Kunshan beer festival

A 10 days long beer festival, organized in an extremely nice way, in a city less than 1 hour driving from Shanghai, well connect by train and buses (a spectacular train station!!).  Visiting Kunshan, 昆山, beer festival was a good experience!

I just got a little taste of the festival and of the beer because of a typical Chinese behavior: the party for them is over around 21-22 o’clock!! Since I arrived at Kunshan around 23, I noticed that I was the only person entering the festival area, while there was already a continue stream of Chinese people walking outside!

True that most of the areas were still counting several foreigners, but my friend was together with Chinese people as well, so we did not stay long.   In the short time I manage thought to taste good original German beer (my German friend had a table in the German tent!), had a couple of apple liquor shots, dance German music (played by German band directly from Baviera) with happy Chinese business men and pretty waitresses and exchange contacts for future connections.  

Also, we went home with “a few” of the typical beer mugs from the festival. Ulrich, my friend, extended his collection (now he got around 10 different every year!) and I started mine, hoping to get new ones next year!!

FUNNY THING OF THE DAY – One very important aspect of Chinese life is:  

关系

guān xì

relations relation / relationship / to concern / to affect / to have to do with / relations / guanxi

The relationship intended as with people of any kind, from friendship to business, but important always is to eastablish a connection, even with people just met. That is why it is so important in China to have business or name cards. And I got them now (I’ll write soon about it as well 😉 ).

Shanghai and Kunshan

Weekend in Shanghai: tonight I will leave the rainy weather of Hefei for getting some rain in Shanghai 🙂

The weather is very weird over here. I was afraid of the terrible Chinese summer, but except for maybe 10-15 days, I haven’t really suffered much. I suffer more for the boring rain! And in the rain it is so difficult to get a taxi, even more difficult from down South wher eI work, for going North East, at the train station. And I do not have so much time (1.5 hours is not much time for the distance!). Hope for the best!

Tonight I should meet my friend Ulrich in Kunshan, a small town just before Shanghai, where my German friend is attending the local version of the Oktober fest, the German beer festival! I’ll be there quite late, maybe able to taste only 1 beer.. better than Chinese beer, therefore worth!

Another special rasons for this weekend is that a Swedish Aikido girl will arrive in Shanghai for one year of Chinese language studies. She is a friend of Svein, Aikido Norwegian friend, and her two teachers are extremely good, one being one of my favorite instructors ever, Jorma Lyly. She is from Noboko dojo in Södertälje, not far from Stockholm. Ands she will practice in my favorite Shanghai Aikido club, so maybe I’ll have a chance to meet her on the mats already Sunday!

Let’s see this time how bad is my condition.. I went for jogging a couple of days ago and my legs have been killing me since!! 😦

First of all, let’s if I manage to take the train I have the ticket for, otherwise I will sneak and stand on the next one..