Reporting from IMRC 2008 Chongqing (China): Day 0

Now settling at JW Marriott Chongqing.

Met with Songying this morning at 9 AM (she come to my hotel), and went to People's Hall & Chongqing Museum (they're nearby). She found me the Muslim restaurant at Zhong Xing Lu (Lu means road in English), at Jiao Chang Kou. The restaurant name is Shin Jiang Tien Shan restaurant. You probably need a Chinese speaking person to understand the menu. There's a mosque just next to the restaurant. The foods're fabulous! But they're hot like crazy! We ordered 4 kinds of foods... but its too much for us to finish them all. We left almost half of them... mottinai!

Went to Chongqing Zoo afterward. Sonyging's cousin and grandfather are living just next to the zoo. She's quite familiar with the zoo, she even went there almost everyweek since her child age. We went to almost every corner of the zoo, and took many pictures too! One of the best attaction of the zoo is PANDA! But, this panda is very dirty... it's not black and white, but black and yellow in color! From that trip I also learned that Panda is a very lazy animal... especially when its get older. The younger one is very active in playing though... and they're cute!

The IMRC (International Material Research Conference) at Chongqing International Exhibition and Convention Center started at 17:00, and I went there by shuttle bus from Marriott prepared by the organizer. I met Dr. Gadkari from from Mumbai University in India, and talk a lot with him. I also met some post-graduate students from Chinese universities who're interested to know about Japan and its universities. The Chinese're shy... just like Japanese... maybe most Asian is like that, so do I. But we managed to know each other very closely... that's so great. When boarding the shuttle bus to return to the hotel, I met with Dr. Ashwaal from US Naval Research Laboratory... he talked a lot about the politics and administration in India and the US. From the language and perspective he had, I knew that he's a very capable person and brilliant. He even was at IIT (Indian Institute of Technology - said to be MIT of India).

Okay, that's all for the moment. I've to prepare for my presentation tomorrow. See ya!