Beep beep.. beep beep.. the alarm rings at 6.30, the earliest time of all days so far. The jet lag (read: karaoke lag) is still present but an hour later the group is gathered in the hotel lobby, ready to start the day. Today is our first visit to an university and everybody is looking particularly handsome. People are living up to the smart casual dress code; a nice dress or a shirt, suit trousers and freshly polished shoes with a matching belt.
It is only half an hour of travel to Tsinghua University but these are a dangerous 30 minutes for our shoes. The heavens have opened and it is pouring all of its tears on Beijing. Luckily we bought colourful water repelling devices (umbrellas) the day before. These were bargained down to the absolute bottom price by some (like true Dutchmen should do), others were less lucky but some got an even cheaper price by winning a rock-paper-scissors against a merchant. Near the Tsinghua University we got picked up by a friendly PHD student. Where we were dressed smart casual, he was going for the ‘casual’ casual; Hawaiian shirt, backpack, black Adidas sport shorts and to finish it off, a pair of classic black crocs. Once we arrived at the university, our professors, Bram and Luuk, were unexpectedly ‘kidnapped’ from the group and put in a luxurious Volvo. They were off to having lunch with other professors and we would be reunited later on. We took a shuttle bus to the Electrical Engineering building. The ride was about 15 minutes on this massive campus where nearly all of the 30.000 students of this university live. In the Electrical Engineering building we got a tour of the clean room and microwave chamber. In the latter we even got a cool demonstration of the large antenna arm moving around. Afterwards we got a tour on the campus. Unfortunately it was still drizzling and most students were on holiday, so there wasn’t much liveness around. Nonetheless we thanked our friendly tour guide with the classic Dutch delicacy: Stroopwafels (syrup waffles). The next and final destination was the science museum (Basically Nemo but larger). On the way to the museum we could observe some remarkable architectural work, such as the Bird’s Nest (Beijing’s Olympics stadium).
The museum was fun, although mainly oriented towards kids. Most of the science was known, but there was one phenomenon undiscovered.. That is, how it feels to be a celebrity. The people of Beijing have been looking in awe at the group of crazy tall Dutch during our trip before, but this was a new high. There was a constant stream of requests for pictures with our group or individuals. Of course being in a Science museum this new phenomenon needs a question to teach you about the subject: Q – How many seconds would it take a group of hungry seagulls to grab your ‘patatje met’ (fries with mayonnaise) if you dropped it right in front of them? A – Divide your answer by 2 and subtract 10%. That is about the speed of the gathering flock of enthusiastic Chinese once you say yes to a picture request.
