So I managed to make it to the zoo yesterday, which was very exciting. More exciting though, was the night safari, where everything is minimally lit with the animals there to give a night time experience (I expect). I was a bit worried about catching buses and the like, but it was fine in the end, everything was really very well laid out, it was a doddle.

Today I’m off to visit the somewhat artificial Sentosa island – there seems to be a bit of controversy about the fact the land is all ‘reclaimed’.

Anyway, just a short blog (I’m being timed) to let you know whats going down in Singapore.

Catch up with you all later,

Ian

I’ve just returned from the conference dinner to finalise CCGRID for ’06. Tomorrow will be its last day whereupon everyone will return to their various different countries, or maybe somewhere closer for a short time on holiday. I’ve already heard of others plans to see Malaysia and Vietnam. I’ll be here until Tuesday evening to check out all that Singapore has to offer (at least I hope I will be able to).

Tonight’s meal was very crazy, lots of food that I wouldn’t normally eat, but I seemed to manage all 8 courses without too much trouble. Shark soup, chickens with their heads still on and lots of beer and tea were all on the menu. There was also some crazy dancing which went on between about course 6/7.

I’m getting a little more used to the layout of everything so far in the university, but it’s so spread out and the buildings are so similar it’s still pretty confusing.

I’ll get to explore the use of the MRT more than previously from tomorrow, and to explore some slightly more diverse areas I guess, with much photo taking. This includes the now infamous Orchard Road everyone has been talking about, as I have been unable to reach it previously, hopefully a few cheapo gadgets may catch my eye. I’d also like to go to the night zoo, but this is a bit awkward as it runs late at night and the last bus connection to it is fairly early in comparison in the evening. Annoying. Today is also my last day with definite internet access, so I may not post any updates until when I return afterwards. Sorry about that, especially if you’re anyone who may be even missing me.

So, I have arrived safe and sound in Singapore. I got in yesterday and have been doing various CCGrid related things since. Yesterday evening, after a quick shower I headed off to find the conference venue and something to eat. Unfortunately I spent the best part of my time wondering round trying to find the venue! It was rather annoying as a large majority of pedestrian routes had been obstructed due to a huge amount of road works going on around the university premises. After asking a few people for directions I figured out where I was and have now discovered an altogether much simpler route to the university when I was able to go there in the light. The layout of the buildings is still very confusing though. I did get to see lots of Singapore at night though, so that was quite exciting and a random (what sounded Christian) rock group performing and lots of uni groups practicing playing drums and things.

Tomorrow morning is when my presentation is going on, so I’ve been preparing this evening for it. My hotel is nice enough, although it might have been an idea for me to have chosen somewhere slightly closer to the university, its still less than what I’d have to walk in Cardiff to uni though. I meandered over to the food court across the way from where I’m staying this evening, with I think some strange looks from the kitchen staff, though I couldn’t figure out what they were indicating. The television in the hotel is a real hotch-botch of all manner of different channels, some English, some Chinese, and the English channels are all a dire mix of old cheesy films and very bad comedy. The internet access in the hotel is also really expensive, I doubt I’ll be using it that much, so forgive me if my updates are a little less frequent than previously, I’ll have access at the conference until Friday, unless I can find somewhere else.

I think I’m finding this experience altogether a bit more difficult to shift to than Chicago, basically because I know I stick out a bit here and can’t speak the lingo. Hopefully things will become a bit easier soon enough.

So despite having only been back in the UK for less than a week, I’m now off to Singapore, to present another paper of my work at CCGrid06. I’m slightly less nervewracked this time, but not looking forward to the ridiculous flight time (best part of 13 hours) and the time difference when I arrive (+ 7 hours). Viv tells me its a beautiful and amazingly techie place, so it sounds not at all distant from my own bedroom.

I’ll try and post more as and when I have interesting stuff to report!

After the workshop ended in the early hours of the afternoon today, I thought it would be kinda cool to head over and see if I could find threadless in Chicago, to stock up on some more of their awesome t shirts. After a little bit of thinking and umming and ahh-ing about whether or not I could actually find the place, I decided to make a a go of it and try.

A short train ride later, I found the offices of skinnycorp, and got shown round the whole setup, introduced to peeps and given some of those oh so amusing “i park like an idiot” stickers. It was kinda surreal to see all these people whole acted as models on the website in real life. Charlie showed me around the place..you can lots of vids of the guy (bearded, glasses, boxed) over at Craig Shimala’s web site.

I also got the experience of going to see the whitesox today…even though they scored 3 home runs, they didn’t win, but the fireworks at the end were amazing! You can see me, Steve and Paul over on the sox site.

So today marks the last day I’m put up in the Hard Rock, and my last full day here in the states. I awoke to a bill that had been slipped under my door to announce that I’d been charged for their “intimacy kit”, because I had moved it to have a look at it, and this constitutes a charge. I found this most amusing. I think I’ll make sure that there are no more automated charges made before I leave, seeing as how I’ve actually used nothing….

Anyway, tonight I am hopefully off to see the mighty A-Trak at the Empty Bottle here in Chicago. It should be fairly awesome I’ll let you know what happens later, if I can ever reach the place.

Hello. Today marked the second day in the workshop I’m attending and the presentation of some of my own work and thoughts. I’ve also experienced some very useful thoughts of not only my work, but my PhD as a whole. Today is a good day for that.

