Liebaus united - Summer palace (Dec.25)

At first, we visited the Summer Palace which is just outside our West Gate. Temple where empress Cixi used to pray.
Our lake on campus is frozen. Temperatures are constantly below zero these days.

Christmas Eve with my family (Dec. 24)

We celebrated Christmas Eve in the Kempinski Hotel with an enormous buffet. Afterwards we sat down by the bar to exchange small Christmas gifts. Thank you Yasmin, Mom and Dad, my Christmas Evening couldn't have been happier. My sweetie giving a gift to daddy!
What did I get there? Ahhh, sweets;)

Christmas is in the air (Dec. 24)

My 21 Euro outfit, one euro for the tie from the fake market, 10 euro for the pants and 10 euro for the shirt from the Metro! My office.
Filipp and me in front of our nicely decorated front door. Please notice my X-mas tree, this year it's upside down !
Filipp getting ready for Christmas Eve.

Christmas is in the air (Dec. 23/24)

My "Kuschelkörbchen". It took me some time in order to get used to the hardness. It's a pure rock bed.
Finally, it is the 24th. All doors are opened and my family will come to China today.
on Saturday, the 23rd I spontaneously decided to take six fish home with me from the supermarket. The shop assistant told me that they are able to stay in normal water without an air pump for three days. Two couldn't make it over the first night. On the 24th then, I hustled back to the store to buy an air pump. Again, two fish died on me the second night. Right now, I have one lonely survivor, and a bigger aquarium by now. Thank you Julia for your support!
On the right side are pictures from my Chinese class
Christmas decoration out front Thomas' and Markus' crib. They couldn't win against us as you'll see later.

Christmas Party at the German Embassy (Dec. 19)

For the second year, our German embassador Dr. Stanzel welcomed the German students from Beijing to the embassy for a Christmas party. As he said, the Germans are the largest foreign student group in Beijing. I'd say that probably sixty to seventy people showed up.
Here you can see the choir who sang German and English Christmas songs. Finally the delicious German food was waiting for us.
The German embassador Dr. Stanzel and his wife.
More food. Our group, as always not complete...

Dalian (Dec. 16-17)

Unfortunately the pics are never sorted when uploading so we begin with our evening. Partying of course...here's Mo having fun with the fireworks We got caught in a snow storm while being on the locomotive facility tour.

Again the party. Dalian has one of China's biggest harbors.
Our group with Mrs. Braun and Dr. Dilthey (both second row) who are running the FEV Dalian company. Two good days are over!

Dalian (Dec. 16-17)

Us automotive engineering students were invited to Dalian by the FEV company. This company with headquarters in Aachen, Germany, is a very advanced engine development company. In addition to the development of engines or engine components, they also install the production line of a new engine and do the endurance testing. Here you can see one of the workbenches, where the engine can be run on. In addition to the facility tour, we visited a locomotive factory and a shipyard. It was interesting to see, that the locomotive engines were still produced manually with turning, drilling, grinding machines etc. operated by the workers. They have not heard of NC-machines yet! Major 12 or 16 cylinder V-Diesel engines were produced which were assembled into the locomotive body. The ship's engine was by far the most impressive one. Unfortunately the company permitted us to take picture inside the factory. But you must have seen the three-storey high engine and the five huge pistons that are assembled into the engine. This is real mechanical engineering.
It started snowing heavily all of a sudden.
Getting in at Dalian International Airport. It had just started to snow three hours ago.
The first snow in China. I simply had to portrait this.

Yvonne's B-Day (Dec. 14)

Who are these guys? Don't care, we have an open house.

More happy people.
Johannes and Filipp in awesome mood. Not surprising since it's Yvonnes B-Day!

Filipp announced that the party continues in our apartment and I had the gang in my room until 3am on a Friday morning.
So much as for the usual procedure in the common room.

We have been longing for this day to come. Yvonne, our only girl from the group becomes 2X years old! Congratulations.

Peter Hartges visits us (Dec. 8)

Our man in charge for the smooth exchange program is Mr. Peter Hartges. He welcomed us with chocolate and the Chinese who will come to Germany in March got their first taste of the real thing. At night we went out bowling with Peter Hartges. In the end, Johannes told him that we go on to a (gediegenen Ort mit wenig Sitzgelegenheit=dignified location with limited sitting possibility) whereupon he joined in. Finally in the propaganda, a hiphop shack where everybody from our group is already owner of the genuine VIP card, he bounced like crazy.

Indian Food (Dec. 6)

Wednesday, 6th of December. We took the Nikolaus
Day as an occasion to go out for Indian food in the Ganges restaurant. A very small entrance, almost invisible, yet the food was delicious, 慢慢吃! Afterwards Johannes, Johannes, Tobi and I went to a Jazz place. The barkeepers gave a fifteen minute perfomance during which they mixed cocktails, throwing the bottles through the air.

@ the hairsalon (Dec. 5)

Place: Tsinghua Da Xue, hairsalon
Time: 4.20 pm
Persons involved: Robin, Daniel and 20 hair salon employees
Task: Washing hair, cutting, washing hair, blow drying, styling
Cost: 0.80 Euro (1 US dollar)
Result: Judge yourself, participants are satisfied, will come back in 2 weeks

Dancing Show (Dec. 3)

Showtime!
The advanced dancing members performed a show for everyone. In between they ran sketches and had the audience involve. As you can see, there were two familiar volunteers, Johannes and I checked out how to dance Jive. Since I had slight coordination problems, I just danced as I usually boogie! Swing your legs!