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If you climbed The Great Wall, you would make a video too - trust me!

First you soak in the sight from the peak, then realization kicks in: ‘What goes up, must come down.’

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Team celebration on THE GREAT WALL!

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Yep, we made it to one of the peaks. I am humbled by the experience of witnessing amazing Chinese history. Made even better, with a great team and super amazing weather... some may say ‘too amazing’ that it made the steep climb somewhat challenging.

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The Great Wall of China

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Hushan Great Wall

Hushan - 'Tiger Mountain' in English, is so named because the two towering peaks are like two tiger ears pricking up into the sky. It covers an area of 1.54 square miles (four square kilometers) and its main peak measures 1,080 feet (146.3 meters).

In history, the mountain was always regarded as an important fortress because it guarded the safety of Dandong City in Liaoning Province and is the eastern gate way to China.

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We are here!

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We have arrived after a 5hour coach journey. A real Dalian experience on the roads. I definitely could not drive on these roads, they are a fair departure from the London roads I am used to.

But where are we?

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We’re ready to go!

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ALL ABOARD! Its Saturday so it must be time for a team outing, but where is our destination?

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Dalian Harbor - beautiful at night

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IBMCSC China Team 29 team dinner at the Lobster Harbor restaurant

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I had to capture this moment because it brought back memories of home. Hello London! The rain - oh how I have missed this. Luckily, it hasn’t rained that much in Dalian, but when it did a smile grew on my face. Here is Dalian appreciating the weather wash over.

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End of a second week on the IBM CSC program and another team catch-up session. Status updates, achievements, challenges and any lessons learned. 

My key lesson learned from this week has been ‘to be conscious of using business or IBM jargon when illustrating a point to my client’. For example, ‘learning management system integrated with IT infrastructure’. This phrase or type of phrase is not only difficult for an Intern to translate into Chinese, but can also lead to confusion across both parties when misunderstandings are not highlighted at the point of discussion. Both assume that an level of comprehension is met, the conversation moves forward and then, uh-oh!

One of the other groups also had an issue with ‘client server’, when it was translated as ‘customer waiter’, it raised a few eyebrows.

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Team China29 here we go! Kickoff at IBM Dalian #ibmcsc china29

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We don’t need a meeting room! All we need is a laptop and enthusiastic CSCers motivated to deliver new creative problem-solving methods to our clients in China.

Workshop Team B meeting in the hotel bar to discuss our Community Workshop for NGOs. The topics of the day are: an introduction to Design Thinking and the concept of Agile Development.