Rainday

The Friday night was normal, after dinner at the refectory, tried to watch movies with Hailian, but they were all in German, so decided to show her some pictures. Read a bit and Oli called later on.
Saturday started early, met at 8.30 (with the 2 master students) and they helped to try to get some money. Only to try, because it didn't work. Apparently a 6 numbers password is needed to withdraw money from the credit card, but i only have one with 4. Got some money borrowed. We took the bus 255 from the bus station and a after more than one hour driving through Sy (very interesting to observe the places and people from the bus*) we arrived at the Tàiyuán street, the shopping street, crowded, but no car or bikes, therefore, very comfortable.

This is the place where people with greater economical power come to consume! And i tell you, they are really buying. The shopping mall was just like the ones i know in Brazil. Some products are really cheaper than in Europe, some other things are almost the same price. Walked and walked. I bought a pair of flipflops, a t-shirt and 2 science books in English. I have to be very careful when going shopping, cause it is really tempting.
Mr. Luo bought us some lotus (lìanzi), and this was the first time i ate it. And i liked!


We had lunch in another shopping center, a huge amount of food for only 6 RMBs.
We also went to a supermarket, and it was a very big one, with too many options! It is already difficult to decide what to buy, and the great amount of choice just make it more complicated. Anyway, the two were very patient, and i was glad that they also bought something. Had 4 bags full of things (and i have to notice, here is just the same as in Brazil, the supermarkets give you the plastic bags for free, next time i have to take my textile bags with me!) and it was only about 100 RMBs. Back to the bus stop, back to the traffic. As i wrote in the beginning,
i thought the streets were not so chaotic. Well, i was wrong, maybe because it is Saturday, it is really loud and busy! And the air is just terrible, you feel the dust going into your lungs. I was so tired that, as soon as i got a place to sit, i closed my eyes and slept a bit. The rest of the "trip" i could further look from the window. This are the times you wish you could make movies with your eyes, in some sense we do it, we just cant reproduce it. I didn't want to take pics, in order not to be indiscreet, or to attract attention. But maybe i should it, since i attract attention anyway! People sometimes look with some strange face at me, and at least the kids laugh back when i smile! I saw no other "foreign" on the streets, but i am sure there are some of them!
Arrived home and took a "shower". If you can call it a shower. Oh ya, i forget to tell, there is no such a thing like a shower room. You use the washstand in the toilette to clean yourself. I took me 2 days to understand that. It is not so bad, we are only girls in the students residence, and it is not that difficult to use a basin for washing. You can also do the laundry at the same time. It would be nice to have warm water. Specially for washing the hair. Calm Saturday evening, we had dinner and came to the lab for some internet use. Read and tried to work on the reports for Weimar, phoned with Oli and went to sleep. The night was not so warm, and i forgot to burn the mosquitoes thing. So in the morning i realized that i had a lots of bites in my hand and arms. :-(
Today, Sunday, should be renamed to Rainday. It started raining in the night, and it is still raining until now. In the morning it was pouring, so that i could not go for my walk around the campus. Well, next time. Anyway, i woke up too late, it was 10.20 am, and i started cleaning up a bit. Had noodles with Hailian at her dorm and then started working (on the computer). Suddenly someone knock at the door, it was Wu Xiang, a really sweet computer science student from my residence, who wanted to practice some English. Well, first she taught me some Chinese, and it is getting better, i can recognize and speak (still not perfect, sure) the four tons. She also showed me some of the characters. So much for the rainy Sunday, had dinner and came by the lab, to check mails and observe Hailian with some experiments. My parents just called me, and we talked a bit. I just realized that it is not possible to access wikipedia, or even blogspot from here. Well, everything is controlled here, and i remember that these websites were blocked. Hopefully i can further use google....
Tomorrow my supervisor Prof. Raninger will be here, and i hope i can get a better idea about my work.
(* About people and places: more about that soon!)

Shenyang, Friday 10th of august.

It´s probably 30°C outside, and now that i have internet access, i feel that i have really arrived. So i can start telling some of my first impressions.
From the beginning, i left the station in Erfurt with my more than 20kg backpack, and i thought i was taking too much.

Well, it was maybe not that much, but it was heavy. And i know i will need the warm clothes in the last month. :-) In the check in they said that i can take 30kg anyway!
Train trip was ok (luck me that there was no strike), and waiting in the airport was boring. Bought books and magazines, read a bit, tried to learn some Chinese.
Flight for the first time in a 747 with a second floor. Tought it would be quite empty, but it was not. Nice service, the stewardesses were very much relaxed, and there was no crying baby or people doing party (like the last flights to Brazil).
Had a place by the window, and could observe, when not sleeping, the view outside. Big cities at night are so amazing. And also very impressive was to Gobi desert. Could not see so much from Beijing.

