Nick 5 months

Just received some pictures from my mother of my nephew Nick.
He seems to have grown in all directions. Quite sure he will become a fighter like his uncle, haha.
Unfortunate I was unable to talk to them on Skype due to Christmas organisations which I will post some things about later on.

Dutch Visit

This week three of our professors from the INHolland university made a two day visit to NPU. We knew that our supervisor/aerodynamic professor would attempt to visit us during the internship, but we were surprised that the dean and our mechanics professor/my mentor joined him.
On the first day we didn't see them and again I was struck down by some stomach problems. I think it was food poison. On the second day we were invited to join a meeting with our professors and our supervisor from China. We discussed the progress, our thoughts, the goods, the bads and things that can improve. After the meeting we thought we would join our professors for lunch, but this was not the case. Both our professors and us were surprised. Chinese planning I guess. So after a handshake we said goodbye and went out for lunch.

A few minutes later I got a call from our aerodynamics professor saying that he invites us to dinner, because he wasn't too happy with us just seeing each other for a meeting. Without hearing about our "other" experiences. Of course we accepted and met them in the evening. We went out to eat hotpot.

I had a great conversation with the dean. Talked about the development going on in China and it's possibilities. At the end of our conversation he said that if I want to do my 4th year internship in China that he might have a place at Siemens in Beijing. I'll certainly keep it in mind!

New Campus

This morning professor Yong Yang walked in to the office with a surprise.
He wanted to take us to the new campus of NPU. The drive is around 40 minutes south-west from the old campus. Of course we accepted his invitation and ran back to our dorm to get our cameras. We got in the professors car and 40 minutes later we arrived at the new campus.

Wow! This is really something else. New structures, spacious and the air seems to be much cleaner. Walking around with the Professor and Sillin (A Chinese student that works close with us on the aerodynamic assignments) First thing we noticed is that the New Campus lies at the foot of Mountain Qin. Named after the first emperor of China.

After lunch the professor wanted to take us in to the mountain. Back to the car! 15 minutes later we were in the mountain. The professor seemed to have changed profession because the speed was kept at 70 km/h while the amount of blind turns increased, it was insane! Responsibility did not apply in this case. Luckily we arrived safely apart from one student who got a bit car sick. I'll safe you the details. We arrived on one of the tops, where we stopped and got out to take some pictures before heading back. The view is amazing, I loved it and it is really something I will not soon forget! Fortunate I have this picture to share with you.

We arrived back at campus around six. I thanked my professor for taking us, I was very happy he did.

Lifting Line Finished?

Finally the Lifting line problem writing in FORTRAN seems to be finished. Although I have my doubts with the method that is suggested by my Chinese colleague since it does not match the theory at all. I'll have to see what the professor thinks about it.

Terracotta Warriors

Today I made a visit to the Terracotta Warriors together with Frank, Stefan and Stefan's mom who is currently on a round trip through China. We had a Dutch tour guide which was fun for a change. I don't feel like typing to much right now so I'll make it short.
I will say this the fact that the statues are still preserved for such a long time is impressive. Although I would have expected to see thousands and thousands of terracotta warriors we only saw a few hundred which was a bit of a let down(most still in ruins). Non the less, I'm glad I made a visit here and would really recommend it. I hope to return one day when more warriors have been dug up and restored.

Killing Code

What should be an easy job is really killing me at this point.
The assignment of simulating a 2D Lifting Line I took on and was done coding in just 2 days. For some reason there seem to be a lot of bugs remaining. Not code wise but theoretical wise. Re-wrote the whole program about 4 times now. I still seem to be doing something wrong but I can't seem to figure out what. Will ask Mr. Gong (Chinese student supervisor) for some help. Hopefully he can give me some insight.

National Week

Chinese National week means a week off to celebrate the founding of the People Republic of China. Or in our case a 7 day break from our internship. I really needed this because we've been working hard these last weeks to round of the first phase of our internship. 5 days a week 8 hours a days going over aerodynamics theories and lines of code. Searching for bugs and errors in attempt to get the correct results.

This week we used to explore Xian a bit and bring a visit to Xian's Bell and Drum tower both located in the city center. Both building are relatively small compared to previous tourist attractions, but still quite amazing to see. The fact that Bell Tower was moved stone by stone in order to retain it's center location in the city was quite amazing. Linc took me out to eat hotpot and Gaby took me out to some local "hidden" restaurants around Bell Tower. The food is just great here I have discovered something called a Chinese Hamburger. Which is a combination of a pita bread some pork. Delicious and almost sold on every corner.


At the end of the week we decided to go to an event park a little bit north out of the city. Here we went for a heat of carting outdoor. I would have expected to have some close races unfortunate my cart was the slowest off them all and this really showed on straight lanes. After the heat we played a game bowling and finished by diving in to a swimming pool.

For dinner Gaby and Irene took Stefan and me out to one of the better hotpot places to eat. The food was great and I was able to get my shoes polished for free.
Overall a great way to finish National Week.