May 21-26
International Conference on Software Engineering
5/21
- Breakfast at the hotel and
subway to the conference. This time I found a way to use the machines in the subway station. They
had a button for English, and you merely had to touch your target station and insert some
coins. I used this method for the remainder of my stay in
Shanghai. On this day, I
attended a workshop on the Role of
Abstraction, where I made a short
presentation. Luncheon for
this and the remaining days of my stay was at the Seagull restaurant,
adjacent to the Convention
Center, where a nice lunch buffet offered a variety of tasty choices. I
ate enough
at lunch that I was able to skip dinner that night except for the
banana I had snarfed at breakfast
and the two chocolate KitKats the hotel embelished their turn-down
service with.
5/22
- Another workshop, this one on
Mining Software Repsitories. A
good group, and my GT student, Chris
Parnin, gave a "Lightning Talk" in
the afternoon. The evening featured the first of many banquets I would attend in China; this in
an alcove in the Seagull. These banquets featured some number of circular tables outfitted with
Lazy Susans. During the next several hours, dishes would be brought out and placed on the revolving
glass plate for all to sample. Food and company were quite good, but the final three or four
offerings went mostly untouched by the stuffed participants.
5/23
- The second day of the MSR
workshop. Seagull lunch and no dinner.
5/24
- First day of the
main conference. Much pomp and ceremony "opening" China to the
International Software
Engineering community. Interesting talks and another Seagull
lunch. Dinner was another banquet, this time featuring awards and
entertainment (acrobats, ritual martial arts, and dancers).
Competing
with the
entertainment was a
long-lasting and elaborate fireworks show across the street and visible through the curtains in the
banquet hall. The banquet was in the Conference Center, and the food was quite good.
5/25
- I thought I would skip the
keynote on this morning. I had heard that "Old Shanghai" was interesting. I took the subway one stop
instead of two, but turned the wrong way at the exit and went north instead of south. The
streets were really bustling. Spillover from shops effectively blockaded the sidewalks, forcing
pedestrians to walk in the streets, dodging motercycles, bicycles
and cars. Crossing streets was an
adventure, and I took to staying with the pack of other people rather than trying to time things
myself. I ended up in an area where all of the shops sold hardware: pipes, nuts and bolts, and
fittings of various sorts. This went on for quite a while and gave me a picture of what Shanghai was
like away from the tourist areas. Eventually, I found a street name and realized my
misdirection. I wandered my way south until I can to the area I
was looking for, narrow walking
streets filled with shops. I had no set itinerary, but eventually found YoYuan Gardens, which I had been
told was interesting and featured a famous dumpling restaurant. It was crowed, but featured some nice
architecture and a concrete-enclosed pond compete with water lilies.
My plan was now to take a taxi
to the
convention center. I walked in the general direction until I found a busy street. I raised my arm and
a taxi pulled over. I showed him the prepared card I had brought with the name of the
Convention Center. Combined with pointing at the visible Pearl Tower, we reached a mutual
understanding. The ride cost 19Y and went without incident.
That evening, I took the conference
shuttle back to the hotel. This was uneventful except for the fact that the traffic made it quite slow.
5/26
- Because I had been waking so
early, I decided that I would explore the possibility of using the Maglev train to get to the airport.
This time I purchased a 4Y card that took me to a station adjacent to where the train left. I
wandered around enough to find the ticket booth and confirm the price I had heard about. Another
4Y took me back to the Conference.