July 22, the Day of the Eclipse

This morning, I awoke early and tried to get to Qiantang River, but took the wrong one, went the wrong way, and arrived at Hangzhou High instead. There, I received a booklet in Chinese with the exact timing of the eclipse, so I watched the astronomical phenomenon there. Despite being already cloudy, I could see both the Corona and Venus for the six minutes of totality. I must say, it was more beautiful than I can possibly describe. I must be an astronomy geek, but it brought tears to my eyes. If I have the chance, I want to see the next eclipse with the proper gear.

Immediately after totality, I rushed to the Qiantang with the assistance of a kind lady who traveled two stops with me, and arrived at the river in time to see the tidal bore. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a Tidal Bore (or tidal wave in the true sense), is a phenomenon where the tide rises at the mouth of a river and creates a massive, sustained wave down the river. The Qiantang has one, and the Amazon has another. I was told the wave would occur about 1 hour after the eclipse. It turns out I was not only hours early, but in entirely the wrong spot. Keep that in mind.

I met Matt at the concrete embankment and we walked for miles/kilometers (he’s British from Northampton, I think) waiting for the Bore. We had been given a variety of estimates, and at various times in the day, including between 10 and 11, 11 and 12, 12 and 2, 11 and 3, etc. So we walked in the 100 degree heat, despite being both dehydrated and very hungry (no breakfast/lunch) but march on we did. I expect we went a total of 2-3 miles before we stopped for water at a nice café (we left a nice tip), and another mile or two before it started raining. Yes, rain, although prior to the weather change we were dehydrated beyond belief.

We walked and walked chatting about the English language, school, his life in Malaysia and mine in Hong Kong, and so on. One expression he used frequently that I especially enjoyed with “Ideal!” for whenever he approved of a situation, or its circumstances.

At about 3:00 PM, we saw the tide in the river rise suddenly and realized that this was probably the Bore, or the remnants of it from farther downstream. So, starving, we stopped at a lovely tea shop which provided nuts and candies along with my Chrysanthemum tea (apparently it’s not my favorite). After our snack, we wandered in the direction of civilization. Hangzhou north of the river is extraordinary like a bustling metropolis waiting to happen. I must have counted at least 30 buildings under construction just north of the river, and along one single block, I counted twelve. The infrastructure is also mostly there for a few important looking buildings, but almost nobody anywhere. Even this at a lovely park where “raptor pens” looked down onto cars on a highway, there was nobody there.

A little farther north and people reappeared. At a bus stop, a nice girl guided us to a stop near Xihu where we alighted and wandered in search of real food (i.e. not munchies). We found our goal at a wonderful (and huge inside) restaurant with a menu that looked Babelfish.com-ish. Some dishes included Salive Chicken, “big lobster,” and others I can’t remember. I wanted a copy of the menu just for the Chinglish. Alas, I didn’t take photographs.

We ate enormous amounts together, and finished every dish but “Unify the Rivers and Mountains” which contained shimp, eel, chicken, vegetables, and some sort of veggie dumplings, from the rivers and the mountains. We tried to unify it as best week could, taking the title of the dish as an imperative, but couldn’t quite manage it. We also ate a delicious mango pudding in the shape of a fish.

Finally, Matt and I went to the “night market” and after some searching I shopped and haggled. Shopkeepers kept calculators for the purpose of haggling with gaijin. On the whole I did quite well, and made a few owners unhappy with their bargains. I now have a number of gifts and my very own PRC Propaganda Poster from the Cultural Revolution, with the slogan “Powerty comes from Gun.” I imagined Gaius Baltar when I bought it.

Finally (for real this time) it was farewell for us (he returns to Malaysia on Friday, tomorrow as I write this) and I returned to the Shimoga Hotel, where I fell asleep almost immediately.

July 21, Hangzhou

This entry was written the day of the Eclipse, hence my not-so-subtle commentary.

