I bought a car

It is a 2016 Nissan Versa Note (the hatchback version). It is similar to many compact cars on the market. What I thought distinguished it from the others was that it had more legroom in the back seats. I have two children, and Veronica has two children (with a grandchild on the way) so room for additional passengers seemed like a good idea. The hatchback and folding rear seats also give more room for cargo than you would think. This particular model had most of the other things I had on my list: bluetooth, USB port, A/C, automatic transmission, and backup camera. It did miss having heated seats (maybe I just haven't found the switch yet) and being red. However, it is rare to find a car with the right shade of red, and white is easy to get right.

I got it at Budget Car Sales. It is a former rental car. The salesman I dealt with was Jason James. I recommend the dealership and Jason (unless you are Asian). Of course, they are trying to sell you a car and make the most money they can, but it all seemed reasonable to me. Jason explained to me that they make a lot of their profit from financing, so offering to "pay cash" is in fact the worst bargaining strategy. He also advised that the list price was fairly close to what they would accept: you can bargain a few hundred dollars but that is it. I am not a good bargainer (understatement) but I told Jason that I couldn't go home and tell Veronica I had paid full price, and ended up with a $300 reduction. 

I don't need a car, and it will cost me more than the car sharing service (ZipCar) I was using, and the rentals for longer trips. The main reason I was keen to get one was because of my ageing father (90 years old but still healthy and sharp) who lives in Kamloops. I have told him if he needs me to call and I would come up. It is easier now to just go to the garage in the basement of my building and head off than to fiddle with the details of a rental. In general, I have already enjoyed the convenience of shopping all over the city, although I had forgotten how bad traffic can be.  I suppose I also wanted to overcome the stigma of the lack of car ownership. It is certainly a North American thing from my generation and older to think of a car as a basic status symbol. I am glad that my urban children do not seem to feel this as strongly. 

Here is the cash outlay for the car. I paid no money down, it is all monthly payments for five years:

• $381 car and extended warranty payments 
• $158 insurance (the maximum coverage with the maximum safe driving discount) 
• $100 parking 
• $35 extra insurance 

The extra insurance covers the full sale price of the car for two years if it is written off by ICBC. I was upsold on this, but I do have two friends in Vancouver without cars that I would lend mine out to, and one of them I have never seen drive. My daughter has also expressed interest in using my automatic transmission for round two of trying to get a license. Maybe the extra insurance was a good thing. I want to take up cross country skiing and so roof racks and snow tires (also for the Kamloops trips) are next on my list.

Veronica said it was creepy to name your car, but it was too late. It was already christened "the Egg" in my head. 

Two short trips with Veronica

I went with Veronica over the labour day long weekend to Osoyoos in the South Okanagan. You know you are living in an obscure corner of the world when the spell checker does not recognize the name of the town in your Province you just visited. Veronica is my girlfriend, although I am old enough and was married long enough that it still seems strange to use that term. We met three months after my separation. We are a good fit, she is wonderful, I am a lucky guy.

She found a bed and breakfast for us to stay at. She sent me pictures asking what I thought, but I didn't get past the view before saying we should definitely go:

I rented a car to drive us up there. I was a victim of agent up-selling and got a more expensive car than I had originally booked. I am at an early enough stage where I am still trying to impress Veronica, but late enough I can tell her and we can laugh about it. The car was a Ford Mustang convertible. I can't recommend it. It does not handle that well, and the convertible top was wasted on me (I like to talk apparently, and I burn easily). 

 

   

The trip up was on the Crowsnest highway (BC #3). This is beautiful country that goes through Manning Park, with varied terrain leading from the Coast to the desert climate in the South Okanagan.

We ate surprisingly well in Osoyoos, went to the Desert Cultural Centre run by the local native band, that seemed well organized and prosperous, and went swimming in the lake. The fancy bed and breakfast and the culinary opportunities are all there because of the array of vineyards and wineries on the road North of town towards Oliver. We did winery tours one day, and went to the Burrowing Owl and Hester Creek. The view below is from the tower at the Burrowing Owl. You can see the smokey haze from the serious fires in nearby Washington State at that time..

