March 30, 2005
International business - cartoon
Hehe, have a quick look on what I received today from my former boss in Hong Kong. He grabed this cartoon from UK telegraph and guess who he was thinking of? ;-)
March 25, 2005
Happy Easter!
With reference to the most recent edition of the Shanghaifolks newsletter which you may download on this page (German) I want to inform those of you who want to go to a church on easter.
Catholic churches:
158 Puxi Lu
Tel. 6464 8896
185 DongJiaDu Lu
Tel. 6378 7214
Protestant churches:
Hu Dong Church
350 Guohe Lu
Tel. 6533 5963
HuaiŽen Church
375 Shaanxi Bei Lu
Tel. 6253 9394
Shanghai Community Church
53 Hengshan Lu
Tel. 6437 6576
You may find more information about German mass' in Shanghai on www.dcgs.net
March 22, 2005
Picture Gallery wanted
Damn...it's been for weeks that I am trying to install a picture gallery to this page. For any reason this *** php version of sourceforge doesn't work on my webserver... :-(
Any suggestions welcome.
March 19, 2005
Studying in China at Ocean University of China in Qingdao
For those of you interested in pursuing a study term abroad in China, I just uploaded an article of the current "Wirtschaftswoche" edition, which illustrates the opportunity to study at Ocean University of China in Qingdao.
Chris, a student fellow from Munich in Germany is currently taking part in the programme mentioned in the article above. You may follow his adventures on his Qingdao weblog as well.
March 17, 2005
Mural Bar - Trainee get-together
Well for those who don't know yet, the German trainee community in Shanghai is holding an informal get-together twice a month (usually) at Mural Bar in 697 Yongjia Lu. So if you don't know anybody in town yet, I encourage you to go to meet these folks. It's always good to build new relations with others. Interested persons whatever nationality are obviously welcome.
However, I must confess I have never been to Mural Bar, as it opened its door after my second stay in Shanghai in summer 2003. And during my two weeks trip to Shanghai in 2004, I didn't make it to this bar either :-(
Anyways, I know these trainee get-together which I enjoyed most of the time (especially during my first weeks in town).
March 13, 2005
Tongrenlu.com goes online!
I just introduced the new webpage tongrenlu.com, which is intended as an add-on service to this Shanghai Weblog.
For those of you who have no clue what Tongrenlu means. Tongren lu is a quite well known street in Shanghai.
Trying to translate the name into English gives you:
Tong = ? my Putonghua isn't that good unfortunately
ren = people
lu = street
After the closure of Maoming Nan Lu in 2004, many venues which used to be located in this street moved to Tongren Lu and established a new bar strip near Shanghai's famous Nanjing Xi Lu.
If you happen to visit Shanghai, have a night walk and discover what it has to offer.
Go to Tongrenlu.com
March 07, 2005
Finding an accomodation in Shanghai
Well, same procedure as last year....still three months to go until my trip back to Shanghai. Time enough to get an appropriate accomodation hmmm?!
Generally speaking if you have plenty of time and perhaps if you searching directly from Shanghai, you might get enough rental offers.
A bunch of compunds have been built in recent years which illustrates the over capacity in room offers. And you do not have to be economist to realize that this over capacity tend to decrease the monthly rental fee.
However, this might be theory. In real terms, yes, it should be no problem to get a place to live. You just need to be patient. A good way to look for a room is to screen all rental offers listed on schanghai.com (for German speaking people highly recommended). That's where I found my last stay in summer 2005.
Currently I am still in contact with my friends living in Shanghai and who I met last year. However it's still better to choose from more options. So let's hope that I will find a nice place for my stay this summer.
March 04, 2005
How to get a Visa for China!
Well those of you might encounter the first small problem when dealing with a trip to China. Regardless any bilateral contracts even tourists need to have at least a "tourist visa" in order to enter China for leisure purposes, which normally is granted for a 30 days stay.
This might sound easy...it's by far little more complex as there are also restrictions how often you are allowed to leave and enter China again (during the timeframe stated on the visa). Insiders might know what I am talking about.....the number of "entries" can be crucial if you plan to stay little longer somewhere in China...usually there is the possibility to get a one, double or multi entry visa.
However a tourist visa with a multi entry option is rather impossible to get.
Apart from a tourist visa you may get a student or business visa as well. To me I think there are still some others which I currently do not remember.
Those visa depending where you purchase them cost around 20 - 60 Euro.
It is remarkable to illustrate that getting a business visa with an option of multi entry and a validity of six months is easy collectable during a short stopover in Hong Kong. There you will find a bunch of tourist agencies offering such kind of visa services.
If you are still abroad in your home country, things may be little more disappointing. If you are in Germany, only the Chinese consulates are obliged to issue visa....the restriction is immense...without the correct paper it's is hardly impossible to get a multi entry business visa. Getting a tourist visa instead is no problem at all.
For that reason I might recommend the visa services of Visum Centrale in Germany. Although to date I haven't worked with them on a visa issue, I am confident they will help me getting the business visa I need this summer. I have already been in contact with them and all you need is:
- invitation letter from your company operating in China
- current passport which is still at least 6 months valid
- two? pictures of yourself
They will then arrange everything for you and charge you 18 EUR which is fine considering you don't have to run to the consulate by yourself. Besides the service fee you should keep in mind that the visa itself will cost you something between 20 - 100 EUR....
