Ah ha!

This is odd!! Blogger is completely blocked from China. However, if I run a VPN client in Australia then I seem to be able to get it to work. I wonder why the Chinese believe that my blog should be banned!

I'm also intrigued about the "Campus Boiled Budding" that's open from 10:00 to 22:00 here at Peking University. I plan to visit tomorrow. My hotel is "interesting". I'm on floor 6, which is the one after -2, which is before 4 and the lobby is on -1. I'm told to "cherish the hotel furniture" which I'm doing.

The conference is going well. It started off very well. I was told to wait in my hotel room until a "female student comes to find you". She then escorted me to the conference room where I gave my talk (which seemed to go well). Last night was more dramatic. I only had about three near misses in the taxi (we just missed the huge truck reversing down the motorway!), he got us completely lost and I ended up at the hotel at 1:30am to realise that I had to pay for my stay in cash. I didn't have enough so I had to amble around trying to find a cash machine (at the equivalent of 3am in Sydney). I then woke at 4:30am because I'd forgotten to close the curtains.

I'm hoping to meet up with Nicole and Vernon for dinner tonight. I've been invited to give another talk on Friday at the Observatory and ... I've won a big ATNF prize. All good!

Remind me that I should write up about my last trip to Parkes - that was crazy and fun. Ms Mao and I drove back via the Borenore caves where she tried to knock me out with a stalagmite.