It is getting colder now, the first snow has fallen and the temperature stays below zero during the day. A true Fin is missing the snow and goes back home.

In the beginning of this week we've had some snow in Jinan. It wasn't very much, not like in Finland, but it was something. The good thing then is that it is super clear, I think those were the clearest days that I've had so far. The mountains surrounding the campus could be seen very well, so I could take some nice pictures. Though, the picture here is just taken from my balcony during sunrise.

During the week nothing really special has happened. I went to class, ate lunch, went back to class, ate dinner and that's about it. We don't have any exams next week so it's not yet necessary to study, so it was a pretty easy week.

The Chinese teacher took us to the Engineering Training Center on campus where some studies have their practical department. We got a small tour, we've seen the CNC machining lab, we went to the small beer museum they have their and then we went to pottery studio. In the beer museum we were invited to try their home made beer. The university has a major in beer and wine making. The beer and wine that they make here is being sold to teachers only. Students can only buy it during the holidays. The funny thing was that the person in charge there went to Germany for three years to study the art of beer making and speak German very well. So I got to talk a bit of German and we ended up drinking some more of their beer. He said that whenever we wanted to have some beer we just had to go to him and he would organize something for us. That's a profitable lecture.

After we got some beer we went to the pottery studio and tried to make some pottery, but that's more difficult than it looks. I managed to create two small kinds of bowls, I guess. When the teacher found out that we're not very good at it she decided to take us to the teahouse which in the training center. There's one man and he's built a teahouse, an original, genuine, luxurious Chinese teahouse. It looks beautiful inside and this man knows everything about tea and all the different kind there are. And of course we got to try several of them and it is nothing like the tea that we have in The Netherlands. Maybe we also have something like this, but it's not very common I think.

We drank tea made from fresh tealeaves, dried leaves, rolled, smoked or mixed leaves, every possibility. Tea looks more like an art here in China than just a drink. It also doesn't taste like any tea that I've had before, although I'm not really a tea drinker, it tastes like leaves and nature, other than sugar. And then they put in flowers or fruits or other herbs to create different tastes. Tea is a huge part of the Chinese culture and it was amazing what this man could tell us about, for me, simple tea.

Today was the last day of our Finnish friend Rulis in China, tomorrow he is going back to Finland. So today a 'dumpling party' was organized for him in the afternoon. We were learning how to make Chinese dumplings. In the evening we took him out to dinner and ordered some special food. One thing that was special is that we ordered chicken and we got pieces of the chicken and also the head of the chicken was on the plate, literally everything is eaten here. So yeah, we had a nice evening together and after his six months in Jinan, of which two with us, he had to go back to Finland and finish his studies.