Accepting DATIC's Best Paper Award
Hey guys, just blogging to talk about my trip to the lovely city of Suzhou in The Peoples Republic of China. Firstly, I strongly think if there is somewhere you must visit before you die, China is the place!
I arrived in Shanghai early Tuesday morning (November 23), to an awaiting driver. We had to drive 2 1/2 hours to get to Suzhou from Shanghai. I must say, that I have never seen since a large city as Shanghai! Even Suzhou, which on Google Maps looks like a fairly small area is truly huge.
Once I arrived at the Conference Center, I went for a walk around the Higher Education Park to try and get my bearings really. The follow day I visited the main city of Suzhou and walked from many of the parks and also visited the Humble Administrators Garden.
The first day of the conference went well, I presented our paper MobDSL (see publications) and click here to see the presentation slides. Other presentations interested me, especially the paper by Kevin Lee on using Amazon Web Services with sensor networks. I think there is a true case where processing scalability can really be needed when a unusual amount of data requires analysis.
Towards the evening, we went to the Kempinski Hotel for the banquet and free flowing beer. I must say, in China you really know what you are eating! Because of my issue with eating meat from the bone, I ended up taking a liking the the different vegetarian food and Tofu dishes. Later we headed down the in-house German style brewery for free flowing beer. This seemed rather unusual at first, particularly as the Chinese waitresses were wearing the stereotype Austrian waitress type of dress, which on the small framed Chinese was rather amusing, though 10/10 for effort and service!
The second day was shorter than the first as it was really only half a day, one of the presentations couldn’t go ahead because the author was sick and there were technical difficulties in doing it via VoIP and online presentation tools. The conference was close and best paper awards were given. I was lucky enough to win Best paper for the DATIC’s Workshop, which I was far from being prepared for accepting it.
My final day then consisted of seeing as much Chinese culture as was humanly possible as I was flying home early Sunday morning. I managed to go and see Tiger Hill and Master of the Nets Garden.
Recently I’ve been invited on the Technical Program Committee for NESEA’11, which will be great to get involved with.
Overall, I had a truly amazing time. I met many great people that I hope to stay in contact with, and really have seen that Asia is somewhere that I really need to explore and experience.
Until next time!