ireens

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再见上海你好德国

Hello again Germany! Finally I have enough time for a new blogpost haha. I have been back for 20 days now and I am really enjoying Germany again. Our flight was operated by Qatar Airways. 2/2 would recommend the airline! Really good food and great service! After we arrived we went to a Christmas market to drink some mulled wine. BEST THING EVER! Especially when I think back to the expensive prices for mulled wine in Shanghai. 50Yuan which is about 6,25€. Even tough I enjoy being back I definitely miss some things about Shanghai. The various opportunities of parties for example haha. Anyways, I am glad to be back and to soon start the practical semester. During the next weeks I will continue blogging about shanghai (lol I couldn’t post everything I wanted to post during my time in china...so I will continue to annoy you guys haha) 

Your Ireen

#shanghai #semester abroad #germany #news

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豫园 (Yu Yuan)

Impressions of the Yu Garden in Shanghai.

#yuyuan #china #semester abroad #shanghai #豫园 #上海 #中国 #德国留学生

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“You can hate a place with all your heart and soul and still be homesick for it.”

— Joseph Mitchell (via bnmxfld)

#thoughts #reblog #deep

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在上海理工大学的弟一食堂一楼

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Mornings like this...

You know what's the worst? Waking up 3hrs before lecture because you need to travel like a whole eternity haha. Jk it's an about 40min-1h bus drive. Bus drive you may ask yourself. Yes, we mainly drive to uni by bus because there aren't any close metro stations at our campus. So, we would have to drive metro and bus anyway. Luckily, some boys of our course found this bus line. Driving bus in China is pretty convenient. A little less people and it only costs 2Yuan which is about 25ct. The best thing in our case is that we drive past the bund. So, you get to enjoy a beautiful view everyday.

#china #semester abroad #bus #news #中国 #上海 #上海理工大学 #Shanghai #the bund

[ireens]

Useful things in China

Hellou,

maybe some of you want to go to China. Therefore, I wanted to give you some recommendations what to bring with you and which apps are useful. Feel free to submit some more recommendations through my ask page if I may missed something :)

1) German food/snacks

If you want to enjoy German snacks bring them with you. Most of them are not available here. Especially chocolate...or let’s rather say GOOD chocolate. The only good chocolate here is the one from Aldi haha. Okay jk some stores also have Rittersport, Lindt or Toblerone. 

2) 2.5PM masks

Ok.ok. Those masks can also be bought here. But it somehow was a bit difficult. So, I would recommend you to bring some with you. If you are looking for a store here in Shanghai you can get such masks at Mini So.  

3) more food lol 

Jk but Coffee. Bring some instant coffee with you or some coffee powder. We found a halfway good coffee in a bottle but it’s still not that good. The Nescafé coffee is okay but only if you like sweet coffee.

4) a VPN

Get yourself a working VPN before you come to China. There are plenty of suppliers.   ProTip: Probably your University got a mostly reliable VPN.

Some useful apps

1) WeChat

Definitely an app you’ll need here. Especially when you stay here for a longer period. If you get a bank account here you even need it more for paying with WeChat Pay. Buuuut I heard that Alipay is currently changing it’s policies. So, Alipay may work with foreign credit cards.

2) AirVisual

After waking up one of my first apps to look at. It tells you the current air pollution and it also tells you if it's necessary to wear a mask etc.

3) Moovit 

One of the most important apps I discovered. With Moovit you can check out local transportation. AND it’s fully in English. So, no difficulties in reading Chinese Characters. Unfortunately, it’ s not that reliable. We waited for bus lines which doesn’t exist anymore. But all in all the app is pretty good.

4) Pleco

An app which probably saved my Chinese grades xD. You can type in Chinese Characters in pinyin or draw them and they get translated in English. It also works the other way around.

5) Dear Translate

This was a recommendation of our real estate agent. It’s also a translating app. You can record your sentences and they get translated directly. Further, you can take pictures f.e. of menu cards of small restaurants (which are basically all on Chinese) and they get translated in real time. The translation is probably not the best but at least you can understand what’s in the meal.

6) Sherpa’s 

A food delivery app! Here you can buy mostly western food. But you can also pay with cash! It is a little expensive compared to other food delivery apps but a huge advantage is that the app is also in English.

Restaurant recommendations at Sherpa’s: 

- Blue Frog

- Pizza Marzano 

#news #useful #recommendation #china #semester abroad #shanghai #apps

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弟一食堂一楼

Within Canteen one on the first floor you can get small dishes to go like this fruit box. You can also get burgers, sausages, cake and other sweet dishes.

