After a tiresome but unforgettable week in Inner Mongolia, life in Shanghai could go on. This really is one of the most diverse places to live. I eat twice a week at our local Muslim restaurant. Freshly made noodles with vegetables and meat, however what kind of meat you are never quite sure, the only thing you know for sure is that it’s not pork! Other days you eat at the Park Hyatt, located on the 101st floor of the highest building in Shanghai. These are just some of the large differences in standards Shanghai has to offer.
The city never sleeps and is never dull, that is one way to describe this place. You go to a house party of a friend of a friend and you meet a guy who works at the German Embassy. After a few beers he informs you about a German Conference that will be held the next day. With the promises of free beer and German sausage we head out. We end up that day at the garden Intercontinental Hotel in the Expo area of Shanghai. Surrounded by skyscrapers we stand in this beautifully decorated garden drinking Paulaner Weizen and having some traditional German sausages and sauerkraut. Mingling with German expats stationed here in Shanghai we have a wonderful night which off course ended with a large bus taking us to Zapatas a notorious Shanghai Expat club!
Having completed my physical exam here in China I was able to apply for my Multi Entry Visa. Additionally I had to start preparing for my first final exam and final project. This in China is a lot of work seeing as final projects need to be perfect and go beyond the teacher’s expectations and one has to find new ways of looking at cases, this will give you the edge over competing teams. All teams must also prepare a PowerPointPresentation, however only a select few get chosen to present them. Students actually ‘fight’ over being allowed to present their findings. This is done by a lot of ‘sucking up’ to the teacher and flooding him with email requests, so of course our team joined in and won! We got to present our findings and the teacher was pleasantly surprised!
After my final projects for those courses some of us decided to reward ourselves with a trip to one of Shanghai’s surrounding Canal Towns. Suzhou is the most famous and we decided to check it out. The city is famous for its canal’s and river side shops, our guide which we found at the train station arranged for us to hop on a boat to travel along the canal. Seeing as we were with two Korean girls we decided to go to one of the best Korean restaurants in China and have a traditional Korean meal for lunch. Which to my pleasant surprise consists mainly of meat! For dinner, because we longed for more lamb we dove into the biggest Muslim restaurant we could find and once again were able to chow down on some lamb!
Following our trip, my main focus turned back to be the university. My daily routine would be arrive at the University at 9 and study till 12. Then go to Azure, our favorite lunch place, mainly because they have free WiFi. Eat and study there till 3 then Chinese lessons with my tutor, Ting Ting Yin, followed by phoning everyone to find out what the dinner plans are. I had to study hard during this time because my mom and brother would be visiting soon and I wanted to get all the projects and assignments out of the way so I would have more time with them.
The night before their arrival our exchange coordinator at SJTU invited me to join a lecture given by DSM and the University of Maasticht. With the promise of a presentation by the CFO of DSM I decided to go. However, it turned out to be an informational lecture for Chinese students wanting to work part time at DSM and complete their master at the Maastricht University. It was however nice to see some Dutch people and especially humorous to hear them explain Maastricht as being a ‘Dutch’ city. When we all know that they don’t even speak ‘Dutch’ there! Unfortunately apart from the introduction on Maastricht and the University the entire lecture was in Chinese, so I could not understand much and ended up talking a lot with the guys from DSM. The CFO unfortunately could not make it, which was a shame and was my main reason for coming but all in all it was another interesting evening and worth my while!
Now after a week of hard study and a fun trip I could look forward to picking up my mom and my brother from the airport. It’s a two hour metro ride away from my place during rush hour, but seeing them after 2 months, will more than make up for it!
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