I am not sure whether it is the course name or just coincidence, but both times the teacher can't speak English. And finally I got the chance to visit the city center of Jinan, to take some nice photos there and to get to know the Chinese bus system.

Just like in Finland we have a course here that is dealing with measurements, the one here in China is the advance version of the course compared to the one in Finland. Remarkably enough though, the teachers in both Finland and China have problems to teach in English. I am wondering if it is because of this course or just coincidence. Anyways, the 'Workshop measurements' course isn't very interesting yet. We're revising some of the old material and most of it we've already had several times in Finland. I hope next lesson will be a bit more interesting.

In the afternoon we took the bus to the city center to finally explore the city that we are living in. I, at least, haven't been there yet. The first challenge we encountered was the bus, how to get to the city center and how much would it cost?

According to one teacher we could take bus number 2, 301 and 302 towards the city. So with that knowledge we took bus number 301 and started our trip. What we didn't know is where to get out and how the bus stop is called in Chinese. Luckily we knew that there's a round-top building in the city center, so close to there we should get off the bus. This building came closer and closer and the moment the bus increased the distance towards the building we got off. That was about half an hour walking away from the center.

First we visited the main square with its underground shopping mall. That is pretty big and definitely a lot larger than the city center of Lappeenranta or Kaatsheuvel. Next to the main square is the Baotu Spring Park. This park has 72 springs and is very nice to walk around in. I have taken some photos and put them in a photo album on my blog, check it out if you're interested. It is looking very beautiful.

We also visited 'real' Chinatown like you see on television. It is a whole district of these narrow, busy, food-smelling streets. It has such a good atmosphere to walk around in. There we tried fried Squid. I wouldn't say it tastes like something special, not like meat or fish, but it is pretty good.

For dinner we didn't have something special, just some meat with rice and vegetables. A pretty standard Asian dinner. On the way back it was a bit struggling with the buses but eventually we found the right one and headed back to the campus.