Tuesday in China

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Tuesday was a half-day at the conference. The afternoon was set aside for the conference excursion to Zhouzhuang, a picturesque water village the Chinese have turned into a major tourist attraction. After about an hour and fifteen minutes on the bus, we walked around Zhouzhuang, which is a village on canals. They called it the "Venice of China", but I have to think Venice has more going for it than canals, a few picturesque bridges, and vendors trying to sell you stuff. We toured a 14th century house and an 18th century house, and it was interesting to see something more traditional than Shanghai. Then they turned us loose for another hour or so to buy stuff. We made a few purchases, including a portable go set that I was particularly fond of.

Monday in China

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After I spent all day at the conference, we boarded a bus for the Bund. The Bund is center of the old colonial part of Shanghai built by the British. The conference had organized a dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant. It was interesting trying the different foods, and there was traditional entertainment with dancers and musicians.

Afterwards, we got back on the bus and headed nearby for a river cruise. It was basically and opportunity to take pictures of the skyline while rap music (Ludacris, among others) played in the background.

Sunday in China

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After slightly more than 24 hours travel time, we arrived in Shanghai Saturday night. Exhausted, we ordered room service and went to sleep. The next morning, our mission was to sample Shanghai's rampant consumerism...I had forgotten to pack most of my shirts, so I needed to buy a few before the conference. I plotted a walk from our hotel to the French Concession's Huaihai Road shopping area.

Unfortunately, this walk took us past the now-closed Xiangyang Market, which specialized in knock-off designer goods. As far as I can tell, former vendors hang out outside the demolished market and plead with you to come to their new location. What's worse is that they follow you for blocks to do so. I've never seen vendors that pushy in India or Mexico -- which is saying something. At one point we ducked into a Starbucks and left via a back exit into a hotel in order to ditch them.

Eventually, we made it to the department store and got my shirts (yay). It was a little bit challenging to figure out my size, but we did find one shirt labeled with a conversion chart. Also, I'm apparently in the upper end of the size range in Shanghai (Yao Ming not withstanding). Then we were able to walk back, sample some more souvenir-oriented shopping and do a little bit of sightseeing.

We stopped into two museums. One was the Shikumen open house. A "shikumen" is a 19th-century-style Shanghai stone house. They're disappearing rapidly as the city gets redeveloped, but it was interesting to see what life in Shanghai was like before the skyscrapers. The other museum was the location of the first national congress of the Chinese Communist Party. It was interesting to read the...ahem...propaganda. The biographies of the attendees noted that several formerly loyal party members for some reason decided to go over to the enemy and had to be executed. Also, Christina was amused by the reproduction of the first meeting that showed Mao towering over the other delegates, who were listening with rapt attention. (Sorry, no pictures allowed.)

About halfway back, we encountered the persistent hawkers again and grabbed a cab, which ended up costing $1.50. We wondered why we didn't just take a cab in the first place, other than the walk being good for us and allowing us to experience the city on our first full day. The cheap cabs were one of the most convenient things about Shanghai...even the hour-long ride to the airport cost less than $20.

Return of Search Engine Madness

Six years ago (have I really been blogging that long?), I posted some of the queries that were directing traffic to my site. Google now has something called Google Webmaster Central that once again helps me determine for which searches I rank high.

• #3 for caesers place odds (I guess I'll fix that spelling.)
  
• #1 for "John Heffley" (It's a fairly specialized topic.)
  
• #3 for bigwavesurfing
  
• #5 for which english king is said to be the first to have enjoyed christmas pudding (King Arthur?)
  
• #7 for how to test for perrin primes
  
• #1 for pseudoprime examples (I'm getting sick of putting in the links)
  
• #3 for grantham computing
  
• #7 for pateley bridge late shopping
  

Something more exciting (like China pictures?) when I recover from this cold.

Math Blog Back from the Dead

About a year and a half ago, I told you about a new weblog I had created to keep track of my math research. Well, only a year and a half later, I have updated the weblog.

Lest that seem particularly tardy to you, the subject of the post is the re-formatting and re-submission of a paper derived from Chapter Four of my dissertation, which I finished, uh, nine and a half years ago. Better late than never!

I'm hoping that in the coming year, I'll post (and do math research) with more regularity. In fact, I'm hoping that announcements of new research developments aren't so rare that they merit a posting here, too!

Almost Famous

Right now, if you go to the home page of the Gazette newspapers -- suburban Maryland community papers -- you'll see that the number one newsmaker is yours truly. Well, to be more honest, I was one of the more local competitors. Others were quoted in the associated article.

I ended up going 2-3 at the tournament...which was a relief after losing my first 3 games (including the one pictured). That's a total of 5-4 over the two weekends, which I'm hoping is enough to raise my rating up to 18 kyu, rather than the 19 kyu where I've been stuck since May.