The trip

I am in China! Sometimes I have to remind myself of that fact. You probably think that it cannot be so hard as I must be surrounded by Chinese all the time, which is quite true of course. But things are the least obvious when they are directly in front of your nose and in great numbers, I guess ;-)

But I want to tell you about our adventures since we left Germany. We boarded the plane on Thursday evening 9th of February, which meant spending most of my birthday traveling from Frankfurt to Shanghai. Which isn't the worst I can imagine, but considering the limited comfort of a Air China flight, especially as our seats where directly in front of the big movie screen it is not the best either. But beside the "first row in the cinema" feeling and the missing opportunity to store my non Chinese-proportioned legs comfortably, the flight turned out to be quite enjoyable. Of course, I was with my beloved fiancee, which alone would make a hiking trip through Siberia in a swimsuit enjoyable :-D
But beside me was a friendly and talkative German (Rainer) who started to make plans for a party at midnight as soon as he heard that it was my birthday the next day. Shortly before the end of my final hour of my 28th year on this world, we had a (plastic) glass of red wine followed by rice, cakes, peanuts and as a fabulous crescendo snacks and glasses (real glass!) of champagne from the first class. I have never eaten so much on a plane and Rainer, though initially complaining that there is never enough food on an Air China flight, was refusing the last dessert as well.
So, if you happen to go somewhere by plane on your birthday, take Air China! The crew was very nice and we were flabbergasted by the not ending flow of food they offered us after they new about the birthday.

Landed in China we took the Maglev and the metro from the airport to the train station and then the train to Nanjing and were very happy to treat us with some Chinese ravioli (jiao zi) from the ravioli man (jiao zi ren) on the street close to our flat.

On the following weekend we registered me at the local police station and having gone through this before already when I was here in November I can say that they are very friendly and helpful. So far we were unsuccessful in Finding some trousers which are long enough for me, but I have to admit that we didn't put our minds on it really.

My start in China was a happy one and Sunday night I was awaiting my first day at work with nervous confidence.