China journal

Hi All,

It is my last day in China, tonight I already return back to Tel-Aviv.

I am sitting in my tiny Hong Kong hostel room, it is shower rain outside and I am already wet enough from walking outside. So I'll try to finally type and compose my promised China journal. Expect bunch of the posts being published in next two days!

For now, I would refer you to Darek's blog page about his Beijing and ISCA impressions. Very interesting reading !

10 Jul 2008, Hong Kong

China journal: Xian

Xian

A bit longer than one hour flight passed very quickly. Xian airport is very nice with very helpful English speaking personal at tourist information desk. So I bought a map of Xian city and took a bus to the railroad station of Xian. At the railroad station I supposed to meet with hostel people - free pickup service from train station. Free pickup service turned out to be a boy "a little" speaking English which took me to the hostel by public bus #309. After around 40 minutes a bus dropped us somewhere in the deep hole, may be one of the poorest quarters of the city. The hostel looked no more better than a area it is located in so I just grabbed my bags and escaped from there back to the train station.

First lesson to me - never ever take an accommodation without checking its location in the city and reading as many reviews as possible about the place ! Actually reviews about the hostel weren't too bad, and it had pretty high score in the http://www.hostelworld.com/ (might be they are cheating?). Also the messages I received from the hostel were written in very good English, showing respect to the guest and crating very good reputation for the place. Turned out you can believe none of this.

So I left in the Xian train station, just in front of the city wall so I entered in and just started to walk in. After 5 minutes walking I seen local travel agency and communicating through Google online Chinese-English translator found that a nearest hotel is just 5 minutes walking into the town.

BTW, I wonder if I could find and install offline electronic translator between English and Chinese or some other language to my iPod. This would be really helpful for communication at least here, in China. It would be almost must-to-have device here.

So I walked to the hotel and ... The hotel was located just two blocks away from Ludao International Hostel building so I checked the hostel as well. No words, the place was just great ! Very helpful English speaking personal (everybody spoke very good English), free Internet, bicycle rental for 15Y a day and travel information. The room was no worse than hotel rooms I stayed in US, except it had a shower instead of bathroom. As in Beijing they provided everything you might only need during your stay - soap, shampoo, tooth brush, small tube of tooth paste, shaving cream, razor, even a comb and shower shoes. Everything for single use.

All this took quite a long time so I settled down just around 2PM instead of 11AM I planned. But no problem, the hostel personal helped me to organize a trip to the Terracotta Army museum, the guy from hostel reception even walked with me all the way to the bus stop to show me exactly where it is.

The most popular Xian attractions for the tourists are:

• Terracotta Army Museum (of course it is #1)
• Bell Tower and Drum Tower in the heart of the old city
• Xian city wall
• Big and Small Wild Goose Pagodas

But it turned out that a bus #306 route to the Terracotta Army has quite a lot of other interesting things on the way, for example a few museums you might be want visiting or Hot Springs SPA resort to relax after long work or travel.

Terracotta Army

I arrived to the Terracotta Army Museum around 3PM when museum closes at 5:30PM so I had two and half hours for browsing and taking pictures - actually much more than needed. The museum is a four large air-conditioned buildings (to preserve remainings of ether warriors) surrounded by huge and very nice green park. In the normal day it might be nice to walk around the park but during my visit it was just too hot for it - 38C in the shadow, close to 50C on the sun (i.e. everywhere), not something pleasant, so I actually found myself hiding from the outside heat inside the museum buildings.

Out of 4 buildings only actually two were interesting enough. The first building (Pit #1) is most interesting one, it contains very large army of Terracotta warriors and horses, total should be more than 5000 units. It is where most of the pictures were taken :) The second building (Pit #2) is significantly smaller but also very impressive. The Pit #3 is not really interesting, it is the same size as Pit #1 but nothing is restored. The глинянные warriors in Pit #3 or completely covered under sand or almost completely destroyed and you only see and small pieces of it. The fourth building is just a museum which is partly even not related to the Terracotta Army itself. Entrance to the complex is 80Y and only half price 40Y for students. My old Technion student card worked very well, so I saved 40Y thanks to it.

Bell Tower and Drum Tower

Bell Tower and Drum Tower are located just in the heart of Xian in the distance of just a few hundreds meters one from another. The large bell from the Bell Tower was originally used to notify ancient Xian city citizens about daytime passing. The large drum from the Drum Tower was heard during the night, first strike to notify about the city gates being closed, second strike at midnight and third strike to notify about end of the night and city gates being opened. The day bell and the night drum.

Bell Tower

Although the towers already over 600 years old it seems that they were recently renovated and adopter as tourist attractions. Which of course didn't make them any better. I have heard it before but now I seen it in my own, the Chinese do not really care for the antiques restoration, more suitable word for that they do is renovation. As everywhere Chinese figure out that remaining antiques could be tourist attraction and therefore source of money, so they do everything to keep these antiques from being destroyed. But instead of restoring the antiques original look, they usually rebuild and re-painted using modern materials, beautifully illuminated and filled with museums and souvenir shops. After the renovation 1000 year old temple look like its Disney Land or Hollywood copy. The entrance fee to the each of the towers is 27Y, again I've got half price using my Technion student card expired in 2003.

The main attraction of the Bell Tower is its large bell, and for just 10Y you could strike it 3 times or even 10 times for 30Y. The poster near bell claims that striking a bell brings you some luck. The boom of the strike is very impressive and heard a few hundreds of meters around. For the Drum Tower, it has very nice collection and museum of drums and you also could strike a large drum starting from the same 10Y price. There are many smaller drums as well with Chinese characters meaning health, luck, richness and etc. Striking the drum (for money of course) supposed to bring (or at least to wish) you relevant property.

Drum Tower

I went to the both Towers at the evening, after I came back from Terracotta Army museum, took a dinner and shower in my hotel. Both towers look very nice during the night, very beautifully illuminated and also not so many visitors at the same time. The security also was pretty sleeping so I went around taking pictures against "no photo" signs, hitting drums against "no striking" signs and generally doing things that most likely weren't permitted during the day.

Cycling Xian, Ancient City Wall

On the next day I had to be at the airport at 4PM to continue my journey and fly to Lijiang. This didn't left me so much time for attractions so the guy at hostel suggested me to rent a bicycle (just for 10Y a day) and go cycling around the city. After it I could commit that doing that was the best way of committing suicide for non prepared person. The traffic is not really paying attention on the bicycles, cars are driving through special bicycles lanes and every time you need to pass some intersection you have to leave the bicycle line and join to the main traffic. Already after 10 minutes I got crashed into motorcyclist which just suddenly appeared in front of me. I was on the bicycle main lane and he just crossed the road by pedestrians crossing. But everything end fine, the fact that I don't understand a word in Chinese also helped a lot, a guy started shout on me in Chinese but figured out very quickly that I am not really affected by it so he just picked up his bike and continued his way.

I did a round cycle outside the Xian ancient city wall, when took it up the wall (don't ask me how, I know it is generally not allowed) and did a round trip on the top as well. The entrance to the city wall is through South Gate, entrance fee is 40Y or 20Y thanks my expired Technion student card again. The wall is huge, it is possible to walk on the wall around the city for a few hours. There are plenty of bicycle rental places on the wall for price of 20Y (this is why you are not allowed to enter with your own!) and you need to leave 200Y cash deposit for the bicycle itself. Outside the city wall it is pretty nice park to travel if don’t want to pay money and go up to the wall. I think the entrance to the park is also costs some money but I just passed the gate with a speed on a bicycle without stopping so I don't know for sure :)

After I drove to look a Big Wild Goose Pagoda but already seen it only from the main square. I had no time to continue because I had to come back and take the airport shuttle bus. Actually later I was told that I missed might be one of the biggest Xian attractions - music and fountain show near the Pagoda followed by people jumping into to the fountain during the night. OK, so I left something for the next time !

Beijing tips

Hi All,

Today is 30 Jun 2008 and I am have a good time and relaxing in Lijiang old town Panba Guesthouse. Just for 100Y I enormous huge room, not worse than I had in Beijing Crown Plaza***** in Olympic village. Tomorrow I plan to take two days track on to Tiger Leaping George and then after one more day in Lijiang to continue towards Guiling through Kunming.

But about Lijiang later. One friend of mine asked to post some tips for China before I forget everything so I'll do it on the fly now. I am not going to discover new Lonely Planet but probably will write some tips which I personally didn't see or may be missed in the book. Especially the things that surprised me for good or for bad as well.

Beijing.

Those of you who visited Moscow before will always have a reference to compare. Beijing city is organized very similar to Moscow city, just the subway is not so developed (yet). Local tell that Beijing really did a huge leap ahead in a past few years due to coming Olympics. Actually I was just 6 weeks before the Olympics and seen the *unfinished* Beijing which is still in final stages of the building most of the city. The subway line 10 to the Olympic village wasn't open yet and the train to the airport still unfinished.

During my stay Beijing was completely covered by smog, in combination with low clouds it made the air practically visible by naked eye. I had a hard time to breath and really suffered when had to walk around the city. Sometimes, thanks to rain or wind, it was getting clear for a few hours or a day but the air pollution remain. The only places with fresh air are shopping malls and … subway. The subway is air conditioned so I really enjoyed using it for taking rest from walking and breathing fresh and cool air. And actually people are aware of problem and not just used to the it (see the picture), the China government trying to takes some steps to reduce amount of Beijing smog at least during the Olympics period. Probably they will have to shut down the factories around the city or restrict amount of private cars.

Beijing smog

Transportation:

The taxi is relatively cheap. The drivers not cheating you, they start a counter immediately and going shortest (ok, sometimes fastest) way to your destination. I never heard from somebody that was taken through all the city instead of 5 minutes of direct driving. The taxi costs 10Y for first two kilometers + 2Y/km so going through all the city from say Olympic village to Summer palace took me around 30Y only (which is around 15 NIS). The taxi from the airport took 70Y also because there are few toll gates or bridges in the way and taxi driver include the pass fee in the price.

Inside the city the best solution is to use subway. The subway is very modern, most of the lines there just recently open (or will be open soon) before the Olympics. Everything is in English inside, you don't have any problem of buying tickets of finding your directions The price is only 2Y and it usually even faster than a taxi.

Walking around is a bit dangerous, the drivers in China are OK, but they not really paying attention to the traffic regulation rules. When you crossing the street on your green light you easily could be … say almost hit by taxi or bike which not paying attention on the red light. Even worse, in looks like in China it is allowed to turn right on red, like in US. The only difference that in China none of drivers will pay so much attention on people crossing the street and just will drive through. Sometimes you wonder how do they succeed and nobody gets killed … but actually they DO and very often.

Prices:

Relatively to rest of the China Beijing is expensive. The locals tell that just to survive in Beijing you have to make at least 3000-4000Y a month (which is 440-580$). Not so expensive, you could still eat in the restaurant for 50-100Y per person which is twice cheaper that Israel has. But don't expect you will find super attractive prices in the shopping mall. On the Hai-Dan market the prices for electronics were pretty similar to US prices and you NEVER would not what you actually bought. The Silk Market in a separate story - it could be defined as a practical classes for the bargain skills. None of the goods has a price written on it or price is extremely overcharged. Every bargain starts exactly the same - you get a "especial good price" which around 50 times bigger than a real one and you trying to make as low as possible until both sides agree or you just walk away. And you will never know if you picked up a good price or not. Even if you managed to get a price you standing for, you still never know if you would able to get the same thing twice cheaper. If you not so experienced/getting tired/stressed of the bargain you could try one of different markets. The Silk Market s not the only pearl market in Beijing, for example the you could try Honqiao Pearl market near the Temple of Heaven subway station. It has pretty the same but bargain is MUCH less aggressive.

What else ? English speaking.

Again because of Olympics Beijing is somehow could be considered English friendly. Here is mine observation about Chinese English skills in general:

• Do not speak English.
  Sometimes even don't know that the word "English" means.


• Speak English "A little"
  Usually could say a few words in English but understand nothing of that you say.


• Speak English
  Could speak and understand but sometimes have terrible accent of don't understand many words. But if you patient enough you usually could explain in different words that do you mean be be well understood.


• Know English.
  Speak English fluently, sometimes even better that I do.

Most of the people in Beijing are still first two types of English speakers so Olympics guests better to be prepared. Of course sometimes I had good surprises, people are usually very friendly and ready to help if you got lost or looking for something.

Did I forget anything ? Ask, I will try to answer.

P.S. some fine selection from more than 200 pictures of Forbidden City already on my Zenfolio page !

The Great Wall of China

I just uploaded some of the Great Wall excursion pictures to Zenfolio. The weather at the Great Wall wasn't perfect so my applogizes for the pictures quality.

Tonight I am leaving Beijing and flying to Xian, starting my China vacation. No more business, but also may be no more internet.

Hopefully will be able to post my notes and/or pictures at least once a week.

ISCA-35, Beijing - impressions

ISCA-35, Beijing - impressions

I am in the first time attending a major computer architecture conference so everything looks very especial for me. Might be would not shave anything from the papers presented (actually, might do) but the conference is still very amazing event which is definitely was worth attending. The conference might be the best place to meet many, many people from academia and industry, which are by the way very interested in that I do, and exchange ideas or build some relationships. So I used the opportunity and collected a few business cards.

Actually if only two weeks ago I didn’t know where to continue beyond Bochs 2.3.7, now I booked with fresh ideas at least for a next year or two :)
Pretty sure next Bochs release will be even more impressive than current Bochs 2.3.7, which is might be a first major breakthrough since Bochs 2.0 release in Dec 2002.