#上海 #上海理工大学 #中国 #食堂 #shanghai #semester abroad #pics #china #food

[ireens]

|| Sunset ||

#china #sunset #shanghai #semester abroad #pics #中国 #上海

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Another Chinese breakfast. Typical street food. Some kind of bread with chives and sesame.

#semester abroad #shanghai #china #pics #上海理工大学 #上海 #中国

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“People don’t always want to be with people. It gets tiring.”

— Emma Donoghue // Room

#me #personal #reblog

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Breakfast!

A typical Chinese breakfast. 

Some kind of pancake with an egg, chives, some rice cracker thing (actually I don’t know what it really is xD) and last but not least red bean paste. Normally there would also be coriander on it but no just no xD 

#pics #food #china #semester abroad #shanghai #breakfast #coriander #news

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Hello again...

finally here’s a new blog post. The air here is horrible again. Today we reached the >301aqi mark here in Shanghai. Before I never thought we would hit that. Surprisingly, just a few Chinese wear the PM2.5 masks which are definitely recommended!!! (List of things you need in China will follow asap!). Sometimes I wonder if the Chinese people even recognize how bad the air is and that they’re destroying their health. 

#shanghai #semester abroad #daily thoughts #churageil #news #popokingz #china

[ireens]

Today at home || Canteen 5 second floor

#pics #china #Shanghai University for Science and Technology #上海理工大学 #大学 #churageil #popokingz #semester abroad

[ireens]

上海

你好我的朋友们 (Hello my friends)!

Currently the air here is horrible... I never thought that it could be that bad. Especially after the air was surprisingly good when we arrived. Now we are on our way to university (China Business). After uni we will go to Aldi. Yes! You read right! Aldi has two stores in Shanghai.

Unfortunately the plans for the golden week have been canceled due to full trains and hostels. Now we are planning to explore Shanghai more because we have only seen a little part of it.

Greetings from the other end of the world!

Ireen ♡

#news #semester abroad #china #shanghai #tired af #churageil #popokingz

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University 上海理工大学

The new week started! On the weekend we went to the French concession. It was quite nice! Especially the fact that we found a French bakery which sells pretzels and (normal!) bread. It was so delicious. On Saturday we went to a restaurant which is called Grandmas Home. It was very good! 6/6 would recommend the place! Plus it’s cheap for a restaurant. After that me and some friends went to a club. Let’s be said that chinese clubs are very different compared to european clubs. There is barely a dancefloor...just couches and tables. I guess chineses people don’t dance...Anyway it was a good evening. Yesterday the second week of university started. Holy crap I hate traveling to the university. 1 hour of driving with the bus or metro. It’s horrible. To wake up so early to catch the right bus is the worst. At least we get to enjoy some streetfood shops with their fancy pancake breakfast. Btw chinese people don’t drink coffee in the morning. I still don’t get it! The coffee shop at my university opens at ten o’clock! 10!!!!! Way too late. I want my morning coffee back!! Haha. And I tried some coffee from the supermarket. It was bad lol. Moreover, the canteens here are quite good! Today I bought a very big portion of rice with green beans and some chicken and paid like 1,50€. Prices for (chinese!) food are very cheap. Also my fave ice tea costs around 35ct. So crazy! Currently, we are sitting in the above mentioned coffee shop at the uni and we are looking for some train tickets to the famous Zhangjiajie. Some of you may know them of the Avatar movie. We want to travel there within the golden week. It’s a national holiday week in china. I am super excited to go out of shanghai and see some nature. 

#excited #china #semester abroad #news #shanghai #churageil #popokingz #university

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Weekend!

Yes! Here we already have weekend! Tomorrow is mid autumn festival, a chinese holiday. So, we have free time tomorrow (actually we don't have classes on Friday anyway accept for some company visits). University life is okay so far. The most fun lecture for me is the CAD lecture where we create 3D Models with solid works. Chinese is also somehow fun even though it's sometimes difficult to understand the professors questions haha.

#news #semester abroad #china #churageil #popokingz

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Yay...

...Kathrin got sick and now I am a little bit sick as well. So now I am alone in the apartment trying to capture the last days within this blog post. On Thursday we went to our university for a small info event and to get our student ID. The campus is really big. We almost got lost there. On the event we met several nice people from Austria and Germany. We also got our schedule for university and it's great! We have a lot of free time to enjoy the culture of this country. Oh and I want to mention that the way from our apartment to the university took us about one and a half hours!!! It's crazy. On our way back we talked to two chinese men. They didn't want to believe that I am from Germany :'D #asianstruggles. Yesterday we slept very long and in the evening we met up with two German professors of our university in the blackforest. It was a pretty good evening...besides that full metro lines with all those sweaty people are still a bit too much for me. On Monday university starts and I deeply hope things will get better soon. I really miss home...

#news #semester abroad #university #china #churageil #popokingz