Google SydneyTrip & UWA won the competition

This is 2 weeks old. As mentioned in the Happy^Googleplex post, We went over to Sydney on an all expenses paid trip by Google. We flew in on 17/2 Sunday, spent a day at Google office on Darling Harbour on 18th and most of the team went back on 19th. Me and Minh stayed for one more day with Danno.

Highlights:

• We were greeted by a chauffeur with our names on a cardboard at the airport. It was my first time having my name on a cardboard at airport. But I was disappointed that there wasn't a big Google sign on it. Even more disappointed that it wasn't a Google van that took us to our hotel.
• We were put in Amore hotel. Very nice and classy. My room was on 17th floor. Nice view.
  
• Danno met us up for dinner at Pancake on the rock. Good pancake, I like it and like it a lot.

• Monday 9am we met at Google office on Darling Harbour, in the IBM building. We met our 'competitors' too. Haha! Both other teams were from Melbourne U, both were two people team. Compare to us 8 people big full team from UWA to out number everyone, muahaha!
  
• SketchUp user interface designer Matt flew in from US to give us a tech talk.
• Will and Lysandra accompanied us in the Google office tour - but we weren't allowed to take photos beyond the reception. Bummer. But it is nice inside, open space. Food around people.
• Our team and two other Melbourne Uni teams gave a talk on our journey of modelling, it was very informal and fun.
  
• Food is great inside Google! We made our own pizza and roll from the salad bar. There was crab meat on that day.
  
• XBox and Playstation with huge screen mounted on the wall for Googlers' gaming craze during lunch time.
• We went on a tour of Sydney in the afternoon with the Googlers.
  
• Winners were anounced at the hotel atrium before dinner. And our UWA team took the crown. Yes! Each of us were awarded with a goodie bag.
• Google treated us a nice dinner on Darling Harbour looking over the Opera House. Fancy! And there were many quiz challenges from Will, fun!
  

• Most of the team went back on Tuesday. But me and Minh stayed for one more day and Danno took a day off to take us to Blue Mountain. So touched, thanks mate. And Super Horatio helped clear the heavy fog for us there. It was fun. A lot more fun that last time when I went alone.
  
• And at that night I stayed with my UTas best friend Jermin and Yeemei's place. They took me to a Shanghainese restaurant and I was stuffed with fantastic food. So yummy. And that night we chatted till 3am and had to go to airport at 7am.
  
• Me and Minh flew back on Wednesday morning together wearing the proud Google T-shirt.
  

Photos are here:
Evgeni's version


Mine:

2008_02_17-19 Sydney Google trip

And once we come back, Jayjay has been at work to channel out the news that we did win the competition.

UWA News (27 February 2008)


Loconuts (28 February 2008)


Subiaco Post (1 March 2008)


Western Suburb (4 March 2008)


Joondalup Times (5 March 2008)

Photos of Naples and Pompeii

Christmas break was great. I took 4 days off and just relax at home.
And I got some time to revisit my Italy trip photos that I haven't sorted out to post on Picasaweb.

So here they are, Naples and Pompeii.
I only stayed one night in Naples, in order to go to Pompeii. I reached Naples just before dark. Found my way to my hostel. It was a hostel with character. The receptionist are friendly and helpful. She told me where to get the best pizza in town. :) And it was indeed the best I ever had.
But Naples is not good at night. I went to the pizza place called Sorbillo. I ordered a pizza and took it away wanting to find a nearby plaza to sit down and watch people. After 3 minutes walk I still haven't found anything like a plaza, but some chair at the side of the road, so I thought probably I just sit here will do, before the pizza gets cold. So I did. Before I took a first bite of my Margaretta, a guy who's walking his dog walked past and started talking to me in Italian. And eventually he had some English words that I understand, they are - "dangerous here, go home"!!

Then I was a bit scared. I took the pizza and walked back from where I came from. I got back to the pizza place and asked for a place to sit down. (they only have 4 tables). They graciously let me in. I half the Margaretta. It was great! And I ordered another pizza and ate half of it.
The journey back to the hostel is tiptoeing. I found all the bigger, more well-lit road to take and eventually made it back there safely. The Sydney couple I met in my room had started to worry about me. :P

The next morning, breakfast was included. And I had lots of nutella on my bread.

