This morning we arrived at the train station of Guangzhou, we spent the all night on the train. Some were lucky and got soft sleeper class, whereas others had to be satisfied with the hard sleeper class. Nevertheless we had to be splitted, we all really appreciated this journey.
Jack, our tour guide, picked us up and lead the group to the Guang Yong Lido Hotel. Unfortunately, our organisation team had to sort out certain problems during check in, but finally everything has been solved on time. Then we had the chance to fresh up and rush for breakfast.
At noon the group shortly met up, afterwards we transfered to SGS by bus. It is the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing and certification company. The service has been developed in the last couple of years to a wide range of sectors and industries. SGS helps its customer reaching the required quality in many business areas. We were allowed to visit the inspection and testing laboratories. A very fascinating part of the tour has been the testing procedures for high quality soccer balls.
After the informative and interesting visit at SGS, we departed for the Sun Yat-Sen University. There we met Prof. Dr. Christian Staehlin who is Professor of Molecular Biology and Principle Investigator at the School of Life Sciences since 2005. Christian Staehelin is heading a research team interested in the Rhizobium-legume symbiosis. After a short introduction of his work and research, some of his students showed us their laboratories, work places and the botanical garden, which is located on the roof of the research building.
Heading to a typically chinese restaurant with our new friends, we enjoyed an interesting evening full of enrichments. The dinner gave us further possibilities to talk about the daily life and sum up this instructive day.