My stay in Shanghai, London, Milan and Hong Kong

Jippie....holidays

In a couple of hours I will fly to Hainan for a one week off holiday break! I am really looking forward.

Anyways, I better go now since I still have to pack my bag.

If I have the opportunity to get an Internet connection over there at the hotel or somewhere else, I will write something down here.

Cu and take care
Claudio

Our house party - Oriental Morning Post

Amazing!
You remember, Florian, my roommate and I, we were giving a party at our place last Friday and today we found a big article in the "Oriental Morning Post" newspaper about our!!! party including several pictures.

If you look carefully, you will also find Florian's and my name in this article...that's awesome!!!

Christina's birthday at Noah's ark

On Tuesday we were invited to celebrate Christina's birthday at Noah's ark bar. Quite funny, because this bar is located on top of the hostel, were I stayed during my ten days trip to Shanghai this January.

There, Amelie introduced her friend Lena to me. Lena is studying together with Amelie in Germany and is now based in Beijing for an one year study abroad programme.

Go-Kart in Shanghai

As promised here are the impressions from our Go-Kart driving event last Tuesday. The first turn of 8 minutes I was really driving like an old duck. But hey, I didn't know the circuit at all. So in the end I (Kart 2) was 5 seconds behind my Boss (Kart 16) each round.

The second turn of 8 minutes I (Kart 13) drove against some other Chinese guys while my Boss was taking some other pictures and holy, I was going very fast...actually in the end my best round was better than my Boss' best round on the first turn. Obviously he got very upset to see that result :-)

My last working day

Wow....today is my last working day in Shanghai. Hard to understand, that three months already passed.

I really had a good time here at work and it was definitely a great experience which I don't want to miss so far. I feel a little bit proud of having had this kind of opportunity since I really put all my efforts in getting this internship.

Believe in yourself!

Return flight to Germany

Since Lufthansa will reopen its direct flight connection from Shanghai Pudong International Airport to Munich after the SARS issue, I know the true promise of this non-stop flight.

Actually here are my return flight details:

LH 727
Shanghai -> Munich

Arrival:
Tuesday, 9th September
05:40 GMT

One week off....holidays are coming!

Basically I would have flying back to Germany next Sunday, but I decided to go for a one week holiday trip here in China since the majority of my German friends will be in holidays as well. So no reason for me to return so soon!

I am really looking forward to this calm and relaxing one week off at the sunny and windy beaches on Hainan Island, actually the southest point of China, pretty close to Vietnam.

Chris, Mark, Cathrin and I, we are going to have a tremendous relaxing week there. Chris and Mark already booked our flights. We will therefore leave Shanghai next Sunday, 31st August and will come back to Shanghai on Saturday, 6th September.

We will stay at the "Palm Beach Resort & Spa" in Sanya, the south part of Hainan Island. Here you may have a look at some first impression of our Hotel.

I am really looking forward to this week, since I haven't been on holidays for almost two years.

Another farewell-party???

It seems to me that I am not the only intern who leaves Shanghai very soon. I just received another farewell-party invitation for tomorrow evening...and guess where! It will be in the bar on top of Captain Hostel, do you remember??? It was the hostel where I used to sleep during my ten days Shanghai trip this January....weird, isn't it?

Well, I have to see how to handle it, because as I already mentioned, we wanted to go to the Go-Kart circuit tomorrow evening as well.

Last working week in Shanghai

It's unbelievable....this week will be my last working week in Shanghai....as I already mentioned several times before, time and life go by very quick here in Shanghai.

The weekend was very tough, because it was obviously my real last complete one in Shanghai.
This week I plan to go driving Go-Karts together with my roommate and my Boss (tomorrow), I assume we will go partying at Pegasus on Thursday and on Friday, a dutch friend invited us to his place...another private homeparty...

4 * Taxi Driver

Amazing!

When using the taxi to get back home this morning, I couldn't believe what I saw. As I looked on the driver's certificate, there were 4 stars....this didn't happen during the whole time of my stay here in Shanghai.

Explanation:
The taxi driver here in Shanghai are rated from 0 up to 5 stars. The more stars a driver has, the more he speaks English, knows the city map, and so on.... Normally I used to drive with 0 up to 2 star taxi drivers...

Shopping tour UPDATE

Hi,
yesterday I used the freetime after having cleaned our apartment (ok, it was mainly Florian who cleaned-up the rooms) so I went to the city centre to buy some stuff for me and my German friends at home. I also bought another watch for a friend of mine in Germany...

Our Sunshine Party

Florian, my roommate and I, we decided to invite our friends to our place last friday. Although our guests tended to come a bit late, it was really fun to party with them until early in the morning. Since it was my real last whole weekend, it could have also be seen as my farewell party. At around 03:00 AM we decided to switch the location, so we took at least 5 taxis in order to get to Puxi.
Enjoy the snapshots:

The day after.....

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, I am feeling so bad today....we have been out again yesterday at Base, Windows and around Maoming until three o clock in the morning.....
Actually I have this kind of feeling you have when you get up on the weekend after a wild, fluid party the evening before. You cannot imagine how much I would appreciate going to bed again right now.

