Wednesday, June 08, 2005

UK trip day 1

[So I've finally come back from UK. I have very limited internet access over there and hence not blogging; but to make it more clear what's going on, let's pretend I'm writing this every day during the trip... (12/6/05)]

I arrive London early in the morning. Since I'm not the one to pay, an expensive airline is chosen. But expensive is not always the same as good: the flight is the coldest I have ever taken, one of the toilet is closed for repair, my screen is basically not functioning, etc.

Anyway, after that I took the underground and then a 75-minute train to Leicester. I had a short walk around the city centre for a while, before going to the university in the afternoon to visit the faculty "informally". It's really sunny over there and I feel it even hotter than Hong Kong...

As reported in this page there are lots of Indians there. Not much Chinese in the city, but quite some Chinese students in the campus, although the campus is within walking distance to the city centre. The first four Chinese characters that I see in the city is 專業剪髮 ...

I meet with four faculty staff and a PhD student, all in the Algorithms and Complexity group. Perhaps the most important observation is that one of them has a wife from mainland China, another has a Taiwanese wife, yet another has some connections with Chinese that I don't remember...

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