iglidur reaches Beijing
Finally, we arrived in Beijing, the capital and political centre of China.
For information on igus parts in the automotive industry, visit the designated area on the website here: http://bit.ly/1aiIKyf
Square of heavenly peace
Beijing marks an important step on our trip as from here we are leaving the coastal area to drive through the inland back to Shanghai. We arrived at the hotel late in the evening and woke up early the next day to visit our beloved customers. Most customers are located in the outskirts of Beijing. You cannot compare “outskirts” of Beijing with “outskirts” of, for instance, cologne. Here in Beijing this basically means 1-1,5 hours of driving to get there. One customer, who had the pleasure to welcome both car and truck, is a specialist for medical equipment.
We met Mr.Ma, who is the chief engineer of this company. He wanted to show us one of their x-ray generators.
X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation that allows the user to look at the inside of objects. One of their x-ray generators is a mammography system that is used for scanning the breast for cancer.
The doctor has the possibility to adjust the machine so that he can scan the exact part he would like to examine. It is all automatic so that he doesn’t need to do anything by hand anymore. He can choose between three different settings of motion. One of the motion setting is carried out by DryLin® N.
DryLin® is moving the plate, that is reflecting the x-rays, up and down along the y-axis.
Mr. Ma stressed that the plate is moving very smoothly and is making absolutely no noise. As he is working on lowering the noise of his x-ray machine, he intends to use more of our DryLin® products.
Now to Beijing. Well, my first impression was that Beijing is completely different to Shanghai. Granted the city has fewer people than Shanghai, but whether a city has twenty four million inhabitants or fifteen million makes no big difference. Beijing has skyscrapers too, but you never have this “metropolitan feeling” that you get when you walk through the skyscraper-canyons in Shanghai. This is surely also allowed so the streets are very broad. Some even have seven lanes, ON EACH SITE.
Nevertheless, in the rush hour you are moving forward in walking speed. The incredible high number of cars goes hand in hand with extraordinary high pollution. Yesterday, we had a day where you could barely see the car in front of you.
As Beijing lacks this metropolitan “spirit” it offers more historic sights than Shanghai.
A very well known sight in Beijing is the forbidden city. The forbidden city was basically the palace in the Ming Dynasty.
What can you expect at one of the most famous sights in the most crowded country of the world? Of course, a huge crowd.
Still, despite the crowds it is a very pretty area containing huge squares and nice gardens.
We saw India’s landmark, the Taj Mahal. Now we also had the chance to get to know Chinas landmark, the Great Wall. We visited a section of the wall that is not far from Beijing. Afterwards, I must say that this wasn’t the best idea. To repeat my question from above: What can you expect at the most famous sight in the most crowded country? Too many people again.
Nonetheless, it was impressive to know that you are at the biggest sight in the world and that this particular wall had stretched about 8800 km across old China. Nowadays, the largest part of the wall is dispersed and only the maintained parts are in a good shape (by the way, it is a myth that the wall is visible from space. It is too narrow).
Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a better spot for a picture with both car and wall. Still, it is more the historical moment to be with our iglidur® on tour car at the Great Wall of China, that matters.
The next stop we are aiming at is Luoyang, which is about 800km south again.
I will keep you guys up to date,
yours Sacha