I sit here at Hangzhou high school, crossing my fingers and hoping that the sun ceases to obstinately hide behind the clouds by 9:38 when the eclipse becomes total. When the clouds thin enough, I can see the sun has become an incomplete disk, an honest to goodness crescent, although I cannot yet catch a non-blurred photo of it. I will keep trying through my inexpertly produced pinhole, which is more of a pencil-hole in a piece of paper. After totality, I will hurry to Qiantang River to watch the famed Tidal Bore.

Yesterday was certainly an adventure. I got to Hangzhou without a hitch (thanks to Sun’s assistance, and a terrible baozi breakfast). After arriving in Hangzhou, it took me quite a while to find my way to Xihu (West Lake) from the station, but I eventually managed it. I wandered for a while with all my luggage, looking for a hotel that wasn’t 1500 Yuan a night, and eventually found the Simago Business Hotel. I room I rented was 550 Yuan, but discounted to 270 Yuan, and was extremely spacious and comfortable, far more than I expected and more than I’d have settled for paying only $40. Pictures of the room exist. I was most impressed by the telephone right by the toilet, however, for those who need to multitask.

I dropped the major mass of my luggage and proceeded to wander Hangzhou, looking primarily for a stand where I could not only rent bicycles (those were everywhere) but where I could find the rental card as well. I found one MILES away from the hotel, and by the time I reached it, I was dehydrated with a rather extensive headache. I think by the end of the afternoon I was near to suffering heat stroke, despite drinking lots of water.

I visited the beautiful Leifang Pagoda by bicycle, destroyed in the Japanese invasion. In the rebuilding process, some modern accessories were included in the design: not much original is left, except the foundations. Indeed, the pagoda now has a central glass elevator. At least I believe it is modern, unless the 10^th century Buddhists were a lot more talented than we give them credit. I did get to see “Evening Glow over Leifang Pagoda,” one of the 10 Sights of Hangzhou.

The sun is currently a thin crescent in the sky, so I’ll describe the remainder of my day later…

By the time I left Leifang, I had a dreadful headache, one of the worst dehydration headaches psible, and I knew I had to rest. So at an amusing show of fountains timed to Chinese music, I drank over a liter of water and waited a half hour. I returned to the Shimago hotel, although not before being yelled at for walking my bike in a “walking zone” (apparently the no bike rule is rigid), took a short shower and a two hour nap.

Upon awaking, I was too drained for a further excursion and so ate downstairs at the hotel restaurant. This turned out to be a wise decision. Not only was dinner exquisite, but my waitress was extremely cute, although I’m ashamed I wasn’t able to work up the courage and tell her so (in Chinese, of course). The meal was also conducted entirely in a form of pidgin Chinese. I got better as the trip wore on.

Getting Shanghai'd

Here is the account of my journey to mainland China transcribed from my handwritten journal in a silver notebook. On the whole, the words are those that I recorded on the specific day of my journey, modified slightly for style and content when necessarily. In addition, one major textual change takes place in this transcription: when I take notes, I tend to use Japanese and Chinese as a kind of shorthand. However, for the benefit of those of you who cannot either read those languages, or do not have the correct encoding installed on your computer to actually visualize them correctly, I am translating these into English.

July 21 2009, 12:00 AM

Perhaps the best way to describe my first impression of Shanghai was of being hit by a wall of “oh my God, it’s HOT!!!” When I alighted (fancy British word for disembarked, used all the time in Hong Kong) the plane, it was 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and also 8:30 PM. In addition, it was nearly at 100% humidity. The heat would continue for another day, before the rain started, and never seemed to let up…

Travel to Shanghai was mostly uneventful, in the way traveling to get to a destination is meant to be. Mostly is the key word, however. At the very beginning of my trip, I boarded the wrong bus and arrived at the wrong MTR station. It wasn’t an insurmountable problem, I just had to travel for an extra half hour to get to the Hong Kong-Shenzhen border, and in one piece. Entering the Mainland was no trouble at all, although it was a tad inconvenient with impatient glares in my direction. I particularly enjoyed the friendly, welcoming barbed wire on the Hong Kong side of the moat.

