Hangzhou
I've been in Hangzhou for three days now. I'll be here for the next four months. Hangzhou is in the province of Zhejiang and is about three hours, by bus, from Shanghai. It is located at the mouth of the Yangzi river and is famous for its lake, West Lake. Hangzhou is a popular tourist city known for its tea and silk and scenery. Surrounding the lake are wooded hills with pagotas dotted throughout. You can hike around in the hills and then walk down to the lake and through the lake along roads and bridges and islands.
I'm attending a String Theory workshop at The Center for Mathematical Sciences at Zhejiang University. I'm here with my advisor, Andy Strominger, and seven other graduate students from Harvard and Princeton. We're going to teach a course in String Theory for eight weeks. Then there will be a month long workshop here with a dozen or so professors lecturing on topics in modern string theory.
So far, everything is a bit more difficult and complicated than it is in other places I've traveled to. I don't have good internet access yet-- I'm hoping to soon so I can blog more often and keep in better touch with everyone. There is a lot of bureaucracy when I try to do things-- for example, let me tell you what happened when I bought a bike.
I went to downtown Hangzhou yesterday with a bunch of other students to go shopping. We went to a department store so some of us could get bikes. We test rode the bikes through the refridgerator section of the store and then decided which ones we wanted to buy. The clerks filled out some forms and sent us to the main desk to pay. We then brought some slips back to the clerks who ran off somewhere with them. They came back with some other piece of paper that we had to take to a desk by the stairwell. We filled out some forms (in chinese, thank god Xi was with us) and paid 8 yuen ($1 US) for a bicycle license. We got the licenses and brought them back to the clerks who attached them to the bikes along with baskets and locks and they pumped up the tires. We then could leave with the bikes. This whole process took an hour and a half. The bike cost me 270 yuen (about $30).
I have a lot to write about but I am busy right now getting everything organizes. I don't have my own desk space yet or regular internet access. I'll blog more later.
I'm attending a String Theory workshop at The Center for Mathematical Sciences at Zhejiang University. I'm here with my advisor, Andy Strominger, and seven other graduate students from Harvard and Princeton. We're going to teach a course in String Theory for eight weeks. Then there will be a month long workshop here with a dozen or so professors lecturing on topics in modern string theory.
So far, everything is a bit more difficult and complicated than it is in other places I've traveled to. I don't have good internet access yet-- I'm hoping to soon so I can blog more often and keep in better touch with everyone. There is a lot of bureaucracy when I try to do things-- for example, let me tell you what happened when I bought a bike.
I went to downtown Hangzhou yesterday with a bunch of other students to go shopping. We went to a department store so some of us could get bikes. We test rode the bikes through the refridgerator section of the store and then decided which ones we wanted to buy. The clerks filled out some forms and sent us to the main desk to pay. We then brought some slips back to the clerks who ran off somewhere with them. They came back with some other piece of paper that we had to take to a desk by the stairwell. We filled out some forms (in chinese, thank god Xi was with us) and paid 8 yuen ($1 US) for a bicycle license. We got the licenses and brought them back to the clerks who attached them to the bikes along with baskets and locks and they pumped up the tires. We then could leave with the bikes. This whole process took an hour and a half. The bike cost me 270 yuen (about $30).
I have a lot to write about but I am busy right now getting everything organizes. I don't have my own desk space yet or regular internet access. I'll blog more later.
posted by Michelle at 11:55 p.m.
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