The journey backToday, Saturday the 29th of September, was the day a group of seven people travelled back to the Netherlands. At a quarter past six AM we gathered in front of our hostel, even now there were people out on the streets of Hong Kong. However it was relatively quiet with only 1 person in every 5 square meters. Our group of seven consisted of Hugo, Gerwin, Joris, Labrinus, Mattanja, Rowan and me. Maarten also joined us because he was also flying today to start his vacation trip. The trip with the subway passed without incidents and around half past seven we arrived at the airport. After checking in and passing the customs we had some time to spend our last Hong Kong Dollars. At about nine o’clock the boarding started and we took our leave of Maarten. The plane would depart at half past nine, but because the airport was very busy the takeoff was delayed by about 45 minutes. While on the plane I thought back to what will probably become one of the best of my life. The journey started in Beijing, where we had a very tight schedule to be able to see a lot of cultural sites next to the company visits. In Beijing we’ve among others been to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall and the Temple of Heavens. My first impression of China in Beijing was that the Chinese like to do things grand and large. This impression hasn’t changed during the journey; everything in China is very big, except the people. We left Beijing after a couple of days to travel to Nanjing by way of the high-speed train. In Nanjing we visited the South East University and the Ming Tomb Scenic Area and then left for Shanghai. Shanghai was in my opinion the most beautiful city we visited during our China trip, the skyline was impressive and the mix between Chinese and western style neighborhoods made it an interesting city. The best memory is of course the Vue Bar, where we sat in a Jacuzzi with a view on the skyline of Shanghai. The bike trip through Shanghai was also very nice, because we got to see a lot of Shanghai compared to travelling with the subway. From Shanghai we took a plane to Shenzhen, where we visited my favorite company of our China tour, Seeed Studios. Shenzhen is really the city to be for EE students, because of its huge electronics market. Some of us bought a tablet or a phone there for a very low price. After Shenzhen we traveled to Hong Kong by boat, to get a good impression of the tropical Hong Kong islands. Our hostel in Hong Kong was located in the most densely populated area on earth, where space is so expensive that shower, toilet and washing basin were located in a chamber of 2 square meters. In Hong Kong we did the last few company visits of our study tour. When that was done we took a boat trip around Hong Kong. The day after that we went to see Macau with its huge casino’s. Friday was the last day of our amazing tour. Now it’s Saturday and we are back in the Netherlands. Our plane landed at half past five at Schiphol airport, where we went our separate ways. Tim van Doesum |