Yesterday evening we attended an italian restaurant as part of the evening meals for the conference, which featured such a ridulous amount of food it was stupid. We had less people on our table, and it meant that actually we would end up with more than a dish each – 1 1/2 plates each full to the brim. Twas nice…

I also managed to finally get to experience Chicago Downtown pizza, which is something which has to be done apparently. Prior to this also, I managed to get an experience of drinking in a bar looking atop one of the smaller buildings in the area. Have a look at the pic for an idea of what it looked like.

So today marked the checking in and out of hotels to move down the road in preparation for my workshop I’m attending while I’m here. Here’s some views of my hotel room looking out onto Sears, complete with the only person whom is here with me. I have to head out now, for the conference dinner etc. I shall be sure to post later.

Today, after yesterdays success, and it being fairly sunny, I decided to try and find Sears Tower (The USA’s tallest building) and come home fresh in the knowledge I had ascended it. People were all trying to put me off going as the views from Sears weren’t as good as those from the Hancock observatory, which sits on the Magnificent Mile and gives nice views of the shore of Lake Michigan. I decided, seeing as how it was only $18 total to vist the two, I might as well do that….

Anyway, as I had already been along Michigan Avenue I decided to cut through the various roads cutting across one another to see where I could get to. I stumbled across Chicago’s Board Of Trade, which has been recommended as a place to visit prior to leaving and numberous other fancy pants buildings, malls and T.J.Maxx (don’t know why there’s a difference between J and K from US and UK). When I got to Sears Tower, as I’d bought tickets prior, I was able to skip queues and head right to the front. After enduring as history lesson and a stupid video in the elevator, ear popping and stupid kids screaming, I was at the top of Sears. The sights were all pretty amazing as I bet you can imagine – you can have a look at the photo for an idea.

Once I’d done Sears, I headed off to Hancock, but decided to visit several shops and malls on the way. I had the experience of entering an Apple store which was pretty cool. You can just wonder in and use the internet, listen to music etc etc. Anyway, I carried on. Hancocks intro was a little less well done than Sears, no video, not a lot of staff. Actually security wasn’t as tight either. *Pause* – several Fire Engines just have run down the street. The thing I suddenly realised is that the photos they take at the start aren’t for security, but rather to project the image of at the top of the building (both Sears and Hancock) for purchasing when you come back down. How daft is that?

Views were a little less exciting this time (possibly because I’d already seen something pretty similar!) but they have the added bonus of a skywalk – which means its exposed to what you would be able to hear if there was no windows or anything. It was quite a mash of everything going on at once though. The other cool thing was being able to see the stacking of planes coming into what I guess was O Hare airport, like a tiered approach.

After Hancock, I sat around outside drinking a massive smoothie before going into my last mall and realising how late it was. I went past Millenium Park and took a few more photos of the “jellybean” in the sun.

The two photo’s show the Hancock Observatory as viewed from Sears and the Sears Tower as seen from the Hancock Observatory.

I have an uncanny habit of organising travel on unique dates. Last year my journey to Edinburgh for a conference was held up because it was the day before the G8 summit, when Viv and I went to Dublin, I completely forgot about the fact St Patricks day would fall around that time. My journey to Chicago it would seem is not to be blessed without this feature either. I’ll let you in on what happened in a sec.

I was still quite out of it when I got up, but thought I’d make the effort to adjust my body clock. I had to go and hunt for cereal, or a cafe somewhere, was given directions and went to have a look what I could find. I found some rice krispies, which did the job, and scabbed some milk someone else had left.

Anyone whose well up on international news might notice that there have several protests in the US by immigrants who are campaigning against a proposed immigration reform. I heard something about this on the news on the telly as I was wondering what to do with my day, but didn’t think anything much of it. How silly of me…

I decided, even though I was pretty darn scared that I should leave the hostel and try and do something with my day – a trundle across to the Millenium park, and a hunt for some shaving gel was on the agenda, just to see what it looked like. Before I left, I met another guy from Cardiff at the elevators, about two doors down from me. He and his mate were doing a tour across america, and this was there next port of call. I think this may have boosted my confidence to get out of the door. As I got further west, I noticed that there seemed to be rather a lot of police about (the first of whom whizzed by on a boyyed up segway!)

Anyway, I headed over to a fancy fountain, leaving the stack of high-rise buildings for Lake Shore Drive. More and more police (mounted on numerous methods of transport), mexicans and flags appeared. After taking a few pics of the cloudy sky, I headed over to see what the noise was about, stopping next to a news reporter tent. I got to see two news reports about the fact not a lot of people had turned out for this particular rally (did you guess yet?), just before everyone did. For a sec or two, it was a bit crazy, and I had to back out of the park bit I’d made it to. Apparently estimates put the number up to 400,000 who turned up, I spent about 2hours just watching everyone march about all the closed roads. There’s lots more on this on the BBC News website, its currently the top news item on the Americas site…. (and I have lots of pics too, which I’ll let people see).

I decided to carry on and had a look around millenium park, and the several bits of strange design it had there (Video Water Fountains and Big Reflective blobs). After that, I walked up Michigan Avenue, looking at the huge number of skyscrapers and general sights, I stopped in a couple of grocery stores and wondered over to where I will be attending my conference later in the week. It’s right next to NBC tower, so I managed to see the news being presented live inside the building, and the weather reporter (whom I’d seen earlier) presenting the weather right next to me.

And now, back to here, stealing wireless from one of the 20 that I’m able to pick up in the area.