Washington, D.C.

I visited the turbo couple at Silver Spring, MD for thanksgiving (zig happened to be there, too). After enjoying a perfect homemade hot pot, we went to Washington, D.C. the next day. It was so crowded everywhere, from metro stations to museums. It made me feel even sicker when facing crazy drivers and policemen carrying guns...

The Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool, as well as the Capitol Hill far behind and the National Museum of Natural History on the left (where we had lunch).


Another shoot.


The Lincoln Memorial and the National World War II Memorial.


The names of the States in the entablature of the Lincoln Memorial. Here goes Massachusetts, MDCCLXXXVIII (1788), when it became the sixth state to ratify the Constitution.


Squirrels everywhere. Here is one near the Reflecting Pool.


The White House and a Christmas tree.


Another Christmas tree in the Reagan airport.

Gloucester

Had a nice day for the CSAIL Student Workshop at Gloucester, MA, though pity bad weather again. Thanks to the organizers!

The workshop was held here, pretty cold even inside!


Some CSAILers.


Birds in fall.


Last but not least, the lobster dinner!


It was also great to see several 9#ers there: justin, sola, theorist, and zig.

Newbury

Here's the group outing today, at Newbury, NH, about two hours drive from Boston. Thanks to Silas for driving! Thanks to Frans for inviting us!

Lake Sunapee, pity the bad weather though. Actually that's just an island faraway in the photo; the lake is pretty large.

Aleksey was sailing.

Tubing is absolutely an awesome sport! Frans drove his motorboat and one tuber grabbed a tube behind it. Jeremy, Neha, I, Yandong, and Aleksey enjoyed it in turn, reeeeally cool! Besides advising students the almighty Frans was so good at cycling and making waves to throw them off!

Newport

Just enjoyed a nice weekend at Newport, Rhode Island with mystery and riki. Many thanks to mystery for driving.





We took the Cliff Walk, which starts from Memorial Blvd. We exited around Marine Ave. There are many beautiful mansions along the way.





BTW, we even saw a rainbow on the way back to Boston. :-)

The Longest Day

36 hours for the Saturday: 12:00 pm at Beijing, 9:00 am at San Francisco, 8:00 pm at Boston.

On the way to SF, i saw the second sunrise today.

Haikou Bay

A walk along the shore with my family.



I love sunsets. :-)

Gong Qi

Some pictures shot on Feb 10 during the Chinese new year, at Baoluo, Wenchang, Hainan. It's my friend Feng's hometown; I went there with him to see the famous "Gong Qi" ceremony.

"Gong" (literally, "lord") may refer to a chief or a leader of the early migrates to the Hainan island from the Mainland (one thousand years ago? not sure), as some people tell. If so, I guess the purpose of the ceremony may be similar to the thanksgiving. But some other people say it is related to Xian Furen (Madam Xian), a leader of the Yue peoples in southern China (in the 6th century), and the Feng family is her descendants.

Every year a lot of people come back from cities and share the time.


Fireworks after the ceremony.


Feng's little boy. Cute? :-)


The quiet village.

Dandong

It took about two-hour drive from Shenyang to Dandong, a small and quiet city. Maybe it's most famous for the Yalu River and the Korean War.


There is a new bridge on the river, and an old bridge bombed by the US in the Korean War.

There are people in a faraway country we never know.

Changbai Mountain

Since we always went wrong way, it took me almost a whole day's drive to the Changbai Mountain from Shenyang. Heaven Lake is so splendid, so are the valleys, the falls, the rivers, the springs and the flowers. It's really really a great place to enjoy.

Shenyang

Shenyang is not far from Beijing, only four-hour train or one-four flight. Since it is not a big city, I mobbed the city last Friday just as planned, starting from Wulihe and ending at Mukden Palace. Later I took a drive to Liutiaohu and Beiling (the tomb of Huang Taji). The next day I visited Yongling (tombs of Ancestors of Nurhaci) in Fushun, a nearby city.

There are many amazing Manchu characteristics. For example, the Mukden palace resembles Manchu tents, rather a different style from that of the Forbidden City.

Besides, loongs/dragons are usually flying in Chinese culture. However, I saw some sitting loongs in Yongling, which were said to have evolved from dogs.

Here are some snapshots.

China Map

It is a web page to generate a map of areas that you've been in China. Pretty cool!

Here's my status.