Once in china, the barrage of salespeople began and never ceased…I learned immediately that not only do I not want to buy most of what they offered. I also learned that most of the “helpful” people who get very excited and begin guiding me somewhere other than where I’m going aren’t actually helpful, and just want me to use their overpriced and unnecessary service. There are many helpful people, let me get that straight, I was pointed in the correct direction many times. The helpful ones just didn’t get excited.

Xiao Xiao’s friend Sun Chengjie picked me up at the Shanghai Pudong Airport (with a sign and everything) (p.s. the airport is massive, it took 10 minutes to walk down the terminal using walkways), and showed me a bit of the city. Shanghai is gorgeous, but surprisingly dark compared to Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo, etc. Much of the darkness is due to the massive renovations occurring in the city in preparations for the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, where the Chinese government is doing much the same as it did to Beijing.

With a single night in Shanghai, I feel I’ve had enough city, and I want to go somewhere more peaceful and calmer. Tonight, everybody wanted to sell me things, including lasers illegal in the US, various toys, “Chinese Massages” and other less innocent offers. I was even assaulted by a “weak” old begger, who leaned on his cane, pointed to his mouth to show how hungry he was, and then gripped my shoulder sharply…

From now on, I’ll tell people who ask to sell me things by using English “watashi dost nicht loqualis Inglais.” Maybe that will confuse even the trilingual street hawkers. Not that many of those trilingual guys will be selling stuff on the street, but I also don’t want to be caught in a bluff about my language.

Early to rise tomorrow, and then I’m off to Hangzhou.

Leaving on a Jetplane

This will be my last post for more than a week. I’m traveling up north to watch the eclipse and do some traveling around China, a bit more on that later.

The week has been mostly uneventful. On Thursday and Friday, I worked with Ameng in the clean room manufacturing my chip design. Although I’m technically not allowed to touch anything, she allowed me to be an assistant, so I washed and dried chips, and did a great deal of work transferring the glass masks from one heater to another while we baked the photoresist on. We got 2 of the 3 copies of the mask correct, and should finish with the manufacture (i.e. PDMS deposition) when I return from my journies.

On another note, apparently I’m not supposed to be downloading files here either, or at least uploading them. Since I can’t figure out how to turn off that last feature, though, there’s not much I can do, so I won’t be able to get Spanish language tapes. Found this out on Thursday…

On Saturday evening, the group went to see Harry Potter 6 downtown. We ate dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant and had a full course meal, which was wonderful. It was kinda expensive for a Chinese meal, $108 apiece. But since those are Hong Kong Dollars, it turned out to be only about $14 USD, which was amazingly cheap for the quality of food we ate. The movie was also very good, by far the best of the films. Yes, there were bits the director left out, but most of them were unimportant. I quite liked how they treated relationship issues; I think the film dealt with them as well or better than JKR did. There are a few things I’m curious about for the sequel. How they’ll deal with Harry’s mission to find the Horcruxes is a mystery; he didn’t receive the full briefing in the film by Dumbeldore and the department of backstory. But oh well, we'll see how it works out.

Saturday evening was also exciting for the arrival of a typhoon to Hong Kong. Although they are pretty weak by Florida standards, it was still a lot of wind and water. Fortunately, I got a ride home by HKUST security, otherwise I'd have been really really wet by the end of the walk. At home, I watched some episodes of The West Wing, which has all the political intrigue of Battlestar (minus the stuff blowing up every episode), but has the added benifit of being political. Unfortunately, it's a bit addicting. But it was interesting watching an episode about a hurricaine when the wind was raging outside my window.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon doing laundry and packing and planning. Thanks to a great deal of help from Xiao Xiao, I have my itinerary. Today (Monday) I travel into the mainland and fly to Shanghai from Shenzhen, where I meet a friend of his. On Tuesday, I go to Hangzhou and find a hotel and explore; and then on Wednesday morning, I wake up early to watch the eclipse. Then in the afternoon, I head to the canal city Xitang (featured in the final scene of Mission Impossible III, although they claimed it was Shanghai…). The next day I go to Qiandao Hu (literally, the 1000 Lakes) and stay for at least one night and see (hopefully) a place called the Stone Forest. On Friday the 24^th, I return to Hangzhou for two days, where I stay at a youth hostel, and perhaps make some new friends like I did in Kyoto, as well as travel the city. Finally, I go to Suzhou on the 26^th and 27^th and explore there, before heading back to Shanghai on the 28^th and flying back to Shenzhen and ultimately, Hong Kong.

