Presentation Day in Taipei
Trip Start
Apr 26, 2008
1
12
20
Trip End
May 09, 2008
Taipei,
Taipei,
Taiwan
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Our hotel is located diagonally across the street from National Taiwan University, but we rode in a cab to the presentation site in part because of the dressy shoes the women of our group were wearing with their business suits. Our presentations took place at the Taipei Hydraulics Laboratory, which is a sister agency to the Tainan Hydraulics Laboratory, but it is staffed by professors from the university.
We will be giving our presentations in a long skinny room, set up much like a move theater. The seats were set up stadium style and were quite comfortable. According to the sign up sheet, there were over 50 people who pre-registered for the talks, and if everyone actually attends, the room could be nearly full. In the lobby, Dr Wu's assistants put together packets that included copies of our presentation and some advertising material for the various agencies that sponsored our trip. When the Taiwanese do something, they do it in full.
Taipei from above
The copies of our presentations were put together in a soft bound book that is about 3/8" thick with a color cover. Very professional looking.We began right on time at 9am. Dr Wu gave an opening presentation that lasted about 20 mins and described the history of the project that brought us to Taiwan. A very brief speach was given by the director of the Taipei Hydraulics Laboratory, and then Shuying began her talks. While Shuying was speaking, I had the opportunity to browse through all the presentations in the book. I have to say that I am surprised at how well our presentations relate to each other, and how little overlap there is with our subjects. Considering the 4 of us didn't prepare together, and there wasn't any review between us, the flow is excellent.
Shuying gave the first 2 presentations and I gave the third talk, which was the last one before lunch. There were many very good questions from the audience, and although they were asking quetions in Chinese or Taiwanese, it was obvious that they were picking up the concepts we were discussing in English. I have no doubt having the printed presentations helped, but still. Fortunately, or unfortunately, my talk seemed to generate many questions. I discussed several pieces of geophysical equipment that we use routinely in our investigations in my presentations that they have not used before. Lunch was supposed to be from 11:30a to 1p, but we didn't actually leave for lunch until 12:15p. That meant that with 1/3 of our talks finished we were already nearly an hour behind schedule.
Dr Wu lead us to a downstairs conference room where we had a "traditional box lunch" to eat while we sat with several members of the NGS we had met the day before.
view from my hotel window
Discussion was light and mostly centered around how we were enjoying our visit to Taiwan, but towards the end there were some discussions about the structure of NC DWQ and the different agencies in NCDENR. After returning from lunch, Melinda, Ted, and I gave the last 6 presentations. Amazingly we made up some time and finished around 4:45p, only 10 mins behind schedule. We begain walking across campus towards our hotel and discussed what we were going to do for dinner. We wanted a small fast dinner so that we could do some sight seeing in Taipei, but it has finally sunk in that Dr Wu doesn't do quick dinner. I think nearly every meal we have had here, with the exception of McDonalds, we have had no less than 8 courses of food and it has lasted more than 90 mins. I thought I was going to lose weight on this trip, but that is highly unlikely. At least the desert course is generally fresh fruit.
Dr Wu decided that we would eat dinner in the student union cafeteria. I expected buffet, but no, it's still a traditional dimsum dinner. The other think I have to mention about the food here is that I don't think I have eaten the same dish twice since I have arrived. All have been good, though I have liked some better than others, but not once have I eaten the same thing. We left dinner and returned to our hotel about 7pm, changed, and set off with Patrick to see the Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in the world (for now)
Riding by taxi to the Taipei 101 building is an adventure in itself, and it is only heighted by the lack of sunlight.
view from my hotel window
Since we didn't all fit in 1 taxi, Shuying and Ted rode separate from Patrick, Melinda, and me. Shuying and Ted's taxi was almost in a accident with another car on the way there, Shuying reported when we caught up with them at Taipei 101. There is a very large shopping mall on the bottom 5 floors of the building, most of which are very expensive (like Gucci and Dolce & Gabana). After wandering a bit we discovered that the observation deck of the Taipei 101 building was still open so we decided to take a tour. It cost $400 NT (about $13US) but it was well worth it. The elevator ride to the top took less than 30 seconds and was smoother than any other elevator I've been on. Once on top we were able to walk around 3 floors. It reminded me of the top of the Twin Towers, glass all the way around, and a spectacular view of the city below. Uniquely, you can walk to the center of the building and see the large sphere that functions as the building's inertial dampener. Some advertising guru decided that an advertising gimic for the Taipei 101 building would be to play up the huge sphere, and they created a series of round colored robot like spheres called "damper babies". I didn't quite get it. Isn't the uniqueness of the building enough? After all, how many buildings look like Chinese take-away boxes stacked on top of each other?
Anyway, we also went to the top public floor which is open air and walked around the observation deck outside. There were security guards everywhere, because at one time some crazy guy climbed over the fence around the observation dec fence and base jumped (using a parachute) to the street below. No base jumpers tonight, just a bunch of tourists. We finished looking at the city and took the elevator back to the 5th floor. We exited, hailed taxis and returned to the hotel. Again, Shuying and Ted had bad luck with their taxi driver. Despite giving him a card with an address and a map, their driver took Shuying and Ted to a different hotel. Ted was so tired he just got out, but luckily Shuying noticed the error and they eventually found their way back.
After I returned to my room I thought I'd write out some post cards, but I was so tired I just took a shower and went to bed.
