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December 11, 2004 We are here! In DC anyway. Wow, we have an awesome hotel. The room is huge, with a fridge and TV and free internet access... 2 phones with 2 lines... it's really got it all. It is right downtown, 4 blocks from the conference hotel, 8 blocks from China Town, and it's only 100/night normally. I bid $63 for it on Priceline.com, and got it. With tax and the priceline fees, it came to $75/night. Wow! Here is the link. http://www.fourpointswashingtondc.com I made a mistake and bought tickets to Dullas, when for the same price I could have had us fly into Regan, which is 5 miles from the hotel. Dullas is 25 miles away. The trip to the hotel from the airport sucked hard. We had 3 bags, a backpack and a laptop case between us. We survived though, and here we are. After we got settled in, we headed right for Chinatown. It wasn't anything like the Chinatown in NY, but we did finds lots of very good restaurants. I don't know if I have ever had such good seafood as today, maybe I was just really hungry from not eating since this morning, but it really hit the spot. Anyway, expect photos tomorrow. :) Best Regards Chris |
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Dec. 13, 2004 Yesterday, I went to the first pre-conference workshop. It wasn't interesting, so I didn't stay long. However, the hotel where the conference was held was extremely amazing. I don't know how to describe it, so you can check out the site and look at the pictures. http://grandwashington.hyatt.com/property/index.jhtml We had a welcome party at 6 last night, with all kinds of cheese and stuff... nothing I could really appreciate. Afterward Brian, Sabrina and I went to a Mongolian barbeque that was quite good. Brian said he had been craving that place for years, as he used to live here. It was quite good. This morning, at the plenary session, the keynote speaker was the speaker of the people's congress of China! WOW! How awesome. I got to meet him afterward, I didn't have a camera, but I gave my business card to a girl who did have a camera, and she got a picture of us. I hope she emails it to me soon!. Speaking of pictures, Sabrina's laptop has a different card reader than mine, her laptop reads cards from her camera, and my laptop reads cards from my camera... since we brought her laptop and my camera, we cannot get any pictures off the camera. I'm sorry. We haven't taken very may interesting photos just yet, so it's ok. If I can find a cheap USB card reader, I'll buy it so that we can upload photos. While I was at the conference, Sabrina was running around trying to find out where to go to get my visa to enter China. The embassy apparently does not do visa's, so she had to go somewhere else. She is waiting in line now. I came home from the conference after lunch (which was also quite good). After she gets the visa, I'm going to meet her at Union Station to do some shopping. Standing around waiting for lunch, I met Dr. O'hara from East Carolina. It was very nice to see her, I had not seen any ECU faculty members the entire time I was here. I told her the kind of research that I was doing, and she introduced me to several of her friends from Georgia who were also working on culture. I gave my business card to each, we will see if they remember to email me. Because the conference is not providing email, and the Hyatt charges $10/day for internet, I don't expect to see many emails for a few days (Again, I feel very happy that our hotel has free internet). Either way, seeing Dr. O'hara was an excellent surprize. Tonight we are having dinner with all the MIS Ph.D. students from FSU. We don't know where we are going yet, but that's the plan. Stay tuned. |
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December 14, 2004 It's 10:30 on Tuesday night. Last night, 6 FSU MIS Ph.D. students and one Zhan went to a really good Chinese resturant in... take a guess... Chinatown. It was really one of the top 3 I have had in the US. Very good. After that, several of us went to the bar upstairs in the Hyatt, that was known for having 101 different kinds of martinis. I wanted to try all 101... but I don't quite have that much tolerance yet (or the $1,111 that it would have cost (they are $11 each). So Sabrina and I shared two, one was a crème de meth/mint flavored, that was so yummy! It was like the shamrock milkshake at McDonalds. It was my favorite. After that it was the chocolate/banana/coffee flavored one (#34 I believe). That was a good night. I found myself very tired the next morning. I had not been getting enough sleep for several days, and I really didn't want to go to the conference. But one of the FSU Ph.D. students (Glen) was presenting, and I had to go see that. Turns out, his presentation was very very good. I was most impressed, I hope I can do as good of a job. Afterwards I sat next to Glen at lunch, turns out he's staying at the same hotel (just paying $40/night more...) I told him I needed to go shopping to get a card adapter for the laptop, and he said, oh, I have an extra, you can borrow it and give it back in Janurary. He is the most helpful guy, whenever I am having computer trouble, that I can't figure out (believe it or not it's pretty common) he always goes out of his way to help. What a helpful dude! So anyway, thanks to Glen, we can now upload pictures if we can get internet access. You'll find the photos from DC on the website now. After lunch, I was so tired I went to my hotel to take a nap. As I was walking, Bryan called. I had told him I was cutting out on the rest of the conference, and I guess he decided to join me. I had planned on taking a nap, but I didn't want him joining me for that, so we went and walked around the mall, he shoed me all the top secret stuff in Washington that he knew (he had lived there for several years when he was a younger man). Sabrina had gone to Pentagon city to do some shopping (and she didn't get back until our ICIS party tonight!) Brian and I went to the WWII memorial, George Washington University (I saw my fraternity hous...I mean my fraternity apartment), the reflecting pond and the Lincoln memorial. It looked just like on the Penny! But it was grey, not copper colored. I got back about an hour before our party, so I showered then went. I met several Ph.D. students from Emory, one was Chinese and was on her way back, and invited us to join her. I may do it, I'll have to talk to Sabrina and see if it looks like fun. Sabrina was in the Gym when I finally got home from the party, and she's showering now. We'll talk about what we will do in China when she gets out. I wonder what she bought... Tommorow, we have to check out at 12, then our flight to NY leaves at 5, so we will probably head right there so we can really have hours and hours in the airport. I feel a little crummy, it is cold here, so my throat is all dry, which is just asking for an infection to come in. Sinus infucktions are not good news with cross continental flights.... lets hope I feel better! You probably won't hear from me in a few days. This trip is going to suck hard. Once we get to China, it should be much more fun. Please don't fill my voicemail with junk, email me, don't call me. Best Regards Chris
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