I retook some pictures of the route to the office this week. Since I knew exactly where I was going, I had to walk there at the lunch break. I wanted pictures in the daytime so that the directions to the office could be made more clear. That is, they could be cut and pasted into emails and sent to students with whom one might wish to meet. Once one has been to the office once, it’s not too hard to remember how to get there. But that first step is a lulu, as they used to say.
I probably included more detail in the pictures and descriptions that are necessary, but I figure anyone who forwards this stuff can just cut out any unnecessary parts.
I found that it takes about ten minutes of concerted walking to get to the office from building 44, as long as one keeps up the pace and doesn’t stop to take pictures. Probably fifteen minutes is a more reasonable time to budget for the trip, and therefore, the round trip from classroom to office would require about a half hour. Then, factor in ten minutes after the morning classes to answer students’ questions and pack up, and another ten minutes to arrive for the afternoon classes, unpack, and set up again. That leaves forty minutes for eating lunch and doing other things. Therefore, if you eat lunch, you’d have maybe fifteen minutes at the office to do anything. I played it safe and didn’t stick around that long.
I measured the dimensions of the room. It’s about eight and a half meters (28 feet) long by about four meters (13 feet) wide. The desktops are all two meters by one (6 and half feet by three and a third). The floor space taken by each cabinet is about the same.
I also discovered an unlocked door from the second-floor lounge to balcony with a view. Here’s a panorama shot of the view, for anyone who’s interested.
The road in the foreground, of course, is actually straight, not curved. You can click on the picture to see the details.
=========================================
Directions for walking to the office from building 44:
From Building 44, cross the moat on the nearest bridge (going south. Here’s the bridge:
on the other side of the bridge, turn left (east) immediately onto 明德南道 (Míngdé Nán Dào). Continues walking East on Míngdé Nán Dào. The buildings across the moat look like this:
Keep going straight on Míngdé Nán Dào. You’ll pass the end of the Moat:
At the next intersection, Míngdé Nán Dào veers slightly right, but keep walking on Míngdé Nán Dào. At that point, the buildings 33 will be on your left. Walk past all of them.
The next intersection, at the end of buildings 33 is is 成德环路 (Chéngdé Huán Lù). Turn left onto it.
Continue Walking on Chéngdé Huán Lù. You’re headed towards that space between the buildings on your left.
When you reach that space, turn left and go through the corridor. It looks like this:
The sign next to the corridor looks like this:
After going through the corridor, you want the building to your right, which looks like this (though it’s not curved, like it seems in this panorama shot):
The door is under the circular logo. After going through the door, it looks like this: (photo taken at night):
Turn right and walk behind the electronic sign. When you look to your left, you’ll see this:
Light streams in from an inner atrium located to the left. The two staircases lead to the second and third floors, respectively. If you take the lower staircase, it brings you within a few meters of the meeting room for the normal teachers. The door to that room looks like this:
However, our office in on the third floor. One could take both flights of stairs to reach it, but it’s simpler to go to the back side of the decorative column, the one that looks like this:
There, you will find a hidden elevator, that looks like this:
Take the elevator to the third floor. When you emerge, it looks like this:
You next go to the far corridor, either by jumping over the fences, or walking around the brick wall on your right.
From that corridor, you can look back to see the elevator that you just took, next to the top of the staircase:
However, you continue down the corridor, looking for room 359 on your right:
The door to the office has this sign:
The office itself
And the view from the two windows at the back of the office looks like this:
That’s the Colosseum building in the foreground, and the East Gate is just off the frame to the right.
Click on the picture to get a larger view. The tall building to the right is the building with the office. This picture is taken fro
m the street. Next to the entrance is a blue-and-white lighted sign that announces the name of the department. It looks like this:
You take the passageway by this sign. When you get through, you’re greeted by a small courtyard:
Again, the building with 359 is on the right. When you turn in that direction, you’ll see this:
The doors are on the left. This is what you see when you first go inside:
If you go straight and out the next door, you go into another courtyard. So instead, turn right and go around the back of the sign. This is the view that confronts you:
Directly ahead is a large column, the “main column” which seems to anchor this part of the building. Closer up, it looks like this:
From here, one can take the stairs. Since the ceilings are higher than necessary, the stairs are quite a climb. Furthermore, as can be seen in this view taken from the top floor, they are arranged like those department-store staircases that require you to walk a ways on the floor before you can ascend the next case.
And by the way, your sojourn on the second floor takes you past an open lounge. But it’s best to skip all that, since, hidden in the back of the main column, is perhaps the only elevator in the whole building. I walked right past it, and a guard had to point out to me where it was. It would seem that they wish to make the building more “green” by discouraging wasteful energy use by the elevator. Judge for yourself:
The interior of the elevator is fashioned of rough-hewn wood. It’s clearly meant as a service elevator, and not meant for the general public.
Anyway, you take the elevator to the top floor – the third floor, and this, Indiana, is where you’re confronted by the pit of doom:
However, you can go around the wall to your right to reach the opposite side. Keep walking to the left in that distant hallway, and you’ll see this:
That’s the door to the office in the center left, across from those boxes. Actually, the entire time I was there, workmen were fixing up this and that. Those boxes are probably there.
And the keys we got will work! When you open the door, here is the view:
This is a panoramic shot, which is why the room seems to wide in the foreground. Actually, the room has straight walls. The space is quite long, and also rather narrow. So it’s not quite as easy to have a group of students over as the old office. There are six desks, and six desk chairs and six cabinets, one of which is open on the left side of the picture.
Here’s a closeup of one of the desks:
Also beside each desk are some strange wheeled things. Anybody know what they’re for? They look like this:
And here’s the fabulous night time view:
That’s the Colosseum that you see. And theres a wide inviting panel of class doors there at the bottom. I tried them later, and of course, they were all tied shut with bicycle locks. Sometimes I wonder of more bicycle locks end up on doors than on bicycles.
And by the way, the offices for the normal teachers are located on the second floor, not quite underneath ours.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the tour.