I'm planning a trip to Jilin or Hunan in late July or early August. I wish I could fill more in the map before graduation:-)

Ray War

Ray war is some kind of Counter-Strike in real, using laser guns and wearing military uniforms with sensors. We played the game in a hotel near Badaling (Google Map, taking the break at Shuiguan on the Badaling Expressway) on Friday morning, an hour drive north of Beijing. It's organized by the system research group, about 25 people divided into two teams: Fox of Desert and Hunter. We had 4 battles, in all of which the defender fell. Maybe it's because of the rules. Well, the game is pretty cool. However, even leaves could block the laser so we cannot enjoy it in jungles.

Towers in Beijing

Bicycling around the city of Beijing is always a nice sport:-) It's a pity that only a few gates and almost none walls have survived, leaving only ugly concrete jungles.

I passed by the archery tower at Deshengmen (Google Maps) on the way to Houhai. Yu Qian defended the city in 1449 against the Mongol army here, though he failed to defend himself against slander after the triumph.
Deshengmen Archery Tower / 德胜门箭楼

Jingshan (Google Maps), where the last emperor of Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen, hanged himself, is a symbol of the fall of a dynasty and the end of an era.
Jingshan / 景山

There are four gorgeous corner towers of the Forbidden City, one tower at each corner.
Northwest Corner Tower / 紫禁城西北角楼
Northeast Corner Tower / 紫禁城东北角楼
I didn't bring a tripod yesterday since I was alone, so it's really hard to shoot at night. Two boys nearby were quite happy with their equipments, talking and laughing, which reminded me of one evening at Wangfujing last year with TuotuoXP and Weidog.

Here is my route for yesterday.

Houhai Again

I bicycled to Houhai from campus yesterday afternoon. It was really a good day to walk around.

Green and Gray
Prunus triloba / 榆叶梅
Thanks to Jack again for helping with recognizing flowers.

The Weekend in Wuhan

This was my third time to Wuhan. Arriving on last Friday morning, fishy met me at the railway station. Then we enjoyed our breakfast, re gan mian, my favorite. Later we took a short walk on the beautiful campus of Wuhan University, which is famous for its cherry blossoms. More photos can be found at fishy's blog.

In the afternoon we bought some cat food for Fuwa (fishy's cat) in Hankou, then hung around the East Lake in Wuchang, the largest lake in a city in China.

It's quite amazing to sit along the lake (right on the path in the middle of the map) and watch the sunset.

We had supper in Jianghan Lu in Hankou. The photo below was shot right here.

I left for Beijing the next day, and hurried to prepare my slides for a whole day on Sunday. That's the end of the story. Many thanks to fishy!

Chinese New Year

Wow, this is my boy. Why is he always that cute:-)

Lanterns everywhere.

The skyline of Haikou (Google Maps).

Nirvana

After all the messy debugging stuff, I spent two amazing hours this afternoon in Nirvana with mystery and spiderman, a popular health club located quite near our campus. It's my first time to enjoy those equipments. Just running on a treadmill and seeing the sun getting down, wow, that's really cool. Usually I'd like to take a run in the evening on the Stadium. However, in winters and springs of Beijing it sucks due to bad weather, especially the well-known sandstorms that are so perfect to enjoy. I'm still considering whether to join them now, for it's really busy with projects this month.

Xidi and Hongcun

This Tuesday I visited Xidi and Hongcun, two famous ancient villages in southern Anhui, honored by UNESCO. Traditional houses in southern Anhui were fascinating that no windows were on walls at all, left only some skylights for ventilating. Usually there was one skylight on the roof in front of the hall and maybe some on the roof of bedrooms. This made the house wet and cold.

About 80 percent of the residents of Xidi are of the Hu family. It's recorded that one son of Li Ye (867 - 904, the 19th emperor of the Tang dynasty) was sheltered secretly. Later the emperor and most of the royal family was murdered by Zhu Wen except this son, brought up safely by a nanny whose husband was of the Hu family. His descendants took Hu as the family name rather than Li, and that's the origin of the village.

The villagers were rather friendly.
Hongcun was nearby. About 70 percent of the residents are of the Wang family. Hongcun was arranged in the shape of an ox, two trees (one pagoda tree and one ginkgo tree) as its horns, streams as intestines and lakes as the stomachs. It's because the village were burned down several times that they designed so many streams and lakes around houses. The two trees were also interesting that I thought it was something about yin-yang balance in Chinese culture.

The journey ended in Tuesday evening, at the Xin'an river.

I took a flight back to Beijing and got to the campus late at night. Though not tired, nothing had changed except more work was left. It's time to move on.