On Dec 27, 2012, I made the first trip to Zürich. The first site of my visit was a small mountain called Uetliberg sitting at the boundary of Zürich, which offers a panoramic view of the entire city and the Zürichsee. Although the weather was not so good due to intermittent cold rains and accompanying temperature drop, I was still determined to see how the scenery looks like on top of Uetliberg.

I was taken by S10 from Zürich to Uetliberg, which is a three-compartment mountain train. This small and orange train cheerfully sung her siren when running through green grasslands and forests with brooks and patches of unmelted snow, which made me feel like being traveling in the nature’s embrace. The altitude increased as the train was running, and the whole outlook of Zürich began to gradually expand in my view. Many white houses with red, brown or black roofs looked so small and were distributed among mild hills and separated by sinuous rivers in silvery white color. When the train reached Uetliberg, I was the only one left on the train. Well, today seemed like really a bad day for hiking: my previous agenda was hiking to Felsnegg, then taking cable car to Adliswils and finally getting back to Zürich by train. Due to strong wind and chilly rain drops, I only took some pictures on a spirally-shaped metal tower on mount top and then returned to Zürich HB (Hauptbahnhof, Main Railway Station). Anyway, the scenery was quite nice which even stirred up some envies in my heart towards this country.

Mountain view during the train trip

The orange mountain train S10

Bird’s-eye view from on top of Uetliberg

After going down from Uetliberg to Zürich city, I quickly went through Swiss National Museum or Landesmuseum, which has its exhibitions in an ancient and castle-like building. Although most interpretations are in Deutsch, I could still see how exquisite and spectacular this museum is!

Landesmuseum: Swiss National Museum

Zürich HB (Hauptbahnhof, Main Railway Station)

After the visit of Landesmuseum, it was the popular Bahnhofstrasse where you can find almost all the luxury products in the world. Paradeplatz (Marching Square), the famous financial center, is surrounded by classical stone buildings of the renowned UBS and Credit Suisse. The well-protected St. Peter Kirche (church) and Fraumünster by Limmat River present their extreme beauty, elegance and dignity ever since their construction in medieval times. Zürichsee (Zürich Lake) like a pearl, surrounded by mild far mountains, was an ideal habitat for swift seagulls, small ducks and elegant white geese. So many seagulls, with almost no wing fluttering, floated with good balance in the strong lake wind. Vigorously and cheerfully, they flied up and down, around you, over your head, in front your eyes a few inches away. What a wonderful feeling if you were so close with the nature and surrounded by this jocund company!

Credit Suisse at Paradeplatz

Shop at Paradeplatz

St. Peter Kirche (church) beside Limmat River

Fraumünster

Zürichsee (Zürich Lake) with seagulls

I think my words are far from enough to describe such scenery appropriately and vividly. Even my cameras are not able to grab everything into their lens:whenever you move your foot steps or change your perspective, a new picture filled with appealing and heart-touching beauty will come into your eyes. This is Zürich! But what about Jungefrau, Luzern, Zermat …? I don’t even dare to imagine their extreme beauties! Further, I even doubt that as a man, if my visit to Switzerland is a little wasteful – because now I realize that Switzerland, depicted by the following words, is an absolute paradise for ladies: super cleanness, perfect natural environment and extreme luxury.

Street view with luxury shops

My second trip to Zürich was on Feb 6, 2013. The purpose was to visit Professor Ralf Hiptmair in ETH. Setting off from the railway station, after several minutes walk along the ascending road in heavy snow, I arrived at one of the ETH buildings where Professor Hiptmair’s office locates. This is a stone construction in which you can see the arched door in classical styles and stone sculptures sitting at each turn of the staircases. From these, you will get a kind of impression and feeling which can be described as awesome and reverence.

After entering into Professor’s office, I found I had come into a completely academic environment. A large big book shelf stood at the left wall extending almost all the room depth. On this shelf, besides some brick-like books or monographs, all the other were well bound notebooks. On the right wall, there was a blackboard which had been written with various mathematical symbols and a colorful rainbow drawing using chalks. Almost half of the blackboard was covered with printed paper. On the right of the blackboard, affixed Professor Hiptmair’s own photos which had been taken during Marathon running match. There were also various number plates of him for participating different running competitions. On the walls around and just beneath the ceiling, hung many Chinese calligraphy frames written with Tang poetry and Song Ci. When I came in, Professor Hiptmair was sitting before the desk besides the window. On the desk, I saw a Macbook with large screen which was connected to another extended screen and an external keyboards. Besides them there was another large touch screen. This three-screen configuration was quite like a hacker’s working environment!

After greeting with each other, he directly came to the topic. During the talk, I wrote down mathematical equations, explained various terms and described the numerical methods used for different sub-problems. After each part of my introduction, he restated the concept using much more accurate and detailed nomenclatures along with his comments on the application conditions as well as pros and cons of the methods. For the equation system in the electromagnetic software package I was now working on, he had deep mathematical and physical understandings on each term in the equation. I had never witnessed in anybody such understandings or descriptions so profound and clear. Finally, Professor Hiptmair gave me suggestions on an implementation of the preconditioner, which I would have a try tomorrow.

Although the second visit of Zürich was quite short, I could really feel how professional and devoted the scientist in ETH is!

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