Lost in Sydney

Why did I leave China? There's something really amazing about that place. Anyway, I did have a good trip back. The flight from Beijing to Shanghai had spectacular views (ah ... that's why I love China ... everyone with a window seat was actually looking out of it for the entire journey - watching hundreds of aircraft fly past on the Shanghai -> Beijing route and seeing the huge rivers, farms and cities below). It was bumpy.

I had a few hours in Shanghai airport which I spent in "Coffee and Cate". I did ask who or what "Cate" was and they looked at me strangely and pointed at the cake display! :) I ended up with the window seat and the aisle seat on the flight to Australia and so spent most of the flight asleep! I did, however, watch a very thought-provoking film - "Doubt".

I've had a few days in Sydney trying to sort myself out (and, of course, failing) before my next trip on Thursday! Too much work, my house is a mess, lots going on ...

Don't read this mum, but the weather forecast for New Zealand is quite exciting: "Severe weather warning: HEAVY SNOW WARNING", "20cm of snow forecast". Temperatures around -2C are expected. I'm trying to find my gloves and hat. They seem to have disappeared. Does anyone know how to put chains onto tyres?

Oh, did I mention that I saw the most amazing sunrise from the flight into Australia? I also started reading a book that I'm really enjoying, but it does keep annoying me! It's Paul Theroux' "The old Patagonian express" where he describes his journey in which he gets on the Boston subway and then keeps going on local trains until he reaches Argentina! I got on my flight ready to enjoy it and read "There is not much to say about most aeroplane journeys. Anything remarkable must be disastrous, so you define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful. ... And from that moment he [the traveller] steps into the tube and braces his knees on the seat in front, uncomfortably upright - from the moment he departs, his mind is focused on arrival. That is, if he has any sense at all. If he looked out of the window he would see nothing but the tundra of the cloud layer, and above is empty space." What rubbish!

The rest of the book is good!

Lost in Tianjin

I did it!! I got to Tianjin, saw the city, got back to Beijing and even found my hotel again! I'm so happy!! :)

What an adventure. I got completely lost in Tianjin. But first it was quite exciting trying to find a taxi in Beijing. K. J. had kindly written down all sorts of "useful" phrases in Chinese including "take me to the Beijing Railway Station" (which was useless as I discovered that the train went from Beijing South instead of the main railway station - thanks Minnie for teaching me North, South, East and West in Chinese!! It worked) and he had also given me the Chinese for "I think that you're beautiful" (which I decided not to try with the taxi driver - unfortunately, I didn't get to use this sentence with anyone). Anyway, the first taxi driver looked at my instructions, shrugged and shook his head. I then spent ages trying to flag down another taxi. In the end I did manage to get one and off we went towards Beijing West station (whoops). I said "nan" and awful lot (which is an approximation to 'South') and then we headed off in the correct direction. At this point I was a tad nervous - I'd been told that the taxi was the easy bit!

Anyway, Beijing South railway station is spectacular. It's modern, easy to find your way around and the trains are incredible. I got a second class ticket (I treated myself to first class for the return journey) and headed off on the fastest conventional train in the World. It's amazing. The train is so smooth and almost silent. You think that you're just getting going with a slight acceleration, but look up and find that you're already travelling at 200km/hr. The top speed we reached was about 330km/hr. That's fast! The view out the window was good. It's amazing how quickly the suburbs of Beijing disappeared and we were in the countryside (the journey is 120km and takes 30 minutes). We zoomed through a few stations, but didn't stop.

Tianjin is a nice city. It seems more relaxed than Beijing and has a big river that flows through the centre. I didn't have anywhere particular to go and so just walked down the river. I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect to see lots of statues of people being very intimate! The statues were very well made, but I did feel very embarrassed taking photos of them! Along with the statues there were lots of people fishing in the river. I only spotted a dead fish. I walked for an hour or so and then spotted (on my completely useless map - more complaints about the map later) a street that had been renovating as an Ancient Chinese street. I'm not totally sure how I found it - it involved passing a few old Chinese military tanks.

More later ... just going out for drinks with KJ ...

Back again. (Just had a great evening with KJ somewhere near the centre of Beijing. We ended up at a lake with lots of bars, outside dancing, bats flying around and multiple offers of "young ladies" and "laser pointers".)

