My stay in Shanghai, London, Milan and Hong Kong

my first week in london

hi,

i am sorry i have to write in lower letters but i am using a broken keyboard of a pc located in our university's internet-cafe.

today my second week in school begins and nothing special happened so far. hopefully i might be able to move to my real home this week. i think i will have to call my landlord tonight in order to get some more detailed information.

this weekend i only went out together with the other student's to "cafe de paris". as you could imagine from the name, it was slightly an expensive event although we didn't have to pay any entrance fee. I only had two drinks and payed about 30 euros....amazing.

saturday we visited some french students at their home and had some fun there before we took the night bus to get back to our place. unfortunately the bus was so crowded, we passed our bus stop and ended up far away, near wembley station. holy shit....at the end, we arrived back home at around 5 am.

yesterday i haven't done anything interesting. just sleeping long, preparing some stuff for my next lectures....

e-Mail access!

Hi everybody,

as already mentioned earlier before, I am still not able to check my private e-mails through the yahoo mail client except my ... e-mail address.

So if you want to drop me some lines, please feel free to write to ... for the next upcoming days.

First week on Regents Business School

Today it`s my fourth day in University and things are going quite fine until now. The other "regular" students are dressed very exclusive, especially the girls I have to confess.

As time goes by I am getting sicker every day due to this damn air conditioning and heating in the tube stations and the windy weather outside.
I still don`t have my own room so far and I am getting rid of it a little bit. Our international student group went out yesterday evening for clubbing and it was ok. Especially to get in touch with the French and Spanish students of my class.

London is a great city. I like all these sweet small houses and the feeling when sitting in one of those typical British pubs.

I am now sitting in the IT Centre of my University and trying to get access to my email accounts but Yahoo, where I usually try to access my private email addresses has been blocked by the IT Centre...so I am not able to check my emails.

Arrived in London!

Hi everybody,

this is my first diary entry directly from London, UK! Actually I arrived here in town yesterday. I finally found a place where to stay the next upcoming days before I may enter my own home next week.
I am now staying at a friend`s place. It`s not quite comfortable but anyway at least I have a place to sleep.

Yesterday was a pretty lovely day. After carrying all my luggage around London for one and a half hours I finally arrived at my friend`s home.

Well, I have to add that my flight was scheduled very early in the morning and I haven`t slept long because we have been out the day and night before at the Oktoberfest and another club afterwards.

So after having arrived in London, my student friends and I, we explored down town London by walking along the river and stopping by in a nice typical British pub.

Today was my first day in University and it was quite exciting. There are several German, French and Spanish students in my semester but so far I haven`t been in closer conversation with all the other foreign students.

As typical for London, today it is very cloudy and it started to rain just two hours ago but I will come along with it.

Hmmm .... what can I also add in here. At home, unfortunately we don`t have any internet connection so that is why I am currently sitting in an Internet Cafe just nearby. By the way, it seems to me that we are not living in an exclusive area of London. Many gangs seem to be around. Last week just nearby there was a murder where a black man and his seven years old daughter were killed at their home. I know that because we passed by that home and there were many flowers and candles placed in front of the entrance as well as a big poster describing what happened here last week....

Will talk to you as soon as I am back here in the Internet Cafe or as soon as I have my University email account.

"O'zapft is!"

Today the "Oktoberfest" will inaugurate its 170th opening here in Munich. Generally I wanted to go there to meet my friends but I have to finish my Internship report first...damn...

You want to join the real Oktoberfest on the net. Well, here is a nice 24h webcam demonstrating the amazing atmosphere within the "Hacker" beer tent.

Accomodation wanted!

Hmmmm...today it's Thursday and on Sunday I will continue my trip to London. Sounds great, isn't it? And yes, I am really looking forward but unfortunately I don't have a place to stay until the end of September, when my studio will only be ready.
I hope I will find a solution because I don't want to stay at Heathrow without knowing where to go next....

Well, I'll keep you updated.

Pictures from Hainan Island

As promised earlier before, here is an exclusive selection of several pictures I took during my one week holiday stay on Hainan Island. We had a really good and relaxing time off and I think you can convince yourself by having a look on those snapshots:

Still Jet-Lag...

It's incredible. I still feel very strange in terms of being tired all day...

September 11th - A Day to Remember

Exactly two years ago as everybody knows an incredible attack took place. Therefore I think it's a suitable moment to remind to the memories which I recorded by having designed a Flash Movie with tears in my eyes shortly after this massacre happened two years ago.

Feel free to watch my movie in order to commemorate the victims of 09-11-01 by clicking on the picture below.

London, Baby!

Well, only ten days to go until my trip to London and I am still looking for an accomodation for the first 10 days before I might be able to settle to my new apartment near Kensal Green tube station in October.

At least I already have my flight ticket to London.

Today in Munich it's still very fresh and raining. It's actually a lazy day which I will use to watch some of my DVD movies I bought in Shanghai.

Strange feeling...

I didn't expect it to be so weird being back in Germany. Walking along the street while not having this noise and crowd aorund me was quite unfamiliar and furthermore "uncomfortable".
I know that must sound strange to you but I really felt like this today. Thus it will obviously take some days to get back to "normal" daily life here in Munich.

Although I didn't expect the Jet-Lag to be so bad, I think I will go to sleep now, even if it is just 9 PM European Time.

And I have to add, that I already really miss my friends from Shanghai. I wish I could see what you guys are doing right now....all the best to you all anyways...

Back to Germany....

Hi,

after a relaxing 12 hours non-stop flight I recently arrived back to Munich. Now I am sitting in my room enjoying the fast DSL internet connection ....mmmmhhhh.

The flight was relaxing because I was surprisingly upgraded from economy class to business class....oh that was so great, and for me, flying business cl. for the first time ever in my life I really enjoyed it a lot.

Munich's temperature is quite fresh today, but really comfortable compared to the humid and hot days in Shanghai :-)

Anyways, it's good to be back at home now.

Talk to you later on....

Claudio

My last day in Shanghai!

Incredible...after almost exactly 3 month in Asia, today it is my last day here in Shanghai...

I had a great time and in the end, I am not quite sure if I should looking forward to getting back to Europe or not...actually I have to confess I am quite confused today...

...it's a strange day for me. Yesterday evening I said Good Bye to all my friends I got to know during my time here in Asia. It was nice to have some last drinks at the Face Bar when sitting outside in the garden.

Today, since I have still some hours before my ride to the airport, I thought about getting to Huai Hai Lu again and getting some last presents. By the way, I really hope that Lufthansa will not make me any problems tonight. I think I will have at least 30 kg of luggage weight...please, I hope I will not have to pay for that overwheight.

It's hard to believe that I will be sitting in my room in Germany again by tomorrow morning...holy.

Thank you for following my online diary during the last three month. I really hope I could give you some insights into my daily life here in Asia.
However, since I will settle down to London from 21 September I will carry on in writing into this diary. So stay tuned...

Claudio

Back from Hainan Island!

Hi,

after a relaxing six days trip to Hainan Island in the south-west of China, I came back to Shanghai yesterday evening where I will pass another 1 1/2 days before getting furthermore back to Germany tomorrow evening.

I took many nice pictures, which I will upload during the next days. Here is just one little picture showing the tremendous swimming pool of our hotel there...