China: July 7 – 19

Our flight arrived in Beijing on time and we were greated at the airport by Professor Hong and his student Liu Hui. We then took a taxi ride to the hotel of the convention as well as where Dave was staying, the New Century Hotel (NCH) which is on the west side of Beijing near the Xizhimen subway station and the Beijing Zoo (dongwuyuan). Prof. Hong and Liu then took me to my first hotel (Garden Hotel) which was near their institute in the north part of Beijing. It had been a long day, so after visiting the “American Bar” at NCH where there were some Phillipino singers playing some American classics, the day ended.

(more pictures)

Friday, July 9

Today I drove into the mountains north of Beijing with my friend Liu and climbed the Great Wall. It was beautiful, and I experienced my first ‘celebrity’ incident. Apparently 6 foot tall Americans with sandy blonde hair are not very common in China, so the young chinese children weren’t afraid to ask to have a picture taken with me. We visited two universities: Beijing (Peking) University and Tsing Hua University. We ate at this restaurant where we were each given a plate of thinly cut raw meat and a big foundu chimney of boiling water. It turned out to be a great and simple lunch, high in protein. Late at night I went to a park near my hotel and watched hundreds of couples dancing and younger kids playing hacky sack with this thing that looked kinda like a badmitten birdy.

09:00-22:00 Check in to ACES Workshop at New Century Hotel, Beijing

(more pictures)

Saturday, July 10

First day of the ACES Workshop. Changed hotels, I am now in the Beijing Sardonyx Hotel, room 7001, phone number 010-8202-3300 using china code (86?).

I am finding internet bars (wongba), but nothing yet that I can plug my laptop into, so I only have text access.

(More about Saturday)

Now that I have more time to write, I attended a few talks this day with Dave and Gordon and also went to the luncheons and the opening ceremony banquet. The food at the New Century Hotel is excellent and the staff are all very friendly Chinese who are trying their best at English. It is a 5-star hotel, so probably one of the best in Beijing! Check my pictures page for shots of the place. The Sardonyx Hotel, where I am staying is also really nice- but closer to the CEA institute where Professor Hong and Liu work. On my way back to my hotel from the conference, I decided I would try and use the public transportation to get back. This required a bus ride, a transfer to the subway, then back to a bus again to get to my hotel. Beijing that everything is in Chinese here (obviously), this turned into quite the challenge. In the end, after I took a wrong bus and missed one of my stops I ended up at my hotel…the good thing about this experience is that I now know how to navigate the public transportation around here.

ACES Workshop, see program

(more pictures)

Sunday, July 11

Sunday morning, I went for a short jog along two parks near my hotel: the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park and the Beijing Birds Park. The Birds Park follows a river/(slash)concrete river but the area around it is very pretty with cool trees and temple-like buildings. Later, I worked my way over to the conference by bus first, then subway. In the subway I saw a store selling really cheap DVD’s (10 yuan ~= $1.25). I wasn’t sure what to expect since I couldn’t test these DVD’s out right away, but I bought a few anyways since they were so cheap. When I came out of the subway, it was raining really hard and I didn’t want to get myself too wet by taking the bus the rest of the way, so I caught a ride on a bicycle taxi. In the afternoon I visited the wholesale clothing market, which is a few minute walk from the NCH and tried some haggling in buying a new shirt (from 40 yuan to 20 yuan…not bad?) They probably screwed me, heh. Then I went to this huge grocery/electronics/clothing department store and picked up a few random Chinese goods. I was at the conference later in the afternoon and left back for my hotel a while after dinner.

ACES Workshop, see program

(more pictures)

Monday, July 12

ICCE Conference, see program

Travel to Dr. Hanjing Hong’s Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, located in Beijing, and prepare for presentations on Wednesday.

(until 1:00pm)

Liu came to get me at my hotel at 7 this morning and we met up with <insert Chinese name here> who also works with Hong and we went for breakfast. The food was like egg dumplings filled with meat and fried bread dipped in a ricey soup, it was tasty. We then went to the institute and talked while preparing for Dave’s presentation there on Wednesday. Now I am at the NCH and decided that it is worth it to pay 40yuan to use my laptop here for 24hours, rather than pay 2yuan per minute, as I did on Saturday (I thought the price was going to be 2 yuan per 10 minutes) when I paid 120 yuan for a little over an hour. I am currently uploading pictures, and should have a page up shortly…)

Tuesday, July 13

ICCE and ACES continue while Dave, Gordon, and myself give our talks.

2:00pm: I uploaded more pictures to pictures

14:15-14:30 Yuen, David, Clustering analysis, data-mining, visualization of earthquakes over the internet

17:00-17:15 Gorden, Erlebacher et al., A grid Framework for Visualization Services

17:30-17:45 Kadlec, Benjamin James, Webcam for remote visualization and scanning of Giga- to Tear-byte size datasets on large-scale display devices

Wednesday, July 14

Morning: ICCE and ACES closing ceremonies.

Afternoon: Sightseeing and City Tour

Thursday, July 15

Flying to northern china as guests of the Chinese Earthquake Administration.

Depart: 8:10am Flight: CA1609

From: Beijing To: Changchun, Jili Province

Arrive 9:45am

Travel to a town close to Changbaishan (Ever-white mountain), called Er-dao-bai-he (in the north side of volcano).

Friday, July 16

Travel from Er-dao-bai-he to Changbaishan, the volcano crater lake, the volcano observatory, the pumice deposit, then go back to Er-dao-bai-he.

Saturday, July 17

Travel from Er-dao-bai-he to Jin-jiang, gorge in the west side of the volcano.

Later, travel back to Changchun.

FROM CHANGCHUN: We are back from visiting the volcano and are staying the night at a really nice hotel in Changchun. Changchun is a really big city of about 4 million, but it strangely does not seem that big, other than the pollution everywhere in the air. The Volcano and Erdao were awesome and I will have to write more on that later. I am now at a really awesome internet bar next to our hotel in Changchun listening to some Indie Rock, catching up on news and sending off some e-mails. Its only 2 yuan per hour for internet here, very sweet deal. Unfortunately I can't hook my camear up anywhere here (didn't bring my USB cable with), so I can't upload any pictures, but I did draw a map for my wonderful girlfriend and a link to it is posted on top of the page. THe plan for tomorrow (sunday 7/18) is to check out Changchun in the morning, then fly back to Beijing at 3:30 (a 1.5 or so hour flight, not too bad). It will probably be a quick night in Beijing then tomorrow, because we fly back to Minneapolis again early the next morning on Monday (19th).

Sunday, July 18

Visit the city of Changchun, then return to Beijing.

Monday, July 19

Leave Beijing at 9:10am and return to Minneapolis at 7:31pm.

Date: July 19 Flight: NW 20

Departs: Beijing, China (PEK) at 9:10AM

Arrives: Tokyo-Narita, Japan (NRT) at 1:45PM

Date: July 19 Flight: NW 6

Departs: Tokyo-Narita, Japan (NRT) at 3:10PM

Arrives: Portland-Int'l, OR (PDX) at 8:15AM

Date: July 19 Flight: NW 598

Departs: Portland-Int'l, OR (PDX) at 2:20PM

Arrives: Minneapolis/St. Paul-Int'l, MN (MSP) at 7:31PM