Sunday, July 10, 2011

Conference in China

After sending Cecilie off to the airport, my cohorts and I jumped in a cab and headed towards the Olympic plaza for the conference. We ended up staying in a Holiday Inn Express which was pretty much a glorified hostel. Sure, we got our own rooms, but it was pretty basic. (The bathroom used a single door for the shower and the bathroom - it was an amazing feat of architecture.) This was another nearby hotel called the Pangu, which is a famous 7-star hotel. I only later found out that the buildings are supposed to be in the shape of a dragon so I unfortunately don't have a picture with the whole dragon).

Continuing our exploration, we saw more sights such as the Bird's Nest and took a picture in front of it. I was surprised at the level of security they keep up. We had to pass through metal detectors and they scanned our bags.

Jae and I also wanted to take a picture together with our posters. It was our first international conference, and we were excited to be there (note the excitement in our picture).

The National Aquatics Center (or the Cube) was located across the street. I have some more pics that I will blog about soon - I was able to get my Michael Phelps on and swim there.

Continuing our walk, we finally made it to the convention center. We registered for the conference, set up our posters, and went back to our hotel. That night they had an evening reception. The location was supposed to be the Science and Technology Museum. Little did we know that there were 2 of them in opposite directions, and you better believe that we took a taxi to the wrong one.



1 comment:

  1. By the way, I totally posted this comment when your blog post was originally published under Cecilie's name. But since your crazy wife insisted on re-posting it under your name, my comment got deleted. Here's the comment AGAIN, because it was that awesome. :)

    Aww, boo for going to the wrong museum for the reception! The Olympic
    stuff looks pretty cool. And how could you NOT tell that hotel was a dragon?? I guess it was either that, or an Elvis hairpiece. Also, did you take a picture of the one-door-bathroom-shower? I have an idea of what it might have looked like in my head, but I'm curious about the real thing...

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