I have to say, tasting wines side by side really does give you a sense of the variety of flavours. I recommend going to those kind of tasting events if you are interested in wine and want to spend more money on it than you do now. I did buy one bottle from each of the two places we visited:

Blogging for me is a writing exercise and I do think of how I will phrase things here as I cycle home from work or am on the bus. I had planned to say that I would save these wines and you would know if you were a special friend if I brought them out for you. But, I already drank them. One was with Veronica, which was a mistake since she had one small glass and I had the rest. 

I did have one other trip with Veronica early in our relationship. We went to Seattle together on the train. At the time, my divorce lawyer had said to keep a low profile on my new relationship. I didn't quite understand this but she had given me good advice so I did not blog about that trip at the time. It was a fun trip. Veronica doesn't like the picture below but I do: we look happy! 

There are many stages to romantic love and this blog is too public a place for me to list them all, but I can say that the trip to the Science Fiction Museum and this image moved me along quite a bit. 

We ate well on this trip, too, and I discovered we had some of the same values and sense of humour.

 

Yes Concert

I went to the Yes concert in Vancouver Tuesday night. They are my favourite band and were active from the early 70s for several decades. Their last new work (I think) was in the album, Magnification, that came out in 2001. This tour was of the nostalgia type. I had been to the Yes concert in Vancouver in 1984. Back then, I was an undergraduate at UVIC and came over with some friends specifically for the concert. I think I was with Paul Modos, Dale Starr, and Malcolm Smith -- and we stayed at Dale's grandmother's house, sleeping on the floor. But these details are hazy. At that early concert, Chris Squire (the bassist) was still alive. Steve Howe (lead guitar) was not part of the line-up, instead there was Trevor Rabin. The concert this year had Howe back in the line-up and Billy Sherwood replacing Chris Squire. I have to say that I expected Sherwood to be a disappointment compared to Squire (the greatest progressive rock bassist of all time?) but he was good. Howe was much better than Rabin, especially for the early work they played. I did not even notice that the lead singer was a Jon, but Davison not Andersson, so I can't say there was a drop in quality in the lead vocals! They played one song from each of their first 10 albums. I didn't know the songs from Tales of Topographical Oceans or Tormato, since these were widely regarded as loser albums even by the band members, but the others were all classics. They encored with Starship Trooper and Roundabout (of course). What a great concert!

The tickets were a birthday gift from my girlfriend, Veronica. It was the best gift I have had in years. We were apart for my actual birthday -- I was still in East Lansing and when I got back she was in Europe -- but she had left the tickets in my place for when I got back. You can see my crazed fan smile and her indulgent one below.

There was a long warm-up band, Todd Rundgren. They were OK, but not all their songs appealed to me. I did buy, "This is not a drill", which is quite catchy. 

It was hard not to notice the bad behaviour of other people at the concert, or what my mother would have called bad behaviour anyway. People arrived all through the warm-up band, coming from drinking. Even for Yes, people came and went for drinks and to relieve themselves from the drinking. It was at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. I guess I expect at a venue like that, if you leave the theatre they won't let you back in until there is a natural break (intermission, set change). Apparently, that is not the accepted expectation. 

Divorce Distractions

I separated from my wife, Lealle, last August. The divorce is imminent. There was no hope of reconciliation -- I had been trying to work things out between us for ten years already.

Even though I had support from friends, and a wonderful new romance started unexpectedly, it was still a difficult time and I have sought distraction. I could have buried myself in work, but, well, that is not me. I turned to less productive diversions.

Computer Games 

Three games have dominated the last twelve months for me are listed below. I can recommend all of them. 

