future brings...

Furthermore I must confess that I am happy to be back home for some time in September, because daily life here is really challenging and partly exhausting.

Oh by the way, yesterday evening my roomate who returns to Shanghai last Saturday and I, we watched the new Terminator movie on DVD - it was really a mess, I was so disappointed. No comparison the the last edition many years ago. However, it only cost as less than 1 Euro to watch the movie at home :-)

So I gotta work now, although I am not quite motivated at the moment.

See you

I AM a cancer....

Holy,

I just came back from my weekend trip on Putuoshan Island near Shanghai...it was raining on Saturday, but on Sunday, today, I got a horrible sunburn. Incredible, my friends over in Germany may laugh when they read this. Buddies, you can't even imagine, it much worse than our beach trip to Italy a few years ago..... :-(

I will post my weekend pictures as soon as my skin allows me to relax a bit...

Have a nice week!

Sunny day in Shanghai

Today was an amazing day. Hot and humid as usal, but almost no clouds on the sky.

Claudio tries to play Golf with his Boss

...and surprisingly lost a bet :-( *eg*

Last Sunday, my Boss invited me and another German colleague (law trainee), to play Golf with him. You have to know that I never played Golf before on a real Golf course. Thus explains why I was dressed with a Shirt and a blue jeans when outside the temperature reached the 40 degrees celcius and nearly 100% humidity...no wonder that at the end I was as wet as the lake where I used to shot the golfball inside around the 9 hole course.
But for a rookie my swing isn´t that bad, right? :-)

Finally the pictures from Suzhou

Hi,

after solved my health problem...I assume I shouldn´t have eaten those mushels. However finally I found the time to upload the pictures of our trip to Suzhou 3 weeks ago. Suzhou is a city (6 Mio. habitants) near Shanghai which is famous for its temples, gardens....and famous for its dish "Frog in Maggi Sauce" (look at the second picture, I even couldn´t believe my eyes) :-)

Getting Sick

Oh my god,

we went out yesterday to eat some Chinese food, just like every day. But yesterday the food was not quite good because when I woke up today, I had a strange feeling in my stomach...

However, with one hour delay I arrived at the office and tried my best to work. No chance, at Lunch time I asked my Chef to get off from work today.

So I went back home, tried to sleep for a while. My pains were going to be worse from minute to minute...shit.
I had to vomit I think at least 10 times this afternoon....urx!

And now the girlfriend of my roomate is coming over, since she had some trouble with her roomate. Hopefully she will not have too much luggage...I think she will stay at least for one week at my place, well I don´t care so much since Florian, my roomate will be back in Shanghai upcoming Saturday.

Cu

Hong Kong Update - Pictures

Well, as promised here are some pictures taken during my 4 days trip to Hong Kong. It was really amazing. The weather was great, it was at least 40 degrees celcius....enjoy yourself

Chinese haircutter

Hi,

before my trip to HK, I had no choice: I had to go to a Chinese haircutter and it was an exciting adventure...

... after several attemps entering a Chinese haircutter saloon, I finally found the courage to get this thing done.

After clarified the amount for getting my hair cut, the first Chinese lady started to massage my head for at least 15 minutes. Then I had to change the chair to get my hair washed...this was quite funny, because I was lying horizontally... :-)

Then we changed the room again for the next massage....a face massage! Actually I have never done stuff like that before, well why should I? However, I really was excited what might happen next. After this massage she just dried my hair and said, ok that's it!

I started laughing, because until then nobody of that saloon began to cut my hair either... Then I pointed my finger to the scissors lying on the table and I couldn't believe, they really began to understand what I was looking for in that saloon :-)

Then a smart and trustful looking Chinese guy with long black hair began to cut my hair very very carefully. I almost thought he would cut each single hair.
After some corrections I stood up and looked at the mirror and I laughed once again! It was horrible. The result was definitely no hair style...it was simply shit (sorry to say that, but it was true), I looked like a German comic figure, called "Pumuckl".

I sayed: "No man, I won´t leave your saloon unless you cut my hair correctly." He just answered: "Ok. Ok." At the end it took me one more half an hour until I looked like the way, "Ok now I am supposed to get out of here!" although i´t was not the way I wanted to get my hair cut..argh!

And the best: I had to pay 150 RMB, this is about 15 EURO....horrible....
...but as you can see, this reflects my daily life in China...it´s a real challenge! :-)

Back from Hong Kong

Hi,

yesterday I just came back from my 4 days trip to Hong Kong. It was overwhelming...this city life is really amazing....unfortunately I don't have more time now, but I will do my best to update some great pictures I took there this weekend....stay tuned!

Bye

Shanghai at Night Update

Pictures from the football match

..as already mentioned, here are the pictures I have taken during my first live football match in an Asian stadium:

Hong Kong

Hey,

today I received my ticket for my short 4-days trip to Hong Kong (July 12th - July 15th) where I will meet a buddy from Munich and his friend.

I am really looking forward to this adventure trip.

Take care...

Football in Shanghai

Hi,

together with two of my colleagues, we will go watching a football game here in one of the two football arenas.

This will be definitely very funny, especially when I am going to see the German football player "Joerg Albertz", formerly player from Hamburger SV in Germany. Last season he changed to the local Shanghai team.

I will take some pictures for you, of course.

My office and a nice Pudong view on a hot summer day...

Since there was a realy rare lovely day the past days, I took some pictures out of our CEOs room...his room has obviously the greatest view in our office...fortunately he is on a business trip in Germany, so I could take these pictures:

As you may imagine, the last picture shows you my personal desk...not quite exciting, I know... :-)

Made in China

Have a look on this...I couldn´t even believe what I saw....this should be our company´s server room :-) Masked as a spy, I took those pictures very early in the morning in order that nobody recognizes what I did: