Ralph's China Blog

Farewell... on our way home

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:29:51 -0700

Bob and Alson have just walked off to catch their plane; their departure is the end of an amazing eleven day adventure. By turns exhausting, inspiring, confusing, challenging, entertaining and, for six minutes, absolutely exhilarating, this trip will be recalled as one of the most memorable of my life. I greatly appreciate the roles that they, and my TQ roommate, John Cox, played in this traveling drama.
Begging the indulgence of any readers, I’d like to take a few minutes to reflect on this trip, in ways technical and philosophical.
Technology-wise, everything worked pretty well. The “MacBook nano” was a serviceable substitute for a real Mac. Its limitations (processor speed, keyboard, screen) were known in advance, as were its advantages (light weight and small size). In daily use, it met, and even exceeded my expectations. The only minor annoyance was logging onto networks, which required manual intervention that would not be necessary on a real Mac.

More Eclipse Shots

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:18:45 -0700

It is our last day in Hong Kong and our focus is moving towards packing and getting to the airport. Other than some nearby shopping, there won’t be much exploring today. With this in mind, I am posting a few more shots from the eclipse. The Mac folks following this blog will be interested to know that the only processing I did on these images was done in iPhoto - mostly cropping and exposure adjustment.
All images were captured with a Canon EOS 400 (XTi) with a 300mm lens, simply tripod mounted in a vertical orientation. Exposure timing, shutter speed and f-ratio were all controlled by Solar Eclipse Maestro running my “MacBook nano” over a USB connection. While the set-up worked beautifully, my shutter speeds tended to be a bit fast for the conditions.

The Mother of All Stairs

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:30:38 -0700

Since the afternoon at the Great Wall, “stairs” have been an ongoing joke and, occasionally, a challenge. Well, today we encountered the mother of all stairs as we visited the Big Buddha at Ngong Ping. Making it even more interesting was the weather - it had just finished raining and the sun had come out, creating a sauna effect as we climbed to the top. The effort was worth it; the view from the top was spectacular.

Tourists in Hong Kong

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:59:00 -0700

Our day in Hong Kong was a busy one. It began with “breakfast” at a dim sum restaurant in a cultural center near the hotel; it was cool watching Alson order in Cantonese. After polishing off the mango pudding, we walked to the Hong Kong Museum of History, where we spent much of the day. Frankly, it was one of the best history museums I have ever toured; my knowledge of this part of the world and appreciation of its past were greatly expanded by the hours we spent there.
Afterwards, we went to to Space Museum. There I was struck by the attention given to the American space program - far greater than the treatment accorded either the Soviet/Russian or even the Chinese efforts. Later we saw a nicely produced planetarium show on the dawn of the space age.
The day finished on the edge of the harbor watching the largest light show in the world. I’ve included both a panorama and a bit of video for your entertainment; the later shows but a fraction of the whole event.

In the Footsteps of Jackie Chan

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:03:08 -0700

We made it to Hong Kong, but not until after we sat on the ground for longer than it took to fly there from Shanghai. Ugh.
Because our arrival was later than expected, we shortened our itinerary and, after a bit of a rest stop at the hotel, we went to Victoria Peak, where we had a great dinner and took a lot of twilight photos of Hong Kong harbor (the title shot is just from my point-n-shoot; wait until you see the panorama from my XTi). This may be the most spectacular skyline in the work.
I am more tired than I can say, so I am going to flop into bed for a while. If you are following this blog, you might want to come back later - I will make additions when I can think straight. Until then, thanks to Alson for a great job of planning our first day activities in HK.

The Day After

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:08:14 -0700

It is Thursday and we are on our way to Hong Kong for a few more days of touring before returning to California. The morning check of online sites covering the solar eclipse brought a very nice surprise - my image of totality made the cover of Sky & Telescope’s online edition.
Ok, I am a little bit proud. Or a lot. Both Alson and Bob shot far, far better stuff, but my blog went up first and I alerted the S&T editor - who has been traveling with us - to it.
By the way, for the Mac guys following my blog, the image was taken by Solar Eclipse Maestro controlling my Canon XTi; it was simply mounted on a tripod with a 300mm lens. Thanks to Xavier for the great software – worked flawlessly!
In case it changes by the time you see it, the screen grab is here:

How Sweet It Is!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:27:17 -0700

It is hard to describe the sense of euphoria when that last bit of the Sun gets covered and the chromosphere appears. It was an amazing moment - doubtless made more sweet by what we had to do to experience it - ranking up there with staring into the radiant of the 2001 Leonid meteor storm at 2:20 AM.
Yes, the gods smiled on us. There were high clouds, and broken low clouds, but the duration and altitude of the eclipse worked in our favor and we saw it all. We decided to return to the Wuhan airport and set up in a small park. There, we were joined by about 30-40 other people from several foreign nations, including Japan and South Carolina.
The title shot and "diamond ring" was taken mid-eclipse by moi with a Canon XTi and 300mm lens, the combo simply mounted on a tripod. The camera, controlled by my MacBook nano and Solar Eclipse Maestro, functioned perfectly, although my exposure bracketing might have been better. I will post more of the pictures in a separate entry.
The clouds imparted special drama to the event, some of which was captured by Bob in spectacular wide-angle shots. We also shot video, both of the eclipse and the scene; you can see a snippet of the latter at the bottom of the page.

Escaping to Wuhan

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:05:37 -0700

Ok, here is what we are doing: The cloud cover prospects for Shanghai suck for tomorrow morning; in fact, it could be raining. The TQ group is looking at moving its observing site slightly south to improve the chances of seeing anything, but it doesn't look good. Meanwhile, me, Bob, Alson and John are booked on a China Southern flight to Wuhan late this afternoon, which is about 450 miles west and south of here. We plan to stay overnight in a downtown hotel in Wuhan, and in the early morning return to the airport and set up in a park there (see title picture). If all goes well, we return to Shanghai in the early afternoon.
Wish us luck on this adventure within an adventure.

Down & Out in Shanghai

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:38:30 -0700

After days of travel and touring and eating and not much sleeping, we decided to take a “down” day. We skipped a long trip into the countryside to see a silk factory for some alternate touring and a bit of rest.
Our plan for the morning was to go to the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum, an adventure that included unescorted use of the local subway system (cross the city for the equivalent of 65-cents). Unfortunately, when we arrived at the museum, we discovered it was closed on Mondays. Ugh. However, we took pictures of the outside; my panorama is at the bottom of the blog. To say it was stunning is a gross understatement. There was also a moment of humor, captured in a shot with my roommate, John.
Ok, back on the train, we return to the neighborhood of the hotel. Alson wants a new point-n-shoot and an electric razor, so we go exploring. The first consumer electronics store we visit is a local one with a good selection but unexciting prices. A couple blocks further down the street is a Best Buy - yup, a Best Buy - and purchases get made there.

I’m Walking on Air

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:58:16 -0700

I’ll get straight to the lead: We are in Shanghai, and one of the first places we visited was Television Tower (picture below left). But the title shot was taken from almost 1,000 feet up on a glass floored observation deck. Yes, that is right, the picture was taken looking straight down, shooting past feet standing on the glass (my foot at bottom, Bob’s at right, two Asian girls at left and top). And if you don’t believe me, check out the video on the RAS Wanders blog.
Another early high point during the day was the ride on the Maglev train from the airport into Shanghai. During an eight-minute trip, we got up to 270 mph. Very cool.
The finale for the day was a boat trip that allowed us to watch a light show on the waterfront buildings. While not as spectacular as the display we will see in a couple days in Hong Kong, it was nonetheless breathtakiing.

A Walk in the Park

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:07:30 -0700

Sorry, your correspondent is lagging behind the flow of events. But I am on a flight from Beijing to Shanghai right now (to my left, the editor-in-chief of Sky & Telescope, the RAS Chief Observer to my right) and I have a few minutes to write (actually, it is Sunday now, but since it is still Saturday in the US, I am going with the blog date as-is).
The big thing on Saturday was our visit to the summer palace in Beijing, which is now a public park of enormous scale and great beauty. Bob, Alson, Robert Naeye (S&T) and I broke away from the group and had the chance to do once-in-a-lifetime landscape and architectural photography. The images on this page were from my point-and-shoot; the stuff I shot with the XTi was even better (thanks to Frank for the telephoto).
After a painfully long experience at a pearl farm/restaurant, we visited an old residential neighborhood and took a rickshaw ride (see movie below). That was followed by a quick tour of the 2008 Olympic Park. By the time we got back to the hotel after dinner, most of us were toast.
Speaking of toast, the wake up call this morning was at 4 AM.

Me & Chairman Mao

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:59:39 -0700

This is a quick entry; I will come back later and write more.
We spent the day in central Beijing, mostly in the Forbidden City, but other places as well. It rained most of the day, but once we became accustomed to being wet, it was nice to be cool. We ran into Alex twice during the day, a sorta amazing thing given the size of Beijing.
Anyway, more later...
Later: After the Forbidden City, we went to the Temple of the Sun, a beautiful complex of buildings with wonderful colors that we sadly muted by the grey light; thankfully, it stopped raining during our visit.
In the afternoon, we visited the ancient Beijing Observatory, where we again crossed paths with Alex. We also saw Richard Binzel there - he was the co-author of a paper on asteroids that was the catalyst for spectrographic work Bob and I are doing at GMARS.

Of Ming Tombs & Great Walls

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:30:08 -0700

Wow, this was a big day. And a long one.
It began about 3 AM, when - after about six hours of really deep sleep - sleeping didn’t feel possible any more. Since my roommate, John, was already up, we spent a few hours talking about NASA and Star Trek, when I turned my attention to some work items for a while, and probably ran up a pretty good international telephone bill.
We finally showered and went to breakfast, and then got on the bus to our first destination, the Ming Tombs - burial grounds for the Ming dynasty emperors. Or something. Frankly, I enjoyed the historic architecture more than the tour.
From there we went to a combination jade emporium and restaurant. While the jade stuff was interesting - they had actual artisans working the stone on-site behind glass walls - it was also obviously set up to suck some sales from the restaurant crowd. I obliged them. Lunch was done at round tables with a lazy susan in the middle, and was notable for the variety of things that were served.
For the astronomical readers, Bob and I sat next to Robert Naeye, the Editor-in-Chief of Sky & Telescope magazine. One of the things we learned from him was that S&T planned to run a series of articles over the next year on pro-am collaborations. We pitched the activities at GMARS pretty hard to Robert; maybe something will come of it.
After lunch we went to one of the highly anticipated destinations for the trip - the Great Wall. Here, the bicycle riding I’ve been doing the last few months paid off. Basically, the part of the wall we toured went straight up - I mean, STRAIGHT UP. By the time Alson, Bob and I reached the one of the towers near the ridge line, we were soaked in sweat.
Fortunately, the trek down was easier (although still a bit treacherous). The showers back at the hotel were welcome, and then it was off to a special meal featuring, well, let’s just call it “unique” entertainment. I imagine the bed is going to feel pretty good tonight.

Yeah, we all made it to Beijing!

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:01:17 -0700

Everybody in “our” group - Bob, Alson and I, along with my travel roommate John Cox from South Carolina - have made it safely to Beijing. If that sounds a bit theatrical, please understand the medical quarantine thing is a serious matter here, and some pretty crazy stuff can lead to your being dragged away.
Bob was the first person I saw as I walked into the hotel this afternoon. He was going out the door to take advantage of a special short tour of an art museum created from an old factory building; I went immediately upstairs and took advantage of a very good shower. Then I was off to the bar for a couple Tsing Tao beers - in a bottle today, but I was told tomorrow I could get it on draft. Later this evening, we are all going to have dinner together.

Sitting in Seoul, hoping I get into China

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:39:31 -0700

I am in the Seoul (Incheon) airport, getting ready to board my flight to Beijing. Bob and Alson are already there. Wish me luck with the absurd medical processing that China employs.
Meanwhile, I made a brief trip into downtown Seoul. It is a clean, modern city, but it doesn’t have much soul (pun intended), or as a friend once said to me about another place, it will never be charming. It didn’t help that it is an overcast, gray day. By the way, there was lots of evidence of the recent flooding this part of Korea has experienced.
What Seoul does have, on almost every corner, are Dunkin Donuts. Go figure. Heck, there was even a Mister Donut.

I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:55:38 -0700

This is just a quick post to let you know that my bags are packed, I am ready to go. Almost out the door. A few details to cover, last minute changes (just got a notice from the airline that my departure from Hong Kong - almost two weeks from now - has been pushed back a few hours), a quick dinner, etc.
I am stopping in Seoul along the way, so my first post may include some pictures from there. I’ve been foiled in my last-minute effort to get to the DMZ - not enough time.
One last note: This blog was sent from my MacBook nano. This keyboard is going to take some getting used to...