One final thing, for all one of you readers, I’m writing this “blog” as much as a journal for myself as for others, and in my journals, when I think to write them, I record everything. So please forgive the vast wealth of detail and inanity. I’ve learned from experience, if I don’t have some sort of excuse to write, I’ll forget/blow it off.

See you all on the 28^th or later!

http://www.orientstocks.com/images/zhejiang2.jpg The map linked contains most of the locations in my travel. Shanghai is in the upper right, Hangzhou ("hahng joe") is in the middle, Suzhou ("Sue Joe") is at the top in the middle, Qiandao Hu ("chee en dao who") is the lake to the southwest of Hangzhou. Xitang ("she tahng") is near Jiashen, which is just southwest of Shanghai

An update

I have a great deal of catching up to do, so I’ll describe some of the key events and leave out the remainder.

On Thursday, I had the opportunity of visiting the Clean Room. That means I turned into a fluffy white bunny again, wearing almost identical garb to the outfits I wore in KamLAND. Because I was untrained and had not passed certification, I mostly stood around and watched (being forbidden to touch anything but one computer). The room had everything, including an air shower and yellow lights so as to not expose the photoresist. I got to see first hand what I had learned almost 2 years before in APh 9, except I think experience was a slightly better teacher.

On Friday, I spent the day attending seminars on research. The morning was devoted to talks by students in my group, and the afternoon was a 3 hour “Soft Matter” (i.e. flexible polymers in biology [i.i.e. DNA]) seminar, given by Dr. Bob Austin from Princeton University, and Chih-Kuan and Shuyu from my lab. It was all very interesting, especially as Bob Austin was one of the pioneering scientists in the field of biophysics. In the Lecture, Bob Austin also mentioned that the full Solar Eclipse will be visible from Hangzhou/Yangtze River area, so I am going to make a trip up north myself to view it. I will likely be alone, as nobody is able to accompany me. But it will certainly be worth it, and I’ll have to learn Mandarin in a hurry.

At some point last week, I also started downloading from a torrent the Pimsleur Language courses in Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, and Danish (should I decide to study in Denmark). As of this moment, I am at unit 11 in Cantonese and unit 6 in Mandarin. When I finish these entries, I will do unit 11 in Cantonese… On second thought, maybe I should double time Mandarin (Pimsleur recommends only 1 unit a day, but maybe the situation requires that I go a little faster, I have plenty of time to finish Cantonese, but only a few days to get up to snuff in Putonghua).

Also at some point, I bought an amazing book by David Crystal called The Stories of English, which is covering in exquisite detail the English language’s transition from Old English and examples of changes and held words to boot. This will keep me busy for a while.

On Saturday evening, I left work earlyish, and went down to the undergraduate area to talk with students my own age. When I found all the buildings locked, I instead went to the track and ran about a mile. That was almost as fun (*insert sarcasm here*). I am out of shape and need to exercise more often. However, the track was about 20 feet from the ocean, so I had a cool night ocean breeze cooling me as I ran, which was wonderful.

Sunday was fun; the group went out and watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen downtown. As expected, the movie was hilarious, especially in the dramatic sequences, when every character seemed to have lines pulled straight out of TVTropes.org, but read with a straight face, and without the incessant tabbing (speaking of which, the XKCD comic from Monday the 14^th is amazingly true). Afterward, we went to a noodle place where I had “Fish Balls,” which were literally spiced, “chicken nugget” shaped fried fish mixture, and was quite delicious. Afterward, I bought a mattress! and alarm clock, so when I returned home, I threw out the old one that I feared was full of bugs. Now, because a cleaning lady came to visit the flat, my room is clean and a good place to sleep in. My ease of mind is far greater now that I not only don’t have to worry about bugs, but don’t have to worry about my body hurting from lying on a wooden board.

