My daily work way pasts always this nice poster. Another interesting English word combination Chinese like to use to make something bigger and better. ” Elegant Leisure Relaxation in Club Palace”. What for a Club, I also have to go there sometime. I think the Lady with her elegant Hello Kitty sleeping pyjama went there already, I mean how can someone be more leisure and relaxed than her walking out her house pig and dog.

Now other animals. I found this in a fast food branch. I somehow found this advertising a bit macabre.

End station of an animal. Drying meet next to drying clothes. Something I also have in front of my door. Fortunately it is not that smelly and somehow flies don´t like it too much.

For me as a post war child its always a surprise to see this kind of signs. I mean this Generation is getting less, but still nearly all old man in China where soldiers and there are so many young soldiers here. Where does it start and end. An commend on that picture: ” The socialism is starting in costumer service. Everybody is equal!

I also really love Chinese English skills. ” The outcet of Shanghai tobacco saces netwokr”. They paid for this. But I mean the c and l are really looking alike. Also one of my favourite: Snakes instead of Snacks!

No commend!

Yes, it is possible to translate: “delivery time” with “foreign send time” by the time you translate the Chinese words directly. Wai=foreign/outer/external, song=delivery/send, shijian=time. Also a nice one: Embryo Tee!

Mercedes Benz build in Beijing!

The tools he is using since ages. ” The knifes from Germany are very good”  he told me and showing me a shaving knife. ” The powder is very important to clean the necks from hair, or it will itch you the hole day”.

Shaving tools.

A Thermos jug is keeping hot water for wet shaving. The seat is used as table for his meals.

Bicycle tubes to keep the scissors.

“My son is bringing me my food everyday, I have a son and a daughter, but my daughter lives further away”.

The Foodbag.

Chopsticks.

A self made Chair brings the costumers into the right heights.

“Never have naked feeds, it is very annoying to have the hair between the toes”.

” Wet shaving is to risky, he is moving to much!”

“My sons hair is too less, with cutting the hair I want to bring it to grew”. ” That won´t help!”

” I am doing this Job already my hole life, my son studied from me and is working now together here with me. I have very old costumers and very young ones. Some people come to me, cause the new shops don´t have the old tools any more and cause it is very cheap and convenient. They trust in my long experiance”.

Northeast-view on Balancity. The people are marking the former Energie Source. Behind it you still can see Ireland and the apple of Romania.

Eastview to the former Energie Source. Behind the scene you see Happy Street of Netherlands, Romania and Italy. The English Pavilion is also fully deconstructed.

Southeast-view to former Office- and Employeesentrances. The waitingline was ending here. In the back France.

Westview! In the back you can see France and Spain. The Swiss, Polish and the German Pavilion are totaly deconstructed.

Northwestview. In the back: Latvia, Greece and Turkey.

The most northerly China Town on the world I guess.

First wild reindeers I have ever seen. In Gällivare they say that no other animal is so stupid like reindeers. And when they are just walking on the street or running for kilometers in front of a car instead of running to the side, I can guess what they mean. But still they are cute.

A white church made out of wood in a white landscape.

Crazy dutch are everywhere! That is not a joke, these are really like weekend trailers. And some of them are belonging to dutch fellows. At the weekend some owner really came over and lived in it, outside freezing – 30 degrees.

Balloonflights nearly every day. We mostly started from a street in the forrest. Around 12 Balloons every day. We landed on the lakes around the city. Always rescue teams available, which helped us to come to land with snowmobiles.

Flying over forrest and lakes. The sun always pretty low. Sunrise 8am, Sunset around 4pm.

Icefishing.

And of cause I could not miss a ride with a dog sled. That was really nice. The dogs are so happy to run. You can feel how they want it, they are drinking snow and also be able to do other things while running. When they smell an animal they really get fast. It was a lot of fun.

And one night, I could see the Polarlights. They are really changing their shapes very fast. The lights and the stars over there are so beautifull. That was really a highlight.

The starsign: big dipper.

The Hotel in Dundret. Sourounded of Citylights and Polarlights. 

My Fazit: the human body is with some help really able to survive a lot. Fife times I really froze my feets to numb, but it seems to recover pretty fast. It was really an unforgetable adventure.

In the morning out of the Hotel window.

One of the nicest balloons this time.

My father: one of the best Pilots.

Austria out of the balloon. Some shots are from 3,5 km up in the air. It was an amazing feeling up there. Thanks to the Balloonteam.

Flying over the Bischofsmütze. Sharing the sky with 40 other Balloons.

An incredible view 100% clarity. We are so small!

Shortly before making a little stop over in the mountains.

In the evening it is tradition to have a Night glow. Therefor the balloon will get ready for start, but they will stand on the ground. The music starts to play and over funk there is someone giving commands for each balloon. So they will fire on there command and the night will glow in the rhythm of the music. A very nice event. Around 9000 people watched the spectacle. The townsfolk is counting 1000 people.

Other impressions of Filzmoos.

