Beijing!

Was in Beijing 9-16th June for SIGMOD 2007. Presented a paper titled "Leveraging Aggregate Constraints for Deduplication" (I know you don't care, but for completeness :). What did I do apart from attending talks and schmoozing with people? Here are some highlights:

(1) Went to the Great Wall, which blew me away. 3000 miles long wall built atop endless mountains, winding all around. No wonder it's a wonder of the world. Hiked up to (the most famous and highest) peak of the wall, got a certificate for reaching there :), and took the cable car back down. Was amazing!

(2) Ate some snake delicacy, lots of roast duck, and several other weird things I don't remember. The snake was better than the cocoon I ate at Korea :D. Oh yes, there was this interesting street in Beijing I went to late at night where you get tons of food on skewers, including scorpions, snakes, starfish, dogs, and more. I didn't partake any of it as I had filled myself to the brim at a traditional dumplings restaurant earlier.

(3) Went to the "Pub Street" in Beijing. A street full of pubs. We had chinese beer in one of them. Was additionally exciting as all four of us were out there very late at night, and didn't know the language. Four strangers left at the mercy of cab drivers, and a piece of paper with our hotel name written in chinese to take us back. The story about our journey from the pub back to the hotel, and the adventures thereupon stay in Beijing!

(4) Went to this street mall were young pretty chicks try to sell you clothes. Don't remember what I wore that day but plenty of the chicks came to me and said "handsome guy", etc :-). Then when I didn't end up buying things from them, they'd say "dirty/mean guy". It's true I'm both (both doesn't stand for dirty and mean, but stands for handsome and dirty/mean!) LOL...

(5) The conference banquet was at the gorgeous Summer Palace. Took a boat to reach this island palace. Saw a traditional chinese (changing face) opera which was amazing. Also witnessed an acrobatic performance by young kids, a Beijing opera, a magic show and more. In all it was wonderful.

Pics of the trip coming soon, so stay tuned.