Monday was mostly uneventful, except that Among and I finished my first chip design, and submitted it to the technicians to make the masks for the positive and negative photoresists. I really hope this works! Dealing with 100 micron wide channels will not be easy, that’s for sure…

Today, again was uneventful, except for just before I arrived home. I left the 7-Eleven near the apartment, and took a different route, to where the old British man was celebrating a birthday. I stood by and watched and sang, and then talked to a gentleman from India for a while. The Brit (who spent years in France, so he said) is a cranky old goat, but as the Indian said, “his bark is worse than his bite.” He told me, as he was quite inebriated, that he would take care of me should I need any assistance.

Music of the day(s); Non e si vago (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ34Ryd2Cuo&feature=related, here actually Connoly in a pants role) and Se in fiorito (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrFY6nhwADU Sholl at his best), both Julius Caesar arias from Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto. I want to sing them, along with Va tacito e nascosto for the concerto competition in the fall. With sleep and plenty of fluids and frequent practice, my countertenor is getting higher and better, although I still have to work insanely hard to not clench my throat constantly. Posture is helping, as is warming up properly, but clenching is certainly a danger that I’ll have to get over if I want the muscles in my neck to stop aching.

I started writing the script for what I hope will be an entertaining One Act play. Given my past success at writing, I think I’ll wait and see what eventually comes out…

wan-an!

Post with photos (of the Lab)

July 7, 2009

I slept until 1 today, haven’t done that since Caltech, but I did have my late-night insomnia/illness to blame for that. At the lab, I tried to call Sarah and wish her a happy birthday, but epicly failed at connecting to the internets using the outside network. First I failed to bring the password with me when I went outside to not disturb my labmates, and then I discovered the password didn’t work anyway. Shikata ga nai ne.

I got to finally do some experimental work today; I mixed the oil with the GER powder to make a GER fluid for my own work, and then spent a good amount of time discussing my plans with Among. We have a bunch of ideas that might work, but we’ll have to try several different ones because none are guaranteed to do so. Apparently, putting together different types of materials on the 100 micrometer scale is harder than you’d think…

I got a Chinese name today. I am now Gu-Kaixi, at least according to Among. Gu means “Arrowroot” (this part I might change) and 凯希Kaixi (kai shee) means Hope of Victory. Jinbo says it isn’t a very Chinese name, but I like it. First and foremost, however, I will remain ケーシー more than a Kaixi.

I have finished both my pleasure reading books and now have only a gajillion other things to distract me from my work. Oh internets, why must thou exist to abet procrastinators so?

This afternoon, Dr. Li showed me the track and swimming pool at HKUST (the track is within throwing distance of the ocean) and some of the undergraduate areas of the school. I think I’ll spend some evenings down there meeting people my own age (not that I’m not enjoying the company of my labmates). Among warned me not to go swimming down at the ocean though; apparently, there are sharks that are big enough to sample me, if not devour me completely. Last night, in my own wanderings, I discovered a spot on one of the lower levels that is mostly enclosed with excellent acoustics, but is far enough away that I can’t bother anybody. I’m going to have to go back with my rollup piano and sing one of these nights.

July 8, 2009

Nothing terribly exciting happened today. Slept late again (I’ll go to bed early tonight, I promise). I did pass my safety examination (apparently I studied hard enough in the 8 hours I prepared during). Then I got a safety briefing about how to use the chemical rooms, and now I have card access to the rooms. Might come in handy tomorrow or later when I really start working on my own.

I’ve decided to put Cantonese on the back burner, although I’ll keep it up a bit. I’ll focus instead on Mandarin, because everybody around me speaks it, and it will be far more useful should I go to the mainland. I have a visa to do so.

