Day 5 and 6
27. - 28.03.2019
Shanghai
Wednesday March 27th, 2019
We started the day with the same procedure as every day: With a typical Chinese breakfast. After enjoying the, for the European taste, different kind of food we took the bus with our local guide Mrs. Gong. The bus was going to the “German Centre Shanghai” where the Deputy General Manager Mr. Matthias Müller welcomed us warmly. As Mr. Müller is German, the whole presentation was luckily in German. He gave us a very interesting insight indeed into the core business of the “German Centre Shanghai”, which is mainly offering ...
...office desks for rent to small or middle-sized German companies that would like to set up their business or business relationships to the Chinese market. In adition, they are offering a variety of services for those companies such as law consulting. There are six German Centres existing globally: Beijing, Singapore, Moscow, Mexico City, Taicang and Shanghai. In Shanghai, the US-company “Ebay” is renting over 6,000 square metres at the German Centre Shanghai for example.
After thanking Mr. Müller for his effort we had lunch at the bistro in the Centre where we could enjoy American or Italian style food.
Our next stop was the “EVONIK Speciality Chemicals Co. Ltd” which is located in the industrial park quite close to the place where we visited the textile factory a day before. The drive took enough time to have an energy-giving nap. When we arrived, again a German business - man called Dr. Urs Welz-Biermann, Director of Innvoation Management Asia, High Performance Polymers was already awaiting us.
Before emigrating to China, he took his post-doc in Organic Chemistry at Merck KGaA in Darmstadt. After a brief safety instruction, the group was split into two: one group had the chance to visit the Quality Control labs and the pilot plant. A lab head employee guided us through the site and gave us interesting information about the usage of various machines and processes.
The 3D-printing machine was especially impressive.
The other group benifited from a guided tour by Urs through the showroom and an explanation to every business line. Some examples for the business fields are Lighting & Electronics, Home & Lifestyle, Agriculture, Food & Beverage, Urbanisation, Transportation and Personal/Household Care. It became clear that polymers manufactured by EVONIK are processed by the end customer in such completely different areas of application.
After about a 1,5 hours bus drive back to the hotel, we relaxed briefly in the room before making plans for our last evening in Shanghai. Some of the group went to a night club and some of us went to a Chinese restaurant to have dinner and strolled through the city.
Shanghai/Taipei
Thursday March 28th, 2019
Our flight to Taipei was departing around 12 pm, therefore we had enough time to have breakfast at our hotel in Shanghai and to take care not to forget any of our belongings in the hotel room. The bus was going to the airport at 8:30 am where Helen, a Chinese friend of a girl from our group, came along with us.
Helen is a local from Hong Kong and was able to tell us interesting things about the life in China from the perspective of a young student.
When arriving at the airport, we needed to go through a security check before entering the airport. The Chinese security standard seems to be even more strict than the German one. Some of the group did not know that it is not allowed to transport batteries in the luggage, therefore they needed to open their luggage and put them into their cabin luggage before drop-off.
After drop-off, going through the immigration inspection and the security check, we had more than one hour before boarding.
The flight with China Airlines was pleasant and comfortable, only the landing was a little bumpy. What was visible already from the airplane was that Taiwan has a beautiful landscape with a lot of green hills.
When we arrived at the airport in Taipei and after picking up our luggage, our local guide awaited us. He was a very funny guy who laughed a lot which became obvious for all of us during our bus trip to the hotel.
Our hotel in Taipei was located very centrally and after checking-in and resting for a moment we left the hotel to use the time for sightseeing. We went to the Botanical Garden where we experienced that Taiwanese people are very open-minded, friendly and speak good English. A group of Taiwanese men asked us if we could confirm that the word “noon” is pronounced like “nuun” in English.
Taiwanese people always seem to be a little bit crazy, but in the same way really helpful and likeable. They gave us some recommendations and wished us a great time in Taiwan. After visiting the Botanical Garden ...
... we went to the Night-Market, which is a famous place for Tapei - and a "Must-See"!
There we tried different kinds of Taiwanese street food, and everything we tried was tasty.