• Clash Royale: This is a phone and tablet game, a mix of real time strategy and tower defence. The games are very short (2-5 minutes) and the gameplay is quite engaging. There is some real strategy involved and a metagame. It is a freemium game. You can play quite enjoyably without paying any money, but of course I have spent some on this game and the ones below. 
• Hearthstone: A Blizzard phone app as well as desktop version. I played this a couple of years ago and came back to it this Spring. Turn based play, so more relaxing. It also has some strategy involved in play and in deck construction (you collect cards and put them into a deck that has some synergistic elements). There are a variety of playing modes. Like Clash Royale, you move up and down in rankings to equilibrate to winning about half the time, no matter your skill level. 
• Path of Exile: An older, independent game much like Diablo 2 but with some innovative gaming elements and a huge skill tree that really makes a difference. It is a well put together game with a good community. They just had a major update which I am checking out. 

TV Shows (mostly Netflix)

I'll mark shows I actually recommend with a [*]

I am watching Game of Thrones with buddies, so that's not a distraction but a real social event. I am also watching 3% [*], a Brazilian show, near future societal science fiction, with my girlfriend. We are only halfway through the only season but it is quite good so far. She also got me on to Big Bang Theory, which is good light entertainment. 

• Daredevil: A superhero show, season 2. I thought it suffered compared to the first season. It seemed a bit repetitive. I think he should date that nurse. 
• Luke Cage: Another superhero show in the same universe as Daredevil. Interesting for the African American cultural references but otherwise not worth watching. Apparently they are together now in a team show called "Defenders". Someone I trust said that this was good. 
• Supergirl: The only thing I can say is that it was better than The Arrow. Hey, I was bored in East Lansing. 
• Dark Matter[*]: Season 2 came out this year. Actually, I think this one is pretty good. It is reminiscent of Firefly and Farscape. Everyone on board the ship is quite attractive. 
• Travellers[*]: Science fiction show with time travel to the past to prevent future dystopia. Some disbelief is required on the science, but the mechanism of time travel is interesting and has consequences. First season was well written and acted. 
• Sense8: Wonderful show with great writing and a deep message. I can't bear to watch the second season since I heard it was cancelled. Sigh...
• iZombie: A recommendation from my daughter. It made it to three seasons, not deep but actually pretty interesting. Acting and writing are variable, but some high points. 
• Helsing: I watched to the end of the first season. Not bad for yet another vampire/zombie show.
• Ash versus Evil Undead[*]: You can watch the movie, Army of Darkness, that it follows from, but it can stand alone. Campy, supernatural goodness. Ash voices many things that men feel inside but are too smart to actually say out loud. 
• The Shannara Chronicles: Based off a terrible book series and produced by MTV, I expected to watch the pilot episode and mock. It turned out to be not too bad, however, and I watched to the end of the first season. This was another show I watched in East Lansing, only available on Netflix US.  My main criticism is that all fantasy characters should have British accents. I found the American accents of some of the elvish characters especially jarring. 

Lansing Airport, NYC subway, and Graffiti

So there is no graffiti here at the Lansing airport. But, there is a business centre with free internet and coffee, comfortable chairs and desks. The free internet is allowing me to post this blog and listen to a progressive rock playlist on 8tracks (by Canibal_NoFM, pretty good so far). The airport is really pleasant. There was no line up and six security people just for me at the screening. The only trouble is you can basically only fly to Detroit and Chicago (oh -- I looked it up and DC and Minneapolis are also destinations). I usually fly through Detroit and take the bus to exciting East Lansing, where I visit a colleague at Michigan State University every year for several weeks. The connections were just better to Lansing this year. One of the only other two times I have been here before, my flight (in the tiny propeller plane) was delayed overnight due to thunderstorms. Today looks clear - keep your fingers crossed.

So the graffiti is on MSU campus, in a pedestrian underpass by the river.

I know some people find graffiti like that upsetting and threatening. I find it really creative and beautiful. This example reminded me of the graffiti'd subway cars I saw in NYC when I was a student there 88-91. At that time they were upgrading the subway system and removing graffiti. However much I like graffiti, I get that, since many people regard it as anarchistic, it encourages vandalism and criminal behaviour. I had been there a year and was used to the professional, clean subway cars and then one day one of the last old trains covered with graffiti showed up. I was blown away. I don't have a picture of the one I saw, but below is one I found online from around that time. 

Note the World Trade Centre in the background. That dates the NYC skyline...

Pottery from the UBC club studio

I have a few pottery pictures saved up from the last couple of months. I have really been enjoying having pottery studio access in the Summer. I am still on the tea light holder phase. I guess I will keep going until everyone I know has three of them. The ones below right were given to the Promislow family in East Lansing, Michigan. I work with Keith Promislow at Michigan State and visit him for a month every year (a shorter trip - three weeks - this time). Also below are two of my "little bowl attached to a bigger bowl" for olive pits, or dip for chips or vegetables. They need some work...

I have also been making some spoon heads that I attach to wooden handles. They also need some work... Two salt shakers, the one on the right turned out quite well I think.

     

Britannia Canada Day Celebration

I volunteer at Britannia Community Centre, which is in my old Commercial Drive (Grandview) neighbourhood. They have a different model at Britannia, with the community centre, elementary and high schools, and Library all sharing the same space and some resources. I have heard that it makes for some administrative headaches to organize things across the different partners, but when it works it can really bring together the community in a way that the separate groups cannot.

Because I have a fairly demanding day job, I sign up mainly to help with weekend special events. One of the ones I have done three (maybe four?) years in a row now is to help out at the Canada Day event they organize. I help run the button making booth, with Helen Spaxman, a long time friend that I first met as my pottery instructor at an evening class at Britannia. The button maker is a large sized one (3"). Button making is one of the activities that is provided at the celebration, along with live music, a bouncy castle, face painting, speeches by politicians, and many other things. It is usually held in Victoria Park but because it was a high profile year (Canada's 150th year) it was held this year in the more prominent Grandview Park.

Helen brings pastel crayons, pencils, stencils for maple leaves, and wooden skewers for Sgraffito if you want to add extra layers of design. Adults as well as kids get into it, and I really enjoy it myself. I get to make a few buttons as demos as well as use the button maker to make ones for other people. There were supplies for a few magnets and I got to make a few of those this year. My creations are below, magnets in the top row and pin buttons below. There are people with amazing art talent - I saw some really good ones this year.

Gin Friends: If it is London Dry Gin, does it matter how cheap it is?

I have an e-mail list for people I meet that like gin. I send out messages a few times a year about new gin I have tried and occasionally organize events. Last weekend we got together to answer the question in the title by a blind taste test. By London Dry I meant predominant juniper flavour (so not heavy botanicals like Hendricks) and not sweet. The contestants were:

1. A home brew gin with juniper and other botanicals added to cheap vodka.
2. Boomsma 
3. Boodles
4. New Amsterdam
5. 5 O'Clock Gin (at $7 US the cheapest entry) 
6. Beefeater 

The entries are shown below. Look at those beauties! The women are quite attractive, too. 

    

We did not get a complete consensus of opinion, but the general view was that the cheap 5 O'Clock Gin was the worst. I thought it had a slight chemical taste that was quite unpleasant, but since I poured the blind samples my opinion was not truly impartial. The general favourite was Boomsma, with Boodles and Beefeater close seconds. New Amsterdam was actually quite sweet so not really a dry gin that could be compared to the others and the same with the home brew which was more strongly botanical. Unfortunately we didn't get any higher end gin to compare (Victoria Gin and Phrog are local and in the right class). We will have to revisit this question, although unfortunately we can say that if you buy cheap gin it won't taste as good. However, the difference is not strong when you put it in a G&T. 

We had food and they enjoyed my view.

   

We had a couple of ideas for the next event. We could compare locally made gins. I know that Endeavour Gin from Liberty Distillery on Granville Island is quite good. We could stack it up against Schramms, Wallflower (from Odd Society), Longtable, and Victoria Gin. I am sure we could find another one to get us to six again. The other idea is to address the question, "does cheap gin and fancy tonic make a better G&T than fancy gin and cheap tonic? And is fancy gin and fancy tonic just too much?". 

Loon Lake Workshop

A few weeks ago I went to Loon Lake Lodge for a workshop on "Numerical Methods for PDEs on Surfaces." It is close to but not exactly my research thing, but I got invited and it looked like fun. The Lodge is in the UBC demonstration forest just outside of Maple Ridge. I had no idea it existed but my father, a retired forester and UBC graduate from the 50's, remembered coming out here in the Summer as part of his training. It is a great place to have a small meeting. You drive to a key pad gate at the edge of the city and then it's gravel roads after that, just like you are miles into the interior. It is a beautiful spot. The lake, the lodge, and the food they made for us three times a day was fantastic. This is a great place for a small meeting. If you google "loon lake lodge" it comes up.

After talks the second day we walked around the lake. There was a hand ferry to cut across one arm of the lake instead of walking around on the road. 

   

      

I went swimming in the lake. It was cold, but I was used to Babine Lake in Northern BC so not too bad. I am not a good swimmer, just dog paddle around and enjoy the water. They made a fire that night. Really fun group of faculty and graduate students and a number of undergraduates that were attending an associated Summer School joined us one day. 

One the last afternoon we did a hike in Golden Ears Park. 

   

One of the most memorable moments was the picture below of (R to L) me, my student Steve Ruuth, his student Colin Macdonald (now my colleague at UBC), and his student Tony Wong. Four academic generations with me as the old man. They made a big deal about it, and because I am a bit shallow, I really appreciated it. It is fun to see them all doing so well.

I Need My Phone (And a Recommendation)

I was a late adopter of cell phone technology, but now I seem quite dependent on it. My old cell phone (an iPhone 5S) has glitched over the years. I had the battery replaced on one of my visits to East Lansing (where I visit a colleague at Michigan State University every year). It started glitching again a few weeks ago: it would not power up and refused to take a charge, but then start charging the next day. When I took it in to the Apple Store they told me they could not even open it up because it had a third party battery in it. Li-ion batteries can be dangerous, but I imagine the greater part of this policy is incentive for customers to buy expensive Apple parts. Anyway, I realized I had a great deal of my work and social life, and entertainment wrapped up in that little box. It could have been a wake up call to put down the technology, but instead I just bought a new phone. It is an iPhone SE, same size as the old one so it can fit in the same case I had, which is leather and quite nice.

I should say that I don't buy the phones with my own money. As a UBC faculty employee, I get a professional development allowance every year of $1,500.  It is surprising what you can and cannot do with this fund. You could pay for actual professional development: I could take a course on how to program in a modern computer language or on how to be a more motivational Director. However, most faculty members believe they can learn anything like that on their own. You can't take visitors out to lunch, although I believe that is often a legitimate expense and most faculty do not have alternate funds for this. You can't buy office furniture, although UBC will not necessarily provide upgrades even if your office chair is from 1950. Surprisingly, you can buy telecommunication equipment and pay for the monthly costs. Because I use the phone for work and my personal life, it seemed fair that I let UBC buy the phone for me and I pay the monthly bills.

These phones are all technically the property of UBC. They phrase it this way so you can't buy a phone with your PD money and then sell it to augment your salary. But the question is what you do with the old phone when you upgrade. UBC does not want a three year old glitching phone back. I decided to take it to a repair place and spend some of my own money ($44) having a new battery put in to see if that gave it new life. I took it to IRepair in International Village (second floor, you have to look around a bit to find it). It is just glass doors leading to a shallow entry way and a wall with a window cut out.

 

I rang the bell and a technically competent looking young man came out. We chatted, he took my phone and by the time I finished my lunch at the food court the battery was replaced. Seems to work fine so far. The repair guy said the old battery was the dodgiest one he had ever seen: it had no markings on it at all, not even fake ones. I will find a BC taxpayer to pass the old phone on to, or keep it as an extra to put a foreign sim card in when I travel.

Recommendation: Vancouver Bullion and Currency Exchange

Vancouver Bouillon and Currency Exchange (VBCE) gives good rates on currency exchange and I have never had to wait for them to bring in currencies for me, even things I consider somewhat obscure: Israeli Shekels and Danish Kroner. You can charge currency to your debit card. It is all very convenient, even the location on South Granville near Broadway.

Hong Kong Trip III

The timing for the trip to Shenzhen when my host was there last week left a gap of a few days until the start of the workshop in Hong Kong I came for. It's the 2017 Engineering and Computational Mathematics Conference (link). I was OK with that since I have never been to Hong Kong before, so took the time to look around a bit. I was told that shopping was great here, but I haven't seen anything yet that I want that is not cheaper in Vancouver. Maybe I am just a typical straight man, uninterested in shopping. After giving up on shopping, I took the subway a couple of places to some outdoor venues to stretch my legs, since I can barely do that in my hotel room. The first was Victoria Park on Sunday. There were a few quiet spots where I first went, but other areas were full of religious groups of various types (mostly muslim women). There was some variety in how seriously they were taking the religion in the groups, and also some variety in how much fun they were having, with surprisingly little correlation. It's all in the group dynamic. I wish I knew the recipe for how to tilt that to the positive. The only thing I do know is that free food helps. There were interesting trees and a pedestrian overpass to the harbour that gave a good view.

The next day's trip was to Victoria Peak (another Victoria, but since I was born in the city of that same name, I thought it was a bonus). The plan was to take the tram up to the top, but when I got there it was a three hour line-up. I don't have the temperament to wait three hours for anything in the hot sun, unless life were at stake. Anyway, without a cell phone (my provider, Freedom formerly Wind, does not have a partner in Hong Kong or China) how would I entertain myself that long? There was a path leading up alongside the tram cables so I thought I would try hiking up, at least far enough to get a view.

  

How hard could it be? I got some good advice along the way. One guy said he had given up trying to find his way because he did not have cell phone coverage in Hong Kong (d'oh!). Another woman gave the helpful advice "turn right not left at the road". It was in fact helpful advice, but not at the next road, but at the one after that. There were some informative signs to help guide the way:

At some point I did feel like I was making some progress. The view below looked promising, but in the other direction was another building with about thirty floors left to the top.

I did get some actually helpful advice from some construction workers at one of the mountainside estates. I think they were worried about me: when I exercise in the heat I turn a bright red colour that is apparently quite alarming. I did eventually make it to the top. I am not the guy that needs to finish something at any cost, but I do like closure, and the view made the work all worthwhile. I am pretty stiff today, though, not used to that much climbing in the heat.

Hong Kong/Shenzhen Trip II

Seeing Hong Kong and Shenzhen for the first time and learning a (very little) bit about them does make you think. There are a bunch of things I am trying to put in perspective, here is a first attempt.

Hong Kong has a population of 7 million concentrated in a very small area. Shenzhen has 22 million, spread out a little bit more, but still: that is more than half the population of Canada and more that twice the number of Bulgarians world-wide. I am not trained to think as a social scientist, but even my eyes are opened to new perspectives during this visit.

One obvious thing here in Hong Kong to notice is just how they have managed the urban density. In terms of transportation, there are layers on layers of roads, railways and pedestrian walkways:

With human population being concentrated more and more in urban environments, I guess we will all see more of this kind of infrastructure in our own cities (there are a few equivalent things in Vancouver already). I do look at the space taken up by roads for individual cars and think we would be better off with more public transportation. Maybe shared use of autonomous vehicles will be the transition to take us there.

The South University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen has a beautiful campus. It is very self-contained and quiet, with lots of green space around it. There are hills covered in Lichee trees. There is urban development very near. Apartments there apparently run $2 million for 100 square meters. It puts it into perspective why property in Vancouver seems like such a bargain to them.

I thought it was interesting that the campus was closed to the general population (there are guard posts at the entrances and a small police/army presence on campus in general). Now, it is not security like the Technion in Israel that has a serious fence around the whole campus and gate security that search vehicles: you could sneak into SUSTech through the forest if you really wanted to. The people I talked to put it in perspective: there are 22 million people nearby who would love to take a light rail trip and be in a quiet, green space. If all of them could just come in, it would be a security nightmare for university equipment and would diminish the academic environment. As a related fact, I learned that you can only buy property in Zurich if you are a Swiss citizen. Of course, I have benefitted from lifestyle protectionism like this in my life, but with my left leaning hat on, I wish we (as a global society) would spend more time and energy making life good for everyone rather than protecting our own little class advantages.

Chinese communism is interesting, but I can't say that I have worked it out. There were some of the things you would usually expect from that ideology: lots of people employed at the university in jobs that involved standing around, waiting to be needed. On the other hand, there is the free market economy in view right from campus. While I was there, there was a lot of respect given to Deng Xiaoping, the leader who initiated the economic growth in Shenzhen in 1992 (as well as being responsible for the Tiananmen Square massacre). That is another interesting perspective: Shenzhen went from basically nothing to 22 million and a high tech economic powerhouse in 25 years. Deng's famous quote is "I don't care if the cat is black or white. If it catches mice, it is a good cat."

It is not at all clear to me how Communist regimes can be dictatorships. It seems counter to the whole ideology of building a communal society that works as well as possible for everyone. Chairman Mao does not seem like a good choice as dictator. He did have some memorable quotes, like "Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy." As an academic, another especially memorable one is "to read too many books is harmful." He closed down all universities between 1966, only to be reopened after his death in 1976. At a workshop banquet I went to last night (which was great, and it was for a workshop I hadn't even attended) it was explained that there is a missing decade of Chinese academics because of this. The same guy sitting next to  me predicted that the Central Government would take over complete control of Hong Kong in ten years. That's interesting...

Hong Kong/Shenzhen Trip I

I am in Hong Kong for a couple of weeks in the middle of the trip. It is a work thing, with a conference in Hong Kong that starts on Wednesday. There was an opportunity to visit the new South University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) across border nearby in Shenzhen, and that is what brought me over last week. SUSTech is well funded and looking for international collaboration: they have an arrangement with UBC Engineering on joint supervision of graduate students. I was in Hong Kong for one night, staying at the Best Western Grand Hotel. The rooms are quite small, with a foot and a half perimeter around the bed, no chair no desk. I am learning to type on my laptop while sitting in bed. Great view, though:

Yes, that is bamboo they are using for scaffolding 27 floors up. The next day I went off to Shenzhen. They sent a driver to pick me up at the Hong Kong Hotel and that was the start of pretty serious hosting: all my meals were provided with company, including a banquet after my talk; my accommodations on campus were paid for (and the room was spacious with not only two chairs and a desk but even a small sofa); the next day a whole group took me to the Shenzhen Museum, picture below:

While at the museum I was approached by a couple with their camera. I thought at first they wanted me to take their picture together, but in fact the husband wanted to take a picture of me with his wife. I hope it had a simple explanation, like that I was the first Caucasian person they had seen in person, and not that I am now financially responsible for their children. 

The hospitality was great but a bit intimidating. If it is a contest, they will win for sure. There is no way I can manage to host in a similar way if they come to UBC. Someone I talked to about this said that part of it is that we can expect them to know English and so it is easier for them to get around on their own. Clearly not fair, but I did get the benefit of it this trip. 

A driver took me back across the border, not all the way back to my hotel but to the border crossing and I took the train onwards from there. It was manageable, but it sure made me glad not to have had to make it all the way to SUSTech on my own. I am back in the Best Western Grand, with a new view waiting for the workshop to start, doing a little touristing during the day and catching up on work e-mail at night. 

If I die here it will probably be an elevator accident in the hotel. I would ask that everyone I love please try to get along at the funeral, play my funeral play-list, and drink copiously at the expense of my estate.