China

I have been delinquent in telling about and showing pictures of some of my travels.  About 8 weeks ago I traveled to China for about two weeks.  The first three days were traveling.  I started in Detroit, flew to Frankfort Germany, then to Amsterdam, then to Shanghai, China, then to my starting point of Shenyang, China.  See the picture of the inside of the Shanghai airport.

This trip I flew out of Detroit at 5pm on Monday and landed in Shenyang, China at 5 pm on Wednesday.  This city is known as the little Detroit.  Not just because it has a lot of automobile and industrial factories but also because most of the buildings are old, dirty, or falling apart.  The hotel was ok if you didn’t mind spending some quality time with the cockroaches and dirty carpet.  See the pictures from my window in the hotel and no that is not fog it is smog and its there all the time.

 The nice thing about this hotel is that it was right next to a KFC and yes we went there.  It was similar to the ones in the US.  Across the road was a walking shopping area called the “Love Park”.  This ran for about a mile or so and had tons of shopping and restaurants on it.  Actually in the mile long area there were 3 KFC’s not including the one by our hotel, 2 pizza huts, and 2 McDonalds.  The shops were mostly cloths and they prices were about the same as back in the states. .

We did go out to eat at a restaurant that you picked the food and they brought it to a room that has a rotating top on it.  This place had a lot of different food.  We had mostly “normal” food but here are some items that could have been..

Pig snout

Chicken feet

Duck head

Goose tongue (we had this one,  I’m not a fan)

Frogs

 

This was our table

Another thing we did while at this location was go to a German bar, listened to a band from the Philippines, which sang American music.  Kind of funny if you think about it.

On the last day we had a few hours before we had to get to the airport and decided to use this time to do some sight seeing of the Imperial Palace of the Qing Dynasty.  This dated back to the 1700’s and was interesting to see all the  different huts or building that they had for everything from dinner, to entertaining, to political business.

The plane trip from Shenyang to Yantai was quite an experience.  The airline we flew on was “ok airline”.  We later found out this was the last plane that they had and they were in quite a bit of financial problems.  This all became clear when we went to get on it and it was a prop engine plane with about 40 seats on it.  They handed you a bottle of water as you walked in.  I was sitting in my seat and looked out the window and noticed the pilot looking at the tire.  I had to do a double take because the tire was completely bald.  Thinking this was normal I started checking other planes and the other wheels.  Nope not normal… Yikes.  We took off and had one stop before we got to our destination.  At this stop the pilot once again spent a lot of time looking over the tire but this time he also pulled out a rag and wiped a bunch of oil from the engine as well.  To make a long story short (I know too late) we arrived safe and sound but will not take “ok airlines” ever again.

We got to Yantai and the one thing that was very clear is that this city was growing and growing fast.  There was tons of new construction and most all of the buildings looked new as well. 

 The hotel we stayed at was right on the ocean and was very nice.  The plant that we are adding to was about three miles from the hotel.  See the pictures out of my window.

And the picture of the hotel.

The one thing that was nice about this location beside being able to walk the beach everyday, was that everywhere we ate they had fresh seafood.  It was very tasty and inexpensive

The next and last city we went to was Shanghai.  By this time we were getting a bit burned out and tired.  The hotel here was very nice and it was right next to our offices.  See the picture out the window of this hotel

And of the insides.

In shanghai we did go to the “imitation” market.  This is where they had the cheap knock off clothes.  They had North Face jackets for the equivalent to $25 and jeans that were inexpensive.  I didn’t buy anything but a few of the guys I was with did and the next day one of the guys showed me his North Face jacket that had a big hole in it and the guy that bought the jeans said he put them on and they fit perfect he went to button them up and there was no hole for the button at the waist. 

Berlin Cathedral

As I had mentioned in my last blog I toured the Berlin Cathedral.  This was one of the best looking churches in Berlin.  It is located on or by Museum island.  There are 4 or 5 museums all in a very close vicinity.   This church looked very old,  I was surprised to find out it had been rebuilt many times.  Originally built in 1451 it was expanded, changed, burned, bombed and rebuilt.  It is one of the eye catching buildings in the area.

When you walk inside and the first thing that strikes you is the large dome ceiling. It has a big sitting area and the organ takes up one whole wall.

Then you can climb a bunch of stairs and when I say a bunch it was a lot to get to the top of the dome and walk around the outside to see the view of the city.

