supermarkets in Switherland

COOP, Migros and Denner is the biggest three supermarkets in Swiss. Denner has the cheapest price for Lindt chocolate, I have heard several people talk about that. However, except for COOP, I did not have chance to go to other supermarkets....pity.

Although I just have experience on COOP, I could still find that supermarkets in Swiss is quite different, which is also a very interesting thing to compare with supermarket in Chinese.

While I hope it will limit Chinese people to reach my blog due to English...

1. More open for Swiss supermarket: customers need to weight fruit and vegetables by themselves, which saving at least one employee for market. However, it is really hard for Chinese...

2. price is really expensive: 1 Franc for a small cup of yogurt, 3~4 CHF for a bread, etc. If you times 10 on our price in Chinese, then you will get the price here. But there are also something cheap, such as milk, for 1.5L milk, you can find the price around 1.5 CHF, which you should know that these milk does not contain "chemicals", :). Also it proves one of my comment that Evian does not have any special things, it is just "pure" water. Here shows a picture of its price in Swiss. 6*1.5L, whihc is 9L "Naive" water is only for 3.95 CHF. It is even cheaper than many local pure water.

3. market car: this picture shows the market car of COOP market, ther is one lens for old men to enlarge the text, which is really a human element. Also they do not need people to collect cars left by custmers finishing shopping. These cars are all placed near the only one entrance, and you need to place one CHF coin to release one car. After using it, you also needs to lock it with another one to get back your coin. It saves people to sort it.

(Sorry, I still don't know how to rotate pictures in blogspot...)

This post is good to explain the reason of richness in Swiss

统计数字表明：瑞士人的年平均收入高达81.7万瑞士法郎（1瑞士法郎约合人民币5.46元），名列欧洲第一。然而在如此富裕的国度里，人们却从来不大手大脚，十分节俭，结果形成了一种注重实用、不讲奢华的消费意识，能省的决不愿多花一分钱。
身家富有的标志与众不同
瑞士是世界上现代文化水平很高的国家之一，人们更愿意把钱花在旅游、健身、看戏或者参观博物馆上，而在居住方面却要求不高。与传统的理念不同，在瑞士,身家富有的标志不是住多大的楼房，而是在郊外或乡下有没有属于自己的木制小楼。正因为如此，瑞士的有钱人愿意在城郊、农村或山上购买私人住宅，一般为两三层，另外带花园和车库。而收入偏低、刚刚独立的年轻人和外来移民，则大都住在价格相对便宜的高层建筑里。
为了节省开支，瑞士人有的迁居房租低得多的郊区或小城镇，有的则住在租金更便宜的老楼房。至于那些大城市的居民，讲究的是方便适用，简朴典雅，不追求豪华，不搞高档装修。家具的挑选以物美价廉为标准，为此，有时跑上几家商场加以比较。
在瑞士的民居建筑中，木屋颇具特色，而且各地的建筑风格迥异，从中可以感受到瑞士人早期的传统生活。现在，百年以上的木屋由各州进行普查并登记造册。至于那些有着珍贵保留价值的木屋，则整体拆迁到巴仑堡民居博物馆。在瑞士人眼里，200多年前的面包房、草药作坊、钟表作坊、打铁炉等都有着重要的价值，必须妥为保存。
时至今日，人们再也不必生活在简陋的木屋里，然而,在谷地和平坦地区依照小木屋的模式盖房的却大有人在。不少居民不但将木屋装饰得古色古香，还愿意在自家花园里种花植草，把木屋打扮得绚丽多彩。有的在门口和窗台上摆上鲜花，有的让木屋与栽满鲜花和绿色植物的院落浑然一体，给人以返璞归真的感觉。
在节水方面，瑞士人大做房屋的“文章”。人们或许难以相信，他们竟然是从屋面流下的雨水做起的。瑞士以“花园之国”著称，风沙不多，冒烟的烟囱也少，因此雨水干净。首先，通过下水管将雨水接住，让其流进贮水池里。如果房屋坚固可以承受较大压力，水池建在屋顶。不然的话，就设底层，靠小水泵将水打上去。由于每层楼都能用上水，因此冲洗厕所、洗涤衣物或擦洗楼面都十分方便。
建筑物一律不得超过37.5米
令外国游客迷惑不解的是，大多数地方却难以见到10层以上的楼房，更不用说高层建筑了。这其中有历史的原因。早在百余年前，瑞士的圣皮埃尔教堂竣工建成，巍然矗立。它的高度为37.5米，堪称当时最高的建筑物。这座教堂被视作日内瓦的城市标志，成为控高点。从此之后，一条人们认可的规定便沿用下来，不论什么样的建筑，一律不得超过37.5米。一个多世纪过去了，虽然日内瓦的城市建筑日新月异，但是却没有一幢建筑高于圣皮埃尔教堂。
现在，新建的住宅区基本上都是8至10层。绝大多数的建筑其貌不扬，既没有宏伟的外观，也看不到豪华的门面，用“土里土气”来形容，一点也不过分。漫步大街小巷，不见豪华公厕。在市中心，难以发现刻意设计和精心施工的主题广场。从外表看上去，弄不清楚哪座建筑物是联合国有关机构的办公楼，哪个楼房是世界某知名企业的总部所在地。
这是什么原因呢？原来瑞士人觉得，在高楼大厦里生活缺乏情趣，无法与自然沟通。在历史上，瑞士是一个农业国，近百余年才发展起来。瑞士的高山以及它特殊的历史和文化背景，养成了瑞士人勤奋、节俭、守时等性格，其中,民风淳朴和危机意识最耐人寻味。他们虽然物质生活十分富有，可是一代又一代地继承着老一辈的优良传统。
然而，在以生活质量为主题的全球评比中，瑞士总有若干城市名列前茅，足以说明瑞士人非常追求生活品质。

