Tsang's RISE Trip

Berlin, Berlin, wir fahren nach Berlin and Happy Canada Day

Hello hello, and Happy Canada Day to all you Canadians out there!

After yesterday's spectacular shootout win over Argentina, Germany is heading to the semi-finals in Dortmund. Everywhere was filled with chants of "Berlin, Berlin, wir fahren nach Berlin" meaning, Berlin, Berlin, we are going to Berlin in reference to the final game being played there. Unfortunately, I missed the game due to a plant tour that I had signed up for earlier in the month, back when expectations for the German team were quite low (aside from myself who's been a believer in home team advantage since before Day 1) and when I had no idea of the scheduling.

The plant tour was quite something to behold though. The Bayer plant straddles two cities, Cologne and Wuppertal (I believe) because way back when in the late 1800's, the difference in taxes between the two cities were quite large. To reduce costs, most of the manufacturing plant took place in Wuppertal. The global headquarters today are situated at this site in an impressive 4 story glass building. The first headquarters was across the street in a nice victorian building while the next HQ which was a very tall office building was situated beside the new glass one.

These are the buildings I was talking about. Inside their information centre, there was a model of their plant just to give us an idea of just how big the company campus was. It was quite impressive. Production of nitrile rubbers, phosphene gas, chlorene gas, as well as other basic raw materials for chemical production are produced here in addition to Apsprin which is what Bayer is most famous for. Their water treatment and "controlled" land fill (as they called it) were situated away from the city. We later learned on the bus tour that due to poor regulations in the early 1900's there was a problem with ground water contamination for the local community and Bayer had to relocate thousands of residents to contain this disaster and also to try and remediate the land. This is when they built their current facilities to manage the waste. It was quite neat actually because the incineration processes were automated and carried along suspended tracks in rail tanks to be transferred around the properties.

Inside, we were treated to various displays of Bayer technology being used. In addition to being a large chemical manufacturing company, Bayer has an extensive materials science group which is responsible for such things as the new FIFA World Cup soccer ball that deviates from the traditional 5 and 6 sided polygons that are sewn together to a new 14 piece design with a tongue and propellor pieces "glued" together, forming the most spherical shaped ball ever. Unfortunately, they could not give us any of these balls since they are about 110 euro here. Also they had displays of other innovations they have been part of, including the reduction of weight in hockey goalie gear. Apparently, the leather pieces of the past used to weigh approx. 30 kilos. This has been reduced significantly with the polymer fibers they've created. Also, they seem to think Mario Lemieux #66 plays goalie.



















In addition, we were treated to an experience inside their display building and this table rose from the floor. I felt like I was in some supervillian's secret layer from a James Bond movie with the moving wall panels and rising floors. Polyurethane was made in front of us by mixing polyol and and isocyanate which upon mixing, began to foam and harden until it hardened into a spongy foam shaped like a giant pill. Yay, science is fun.






We proceeded to play a multimedia game much like the one in the bar where you had to answer the questions in the fastest amount of time. My team, and by team, I mean myself, came in second only because I tried to give a chance for my partner to answer, but she had no idea what was going on. The people in the photo (not very well represented) are people who are also working in my dept. and wanted to come see the Bayer plant as well.

This was the multimedia complex that stored all the neat displays that we were shown. Each room has a theme room and it was a very nice looking building as well.

On the bus tour, we were driven around the plant, but below is a picture of what I believe is their isoprene manufacturing facility. It was taken from their controlled dumping site. It reminded me of when I was working in Petro-Canada with all the massive pipes leading into a tangle of more pipes and blocks of metal and distillion and separation towers. I even saw some cooling towers as well. They have a whole unit dedicated to incineration for their treatment of wastes and each incinerator was almost 2 stories high.

After the bus trip, our tour of Bayer was pretty much over. As we were kindly dropped off back to the train station by our nice tour bus driver (she didn't have to give us a ride) we were early and our train was delayed so we had time to catch part of the game in Wuppertal/Cologne as well as grab a quick dinner. It seems everything that is newly built here in Germany consists of a building with as much glass as humanly possible. Perhaps I can confirm this tommorow when I head off to Dusseldorf, the richest city in Germany.

Well after a lengthy 1.5 hr train ride, we managed to safely get home, discovered along the way that Germany had won in the penalties after tying the game up 1-1. As our train pulled into the Dortmund HBF, hoards of fans were still partying and completely filled the station as everybody was trying to get home. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of chaos as everybody tried to get out of the train as everybody else tried to get in. In the street, local revelers were singing and yelling their German songs regarding the other times they have won the World Cup and cars with celebratants hanging out the windows speeding around the city centre honking their horns.

Exhausted and wanting nothing more than a hot shower and my bed, my journey home was delayed and what a 30 minute ride should have been turned into a 2 hr fiasco due to an encounter with a motorcycle and a small car which I am pretty sure the motorcycle driver came off at a severe disadvantage (I don't know what happened, but there was a lot of sand and broken parts of the bike as well as police and ambulances). They shut down the streetcar system and we were told to walk to the next station or wait for the bus in 45 mins. Fortunately the bus came a bit early, but only dropped us off at another station where I had to wait for ANOTHER bus to finally get home. Eventually I made it back and settled in for a nice long sleep, ready for another big day in Dusseldorf.

posted by ktsang @ 10:25 AM