Lok Man in Germany

In April 2008 I was sent to Iasi, Romania for one week, in order to work more closely together with our colleagues at that site. There is also offices of Continental there, although it is very much a developing location and as such the scale is completely different to what we had in Germany. As you can see, the office block is basically a 3 storey portable. Most of the workers are recent graduates out of the univerity in Iasi. Actually, I believe that is one of the attractions of setting up an office in Iasi - a company like Continental would attract a lot of interest from the uni graduates there, as it would be one of the few options to stay at home and have a technical engineering career. Iasi is actually quite a small city, but it appears much smaller if you only consider the airport. It is an international airport because it has ONE daily flight back to Vienna. Work aside, we had a little time on some of the weeknights to look around the city and experience a bit of Romanian cultu...

There has not been much blogworthy over the last half a year - not that I haven't been kept busy though. NYE in Berlin - with Hong and Marlene we toured Munich during Christmas, went to Frankfurt to see Liang and then visited the massive NYE party in Berlin, on Unter den Linden under the Brandenburger Gate. Impressively crowded for Germany, the 1 km party had a stage at each end of its length and some pop bands provided hours of entertainment. The fireworks were good, but not up to Sydney quality. A highlight was our DIY (well, we bought and lit them) fireworks at 4 a.m. after the official fireworks at midnight. Karneval (early February) in Aachen / Cologne - my colleague Stefan lives in Aachen, which is up in Rhineland where they celebrate Karneval, generally dress up and go crazy for a few days. I went with Renat, a friend of mine from Munich, up there, and spent on night in Cologne and the rest of the time in Aachen. Captain Sparrow seems to be a popular dress-up theme these day...

Some said it was the wrong time to visit Beijing. Not the time of the year, but rather, the fact that it was one year before the Olympic games and a lot of things, even parts of the Forbidden City, would be closed for refurbishment and beautification, before China's capital opens its 'heavenly gates' for the world's atheletes and visitors. But more importantly, journalists with suspicious eyes as they inspect the details of the city to search for cracks. It would not be the full Beijing experience. In the end, it was probably a good time to go, and pity that I had not gone earlier. One does not go to Beijing to look at the adventurous designs by Sir Norman Foster - although it is interesting to hear how superstitious locals have interpreted it as a grave for the politicians, since the reflective dome is located directly behind the rear exit of the Great Hall of the People. And while I took photos in front of the almost completed Olympic stadium that looked like a birds ...