The secret of rich Swiss

The bad weather totally ruined my hotel lake view. But I still walked around the Wadenswil.

Town is quiet, piece. People lived in the villa, which has their own grass, gardon. Always they bought big toys for children. Even for the small roads, they still have handrail and marked when cross the road. No safety guard for the first floor or second floor. Car is parking along the road, very niece. This view is totally different with China. What surprise me most is that there is nobody to check tickets in the railstation, which is the most convienient method for Swiss people. Shops are quiet, too. That makes me surprise why they could still be there instead of shutting down.

This is so different with China:

Although not many passengers, train system is still working.

Although few customers, shops are still there.

Although people are not busy, they are very rich. Someone told me average income of Swiss people is 4,000,000 RMB per year (or nearly 600,000 USD).

All of these asked me a question: why Swiss are so rich?

Chinese people working hard to plant farms, to work in companies, but still earn much less than that. Why could they live so well?

I asked the others and search the internet, here is some possible reasons:

1. Swiss owns lots of gold left by dead Jew in WWII. They made him rich.

2. Products of Swiss are always taken the best position globally, such as chocolate, watch and bank. This is really owesome, you know that they did not produce coco themselves. And 2/3 of money in Swiss bank is from other countries.

3. people is hard working and intelligent. They save money and don't waste.

Finally, that is still a question for me to understand why here is so rich....

Begin the trip of Swiss

With one day stay in Shanghai back from Harbin, I begin the trip to Swiss on early morning. This is the first time for me to go abroad. I take Swiss International Airline, Airbus 340, which will bring me directly from Shanghai to Zurich in 13 hours.

Swiss airline is cool, it is very different with mainland airline. The economy class seat is a little bit larger, with one LCD for each traveler. We could choose to see movie, or listen music, or play game, or learn simple foreign launguage, or see sky through two cameras below and ahead of aircraft. I watched Shrek I again and Mr.&Mrs Smith during the flight. Listen some music of Beatles, Madonna and Enna at last when reading. You could even phone on the air, but the cost is also much higher, about $11 USD for one munite.

Here is the menu on the flight. So passengers know what they could choose on the flight. During the whole 13 hours flying, I did not feel so tired. Then here the Zurich comes~

Here shows two pictures of Zurich airport. Since I have to find the hotel this afternoon, I did not look around and buy one ticket to Wadenswil. The ticket price is about 12 CHF for the 40 minutes train. In Zurich, I know it is very important to know German or French... Most of people did not speak english. It seems I need to start language study again.... There is auto ticket selling machine, for the first time, I still choose to buy tickets in the window.

This is the view of inside train. There is few people in the train. Time is very accurate in Swiss. However, so few people in train made me confuse why they still have profit.

During the train travel, I could read that Swiss is a very rich country through the city view. Not so many cars and modern buildings, but still you could feel the city content. After outing Zurich city area, you could still see lots of villa with open areas.

The life of Swiss people is rich, however, for me, it seems too expensive. This dinner costs me over 30 CHF, which is about 3 times higher than Shanghai. Comparing with normal Chinese city, this dinner equals to nearly half month's meal cost...