When you go to the basement you get to see all the caskets of the kings, queens, princes, and princesses of Prussia.  This was kind of creepy but interesting to see the dates on some of the caskets dating back to the 1600’s.

Berlin

This past weekend was a 3 day weekend for us at Durr.  Durr was having there shareholders meeting and they don’t want any employees there when they have it.  I didn’t fully understand that mentality but I wasn’t going to argue with it.  This did sneak up on me and I didn’t have much time to decide where I wanted to go visit.  I looked at a few place that were close by but then I decided I need to do something a bit bigger.  When I was back in the states a three day weekend was time for me to go and do things I wouldn’t on a normal weekend.  Just because I am over in German that mentality shouldn’t and didn’t change.  I decided to go to Berlin seeing it’s the capital of Germany and I have always been fascinated with the Berlin Wall.  This trip was a little over a 6 hour trip by high speed train.  This goes by fast and you can read, look out the window, listen to your ipod, and actually watch a movie on your computer.  I didn’t watch one because there was just too much to see. It was suppose to be a direct trip but when I showed up at the train station they said I would have to take the regional train to Frankfort and get the high speed train there.  Ok it was said just like that it was all in German and I had a slight panic attach until I found someone who worked at the train station that could explain it to me.  All was well though.  I arrived in Berlin about 3:30 found my hotel and decided to go for a little walk.  I had noticed there was a park and something on my map in the center of it. It is called the Siegessaule or  the Berlin Victory Column.  This   is 214 feet tall and was built in 1873 to commemorate the Prussian  victory in the Danish-Prussian War.

Then I walked down to the Brandenburger Tor or Gate built in 1791  is a former city gate and one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany.

Another area in the city is Check point charley.  This is one of the ways to go from East Germany to West German and it was controlled by the US army.  This was interesting as it had the history of the Berlin Wall and what was happened during this time.  Its pretty commercialized but entertaining.

Then I saw the Reichstag building or the German Federal Building.

Then there was the Federal Chancellery which is where the Chancellor Angela Merkel works. I was told she dosen’t live here so its not quite like the White House.

I saw the Berlin Cathedral which has quite a history.  Originally built in 1451 then bombed in world war II rebuilt and finally finished in 1975.  I toured inside this and will share it at a later date.

Then there was the Holocaust Memorial is made up of 2,711 gray stone slabs that bear no markings, such as names or dates. The slabs undulate in a wave-like pattern. Each is a five-sided monolith, individually unique in shape and size. Some are only ankle high while others tower over visitors. The paths that are shaped between the slabs undulate as well.

I visited a section of the original Berlin Wall. 

Then I saw a section of the Berlin Wall that is about a mile long and they had artist come in and paint the wall.  This area is called the East Side Gallery.  This was quite interesting.

I will give a little more information and pictures of a few of these in the coming days.  I hope you enjoyed my trip as much as I did.  The train ride back was 7 hrs because once again the high speed train didn't go to Stuttgart.

Munich – Part three – The Deutsches Museum of Technology

On my last day in Munich I decided to go to the Deutsches Museum of Technology.  This was similar to the Chicago Museum of science and technology except it was a lot bigger. The building is 6 stories tall and over 500,000 square feet of space.  It was very interesting because every area of the 64 different exhibits went through the history of each subject.  It had the of everything including aeronautics with a full size Wright brothers plane, to a World War I plane, to a modern day fighter jet.

Another area they had was shipping / marine navigation.  This area had a full size old ship with a cut out in it so you could see the insides, tons and tons of anchors, replicas of ships, and even a German U-boat (submarine from World War I).

Some of the other areas they had were Power Machinery

Musical instruments

Textile technology

Ceramics

Photo and Film.  These items were the start of film.  The thing on the left had a bird cage on one side and a bird on the other.  When you spun the thing fast enough the bird looked like it was in the cage. 

I didn’t even come close to stopping and reading (most items had both German and English) all the information and even with just walking through it all it took me over 6 hours to do that.  It was definitely an overload of information.  Everyone said that you could be in there for days and they were right.  If your interested and want more information you can go to Deutsches Museum  I walked back through the town for one last time and got to the train station to board my train back to Stuttgart.  This was a very eventful and interesting adventure and I can’t wait for the next one.