Thursday, January 20, 2011

Dinner at Tsim Sha Tsui




One of the Koreans (Dr. Jang) sent me some photos from our big dinner out. I think we had six tables in all, a very nice meal.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011











Towers C (left) and D (right). We were in tower C facing the water. One of the new-to-us birds in the neighborhood.















Pictures from the Tsuen Wan metro station. Also one of the mini buses, holding 16, no standing room. We had to wait in line to take a mini bus to the Yuen Yuen Institute.











Pictures from Yuen Yuen. People were burning lucky money and such in the fire. There were more pictures from there - next post.






One from Stanley by the waterfront and one from one of the bays on the drive back to the Aberdeen tunnel.












Pictures from the Po Lin Monastery by the big Buddha.































Aerial tramway with the glass-bottomed car. We were with a batch of Italian tourists on the way up.























Sights from the walk around the Peak on Monday afternoon.












Sai Kung fish restaurant. Pick your dinner!















Sunday outing with the gang, including a little of everything!







































Repulse Bay with various Chinese statues in front of the Life Saver's club.











Tin Hau temple in Stanley.















Working hard!













Park in Diamond Hill our last day.














Evening view of the east side of the main building at HKUST.












Evening out with the gang at Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon).











Surprise monastery in the garden in Diamond Hill.











Traffic jam in Choi Hung - view from a double decker bus.













Home sweet HKUST, view over Clear Water Bay.

Trip to Hong Kong

Dale Haidvogel invited Kate to help him teach a ten-day ROMS training
in Hong Kong. He had said he would go early with his family, so Rob
and I bought tickets to arrive early. Dale’s family then changed
their minds and they spent New Year’s in Toronto.

We arrived late afternoon on Dec 30 for a class starting Jan 5.

We were met by a taxi driver with a card holding my name - it was so nice.

Gan and two of his students met us at the apartment where they are putting
us up.

The next morning one of the students, LinLin, came and gave us a
campus tour. HKUST has most everything in one enormous building,
with eating establishments on the lower levels, class rooms on the
main level, and offices above. HKUST is only twenty years old, but
has become one of the best universities in Hong Kong, with the top
business school in all of Asia. LinLin took us to meet Gan, then
we went to visit the computer lab where my part of the class will
be held. The two computer guys who run all the computers in the
Math department were there, explaining that the PCs running windows
would have a virtual Linux, then they could connect to Gan’s cluster
for doing the actual work. Seemed dicey to me, plus Gan hadn’t sent
them the list of software I’d asked for (with all the Python modules),
so that was worrisome as well. We agreed to meet with them again
on Tuesday, the day before the class started. Gan then took us out
for a big dim sum lunch.

That afternoon Rob and I went to Hang Hau to buy Octopus cards and
to look for an extra electric plug converter. The Octopus cards can
be loaded with money, then debitted by the buses and the metro, so
you don’t have to carry tons of change around. My last Seattle trip
was filled with scrambling for bus money.

We spent the evenings and some early mornings working on talks while
touring around during the daylight hours. We got out to Tsuen Wan
on Saturday to see a Taoist temple, then to Stanley Market to see
what was there (I wanted a Chinese chop and we were told that was
the place to go). On Sunday we went out by the airport to see the
largest Buddha in the world at the Po Lin monastery . You can get
there by aerial tramway, which happened to have a two hour wait -
we’d have taken a bus if we’d known! Gan told us there were many
tourists from the mainland over for the holidays and said it should
be quiet now until Chinese New Years.

Trip to Hong Kong

Dale Haidvogel invited Kate to help him teach a ten-day ROMS training in Hong Kong. He had said he would go early with his family, so Rob and I bought tickets to arrive early. Dale’s family then changed their minds and they spent New Year’s in Toronto.








We arrived late afternoon on Dec 30 for a class starting Jan 5. We were met by a taxi driver with a card holding my name - it was so nice. A picture from the taxi. Lots and lots of tall buildings. There is an estimated 7 million living in Hong Kong. High rise after high rise. More pictures below...

Gan and two of his students met us at the apartment where they are putting
us up. Tower C also known as the "Uni Lodge".


The next morning one of the students, LinLin, came and gave us a campus tour. A picture from Tower C. HKUST has most everything in one enormous building, with eating establishments on the lower levels, class rooms on the
main level, and offices above. HKUST is only twenty years old, but has become one of the best universities in Hong Kong, with the top business school in all of Asia. LinLin took us to meet Gan, then we went to visit the computer lab where my part of the class will be held. The two computer guys who run all the computers in the Math department were there, explaining that the PCs running windows would have a virtual Linux, then they could connect to Gan’s cluster for doing the actual work. Seemed dicey to me, plus Gan hadn’t sent them the list of software I’d asked for (with all the Python modules),
so that was worrisome as well. We agreed to meet with them again on Tuesday, the day before the class started. Gan then took us out for a big dim sum lunch.











That afternoon Rob and I went to Hang Hau to buy Octopus cards and to look for an extra electric plug converter. The Octopus cards can be loaded with money, then debitted by the buses and the metro, so you don’t have to carry tons of change around. My last Seattle trip was filled with scrambling for bus money.



We spent the evenings and some early mornings working on talks while touring around during the daylight hours. We got out to Tsuen Wan on Saturday to see a Taoist temple, then to










Stanley Market to see what was there (I wanted a Chinese chop and we were told that was the place to go).











On Sunday we went out by the airport to see the largest Buddha in the world at the Po Lin monastery.



You can get there by aerial tramway, which happened to have a two hour wait - we’d have taken a bus if we’d known! Gan told us there were many tourists from the mainland over for the holidays and said it should be quiet now until Chinese New Years.