Thursday 28^th June, 2012

I connect the exclamation “awesome” with my former Australian flatmate Zoe who used it quite often. I realised that this is normal for Australians. And indeed I have to say: “Australia is awesome!” Foremost I have seen a lot, thanks to my very competent and in-law travel organizer. The country and the countryside are very diverse and beside the huge cities of Melbourne and Sydney nearly deserted from humans. And huge is this country. To fly 5 hours one way and 4 hours back to see Petra for a long weekend is a bit questionable. But we missed a bit. Impressive was that we met quite often wild animals, more than we expected. And such a Hoppedihopp (my nickname for a kangaroo) is a very special animal. Also the birds deserve to be mentioned, especially their voices. The loud laughing Kookaburra is well known. Then there is also the bright bell or the carping child. How about a “whistle after a girl”-whistle? In the office we had an alarm sound if a ticket need immediate attention. During lunch we put this very loud to hear it also in the garden while eating. But such a stupid bird used the same tone (either by nature or learned) and so it happened that we went back to the office for nothing. Finally we changed the tone. Or when we stayed overnight on a caravan park where dogs were forbidden. Still on the way back to the camper there was a dog barking. When I reached the camper, I heard the dog barking from the tree. As far as I know, dogs cannot climb, but in northern Australia live barking owls!

Back to Sydney. The city is ideal for water sports, but this is not my thing. But I used the opportunity to do a bit more Tango. A good teacher (Federico) and a dance partner (Yin) were soon found. I had to get warm first as I was not doing a lot of Tango recently. But Federico is a good teacher and could always exactly tell what has to be corrected and Yin showed me a few milongas were we could train and use what we learned. And soon it was fun again. As Petra arrived in Sydney, she joined also the course. Maybe one day it will work with us two and Tango. And there was also the work. About half of it was normal work (programming). It worked quite well despite the distance as we had split the work well in our team and I could work independently. A video conference here in between helped us to keep the contact. The other half was customer service. That was the reason why I went to Sydney. In Zurich this part of the work is about 20%. In Sydney we are four who have to cover the night. One is always the main responsible for the customer service and another one supports him if there is sufficient work. The other two do their normal work or are off. At the weekend someone had to hold the line. The workload differed. There were few phone calls, just if there was something on in Asia. Most work was cleaning up what spilled over from the day what could not be completed in Zurich. Mostly it was about some changes on the customer installations or some problems to investigate. Sometimes this leads to outgoing calls if we need someone to do something so we see the problem live and are hopefully able to nail it down. Cool was that we were a team wildly assembled from different parts of the company. You get in closer contact to colleagues you normally not have that much to do with. No further details as there is following unwritten law: What happens in Sydney stays in Sydney. Lets see, maybe in two years we go again.

Wednesday 27^th June, 2012

In the early morning we packed our luggage for the last time. We started after a fine breakfast. We went to the market for antiques, but at 8:30am not many stands were already open. So we went to the nearby pet market. Here birds, fishes, insects, hamsters, etc. were sold. For Swiss understanding the market was close to animal cruelty. Often the animals did have nearly no space in their cages. After we went back to the antiques market where we had now more to see. After we dared to use the metro. Everything was also written in Englisch and thus it went very well. After my handbag got x-rayed at the security control we we could ride to our destination. From there we walked to the Jade Buddha Temple. In this Buddhist Temple were some statues of Buddha and from different gods. The most valuable one was a two meter high Buddha and a lying Buddha, each made of one piece of pale jade. It was not yet noon and so we walked to the Jing-An Temple. In the middle of the city this temple is beside skyscrapers and shopping malls. Also here a some statues for Buddha and gods were to see. Only there were fewer tourists here. After lunch we picked up our luggage at the youth hostel and let us order a taxi to the Maglev (Transrapid) station. With 300 km/h we travelled the 30 km to the airport. At the check-in the lady explained us that we first have to go into the next room as there is something with our luggage. I had to show the clamping set and the raclette cooking gear and then the lady from the security was content. Now we are sitting in the airport at the gate and wait for our long trip home.