While almost melting in the 35°C, just worried that there would be any problem in the pass control, i did the transit to the other machine, which was also full. I was indeed very tired, and could sleep the in the last hour of the trip. 14.30, just as said, we were landing. Colleagues were waiting for me in the airport, and, we had to go up and down looking for my backpack.Until now i don't know what happened, just that the luggage was not where it was supposed to be, and nobody knew about it. It comes to be really interesting when there are discussions in the Chinese language. We took a taxi from the very south to the very north, and i could get an idea of how big Shenyang (Sy) really is. More than 7.000.000, way too big for me, but, i guess i will survive. Anyway, streets are clean, the air is a bit muggy. The transit seemed to be not very chaotic. After more than one hour in the taxi (for 110 Yuan), we got in the university campus, almost in the rural area. Another master student was waiting for us, she had the keys of my dormitory. Unpacked, and we went eating. Well, i was afraid it would always be like this, a way to much food, and very spicy. My nose was saying thanks, than, indeed, it was good for cleaning!
We bought some stuff, a sim card for my cellphone, locks for the closet and some smelly incense against mosquitoes & co. There are really nice insects down here.

Could sleep the first night very well. Even had dreams. Met Miss. Zhang and we came to the lab: new and big, and really nice. There are some fermenters for anaerobic digestion experiments, and other measuring equipments. There is also the climate chamber for the landfill gas formation simulation and there are also two big
pilot plants. Pictures come later.
I got some literature to read, the proceedings of the 1. ICEEE (Institute of Clean Energy and Environmental Engineering) Conference which happened last year. The facts about waste management in China are quite impressive: only 30% of the population is served by collecting system, and this represents 155 Million tonnes waste every year. And only the half of this is treated (most in uncontrolled landfilling, some composting and incinerating). And i ask myself, first, what about the waste of the other 70% of the population? And, what about the other half of the collected waste, where does it go to?
Reading all morning, then lunch at the refectory. Good food, maybe some dishes with too much oil, but the rice is always good, and i am getting better with the chopsticks. The food costs between 2 to 8 Yuan's (20 to 80 cents), and the restaurant is like 24/7, almost all day open, the entire week. People here normally eat a hearty meals for breakfast as well. And guess what, after lunch i could even take a snap. They do so in summer here. But here an advice: not to sleep longer than 30min, otherwise you will be sleepy the whole afternoon.
So much for the first 2 days. Let´s see what the weekend will bring.

Last time

posting from Germany, leaving soon to take the train to Frankfurt. Write you as soon as possible from the Zhōngguó, the Middle Kingdom, das Reich der Mitte.

The most beautiful Landscapes....

I friend of Oli lent me a book from the Chinese National Geography, with the most beautiful landscapes of China. Really amazing. From the most impressive mountains, lakes, islands, up to caves, beaches, waterfalls and so on. Now the list of the locations i can try to visit near Shenyang.

- Changli
- River Liao Delta
- Heaven lake
- Benxi watercave
- Steppe Xilin Gol

SYIAE´s Motto

24 hours left, "almost" everything ready. Yesterday i was in Weimar for some last meetings. It was good that i called this colleague of mine, then he really was able to get some Yuan's for me, and to pick them up, i could also make a last small biking tour in Weimar. I probably will miss biking a lot.
Right now i was just earthgoogling a bit, and i am not sure if i found the university campus where i am going to live (maybe the pics are too old, and therefore i cannot find the airplane). But i found the University´s Motto: Virtuous, Capable, Brave and Perseverant.

Nice, hum?

The airplane:
I checked that it is quite warm in Shenyang these days, 35°C. Almost like home! It seems there is a sport facility at the campus, and the library has a amount of 72,4052 volumes. I can hope it is not too warm inside.

About eating and other stuff...

For German readers, "Reis mit Sch.." in Fichtners Tellergericht.

So, eating well is really one of the favorite activities of Chinese people. (well, at least and specially the ones who can afford fancy restaurants!). And what you can eat in China is nothing compared to what is served in most restaurants here. Only the fact that, over there, you first go to the aquarium to choose your main dish, that is quite impressive.
The good thing is, as the author refers in the article, an entire life would be needed to taste all the vegetarian dishes the Chinese kitchen has to offer! Uff! Maybe I can eat fish sometimes! :-)

All you need to know about Chopsticks

7 days to go! Still need to finish some assessments, but i can already start getting prepared for the traveling. Today i cooked myself some noodles, and guess what, i just ate them with chopsticks.
I do have some experience using these eating utensil, but i need to get faster! It is not so easy, specially when the food is almost finishing.


Did you know that?
> Chopsticks should not be left standing vertically in a bowl of rice or other food. Any stick-like object pointed upward resembles the incense sticks that some Asians use as offerings to deceased family members; certain funerary rites designate offerings of food to the dead using standing chopsticks.
> Chinese traditionally eat rice from a small bowl held in the left hand. The rice bowl is raised to the mouth and the rice pushed into the mouth using the chopsticks. Some Chinese find it offensive to scoop rice from the bowl using a spoon. If rice is served on a plate, as is more common in the West, it is acceptable and more practical to eat it with a fork or spoon.
> In China alone, an estimated 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are used and thrown away annually. This adds up to 1.7 million cubic meters of timber or 25 million fully grown trees every year. Uau!