Shippies Take China - CSIV 2017

After our rather long journey here, the entire group was looking forward to not having to be on a plane at any stage during the day! After an interesting breakfast, we moved on to the Harbin Engineering University. The University was originally the PLA Military Engineering Institute that specialised in Ship and Submarine design and manufacture, but now it is a world leading university that features amongst its courses: Ship building, Naval Architecture, Ocean Engineering and Nuclear Engineering Enrolled at the University there are 14,949 students, which is about half of the total number of students enrolled at Southampton, but given that all the students here do engineering, it's quite a large number! We were first treated to a talk about the university itself, and its numerous accomplishments. For example, they were the first in china to make a hovercraft, a hydrofoiling craft, and a deep sea rescue submersible amongst others. They are also an associate member of RINA, which ...

Well, the CSIV 2017 have arrived in China, after a 36 hour trip, including 3 different flights, 4 different airports, and 2 hotels! The flights ranged from 11.5 hours to 2 hours in duration, and had an interesting mix of food, including 2 dinners on one of them which really disappointed one member of the group who had been psyching everybody up for a small fry-up! The stop-over in Guangzhou was rather enjoyable, as we were put into a hotel for around 6 hours. The hotel had some interesting decor in some of the rooms, as well as a pool, which some people used as an opportunity to increase their foreign relations skills. Finally, we all arrived in Harbin, our first stop of the trip. As I write this, we have just had (an interesting) breakfast, and we're looking forward to visiting the HEU university! We'll keep you all updated on our visit as it continues!