Tuesday 26^th June, 2012

First we wanted to go by train from Kunshan to Shanghai. But Caren told us that we better take a taxi as it would be quite complicated by train. After a last walk in Kunshan the taxi was awaiting us. We started after our destination address was rewritten in Chinese on the reception. We got to Shanghai without any problems. At one point the taxi driver explained us in Chinese that we are there. There were a few small shops, but not a house which could host a youth hostel at the sixth floor. We tried to explain that we are wrong. So we called the phone number of the hostel and he called to ask for the way. He also asked a few taxi drivers and other people. Konrad told me that we are wrong as he drove through the tunnel to the other side of the river. Konrad was already once in Shanghai ten years ago. He gave up after we went back through the tunnel to the center. We were also glad to be able to change the taxi. The new driver did not speak English either, but with calling again the hostel she managed to find it. At the youth hostel we got a very nice room with balcony. After a short break we went sightseeing despite the rain. On the way to the Urban Planning Museum three young Chinese asked us if we could take a picture of them. No problem and after they made some small talk with us. Then they apparently got the idea that we might visit together a tea house. The museum would anyway close at 4pm. We thanked for the suggestion but wanted to go to the museum. Konrad told me that it is part of Shanghai that students try to get you in a restaurant or an exhibition. The museum was open until 5pm and so we could at least see the city in miniature. In the museum Konrad found a bit an expensive, but water-proof city map in English. With that map we could explore Shanghai walking. On the way to the old town another group of students started to talk to us. Konrad took kindly the picture. I continued walking and also Konrad left out the small talk. In the old town we walked over the Zig-zag Bridge. Then we went to the Bund, the river promenade of Shanghai. From here we could see the many colonial buildings on our side of the river and the new skyscrapers on the other side of the river. Here we met another ominous group of three, but I looked so grimly at the girl that it did not dare anymore. And now we know why the skyscrapers are in German called Wolkenkratzer (cloud scrapers). The really big ones disappeared in the clouds. Our dinner we had in a small restaurant in a side alley. We did not order much, but we got so much rice that the leftover is sufficient for the breakfast of tomorrow.

Monday 25^th June, 2012

We experienced our most beautiful day exactly one year ago. Now we enjoyed our first wedding anniversary together with lovely friends. In the morning we strolled a bit through Wuzhen. We wanted to buy something to drink, but it was a bit more complicated that expected. Talking with hands and feet to the lady we managed to get a cool drink. After we drove to Lake Tai. On a small island we enjoyed a fine lunch. We were glad that Caren mostly ordered the meals. At Lake Tai we stopped to walk a bit on a boardwalk. Back in Kunshan we experienced a traditional massage. First we enjoyed a warm foot bath with a neck and arm massage. Then it started, at the feet were kneaded, pressed and a few points were hurting a bit. It continued up the legs to the bottom and then the back. It was very nice to get the tense muscles kneaded. After 100 minutes we were relieved and felt light like a feather.

Next was our last meal with Caren and her family. We got Peking Duck and many other tasty things.

Sunday 24^th June, 2012

Together with the family of Caren we drove to the water town Wuzhen. The town was founded more than 1300 years ago. It is located beside the Grand Canal which starts in Beijing. Parts of the historic center were renewed in traditional style and are now a tourist attraction. We were also a bit a tourist attraction as there are only very few western here.

To get to our rooms we used a wooden ferry to get to the other shore. There we were in another time. Konrad and I explored this small Venice on our own and learnt a lot about life in China. We walked on the left side along the water way until the canal and to the pagoda. Back we went on the other side. Many small alleys lead to interesting places like temples, memorials and workshops where old crafts were showed and explained. And there are also Chinese version of gondoliers. After a dinner together we strolled together through the alleys back to the hotel.