At least my internal presentation was posponed until tomorrow (not due to me!). I thank God for this support :-)

I feel hungry and it is not yet noon. Damn I really hope not to speak with too many people today... I assume, It's simply not my day today...

Virus alert: W32.Sobig.F@mm

Again a virus on my computer! Argh!

I hate it. When checking my e-mails yesterday at home through my laptop, my virusscanner recognized at least 30 incoming fake mails with an virus detected attachment. Who the ... is sending all these mails to me, I thought first. After a couple of minutes, I received virus notification e-mails from several guys I actually never met before or never was in contact with who told me that they have received a virus e-mail from me....shit...so this damn virus sent some e-mails independently from my account to everywhere in the net. Great!

Things don't seem to be better today. I still receive virus warning messages...let's see what happens next!

Update:
This virus spreads very quickly...millions of fake e-mails were sent out since the day before yesterday...great that I am one of the victims :-(
Here you may find more information about that virus and how to delete it from your machine (German webpage!)

Sunday, 07:00 AM

Holy ...,
yesterday was really hard for me. First, I was invited to join my boss' wedding party where I stayed until appr. 3:30 AM...afterwards I met my roommate at Park97 where we enjoyed the Club Music with a nice cold Gintonic...jamm...Then we decided not to go home so far and moved to "Mazzo", a bar with chilling music playing at least until noon...but before arriving there, we got very very hungry. So we decided to have some food at a small Chinese cook nearby (actually the food wasn't as good as we expected)...surprisingly, we weren't the only guests there (at 7 AM!!!). We met some other Chinese guys and the owner who calculated his daily turnover just next to us...Arrived at Mazzo, we drank some good longdrinks together with Nicole, the owner of that place and played some stupid dice games with her and a Chinese-American guy...all things considered it was a highly strange night....I was in bed at around 8 AM in the morning...

Patrick's farewell Dinner

Tonight together with my boss and another colleague, Patrick, a French lawyer, we had supper near the Jinmao Tower in Pudong in order to say "good bye" to Patrick. Actually he is not leaving the company, but he will go home to France for holidays and when he will come back to Shanghai I already finished my internship here.

However, Patrick is a smart guy who is well-known for his society he founded last week and I really appreciated this society - how may I join :-) (have a look on his business card):

CEIBS - China Europe International Business School

Today I visited CEIBS which is Asia Pacifics leading University for MBA programmes. It's a lovely campus, unfortunately far away from Shanghai city center. Faculty and Professors are highly international. Many of them are used to spend many years in well-known universities throughout the US and Europe. Here are some pictures I took today when I was there:

Do you smoke?

Guess what I found here in Shanghai. Cohiba cigarettes, with filters....that's weird, isn't it?!

Weather is changing...finally!

Hi,

after almost two month of hot and humid weather condition, it finally cooled off a bit. Anyways, it is still warm but more comfortable as before...

Keep smiling

A picture taken this weekend in front of the "Face" Bar where me, my roommate Florian, his girlfriend Heike and Katrin enjoyed the warm windy night sitting in the garden and drinking smooth Gin Tonic.

Shanghai's fabric market

Last week I´ve been to the fabric market here on Puxi side. I took one of my suits with me and asked one tailor to make me a copy of my existing suit. Furthermore I decided to take a corduroy suit as well...after one week I went back to the tailor and tried to wear my new suits...they were almost perfect. I kindly asked him to do some changes on the pants, so I will have to come back tomorrow around lunch time...we'll see. Here are some pictures taken on the market:

Private Parties in Shanghai

Thank to Christina, Sandra, Markus and ?, yesterday we were invited to their houseparty. Here are some insights:

Another nice watch...

I couldn't resist to buy another lovely watch...this time I choose one of "Lange & Söhne"....it took my breath away when I heard how expensive this watch would be in Germany...

Steffi's and Lukas' farewell dinner

On Friday we went out for dinner at a delicious Japanese All-you-can-drink-and-eat restaurant in order to say goodbye to Steffi and Luke, who will leave Shanghai the next days.

The dishes were exquisite....really fresh! seafood, a lot of meat, vegetables and of course a lot of beer and saki :-)

Busy (after-)working...

Although I am in for the next weekend, I already feel terribly tired. The problem is, I know the reason...

...no wonder. On the one hand, I really had to work late this week due to a current project report which has to be finished today and on the other hand I have been out after work together with my boss the day before yesterday and even yesterday as well. Actually, we only wanted to go out for a fresh beer, but in the end I could not even count how many we ordered....horrible, but generally speaking, that´s how Shanghai is. You never now, what happens next!

Now you can imagine how I feel today and when I think that we will go out today and tomorrow evening as well, I would like to lock me up at home in order to get some sleep.

Well, I have no choice...today we are celebrating Lukas' and Steffi's farewell at an all-you-can-eat-and-drink Japanese restaurant and tomorrow we are invited to a private party of three other buddies here in Pudong....holy... I will be shattered on Sunday.

Tomorrow I will go to the fabric market on Puxi side, to get two new suits which I got tailored very cheap.
I will inform you about the quality as soon as I got there.

Claudio, Shanghai, over and out!

My balcony view

Hey,

my roomate just took a nice 180 degrees view picture out of our apartment....that´s how it looks like every day: