Journey to the West III - OM San Francisco

The last part of my journey to the west was the weekend spent in San Francisco, and it was a perfect dot. I had a hard time choosing some photos out of the 200+ that i have taken as every corner of it is so special!

SF is a famous - and I could see why, it has very unique city landscape structure and the most amazing thing is that traditions and modern life are well mixed. It has the most "crooked" street in the world, and it also has the historic bus services from the eighteenth century. It has the splendid Golden Gate bridge as well as the strange prison attraction with a terrific view of the harbour! I was constantly facinated and entertained.

Onething that impressed me a lot is SF public transport, and I love it! It is heaven for every tourist - cable car, bus (is called Muni there), light rail (is called BART) and trains are running all over the city! And the best part is that bus fare is only $1.50 for 4 hours and you can take any bus! An irony is that Singapore bus is from 90c - 1.70c per single trip.1

Like any tourist - i visited most of the "must-see" attractions, but the most memorable day was the last day when i was going around the city alone. In the morning, I took off the adventure by taking the famous cable car. When it sails uphill and downhill like in an ocean in the metropolitan city, wind wipes my faces and i could only feel the joyful heart-beats! 2

The cable car stopped right in front of Fisherman-Wharf. I had a chance to savor the freshly picked crabs - each was bigger than my palm! 3

Out of an impulse - i decided to go to the famous tourist spot of Alcatraz - the prison. Uh? You might wonder if there is anything an old prison can offer to a tourist - I was having this thought and the moment i stepped onto the cruise for this prison island, i had to confess that it was such a right decidion! The view from the cruise was....beyond what words could describe. It was so beautiful - with golden gate bridge, seagull, cloudy sky, whispering waters, sailing boats, it was so perfect.4

The island itself did not fail me too. It has an interesting audio tour that comes free with the ticket - you could walk around the damp and dark prison while the ex-prisoners and guards told you the real stories of their lives. It was like watching a movie - but this time you are in the movie!5

My adventure day ended with a big climb - to the Coit tower. Obviously there is a way to drive up there. Without such knowledge or any car, i took the route from Levis Plaza and walked up and up a very pleasant greenry path. Houses on both sides of the path was very sweet and they have pretty gardens but the only problem was that the level was getting higher and higher! All the gardens were in the middle of the hill! By the end of the climb, i was quite out of breath (considering the lunch was just the crab). But before i could get any more grumpy, the view in front of my eyes took me out of breath!6

Oh well - i am not a good writer, but i am sure San Francisco is a wonderland for any one - no matter you are looking for views, food, people, party or just a moment of peace of mind.

Oh My! SF! Loved it.

Journey to the West II - Stanford and UC Berkeley

I had the great honor of visiting the holy places for higher education during my journey to the west- two of the most world- famous universities: Stanford and UC Berkeley.

Each of the campuses has its own beauty. Stanford is like a oil painting full of colors and UC berkeley is like an elite scatch with unique strokes. The history and ambience have made both of them more than just educational institutes. Although lots of people prefer Stanford campus, I personally like UC Berkeley.

Stanford was built in 1870s and that added a lot to the glory of the university as not many buildings are from that time nowadays. Not only were the old buildings preserved but also new technologies introduced. HP played a huge role in this and they contributed a lot to the new buildings in Electrical Engineering faculty.




For some reason, I found myself more amused at UC berkeley for its various lengendery stories (perhaps we have a better student guide at UC Berkeley!) There is the bear, UC berkeley's symbol, and you can find a smallest one hidden behind the pillars of one of the oldest building's entrance; there is the rolling-down-hill, for freshmen to beg for professors' mercy by rolling down; and there is swing dance party on the open ground on the Saturday we visited!




Stanford: serious and handsome;
UC Berkeley: gentle and pretty.

Journey to the West I

Jan 20th -Jan 31st - a very special period of time in my life. Many amazing things happened during these 10 days- I went to the U.S for the 1st time, attended SPIE conference for the 1st time and explored California (actually San Francisco) for the 1st time!

It was like a dream finally coming true (remember everyone was thinking about going to the U.S since a child?) and yet i feel so real about it - nothing flimsy, nothing paticularly splendid...and everything is just...so NORMAL

The first sight after stepping out of San Francisco airport was just plain: some moutains at far away and the airport has no spciality. Only some cool breeze could remind me of the reality - that I have stepped onto a new continent (after 18 hours of flight), and a total new experience began.

I. SPIE San Jose Conference


The conference was huge - there are thousands of participants with academic talks and technical exhibitions going on at the same time. Everyday, numerous people got down at the light rail way station "Metro" from various hotels and headed into the convention centre at this little town. San Jose suddenly seemed more lively than ever. I was on the passengers taking the light rail to the conference, and we all had a huge name plate hanging around our neck!

The conference went on for 6 days - from Saturday to next Thursday. I can basically call it a "gruelling experience". Morning 9am - 6pm, all I was doing was running among different seminar rooms to catch up different talks. A basic preparation that must be done the previous day was to highlight the interesting talks the next day and plan the timeline - so that I dont miss any important ones and yet the whole day was fully ultilized. I was greedy! ")

My big day of presentation on Thursday turned out to be quite ok. I was amazingly calm and confident - perhaps after seeing numerous "disasters" in the past 5 days and mine was scheduled on the last day, where perhaps people were not so sensitive to the talks already. :P

Prof Kino from Stanford asked a simple question to me at the end and that was it! My first conference talk! Many people came to congratulate me afterwards, and some of them expressed " I wish I could understand more of your talk!"

Well, the most important thing is - just do it! I did it.

The greatest thing is that I met so many colleagues in the field - famous professors, prominent CEOs and presidents, friendly graduate students, enthusiastic college kids...