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This is my first non-China related post in some time. However I thought I have to blog this one. When reading an article on Spiegel Online about asteroids I found this link to a asteroid impact calculator.

It is quite advanced. You can input how far you are from the impact location, how big the object, how fast and so on. As a result you can see if you would get incinerated, vaporized, blown all over the place or crushed. By the way you also see what happens to the rest of humanity and our planet.

So let the Armageddon begin and just to be sure, give Bruce Willis a call in case you get scared

For a foreigner living in China, getting a good breakfast can be daunting. I like Chinese food but let’s face it, porridge, dofu or dumplings are not exactly my type of food in the morning. Though not a big bread-eater, I do enjoy some fresh rolls in the morning with my coffee. In Shanghai it is slim pickings but if you know where to look you can find some good quality for an ok price (not cheap but ok). Here are some places:

• Paul - The famous French bakery chain. There are three stores in Shanghai, one at Xintiandi, at Shanghai Center (Portman Ritz Carlton), at Dongping Lu and in Pudong at Thumb Plaza.
• Abendbrot - A German bakery which delivers to your doorstep (at least in certain areas). If you are a larger group with regular orders they also arrange deliveries outside the usual area. For example we get a delivery every Friday to our office.You can order online.
• Carrefour - The French retail giant also sells some decent quality bread. However you have to pick the right one. If you pick the Chinese style they will be very sweet and soft (as all the other rolls you normally get all across town)

Surprisingly the normally well stocked Cityshop does not have a good bread selection.

Finally I find some time to write something in my blog again. The last few weeks and months have been eventful to say the least. I think the photos I put online say it pretty well. Essentially I have been in and out of Shanghai over and over, more out then in recently. On the business side I just came back from Guadalajara, Mexico last week where I spend 2 weeks working at our plant. I would not have expected to go to this part of the world anytime soon but there it came. I would have rather figured my next trip would be Korea or Japan again. Speaking of which was my assignment before Mexico. Tokyo to be precise, a city I instantly fell in love with. Tokyo is hands down, the most perfect and best organized city I have ever been to. In Tokyo you get the impression that you are actually 10 years in the future. That certainly creates a huge drop once coming back to the, rather imperfect but still always reinventing itself, Shanghai.

On a personal level, I have also been traveling a lot (as this is my prime hobby, next to geocaching). My parents came over to visit and therefore I had planned a nice little trip throughout China: Shanghai > Beijing > Xi’an > Shanghai > Guilin & Yangshuo > Sanya > Shanghai. All in 2 1/2 weeks. You can imagine this was nothing for the faint hearted, all variables need to be carefully aligned planned trough, all flights exactly timed to achieve the maximum effect. One missed flight could have messed up the whole planning. But miraculously not a single flight delay, no overbooked hotel, all went according to plan. In the end we saw many fascinating places and people, experienced China from the north to the very southern tip and needed a vacation from the vacation after all was over.

So all the results I have documented with my camera, as usual to see on this site. So lets see where it goes next, stay tuned for more…

Oh my god! Right now I am on Huangshan. This is actually a quite cool place, as long as you do not want to go back down by cable car with a couple of hundred Chinese at the same time. It is quite horrible waiting time is 3h total. Actually on foot it would be faster but since it is raining also quite dangerous. I am not a wuss, but the mountain is very steep and every year there are many people falling down. So it really sucks but I cannot help it. The only good news is that I got my phone with me and good Internet coverage up here, so I can at least use the time to blog. Anyway, more later…

Wow, those last few weeks have been quite amazing and also very strenuous. I have been on business trip most of the time. Germany, North China, South China and North China again. Now I am finally back and hopefully stay for a few weeks in Shanghai.

Even though I like to be on the road and see lots of different places and people, it is always good to come home after a trip. Yes, I consider Shanghai as my home. Actually it feels much better if you accept a place as home. I do so very fast. Where ever I live is my home. I think it has a lot to do with accepting the new and growing attached to it to a certain extend, but not too much that you can still leave and do something new after a while. Of course I still feel a little attached to all places I have lived and called home for a while. And I think it is good since I have many places in the world I feel home when I come back there. Anyway, just some thoughts that came to mind as I type. I think writing blog is great because I can let my thoughts wonder while I type.