About papers and presentations, I think Justin Rattner's keynote perfectly summarizes the spirit of ISCA-35. Panel discussion "Computer Architecture Research - are we lost our compass ?" contributed to the general spirit as well.

The micro architecture is dead, nobody could guess how long Intel and AMD still could screw out additional 10% a year from their cores. It is a time a major change both in software and hardware. The ideas already floating around and exists almost in every paper in one form or another: clustering and composite cores, transactional memory, special purpose accelerators … and binary translation as a magic solution for all the problems. Dynamic binary translation was mentioned almost in every paper, even touched some transactional memory papers. I personally believe that new microarchitecture going burn in a just few years from now and it will include hardware or software binary translator onboard.

A few special words about the talk by Weiwi Hu, ICT - "Research and development of Gudson Microprocessor". It turned out the Gudson, a Chinese home made processor, completely architected and designed by team of around a 100 people, when great are students of ICT (Institute of Computing Technology in Chinese Academy of Sciences). In single slide Hu summarized the whole work of the micro-architect in details and main deference of architects from design teams. I loved it !

Organization was very impressive, the ability of organization committee to make a banquet in Great Hall of People Beijing already shows everything. The excursion to the Great Wall today was very impressive as well. The camera I bought working perfect, I'll try to make and post some fine grained selection of the pictures on my Zenfolio tomorrow.

You are welcome to post your comments to the all above or/and e-mail me your tricks and tips for my following trip. I use my iPodTouch everywhere here so I stay connected to the Gmail and could read your mails and even answer.

Ha, isn't I sound like an Apple fan ?
Actually I probably already is or would become soon, after will find where to buy iPhone2 :)

Climbing the Great Wall

Coming next:
Beijing - to be continued (Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Silk Market, Beijing architecture)
Xian
Kunming
Lijiang
Guiling
Hong-Kong and Macao

China journal - Hai Dan Market

Hai Dan Market, Beijing

21.06.2008. Yesterday I finally met with Darek, it is a day before a conference so we planned to play a tourists and walk through the Forbidden City. We were walking down from the subway station and I was playing with my Sony DSC-H3 camera trying to figure out why most of the pictures I take look out focus. After hardware reset pictures still OK but it is enough to zoom in to any object to get all the following images crappy out of focus again.

I am in China, with so many pictures to take and
I DON'T HAVE A CAMERA !
Even there is no reason to go to the Forbidden City!
So we actually cancelled the Forbidden City and went to the Darek's place to prepare for ISCA presentation. And did a very right thing, we had fixed a few slides, run other the presentation again and tested a Bochs side-by-side demo video in the battle-field conditions.

The presentation went just excellent, we probably easily could compete for the title of best presenters of the workshop !

After the lunch we skipped the second part of the day and went to the Beijing Hai Dan Market. A huge electronic market, at least four huge 10 floor towers fully packed by every electronic stuff you could just imagine. Everything you ever saw or heard about could be found here. Darek was looking for newest ASUS EEE PC laptop with large screen resolution and we actually found it at end of the day for the initial price of around $450. The prices probably relatively cheap for Israel but still expensive for the US dollar and especially for tax free Oregon.

Hai Dan Market - second tower, third floor

I end up buying 10Mp Sony DSC-W170 camera with complete kit (battery, cables, charger and Chinese manuals) + 2G Sony memory stick for about 1100 NIS. Not that cheap, but also not such expensive. Could not tell anything bad about the camera till now, let's hope it will survive for the next three weeks !

China journal - Arriving Beijing

Arriving Beijing

The 9 hours of El-Al flight passed very quickly, I actually first time in my life slept during the flight. Probably stressing myself all the day before while making last preparations for the trip and running a dry run of my workshop presentation did the job.

19 June 2008, Beijing is a big surprise, actually the city is almost nothing like my original expectations. Beijing met us with 29 degrees heat and extreme 90 % humidity so I got wet already 10 minutes after leaving the plane. The city is completely covered by smog, you almost could see and touch the air you breathing. In addition it a bit is cloudy today so you actually cannot see farther that 100 meters away.

Next surprise to me, Beijing turned out to be completely western city. I don't know, it is really reminds me Moscow. The Olympic village there my hotel located, turned to be a huge quarter surrounded by 24-36 floors towers of hotels and apartment buildings and small streets I expected to see turned out to be multiline highways. I am actually a walking distance from the modern Beijing architectural wonder - the Olympic stadium - I seen it in NGC only a few weeks ago. But not sure I could make any good picture of it because of the smog that cover everything around.

So today I went everywhere around the Olympic village, visited nearby supermarket and expecting Darek to SMS me soon after he arrives to his hotel and settles down. Hope for better weather tomorrow morning !