Anyway, back to Tianjin. This may not be as coherent as I'd like due to the number of beers just drunk (and the fact that it's almost midnight). I'll try. I found the "Ancient Street", saw the temple dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea (Tianjin is a major sea-port in China) and enjoyed walking around buying souvenirs. My haggling improved during the few hours that I spent there. I managed to reduce the price of the last thing that I bought by a third. It's hard to try and describe the scene, but imagine lots of very colourful shops with huge calligraphy brushes or kites hanging outside. I also walked through a few markets which were selling trinkets from the Mao era - including posters, mugs, the little red book .... Nobody seemed to be buying anything!





I then decided to select a street by random and walk down it looking for food. I was tempted by "Dickus" - a Chinese fast food place and by a place that looked very "interesting". I chose the "interesting" restaurant. It didn't have any menus in English, nor pictures of the food so I randomly pointed at about 5 different things. It turned out that I'd selected a hot pot where I was given a pot of water + sichuan peppers (my mouth turned numb after eating a little food and has only just returned to normal) with cold dishes of noodles, chicken, random veg. and tofu. Not knowing what to do, I tipped everything into the hotpot and then spent the next hour or so trying not to burn my mouth. I was laughed at again by the waitresses :(

I then walked to a shopping centre to buy some tissues and toothpaste. Unfortunately, there was a mistake in the translation and I ended up buying 14 boxes of tissues. Not quite what I had in mind, but I won't need to worry about tissues for a while! Actually, they were quite useful after the sichuan peppers!

I then got very lost. Very lost. I tried to find "The excellent Antique Market on Shenyang Dao ... a riveting sprawl of collectibles". Well, my stupid map simply marked it as a dot half way between two main roads - about 3km apart. I decided to be scientific and walk down every road within a 3km^2 box until I found the market. I never did. I walked for ages and never found either of the roads that it was bounded by (even though Binjiang Dao is "Tianjin's biggest thoroughfare"). I walked for hours. I walked past a school where all the kids waved yellow flags at me. I walked past a police man who followed me around for a while. I walked down a dusty street where old men were playing Chinese chess (with huge wooden pieces). I found the "George mary love chateau" with huge topiary elephants outside. I went down modern shopping streets (and stopped for coffee at a Starbucks). I ended up (don't ask why) in a pharmacist where I could buy a picked deer (or something similar - see photo). I found (no idea how) my way back to the river and hence to the station. I then took another look at the map and tried again to find the market. I failed.

I gave up.

I treated myself to a first class ticket on the return journey. Apart from having a slightly bigger seat and the opportunity to plug my non-existent headphones into a socket, there wasn't much difference between first and second class. I read the safety guide: "Please stand the queue during get-on and get-off. When getting on after the get-off please don't crowd. It is forbidden to pass through under train, climb to roof, jump off station, enter railway track, and so on. It is forbidden to follow the running train for get-on and get-off before stopping. ... During the trip don't be crowded, lying on the floor, and don't pull (or push) the emergency brake button at random."

The taxi ride back to the hotel from the station was as dramatic as ever. I'm sure that we actually left the ground at one point as the driver decided to drive over a concrete post at high speed. I'm now ready for bed!

Back to Shangahai tomorrow and landing in Sydney the day after!

The end the conference

Today was the last day of the conference. I must admit that I'm not too upset that it's over. I didn't gain much from the talks, but I did learn a lot from individual people. I've now got quite a bit of new work that I'd like to do in the near future! So, I guess the conference was worthwhile!

Tomorrow is going to be a fun day. My plan is to get to Tianjin. Various people were taking bets on whether I'd get there or not, but nobody was willing to bet that I would. I've just had this positive sounding email from a friend in Sydney "Are you in Tianjin now? Maybe you can explore the city and let me know whether it's worth going, i guess there must be somewhere nice," ....

Even if Tianjin isn't nice, I've just discovered a passenger ferry that goes between Tianjin and Kobe in Japan! Unfortunately it's a two day trip and so that will have to wait until next time. If it all goes to plan then I'll be getting on the World's fastest conventional trains. It takes 30 minutes with a maximum speed of 350km/hr. That's fast. Travel in Beijing is so exciting. There are trains leaving for Lhasa, Hong Kong, Hanoi, Moscow and Ulan Bator. But ... maybe I'll forget trains and just get a bicycle ... see photo 2 (sigh).

