Visit of a PV panel factory in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, China

Journey of the day

After a classy breakfast at the 5 stars hotel, with delicious banana cakes, we first headed to the headquarters of the company at about 8:30 am to have a presentation of its activity in the PV sector. CDs and leaflets were given to every students. Jerome and I had some presentation of the personel working there: lots of girls, about 20, and 5 guys. We also could leave our biggest pieces of luggage there.

Then we took a bus to visit the factories of the PV panels. To arrive to Wuyi, the journey lasted 2 hours , during which the driver gave us the chance to see the worst asian film ever (story about one cop and one mafia guys, who used to be best friends when they were little, but separated, so they didn't recognise each other, so they were like "ennemis jurés" when getting older, and so on...too much "ralentis", the haircuts were like in mangas but without style...).

Hopefully we could see beautiful green landscapes. I'm happy to forecast the green visits/hiking to do during our week-ends of the internship. Also, the weather in this region seems clear and sunny.

We arrived at about 12h30 at the factories. After visiting the new one under construction, we bounded for the old existing one. They had some messages to welcome us ! So cute !
Of course, the company offered us the lunch, but it had to be quick, because we had to leave at 3 pm to catch a train for Shanghai in Jinhua, a town nearby. That is why we just had "fan he" 饭盒 (rice in box).But it was still good !

Visit: so this is how you assemble cells to make a PV panel: 1. choose the cells by colors, test the cells by flashing them, put the string to connect the cells electrically speaking, then put some tedlar, eva etc. and "superglue" them together with a heating machine...

Quick quick ! Thank you CP solar for this very interesting visit ! I personnally learned a lot, and think I will learn a lot during the internship too.

Too bad, the driver missed the right exit on the highway, so we missed the train for 20 minutes late ! That is why the people look hopeless in the picture (upper right corner).
Hopefully it was possible to exchange the tickets for the next train, at 17h44...which would take 5 hours to arrive to Shanghai, instead of 3 hours with the previous one. That is life...

People spent their time in the train mainly by playing cards ! Even the supervisor played with us !
Arrived in Shanghai : it is raining. Hopefully again a bus is here to take us to the Magnolia Hotel.

To be continued (http://nathyo-cn.blogspot.com).

Jae's Birthday : Korean BBQ ! - Chuuuaa ! (c'est bon en coreen !=)

3Today was Jae's birthday ! He brought us to a Korean BBQ restaurant called "돈 cafe" just in the neighbourhood (easy to find because WuDaoKou 五道口 is a Korean district here in Beijing !)

At last I know how to do this little chopstick "support", thanks to teacher Jae. On the right, the "appetizers" or pickled dishes, and the kimchi (the red thing = spicy!) a sort of baicai 白菜 (chou chinois) which has been marinating in a sort of spicy sauce ???. Wikipedia should tell you more and better about it : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimchi

Let's start the BBQ : before and after. 鲜五花肉= fresh pork 5 flowers = pork. The tablet where we put the meat is in fact a little bit askew, to let the grease fall on the kimchi, and take the spicy off the kimchi. Or maybe the kimchi become less spicy because it's cooking, or maybe I didn't get everything...

Anyway, it was fun, because to eat this, we rolled the meat in a salad leaf, just like eating nems.

At the same time we had a kind of Korean Pizza 泡菜饼, and, because we were the big clients tonight(supposition) :-) , they gave us the kind of omelette in a little pot for free. (We don't stop eating eggs here in China!)

After the barbecued meat, we had a kind of directly cooked chaofan 炒饭. The pictures just show the steps: 1.cut salad leaves + kimchi, 2. red sauce, 3. rice, 4. mix over the fire.

This is us, having a good time ! (c'est quoi cette tête PY? On ne voit pas Léa etRomain dommage). We had a special guest. You can also recognize the ALEF sign on some faces (actually 2 on the left picture).



At the end of the dinner : surprise, a birthday cake appears from nowhere ! Happy Birthday Jae ! You even have a crown as a gift. On the left picture, we can see Emilie and Rieul longing for a piece of cake with interesting fruits on it...

Thank you very much for this Korean food experience Jae !

Visiting Berlin for the 1st time !

Here are the albums associated with this blog article : http://picasaweb.google.fr/NathYo/Berlin_ville?feat=directlink : Berlin, the town http://picasaweb.google.fr/NathYo/Berlin_gens?authkey=Gv1sRgCKy1r7zzjOnQogE&feat=directlink : Berlin, with people on it

Night in the train
Departure from Paris at 20:20 from Gare de l'Est. Party in the train. Our roomates' feet smelled a little bit too much, so we changed room.

