I have spent most of the start to autumn zipping across Europe and making short visits to China. The short journeys across Europe included an unscheduled stop in Munich for 8 hours after missing a connection on the way to Kyiv, after a delayed flight from Heathrow. I spent the 8 hours undertaking my first ever trip into Munich. Munich is one of the cities I regularly transfer through but have never actually visited the city. So it was nice to have a quick walk around and kill some of the delay.
I also made a couple of visits to China, including my shortest trip yet. I undertook a two evening and one day trip to Chengdu to visit Chengdu Polytechnic. Flying from Kiev to Chengdu involves two connections, which meant the flights there and back were longer than the time on the ground. The visit supported the continued development and embedding of their entrepreneurship and enterprise curriculum. When visiting Chengdu Polytechnic I stay in the same ‘boutique’ hotel, which has numerous individual room themes. Each time I have stayed in the same corner room, which is one of the biggest in the hotel and has lovely full glass windows on two sides of the room, but it has the feel of not being fully finished, as it has chipboard walls. Whilst maybe not as trendy as the other rooms in the hotel, other rooms look more polished.
Two weeks later I was back in Beijing to visit Changying Vocational School for a couple of days. Working with vocational schools is always fun, as their students work well with practical hands on activities. It was also interesting to spend some time in West Chaoyang. Having previously lived in Chaoyang next to the third ring road, I was largely blinded to the further West districts.
Finally, there was visit to Bielefeld for the final session of DBA teaching for the second cohort of students. It is always nice to complete the teaching and sent the cohort on their way to develop their research and complete their thesis.
Robin Bell 