Every year our group will go to a small town named Oberwiesenthal in the south Germany for a group retreat. It is a yearly opportunity for people to chat with each other and give informal talks about their own research. It is also the time to have fun: going ski, hanging around in the bar and hiking in the mountains etc.

People complain that they don’t know each other’s research even they are next-door neighbors. Even everybody agrees that discussion with people in the same field will benefit each other, it is usually difficult to do so. So it is really eyes-opening for us to know what other guys are working on. Group retreat is a also a good to know guys around and paves the way for chatting during the coffee break later.

It is due to Kai’s efforts to record and edit a small piece of video during this holiday. You can find people reading physics book on the coach. People are thinking hard during the seminar. People are explaining their research about why bees can fly and how the fruit fly’s wing can grow etc. People are chatting in the bar. People are playing table tennis called Chinese game, which I have never played before as a Chinese :-)

Here you can have a glimpse what some young researchers’ holiday could be. :-)