Fullsimplify

The last of my China photos for the time being. The train from Shanghai out to the airport is currently the fastest scheduled train service in the world, a mag-lev of extortionate costs and and outrageous numbers. The train takes around three minutes speed up, stays at it's maximum velocity for a few short moments and then pulls to a halt in the airport station 30 km and 7 minutes later. It's a smooth ride with steeply banked curves and is about the cheapest way to get from the city to the airport. Here is a snap of the speedometer as it topped out:

Since coming back to Santiago my life has been considerably simplified, through both external influence and a little help from myself. Shortly after arriving back my butane canaster which I use for cooking (the norm here) ran out, and I've been left with almost nothing to cook with and little time to organise for a new delivery at a suitable time. I had however inherited a rice cooker from a Japanese friend and this simple machine not only cooks rice to perfection but has a steamer compartment too. The discovery of my constrained cooking possibilities has actually opened up a world of subtle but extremely tasty cooking as I've been steaming fresh fish, marinated in herbs and juices, with summer vegetables for the last week, and frankly save for the streaming cold which is making today less than comfortable, I've never felt better.

Wednesday's offering: The timing still needs some tweaking with courgettes becoming overdone in just a couple of minutes (a minute appears to suffice), but the fish and langoustine, marinated in lemon, thyme and pink peppercorns on top of spinach whole-grain rice is a 15 minute, no hassle treat - served with a dollop of lemon and green peppercorn mayonnaise:

In addition to this I made the bold step of phoning up my internet service provider on Thursday and turning off my connection to the outside world (I'm currently in a cafe having just completed today's Chinese practice). Having wasted more hours than I care to calculate watching House I thought that enough was enough and have made my home gloriously, digitally silent. Since then I've read more papers and books than I've been able to for many weeks preceeding and the pile of papers which I'd been slowly working my way through for the last few months is actually looking conquerable. I realise frequently that I'm not terribly good at self-control and so need to impose draconian restrictions on myeslf in order to let life continue efficiently.

Anyway, for now I'm going to spend a little while browsing through a new purchase, Heisig and Richardson's Remembering the Simplified Hanzi, which I've been wanting to read for a long time, before getting back home and attacking the pile of articles waiting patiently for me.

Eclipse hunting, part II

Well, I've finally arrived in Gansu province, in a small town called Pingliang after around 21 hours on trains. I'll be doing the same in reverse shortly. Sadly, weather forecasts for the region tomorrow are not looking good so I think my chances of seeing anything are remote, perhaps even more so than I am. Tomorrow at around 6 am I'll make my way to Kong Tong mountain, make the four hour walk to the summit, and see what I can see from there. Fingers are firmly crossed, but I'll just have to take what I get.

In the mean time it's been a fairly strange, interesting experience all around. I spent a day in Baoji, a city of around 4 million, walking around for a while, firstly panicking that nobody would sell me a ticket back to Beijing (you can never buy a ticket more than 5 days in advance here and pre-Olympics that has been scaled back to 3 days!) and than being amused by the stares of the many many locals who would follow me around, wondering what on Earth I could be up to in their little neck of the woods. I have a few photos of the People's park, including the most depressing fair ground I've ever come across.

This morning's ride to Pingliang has also been pretty strange, with non-stop stares from many people. Not, apparently amused, or moved, simply puzzled, with a look letting on little of what they were thinking.

Pingliang is in the East of Gansu province, and it's my first time in this region of China. My first impression is that the people are quieter than any Chinese I've ever met, not that they don't say much, but that they are soft-spoken, and after the hurricane of voices from Beijing to Baoji, this is no bad thing! Needless to say that these few days have been a great chance to speak Chinese.

So, after tomorrow morning, I head back down the mountain, photos captured, or not, get a train back to Baoji, spend a night back in the hotel, then in the afternoon I take another 16 hours on the train to Beijing. In Beijing I will have around 24 hours before I head to Korea where I'll be working for a couple of weeks. I'm really very much looking forward to this and am interested in seeing the contrasts to the Chinese departments I've been spending time in recently.

Anyway, with e-mails to check and various things to sort out, I'll have to leave it at that for now. I expect to next write from Korea...

Wuhan beginnings

A ten hour train ride, four hours juddery sleep, a stationary traffic jam and a definite lack of coffee has seen me safely, if tired from Beijing to Wuhan where I will be talking in a couple of hours. Wuhan is at 32 degrees and climbing fast so we're all inside, trying to cope with the high strength air-con. No videos from this workshop, but Scitalks continues to add to the now impressive catalogue. I'll report back when I have more eyelid strength and another talk finished off.

The many degrees of Wuhan

This evening I'll head off on a ten hour train ride to Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, famous for being one of the four furnaces of China and also for having some excellent spicy duck's neck (superb as a snack with a cold beer). There is more to Wuhan than this, though last time I spent more time on the plane and road getting to and from the university than actually seeing it or any of the researchers.

This time I'm staying for a three day workshop on quark matter and again presenting on QCD from the AdS/CFT correspondence. I hope to see a bit of the city as well as discussing with some excellent researchers, both from China and the US, who will be at the workshop.

I spent most of yesterday stuffing myself in the all you can drink for 18 kuai (a little more than a pound) cafe near my flat while working on a current project and getting my talk for tomorrow polished off. I do find the buzz of a cafe inherently conducive to good work and almost without fail have more breakthroughs in these relatively noisy places than in the rather sterile environment of my office.

After spending all day in the cafe, a few of us headed over to Sanlitun in the East of the city, went to Kokomo (up on the roof of one of the taller buildings in the area), ordered a beer, sat back and watched for the Perseids. A strange sight for the others in the bar perhaps but we wanted to take advantage of the fact that Beijing is pretty cloudless at the moment (I speak a little too soon, I fear) due to last week's artificially induced storms and reduced traffic. We saw a few throughout the night, coming from the East, though you really need to be up in the early hours of the morning to catch the height of the showers, as the part of the Earth you are on is travelling towards the patch of dust and rock.

(The Bad Astronomer on watching the meteor shower)

Anyway, for now I'll leave some photos from last weekend, when I took a good friend for a birthday meal at Haiku, one of Beijing's top Japanese restaurants. Well worth a trip for the atmosphere and service. The food is good but sadly by my sushi standards which have been permanently affected by my stay in Tokyo, the food was excellent but not mind blowing.

The first photo is of the Beijing national gallery, currently housing an exhibition of works from the Prado. An excellent collection from Titian to Goya, with lots in between. Well worth a trip (though check online if it's still on). We went there in the afternoon before going for dinner.

I attempted to get a good view of the new, amazing structure which will be the CCTV headquarters. These two, leaning towers which will meet in a tangle at the top should be great for photographing, but from our position we could only get a hint of them.

and some photos from Haiku:




OK, got to go finish getting ready for the train ride ahead.