Study trip 2015 Day 6: Tianjin

Authors: Dennis Pennings & Jill Vervoort

Dear readers,

Again it was a short night after a very pleasent evening. Last night we were invited by a close study buddy of our Yu, whose name we have not heard. At the dinner there was again plenty of food and drinks. We had a couple bottles of wine of yu’s buddy, these were imported just this day at Tianjin Port. These bottles were consumed eagerly accompanied by locale rice wine, there was almost a fight about whom might drink the last bit of this tasteful stuff. After all these gifts it was time to give something in return, of course this could be no better than our drink: the Jägermeister. After singing our Anthem loudly and passionately, the shots were enthusiastic consumed. Our drink was so well received that Yu’s buddy gratuitously accepted an entire bottle as our gift. After 5 hours of terrorizing the restaurant, read: letting know Mollier was there and leaving behind sticky signs, we were kicked out the restaurant. As usual the night went on in a club, but ended differently than expected. Our lovely annoying travel buddy Jelle was behaving naughty and was ‘gently’ requested to leave the club.

In the mean time we are well trained in waking up early. Manon had already prepared some pans to help us rise and shine softly at 7 next morning. However, above all expectations this was not necessary, since Manon underestimated the liveliness of the participants. After a quick hangover breakfast, including a ‘well’ boiled egg, we left by taxi to Tianjin University. This was experienced very differently between cabs. Some of us could enjoy a singing driver, while others enjoyed a spitting driver, whom occasionly opened the door to empty his throat. Our private drivers brought us to our destination no matter what, dodging traffic jams by taking the curb or the oncoming lanes, while of course honking loudly.

As usual the first building we entered at the other side of the university campus was not the appointed location When we finally arrived at the school of environmental sciences and engineering. Our young blonde god was adored by the locale women. While shamelessly staring and pointing at him, he was admired over the entire length of the hallway.

The visit at the university consisted of sharing presentations and a tour over the campus. We were joined by 20 Chinese, whom were apparently picked up randomly from the campus, except the people who had to give a presentation. A small speech intelligibility test was done in between presentations for our study related assignments. After a difficult explanation in English, the English test was performed… the results were as expected but led us to think the following. With their poor English we wondered if they even understood our presentations. Maybe this was the reason or maybe because it was lunch time, but suddenly they all disappeared while we stayed for the last presentations.

At last, we could also enjoy a wonderful lunch at the campus cafeteria, here it was not unusual to find a long black hair in your meal. Afterwards, the program continued with a tour to the faculties architecture, civil engineering and environmental sciences and engineering.

Now we are riding the night train to Wuhan, happily playing cards or resting from the exhausting study trip. This was trying to be done without annoying the few unlucky Chinese that sleep with us in our 6 bed cabines. The lights will soon be off, therefore, we are going to climb in our three storey bunk beds after which the lights in our eyes will be out soon too. Maybe, just maybe, we might get a good nights rest today, if we still know what that is, a good nights rest. Hopefully, the train gently rocks of to sleep.

Good night!