First visit of Berlin for me !

The Berlin bear welcomes us !

We arrived in Berlin Hauptbanhof (Main train station) in the morning, at about 9 o'clock. Our French supervisor was indeed in the same train (some of us saw someone that looked like him passing through the wagon).

We left our luggage, and then started to visit Berlin. It was sooo cold (about -10°C, compared to about 2-7°C when we left Paris).

This is our route in Berlin from Hauptbahnhof to Alexander Platz

We visited for free the parliament building in Berlin (the Bundestag, B. on the map).

The parliament of Berlin

Inside the Parliament, a big glass dome. Downstairs were some pictures with events that took place here.
Yeah that's me with the German flag...and with all the winter cloths, because it's sooo cold !

Some Envim and Alef students at the top of the Bundestag !

There was a big hole in this dome, that's why it the visit of the Parliament was so cooold !

We then went by foot to Brandenburger tor (C. on the map).
And we continued to Postdamer Platz (D. on the map), but before we spent some time searching for some shops to buy one more layer of socks, or gloves, because it was freezing, and we were not prepaired.

Commemoration monument for the murdered Jews of Europe

Ampelmann (ex-RDA symbol)

Then we took the subway (which is more an upway, because it's outside, and it's coooold!), the U-bahn, to Alexander Platz (E. on the map), which we thought was a kind of old town, and revealed to be a big shopping center, with big malls.

Sausage salesmen with a funny but all-weather proof dressing.

We decided to eat there, in a kindof Brasserie. Some of us had soups, some others had choucroute...

Choucroute and a big piece of meat for Edouard !

Tried to visit the most of Berlin in one day...That was of course impossible. The sun already sets at about 16h30 ! Just in time for the appointment at the Main train station with the rest of the group to then go to Poland...Hope I will come back another time here !

To be continued...in http://nathyo.blogspot.com (French)

Internship in Wenzhou in June 2010

Hello everybody!
It's ok I know where I'm doing my internship starting from June 2010: it will be in WenZhou, a city in the south of ShangHai, far from 483 km. It is a company dealing with photovoltaics.
The boss sounds cool, he's French. There are already 30 sthg people at the office: one French tahitian guy and the others are all women! One of my classmates will also be there with me, at the end there will be 3 guys...
We'll speak English there, but of course I hope I will improve my Chinese too!
We have to define our internship subject ourselves! This will be a real challenge!
In terms of logistics, they'll give us accomodation, and also the lunch I think (taken all together)! Ok, that's all for the moment!

Take care!

What I'm currently doing

Maybe not everybody understood, or it's been a while I didn't talk to you. Anyway, this message is to put everything clear about my "working" situation: in fact... I don't have a job yet ! haha !
Ok I was just kidding, in fact I'm continuing the studies during 1 year, with an advanced master degree from Mines Paristech (Paris, France), called "advanced master in international energy management". So it's not an Ms, like 5 years after A-level, but it is some 6 years level diploma (between Master degree and Ph.D).
This post-master degree is held by several educational partners among INSA de Lyon (France), University of Tsing Hua in Beijing (China). Some courses will also take place in the AGH University of Science and Technology of Krakow (Poland).
That is why we are moving a lot from town to town: 3 months in Sophia-Antipolis (Mines Paristech "energy and process annex), in South-East of France, near Nice (so beautiful city), 1 month in Paris, 1 week or 2 in Poland, 3 months in Beijing. And at last, a 6-months internship.

You may say, this program is awesome ! But usually post-master degree are costly ! How much does it cost ? Answer : 0 euros ! I'm exagerating, because of course, we have to pay the eating for everywhere, and also the accomodation in Sophia and Beijing. But for Paris, Krakow, Lyon ? And all the travellings? What about the teachers? They don't come to do some volunteer work here ! The answer is in fact the key to be admitted to this selective program : the industrial partner !
Indeed, the company finances all the tuitions fees of this program, in exchange, the student will do a 6-months internship. I can tell you that finding this partner is not a piece of cake, above all during the crisis ! And there is no much place for the 40 something students who are eligible to this program: only 13 this year.
Voilà, I was admitted, and I'm very happy with this. Questions: Can we say that the student of this master have some common characteristics? like perseverance ? stinginess ? love of travelling ? openness to strangers ?

That's all folks !

ALEF on facebook : http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?v=info&ref=ts&gid=186731051479

New blog to tell you more about my life

Hi guys ! With this blog, I will be able to tell you more, with the help of an internet connection, about what I want: what I'm doing, my next trips (I hope), my dilemmas(often pragmatic, not existential)...

Here we go !