Attached to this post are a bunch of photos of the office on the fourth floor and of the adjacent lab. There are also a few long-dark-creepy hallways pics (the one that looks long and dark). I won’t show any more photos because they all look the same, hence me getting lost almost constantly and frequently turned around. I’m getting better and almost not failing at getting everywhere.

Music of the Day: "Pur ti Mio" from Montiverdi's Poppea. The lower singer on this track is Philippe Jaroussky, and he is male, despite the voice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYc_O-fpHzQ

The words are less than thrilling, but the music is sublime, to say the least

Italian
Pur ti miro, pur ti godo
Pur ti stringo, put ti annodo
Piu non peno, non moro,
O mia vita, o mio tesoro.

English
I gaze on you, I rejoice in you,
I embrace you, I chain you to me,
I suffer no more, I die no more,
Oh my life, oh my treasure.

July 6: something short

I got to start working on my project today (well not really, but I did get to see Among do some microfluidics experiments, and I have a chip with which to perform my first experiment. If this works, I can move on to more exciting things, and maybe designing my own microfluidic chips with AutoCAD.

Alas, moderate illness struck today, yet despite my exhaustion, I cannot sleep. It is 4 AM and tomorrow will be miserable, so I’ll cut this short. I drafted a letter to one of my state senators today, to see if maybe HE can do something to knock some sense into the Sacramento politicians. Since he is one, I’m skeptical, but I can dream, can’t I?

Oh, and I also watched the movie Next, with Nicholas Cage, which was quite good, and gave me some interesting dreams about being the official emissary to the Martians when the come, for some reason.

July 4 and 5th

Well, catching up yesterday didn’t turn out as well as I’d planned. I got in a discussion about the physics of my microfluidic design and then was tired and headed home to bed. So I’ll try to remember the 4^th and the 5^th in this entry.

On the 4^th, I did a lot of designing on my own, and I have a number of different ideas that should work very effectively if I can make one key feature of my microfluidic circuit work correctly. So figuring out a way to build the first part is my project, at least for now. To that end, I’ll have to learn not only autoCAD (which shouldn’t be terrible) but also what exactly I need to do to design masks for the PDMS lithography.

Today (the fifth) was lots of fun. It was mostly a day off, so I ended up coming to the office anyway, but doing nothing of note productively. In my own room, however, I made great strides; I embarked on a massive cleaning project to detoxify my room. To that end, I put in a great deal of chemicals, bought a new mattress cover, some sheets, and dusted like crazy using disinfectant spray. Then I sprayed Raid like crazy to control either mosquitoes or bedbugs (if I have them, might explain the 30 or so bites I have across my whole body, and left for the day.

I went to Hong Hao with an escort, and there I bought the sheet, towel, and mattress cover that should (I hope) make sleep much more bearable. The mall was like most malls; a little large and crowded for my taste, but enjoyable to see for a short time. The mall had a similar feel to ones I’d encountered in Japan (Toyama in particular), but on the whole, it was a mall where I could buy things I needed. If I chance to return, I do have a few non-critical items to buy; namely an amazing looking green-tea and anko slushy from a tea station.

At 5, all the men in the lab boarded the green minibus, headed to the Choi Hung station (where I bought a mini-bus/everything pass), and headed to Tsim Sha Tsui, the business center of Kowloon. We met Among at an amazing dumpling restaurant called Din Tai Fung (http://www.dintaifung.com.tw/en/index.asp) where we celebrated Jinbo’s work, and him preparing to head to Indiana in September. Afterward, we headed on foot to Victoria Harbour raising and lowering our umbrellas frequently due to the binary nature of the downpour. At the harbor, we watched a light show that played out on the largest buildings of Hong Kong island, where their façades changed color, played light patterns, and blazed some extremely strong green lasers in time to semi-traditional Chinese music. I enjoyed the spectacle greatly, and I may return at some point in the trip.