Also in between I finally reinstalled my computer after my Windows was dying a slow death. Don’t we all love Microsoft for the countless hours we sit in front of a practically non functional Windows system that crashes more then it runs, that does not let you install any programs anymore and in the end kills your Outlook without even feeling sorry about it. And then you live with it because you don’t have the time to spend at least 3 days without sleep and eating to backup all your stuff, reinstall, install all your programs, reinstalling again because your new system got messed up by some halfway installed driver crashing in the process, reinstalling all your programs again. That is where I am now (after exactly those 3 days, ok with some sleep and a little food). Welcome to the world of Windows Installation + 365 days. 

But the good news is, finally my Flickr Uploadr works again (which was also not the case for about 4 months). So finally I could upload all the amazing, stunning, dazzling, awesome and magical photos I took over the last few months. Ok I got a bit carried away concerning my talent as a amateur photographer, but the Hong Kong Skyline at night really kicks ass!

Today I took some time to do some modifications on my site. Here the changes in a nutshell:

• Added Movie section. Here I will rate movies I have seen
• Updated the Weather Icon Plugin. Now it comes with a cool new icon and finally the day and night distinction works
• Finally put information on the About Me page, with a nifty contact form.

More soon

Recently I have been quite busy. The foudation that provides my scholarship demands a report about my life in China. That was actually much more work then I expected. But now it is done and I just sent it away. So now I have some more time for things I have postponed for too long. One of these things is taking Chinese lessons again. Since I came to Shanghai I have not really improved my Chinese anymore, so that needs to be changed. A colleague recommendet Masterchina to me. I just had my first lesson on Monday and I think they are quite good. The best thing is that it is private tuition, so they adjust the lessons just to my needs and my pace. So I hope my Chineselevel is going to go up by quite a bit in the next few weeks. Maybe then I can blog in Chinese

Now I really need to finish the last few episodes of the 5th season 24. The weekend I hope we finally make it to Putuo Shan. I tell you later how it was.

It was another long day at the office, so I am too tired (mentally and physically) for some real content. Just wanna let you know I put up some more photos on my gallery. Check it out. Maybe I have some more time on the weekend. Also at my office I opened my blog with IE for the first time in months and I noticed that in IE it the layout ist totally messed up. So I also have to fix that soon. Till then I encourage everyone to use Firefox if you can. Ok so much for today….

The Chinese don’t have lots of leasure time. I think normally each year 10 days vacation tops. Besides some people here work 6 or even 7 days a week. One thing which is really cool here though is that there are two 1-week holidays a year. One is the Chinese Newyears, around February or March, depending on the lunar calendar and the National Holiday in Oktober. So also for me that means a whole week off. So right now we are making some plans were to go that week. Some friends are taking a 7 day hiking trip in Xinjiang (the most western province of China, about 4000 km west of Shanghai) but it is kinda expensive. If I had the money I would definitely go though. Here are some pictures of the beatiful landscape there: Gallery 1, Gallery 2. But since our money is not enough we cannot go Real bummer!

Instead we might go to Henan and Shaanxi Province to visit the famous Shaolin Temple and the Teracotta Army and much more.

Thats all for today, tomorrow I have to be at work again.

Today we (Wei Hou, his girlfriend, Volker and me) took a trip to the famous Baimai springs (百脉泉) in the city of Zhangqiu (章丘市) about 40 kilometers east of Jinan. It is a beatiful park with many springs. We went there by bus which took us right to the park. The entrance fee was 15 Y, which is about 1.5€. Baimai Spring Park and was regarded as one of the 72 famous springs in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The water bubbles up like bunches of pearls. (Source) The park has a Buddha temple and a large lake with some islands. You can see people refill their water bottles at the springs and see the children play in the water. You can rent boats for 10 or 20 Kuai which is fun. I also got a very cool drawing of my chinese name.

何翰斯

It is quite a relaxing trip to get out of the city sometime, especially today as the smog was the worst in days and breathing was very hard.

You can see lots of photos in the photo section. More photos also here.