After the conference finished I again decided to go for a stroll around the local area. I went North. This was away from basically everything. I walked down a small alley and had an amazing time looking at all the food that was being cooked. I found an old guy making a huge pancake-like thing (it must have been 1-m or more in diameter) and convinced him to give me a chunk for 1 RMB. It was so tasty. I also tried another bun stuffed with something. I probably didn't need to eat anything else, but I kept walking ... past a clothes market on the street ... watched a guy carry a curled up hedgehog on the end of a string (presumably to eat when he got home), tried (and failed) to find some more toothpaste and then decided to get some more food. I found a nice looking restaurant and got well looked after!! I only had about 12 waitresses trying to help me choose some food :) One ended up pouring my tea, another my beer (I'm going to have to learn the Chinese for a drink that's not beer), another helped me hold my chopsticks :), one randomly brought me a superb cold soup that had something tasty but slimy in the bottom ... I ended up with lots of beer, soup, a bucket full of rice (suitable for at least ten people) and an enormous meat dish (I won't be more specific). I ate about 1/4 of it.

I staggered back down the street. Amazingly found my hotel, chatted on skype and am now ready for bed. I like China!

A few photos from yesterday

Snakes in Beijing

Wow! I'm happy today. The conference was as ridiculous as ever. I don't think that I gained anything from the talks today, but chatting with various colleagues in the breaks was certainly very useful. At lunch time I ambled around the lakes on the Peking university campus and took photos of frogs.

I decided to spend the evening alone and just walked for a few kilometres from the hotel. It was wonderful. I kept stopping to buy various filled buns and other foods from street vendors (I've got some medication standing by - just in case, but haven't needed it yet) and just walked and walked and walked. I went through a street market where everything was being sold. I stopped to watch an old man sitting on the street with various boxes and jars. A huge heap of pretty girls were looking in one cardboard box and going all gooey over his baby rabbits that he was trying to sell. While this was happening, I noticed a thin, but long (and absolutely beautiful) green snake slowly unravel itself out of a jam jar and head off over the pavement to the box full of rabbits. The girls didn't like the snake! :)

What else! After stuffing myself with the buns I decided that I'd better eat even more. The smell of the food is incredible. So I found myself a restaurant and went in. I got laughed at. My entire Chinese consists of saying "1 bottle of beer" (which I said on numerous occasions) and "dumplings". The waitress seemed to think that this wasn't enough. I tried to mime that I wanted some rice ('mifan' - I'll remember this now), but didn't get very far. I also tried to mime "lamb" and only got a laugh. However, I did get the most amazing food which was enough for about 5 people and cost about 12 Australian dollars. By this point I was completely stuffed and had drunk a few too many "1 bottle of beer". So I decided to walk off the food and drink by going in the opposite direction. Amazingly I didn't get lost :) The weather was perfect - clear night and probably about 28C. It's wonderful.
Oh, only some of my photos seem to be uploaded. I've no idea what happened to the others. I'll try and find them tomorrow.

Good night.

Seeing the stars from Beijing

What a beautiful day. The sky was blue and now, at night, I can see the Northern hemisphere stars. It's amazing. In the morning I went with two students to Beijing observatory to give a talk about the details of tempo2. The taxi ride to the observatory was interesting. We only witnessed one crash, but felt as if we were about to die at any moment! The talk seemed to go well and they kindly took me out for a huge banquet for lunch (which involved copious amounts of alcohol) and gave me some money (actually quite a lot of money)! Beijing observatory is close to the Olympic park and so a group of us then ambled around the park. It's nice!

I'm then a bit embarrassed. I was planning on walking around the University a little, but fell asleep instead :( whoops. Anyway, in the evening I met up with KJ for another great dinner where we ended up eating an awful lot of corn and drinking a huge amount of beer.

I'm ready to sleep again. The conference continues over the weekend ...

Two countries

I'm getting behind on my blog. I'm in China and therefore feel that I should be writing in red, but I still want to write about Australia. Australia certainly has bluer skies than China and therefore I'll use a blue font - sorry if you're colour blind.