We wandered down the Hong Kong Avenue of Stars, akin to Hollywood’s Walk of Fame where we saw famous Hong Kong actors’ names imbedded in the walkway along the wharf. I only recognized a few names (Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, among others) but also saw Bai Guang, who I think might have been the singer in one of the songs from the 2007 Acadec CD (Liang Shang Ho anyone)? Hong Kong has a lovely downtown; it is remarkably clean, but is also civilized and well designed, for the most part. Hong Kong Island also has a stunning skyline. Perhaps I can upload the group photo we took at some point.

On the way back, I discussed the American political system with Chih-kuan/Richard (he studied at Princeton for his undergraduate work) and some amusing stories about newsworthy events in Taiwan (apparently, the police lost a cash-carrying armored car when it was towed for parking illegally, and then refused to believe that a tow truck had merely come and taken the car away).

Now it’s time for bed; hopefully the 3 hours my room has had to air out will have been enough for the Raid to dissipate.

Bai-bai

Update: I'm not dead, so I guess everything worked out well. And my room is CLEAN!

Images: My room before the purge (note the matress)

Happy Handover Day!

Today was interesting, and I imagine not at all representative of what my days will be like here. Today is the 12^th annual “Establishment of Hong Kong Special Autonomous Region Day” or “Handover Day” as some (i.e. Wikipedia call it), and was therefore a state holiday. As such, I went to the gym and played badminton and ping-pong, met a number of new people in a completely non-work environment (I spent a while chatting with Mia/Mo Lan, a recent graduate of a university in Beijing, and a worker in a Christian society at HKU), and spent several hours reading articles and trying to decide what I want to do with my work (still no project proposal). I will meet with Dr. Wen soon to try to decide. One project I was interested in is apparently in the works for the group, but probably not feasible in the 10 weeks I have. There are uses for microfluidics and ER/MR fluids I didn’t imagine. Apparently, MR shells can coat various drugs which will then be released due to the heart’s own magnetic field.

This school combines a sense of familiarity with a complete foreignness in an odd way for me. Familiar, because of the physical environment, elements of Asian culture, and of course, the ubiquitous Kanji I see everywhere. I can even tell spoken Mandarin from Cantonese most of the time. But the hard part for me is my almost complete inability to speak the languages. English is something of a necessary evil here, given my extremely tenuous grasp of Cantonese and Mandarin. I’m learning key points of structure in both, but the gaps in my vocabulary are so large that concepts I do know are the exceptions, not the rules. I loved being in Japan last summer and finally getting to the point where I could think and learn new words in Japanese, without ever resorting to English. I hope, but doubt, this will occur this summer for me in Cantonese.

I am currently sitting outside one of the student cafeterias here, the Can-teen II. I’ve eaten here twice, but feel apprehensive about doing so tonight given the frustration I’ve seen the staff show at my inability to speak their language. I’m sitting where I am therefore not for the food, but for the view, which is quite glorious. I’m staring at Kowloon bay with a multitude of green islands (there are few buildings in view, except for the bits of campus at the edges of my vision), an assortment of different boats, and a slowly setting sun. This sight, and the birdsong, has a calming effect, and I want to sit her a bit longer before I return “home” to my little room. I have a suspicion that I will spend even less time there than I did in the Chesters at Caltech, but this is more out of sheer desire not to be in my room her, not when there is so much else to see.

I will be going to bed shortly, although it is not yet 7 PM. I am not sure what percentage of my current tiredness is due to my jet-lag, and what is due to my exhaustion from a trip and an extremely poor night’s sleep last night. By going to bed early tonight, I can insure that the latter is not a cause.

Image: View from the balcony outside the cafeteria, at Dusk, of Clear Water Bay

July 1 2009: An arrival and first thoughts

Note: this was composed on June 30th, and is only added today to the blog because I didn't have the blog until today.

