I am currently in Beijing.

At the invitation of Sergiu Klainerman (my advisor), my officemate Pin Yu and I traveled to China to join him, who is taking part of his sabbatical year at the Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Peking University doing some teaching.

I got up March 30th at 5:40am EDT, my fiancee drove Pin and I over to the train station, from where we got to the airport. The flight was a bit bizarre: we flew down to DC Dulles from EWR, and from there back up in the north-by-north-east direction, over a chunk of Pennsylvania, pass Albany, crossed much of un-inhabited Canada, over Greenland, pass the North-Pole [most people on the plane was unaware of geodesics and non-Eulidean geometry in seems, as when the flight map showed up on the big movie screen, scores of people got up with their cameras to treasure this sight], and down over Russia and Mongolia, and finally getting to Beijing. About three hours before the flight landed, someone called for help in the back of the plane: some man stopped breathing. Two doctors (one white, one Chinese) got up and stablized the patient, so we made it to Beijing alright and didn't need an emergency landing. (The two doctors each got a bottle of Champagne from the airline as a token of gratitude.) As part of the consequence, we were delayed slightly from deplaning to make way for the EMS who ferried the sick passenger off.

Entry into the country is easier than expected. As a permanent resident of Hong Kong, I also hold a special entry permit for the mainland. Much to my surprise, at the border-patrol they didn't even ask for my Hong Kong Resident ID. It was pretty much a one-look-at-the-permit and no-questions-asked thing. (Well, I got delayed for about a minute because it was my first entry into the Country and they need to create a comoputer file or somewhat, and it turns out that my dad gave me characters in my name that are too complicated: the border patrol was perfectly capable of reading the character and typing the right pinyin, just that the computer doesn't have those characters in stock in simplified Chinese, just in traditional, which irked the bureaucrats somewhat [though I kind of wonder how they got my name printed on my entry permit in simplified Chinese in the first place].)

Rather quickly we went past customs and contacted the person who is supposed to let us "in". We then hopped on a cab and rode the 1-hr drive to Peking University.

The Institute is on the twelveth and thirteenth floors of the Zi-Yuan Building (from the "Resource Group" Zi-Yuan Ji Tuan). It was originally built outside of Peking University as an office tower, but for one reason or another the building couldn't sell. So Peking University bought it and converted the upper floors to offices for personnels and, in our case, the temporary home of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences. (The University is in midst of constructing a new building just to house the Institute. And with all the preparation for the 08 Olympics going on, Peking University, and the City as a whole, looks like one giant construction dump.)

They are treating us quite well here: the office is spectacular. Pin and I share an office that is larger than the office we share in Princeton with 4 other students. Remember, the building was designed to be an executive office tower. Klainerman get treated to one of the offices that must be reserved for a junior partner or something: it has faux-wood floor, two leather couches, a gigantic work space, a huge post-modern-designed bookshelf, and a full bathroom (with a shower). (His office has "more" bathroom than we get in the housing facility Pin and I share). They tought of everything: my office now has two computers (though one is broken at the moment), a printer, a phone, rather large amount of stationery that I probably won't use, paper cubs, tissue...

The apartment they let us was good, but less "awe"some. It is plenty nice for Beijing (or even Taipei) standards: two bedrooms plus a living room with working TV and fridge. Kitchen with gas range. A washing machine. And and 3/4 bath. (It doesn't have a real shower-area: it just has a shower head in the middle of the bathroom and a drain in the middle of the floor, so water gets everywhere when I shower.)

After coming in, we ran into Klainerman quite by accident. So we went out to dinner together at a student cafeteria (Chinese student cafes are much better than the stuff at Princeton. And Cheaper too). It must be slightly difficult for Klainerman, being a Jew observing kosher rules in China. There's suddenly a lot fewer choices in dishes once one discounts pork and shellfish. Since we arrived a bit late in the day to get dining cards, Klainerman treated us to dinner (Pin and I each ate a 5RMB bowl of beef noodle soup: it was good, but I could've used more beef in my soup).

After dinner we went shopping at Carrefour: it is going quite strong here in China, doing slightly better, it seems, than in Taiwan. We just bought some basic stuff: laundry detergent, shampoo, soap, a waterbottle (it is really dry here, keeping myself hydrated is not too easy), and toilet paper. We need to keep a few rolls in our office because, in China, toilets have no paper by default. Pin almost forgot about that this morning...

After shopping, Pin and I carried out luggage back to the apartment, he then left to meet a friend, and I took a shower, watched a Manchester United soccer game, and went to bed. (The shower was a bit of an adventure: there wasn't a temperature control on the showerhead, just a faucet, so I thought I had to take a cold one. But just to be sure, I traced to pipe, and found that it was connected to a water heater, along with one of the kitchen faucets. But I couldn't get hot water out of it. After repeated tries, I realized that the gas heater is not lighting. In trying to find a ignition switch, I realized that the water heater is not plugged in. I plugged it in, and still no flames. So then I traced the natural gas pipe and found, as I was expecting at that point, that the main line switch was off. Turning that on solved all my problems. The shower temperature control is done by tuning the flame on the water heater.)

Due to smegging jet-lag, I got up this morning at 6. Just around day-break. Today Beijing has nice weather. For one thing, I can see blue skies, one thing that Pin assured me almost never happens. Since Pin carries the only key to the apartment (he was going out the night before), I figured I might as well get to my office. What a bad plan it was. I left the house and got to the office at 6:25. And I then stood shivering in the morning air for an hour. The office building, apparently, does not open until 7:30 in the morning. I was not the only one unaware of this lock-down. Another woman (who dressed rather trendily), came along and also tried on the door around 7. And at that time I can see someone already inside the building desperately trying to get out, probably some poor bloke who got locked inside the night before.

I spent the hour reading Wald's General Relativity (the only book I had on me at the time).

And as it turns out, Pin walked in the office practically right after me.

The morning Pin showed me around campus. We got ourselves dining cards and bought ourselves some breakfast. We walked by a lake inside the campus, which was the private garden of Heshen. The lake is called "Wei-Ming" (No-Name in English). The architecture of the older part of campus is quite astonishing. But the newer parts are just butt-ugly.

(I think I'll sign off here for now, if I do get a chance, maybe after I come back, I'll post pictures)