The conference is going well. It's a mix between a few wonderful talks about neutron stars, quark stars (which may not even exist) and X-ray binaries, and also a lot of completely incomprehensible theoretical talks. My entire notes for one talk was a quote that the lecturer said "This is not meant to model reality". I'm not sure what it was meant to model! The flight over from Sydney was fun. We flew up the coast of New South Wales and then inland, over Arnhem Land (Wow!), across Indonesia, just to the East of Hong Kong and then up the Chinese coast line to Shanghai. I then had to change aircraft which was interesting as "China Eastern" didn't have any record of my ticket. They kept wanting a number that I didn't have. Anyway they finally gave me a boarding pass and I got to Beijing at 11:30pm. (The flight offered me "exquisite rice, bread sets and a rational mix of delicacies. The menu is regularly refreshed with nutrition rich beverages".) I got to the hotel rather late at night.

A few days ago I was in Parkes. Wow! That was an exhausting trip. Ms Mao and I drove over the mountains to Parkes where we met up with Gary - a work-experience teacher - I hope he doesn't mind, but take a look at his excellent blog about his stay at Parkes! Ms Mao, Mike and I started off our observations (which immediately broke the telescope), but we did manage to record more than 3Tb of good data by the end. Unfortunately our initial processing hasn't led to a pulsar discovery :(

I'm trying to write this blog whilst drinking green tea and keep getting sharp tea needles in my mouth or going up my nose. This is very distracting.

Apart from the observing Ms Mao and I were in Parkes to give lectures at a teacher workshop. This was fun!! I gave two talks. One on "what it's like to be an astronomer" which Ms Mao completely disagreed with and one on "pulsars" which seemed to go down well! We also had a viewing night where we saw 47Tuc!! :) BTW ... in my talk on "what it's like to be an astronomer" I did some research and looked up "astronomer" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Apparently an astronomer "looks at heavenly bodies'. I then looked up "heavenly bodies" with google! That was interesting! Probably not the best idea with a work computer!

I can't see many stars from here. Last night I met up with Nicole and Vernon and we jumped into a taxi to try and find a restaurant. The taxi driver ignored (as far as I can tell) our request and drove us somewhere completely different (whilst repeatedly blowing his nose out of the window without the aid of a tissue). Anyway, we ended up finding an interesting restaurant where we ordered all sorts of things (including dumplings - I ordered them in Chinese! and chicken feet - that was not planned, but they turned up anyway). I'm impressed by Nicole and Vernon's grasp of Chinese. They were calling the waitress over and trying (and often succeeding) in asking for more food, drink or the bill. We (actually Nicole) spotted a hedgehog (not in the restaurant where it would probably have been eaten, but near my hotel)! Oh, before I forget. I became very excited on the China Eastern flight because the map had two destinations that I'd never heard of: Okinawa and Saipan. Looking up Saipan in wikipedia makes it sound even more interesting: "Saipan (pronounced /saɪˈpæn/) is the largest island and capital of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands" - should I have heard of this place? Anyone want a trip?


The dinner at the Dish Cafe in Parkes with all the teachers was rather posher. Ms Mao and I started a fight (on the table cloth) about whether galaxies or pulsars were more interesting. I won! (hah -- you'll have to get your own blog Minnie!) I can't remember too much about that night ... that may have something to do with the amount of free wine available.

My hotel here is full of very useful advice. Not only must I "cherish the furniture", but I must note that "in the pot the water level must be higher than 'MIN' in order to avoid the parched phenomenon". Also: "If you need replacement put the card on your bed". I might try that! I'm not feeling up to giving another talk tomorrow. Just as well I'm alone: "mixed accommodation of male and female shall be witnesses with legitimate certificates". "Please don't raise poultry in the guest room or corridor".

We had a long drive back from Parkes with a wonderful stop at the Borenore caves. I love that place. We drove down a rocky unpaved road (don't tell anyone at work), grabbed some torches and plunged into the caves. We went a long way in. And then sat with the lights off. It was pitch black and absolutely silent. Wonderful! Ms Mao subsequently decided that we'd get out (sliding on our backs) without turning the lights back on. Silly idea. Nursing my black eye (almost - sympathy please) later we went hiking up to the cliffs over the top of the caves. It really is spectacular. We then got stuck in a traffic jam.

Tomorrow I have to visit Beijing observatory in the morning to give a talk on tempo2 and then will spend the afternoon having a look around. On the weekend the conference continues and then I get Monday free before flying back to Sydney. I do like China! It's full of happy, smiling people and you never know what you're about to eat. I had a terrific hot-pot meal tonight. I've no idea what was in it, but it was spicy and tasty.

I'm absolutely exhausted, but had better get back to writing my talk.