First the exterior view of the German Pavilion on 9th of december:

The Landscape:

The Urban Periphery:

The Tunnel:

The Habour:

The Planning Office:

The Garden:

The Depot:

The Factory:

The Park:

The Studio:

The Forum:

The Energy-Source:

Staffrooms:

Restaurant:

Office:

A child proudly presents his ticket.

At the subway stations and the Entrance are counters to buy the tickets. They cost between 100 and 160yuan for one day.

The hole City Shanghai is full with signs and pictures of the Expo.

Better City, Better Life is the motto of the Expo. The blue toothpasteman is the mascott!

After 10 ´o clock in the morning you can nearly survife the way to the Expo. Before that, its just horribly crouded and there is always big pushing to come into the subway.

At the EXPO there are a lot of voluteers showing the way and helping with all kinds of questions. The sign is showing that there are still 150 m to the German Pavilion. It is one of the favorite Pavilions on the EXPO, so that they made this signs.

The Finnish Pavilion shortly before a rainstorm.

The Danish Pavilion with a thunderstorm in the background.

The outeview of the Philippines Pavilion.

The Lupu Brigde of Shanghai. She is going from PuXi to PuDong. The picture is taken from the roof of the Swiss Pavilion. In the background you can see the Chinese Pavilion.

Unbelievable blue Sky in Shanghai. Picture of the Sessellift on the rooftop of the Swiss Pavilion. View to the PuXi side.

The EXPO-Village. Made by HPP Düsseldorf. A big Complex design by Liu BingYi:-) A lot of workers of all the Pavilions are living in this housing Estate.

PuXi. The side with the Urban best practise living Cities. Here is also Hamburg, Freiburg, Bremen and Düsseldorf. All chosen cause they figured out a way to make the Urban life more attractive and liveable for people.

I introduce you to the different rooms of the German Pavilion. After entering the German Pavilion you will go through the Landscape. Along the way you can see very large postcards of each German federal state. At the same time, these postcards can serve as photo-taking points.

The visitors reach the inside of the city, the path slowly leads to a ramp, moving past interactive displays, which offer impressions of life in Germany for all senses. Via explanatory texts, exciting facts and figures on German cities, the visitors can find out more about the individual images – the sounds, sights, feelings and even the scents of Germany.

After the Urban Periphery the visitors enter a moving walkway passing through a pulsating tunnel and, via multimedia presentations, they are drawn into a sea of urban images and sounds: trains, cars, buses and loudspeaker announcements giving a feeling of the citylife in Germany.

The end of the tunnel opens up onto a deep-blue underwater room where visitors experience the sounds of water, air bubbles and shimmering reflections. They break through the surface of the water above and enter a fascinating futuristic urban environment: the Hamburg harbour with daylight atmosphere, blue sky, the cry of seagulls, people. Spectacular skylines emerge and typical harbour sounds resound.

From the harbour you will come into the Planning Office, with oversized plans, models, sketches and urban plans – as if drifting in the wind. The theme here is innovative, sustainable urban planning and development, depicting the urban infrastructure as a living process.  At the end of the room, visions emerge: new types of urban life, ideas on how people of various ages, lifestyles and nationalities could live together in the future.

The Garden shows images, sounds and three-dimensional objects, showing the significance of private green spaces, hobbies and moments of relaxation in german modern, pulsating metropolis. Children can access the next room via a huge slide.

A large, dark room welcomes visitors on their journey through balancity. Shelftype structures reaching up to the ceiling are filled with famous inventions,design products and technology developments from Germany.

Visitors are led by moving walkways to the factory where conveyors belts cross each other at different levels above them. These are carrying sustainable innovations, products, processes created by German companies and institutions. At interactive scanner stations, visitors can find out more about the objects functions. Another area of the factory presents futuristic material developments from Germany, where visitors are invited to touch, feel, smell and directly experience these materials.

In clear contrast to the Factory, is the next room. There you experiance a parkworld up side down, with a fresh breeze, the scent of flowers and birds chirping. You walk on the sky. When the visitor rais their head they can see the gras and flowers. Inside the flowers you can see a 360 degree view of a german Park.

The journey through the city leads visitors away from the daylight towards an environment with stage lighting. A variety of cabinets open up views onto cultural projects, where visitors can experience the significance of culturelife in Germany. Carneval, Choir and Literature can be experienced in various interactiv ways.

In the City Square the artist Konrad Kuechenmeister is giving a audio-visuell feeling of the live in a Metropolis.

The Forum in balancity is the bridge between Germany and China, a place for dialogue and communication. It will feature the “Germany and China – Moving ahead together” project. The Forum is the last room before the popular Energy Source.

“The visitors enter an awesome, energy-laden room filled with an exciting light choreography. Then they spread out across three galleries from where they can see the room’s focal point: a sphere. The sphere has a diameter of three metres and its surface is covered with around 400,000 LEDs. During the seven-minute show, images, colours and shapes appear on it, symbolising German ideas related to the EXPO theme of “Better City, Better Life”.