Well, I’m here. On the whole, yesterday was a LONG day. After finishing packing at nearly the last minute, I got a full 3 hours of sleep, awoke at 4 AM, and was driven to the airport by my dad. The Chico-San Francisco flight is only 45 minutes long, but it felt the need to take place at 5:30 AM, so I had a 7 hour layover at SFO. There, I used the opportunity to watch a couple ridiculous movies I hadn’t seen yet (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Wanted, both of which made me laugh) and to study some Cantonese, and then I was on the plane to Hong Kong for 15 hours. The usual stuff happened on the plane: I watched a couple movies, tried to read my research papers, read part of the lackluster Star Wars novel Republic Commando: Order 66, and failed to get any sleep at all, more than a few winks. But I did arrive in Hong Kong

Customs was smooth sailing, except for the coughing fit I had shortly after I passed through the health inspection. It was purely my tired brain being unable to separate the biological processes of swallowing and breathing, but I was afraid I’d be quarantined for Swine Flu, or something equally unpleasant. But everything worked out, so no harm done.

The taxi ride from the airport to HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) was quite enjoyable: my driver had a weak grasp of the English language (still superior to my Cantonese, but for the moment that isn’t saying too much) and we tried to teach each other a few words in the opposite language. When I failed consecutively three times at pronouncing the tones correct for the Cantonese word for HKUST, he laughed to himself at the fact that I so obviously spoke Yi`ngme’n. Hong Kong is much more beautiful than I expected. I suppose I was expecting a massive city on the order of Seoul or Osaka, but it turns out to be rather unhomogeneous: massive high rise buildings are right on the edge of a forested mountain. I look forward to exploring more.

After wandering HKUST for a while, and a few failed (due to lack of being able to hear the other person) pay-phone calls to Jinbo, my grad-student contact, I finally came across Flora and Chandler near Dr. Wen’s office (didn’t know them, but they helped me anyway). They helped me contact Jinbo, who in turn helped me get dinner and lead me to my room in the Village. The room is, um, sketchy to say the least. The doorknob is non-functional (I lock it with a padlock in the day when I’m out, and barricade my door with my suitcase at night) the room is fairly dirty, and the communal bathroom looks rather uncared for (amusingly, the shower flexible hose has no showerhead), but it is a place to sleep. After I go out and buy sheets that don’t look filthy, turn my mattress into something not resembling a piece of plywood with a 20 year old foam pad on it (which it is), and maybe a pillow, I will probably be able to sleep much better than I did last night, which was in a series of three hour bursts.

Today is an official Hong Kong holiday, the twelfth anniversary of the reunification with the mainland. I will probably get some exploration in, and some badly needed cleaning of the room today. More later.

Update of hindsight: no cleaning or exploration occurred, except of the university itself. I learned very quickly that the geometry and self-similarity of many parts of HKUST means I can get lost in many novel ways every day.

A belated start

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging as I cover for all my trials and tribulations as I travel and toil in Hong Kong and beyond (pardon the alliteration). Although several entries will be input immediately, a few of them are days old by now. I will do my best to stay up to date on adding information, but I will promise nothing. Last summer, I attempted to keep a paper journal, which covers, I believe, the first 3 days of my trip. But maybe any regular readers, should I develop them, can yell at me through other means.

As a brief background for all interested; I am in Hong Kong not because I know the language or am familiar with the culture. Rather, I am here working on a SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship for non-Techers) project relating to Microfluidics and Electrorheological fluids. I could have SURFed at Caltech, but I decided I wanted to study abroad again, perhaps learn some of the language (as hard as I expected so far) and work on a fascinating combination of techniques that, to my knowledge, nobody else in the world, outside this lab, is using.

I am stationed at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Clearwater Bay, Kowloon, an institution famous for, you guessed it, its and MBA program. Nevertheless, it also has stupendous nano-materials and smart-materials laboratories, and I am working in the latter, under Dr. Weijia Wen. You can check out his website by googling it and then choosing the first non-ad that comes up (I had to double check that to be sure). As I take them and upload them to my computer, I will post images of life here on campus. For now you (more likely the future me who will want this journal when I have no neurons remaining for simple memory) should be happy I'm writing at all.

For all you who are at least trilingual, I apologize for the over abundance of puns in the title. If you catch them all, you get ten bonus points.