meeting with coworkers

We had a meeting on the 28th after work to get to know our coworkers. Actually they are not my coworkers since they work in the Head Office and I am at the testcentre but I went there anyways. Usually I am around engineers and there are only 2 women - that night there were 8 and I was the only guy at the table.
I have no idea where I learned to eat with sticks but I knew how to do it when I came to China.
I think I nead a haircut but I am not sure about the barber yet. If I get a chance I will take care of that this weekend.

"cheap" transport

What are you going to do if you need to transport your sheep but don't have a truck? Well in China you use what you got ... and yes, the sheep are alive.

plans for the next months

This is my rough schedule for the next months:

december 20th to january 7th: free time (I will have to study)

january 20th to february 1st: winter testing - 4000km through China (not confirmed yet)

february 1st to february 4th: Hong Kong

february 7th to february 10th: national holidays

So in my mind it is already march ...

intercultural things

My Chinese co-workers asked me if I want to come with them on friday night to have dinner and ktv after that (ktv means karaoke tv). I thought it is a nice idea and so I went with them.
We had a nice dinner with all kinds of food. After that we went around the corner to the ktv. I had no idea what it is going to be like.
You come in and there are a lot rooms - I did not count them but we were in number 117. It has a big screen, two big tables (we were 7) and a lot possibilities to sit. Since everybody sang, I did it too. I have the feeling that my Chinese co-workers are much easier with me now. Maybe I am not a good singer but at least I tried.
I noticed that the lyrics are sometimes pretty messed up. This might be due to the fact that the 'classic' songs are from Chinese artists. Anyways - nice experience.

new office

I moved into my new office this morning. I am the first one - five more to follow next year. Looks pretty empty but we will start to put up some pictures on the wall soon.

[ picture curtesie by Laney ]

snapshot

On my way to lunch on sunday I took the following snapshot:



The construction site in the background is the new building for the chinese TV. It should be finished by Juli 2008. I pass it every morning on my way to work but have not had a chance to get a good picture. The idea is to have two towers which are connected at the top by 13 floors. The towers are turned against each other so this is not the classical 'straight' kind of buildings. Maybe I can find a picture about that ...

Yong He Gong

Visiting the 'Yong He Gong' budhist temple. I can not comment on every picture but you see what I have been up to on saturday:

entrance




























This is the kind of proof pictures that show I was there...


















These temples contain different Buddhas for different purposes like the Buddha of wisdom ...










































Turning the drum creates luck.


















Just some nice decoration on the roof.

last weekend

My rommate Jozsef (bottom) and me (top) are trying out Chinese beer:

some statistics

I did some research on vehicle numbers and traffic victims today:

Germany: 46 million cars, 5050 dead (2006)
China: 21 million cars, 89.000 dead (official), 165.000 dead (inofficial)
whole Europe: 39.200 dead

Winter in Beijing

Der Spiegel berichtet über die "Gewohnheiten" der Chinesen was das Heizen angeht - und erspart mir viel Schreiberei: http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,516577,00.html

shopping on sunday

I went shopping today. Strange experience. Everything is fake but they pretend it is realy 'armani' or 'polo' and stuff like that. I needed a warm jacket and it was offered for 120 Euro - in the end I paid 30 Euro. The guys try everything to make it more expensive. This jacket is long, it has a lot of pockets - bla bla bla. I also bought some shoes and the girl pretended it is real leather. So I wanted to take a lighter to make sure the boots don't burn. She did not like the idea :-) ...

impressions from work

BMW Beijing has two divisions in the town. The first one is the head office which holds the sales and some part of the development - around 400 people. The other part is the testcentre outside of Beijing with about 15 people.





This is the building of the head office - BMW rented some of the floors.

This is the lobby of the head office. Can you
find the 2m Adrian in this picture?












Another view where everybody arrives and leaves.




















This is a picture of the workshop next to my office. I can not take other pictures ...
















Just because everybody was asking: This is our lunch - costs 8 to 11 Juan (0.8 - 1.1 Euro) per Person. We get it from a restaurant near the centre. Nice :-).


This is everything for this week. Maybe I take some more pictures on the weekend.

talking about polution

So what does pollution really mean? I can tell by looking out of my window every morning. Here are three examples.

1. nice day - no pollution so far

2. it looks like fog but it is smog


















3. this is the kind of smog you don't like to see - it can be worse but for me this is enough ...