2007_09_17 Naples

I checked out after the filling breakfast and make my way to Pompeii. The ruin is huge. One full day to explore it is definitely worth it. For some unknown reason, the gate wasn't open until about 1 hour late. It was not a bad thing for me as I had all my luggages with me. I found the little shop up the road from the entrance which Lonely Planet mentioned to put my luggage. The young chap there is nice and helpful. I was worried that my laptop will not be safe but I have no choice but to trust the book and him. And it turns out that he is good so I let him keep the change from the storage fee.

Before the door open, there was a guy with a guide tag who was telling people where to go and what was happening. And he said he would get me the 10 euro ticket faster than everyone (so I don't have to queue) and be the guide for 1hour+ for an extra 10 euro. He only took down my name and I don't have to pay until he got me ticket. I thought it was alright so I joint.

The statistics is that 3 million people visited Pompeii every year, so it's about 10 thousand people a day!! So when the gate opened after everyone has been waiting for more than an hour, people rushed in like prison break. It was such a huge chaos there that I could not find that guy. So I paid another guy 20 euros to get in and to join his tour. He gave me a ticket and asked me to wait close to the entrance after I got in. So I got in and waited for him. And I couldn't remember that guys name or how he looked like (Italian all look alike, haha), and eventually the first guy showed up again. So I followed him with an unclear conscience.

The guide showed us to several of the main attractions inside and gave a good explanation of things. When the tour finished, I thought it was unfair to the guide that I followed him but didn't pay him (as I paid another guide and couldn't find him). So I told him and paid him the 10 euro he deserved and felt I did the right thing.
After the tour, I walked to the visitor center to get a map and a guide book (free) to walk around more myself. The map and the guidebook are very detailed but it's not given to you when you get the ticket. So make sure you ask for it if you're going there.

It is a big place. I did not cover everything but was happy with it. And now hit the photos.

2007_09_18 Pompeii

Happy^Googleplex

Yahoo!! Opps, no, I mean Happy^Googleplex (read: happy to the googolplex)!

Yes, we won. We're one of the top 3 finalists in the Google 3D campus competition (Aus/NZ). Hard work was rewarded. :D

Here's what they said in the email:

After much debate and deliberation by our SketchUp competition judges... you have been named one of the "Build Your Campus in 3D" Google SketchUp finalists! Congratulations!!! The judges were truly impressed and we all want to thank you for your hard work and dedication to delivering such a high-quality product.

As one of three finalist teams, you are invited to the all expenses paid on-site trip in February. You will visit our Google Sydney office, listen to a technical talk, and enjoy free time and planned activities, so plan to have a great time! The date is yet to be finalized, but we are shooting for either Friday, February 8th or Friday, February 22nd (depending on when our SketchUp resources are available for a technical talk). I will reach out again to confirm participation and follow-up with travel details.

Now I have a slight problem, I have planned to go back to Malaysia for Chinese New Year which is on 7 Feb, and stayed till end of Feb to help Peter with his Matlab Course in Spore and KL (although that was canceled). I hope eventually the date will be on 22 Feb then I will come back earlier from Malaysia.

Anyhow, it's bloody exciting. Google, here I come.

Update 19/12:

• 3 Finalists: UWA, University of Melbourne (2 teams)
• The winner will be announced during the on-site event in February
• Finalists will visit our Sydney office and enjoy a technical talk, office tour, food in Google's world-famous cafeterias, and planned activities in Sydney
  
• 33 teams officially registered for the competition,

Photos of Venice, Bardi, Florence and Pisa

I have put up the photos of Venice for awhile, didn't remember to post it up here.

2007_09_14 Venice

After Venice, I checked out of the nice hotel and started my backpacker travel again. First stop was to went North a bit to meet up with Alessandro. Alessandro came to UWA as an visiting researcher in 2005 and we had some great time together.
He has been back to Italy for awhile and was working at University of Bologna which is 40 mins train ride from Modena. However, we met up at Fidenza which is a bit more North as he planned to drive me to Bardi to see a castle. It's nice catching up with old friend.

2007_09_15 Bardi Castle with Alessandro

After the castle trip, I took a train South to Florence. It was nice to have Alessandro do the talking to get my train ticket.

Florence was my favorite place in Italy. It's so historical, artistic, grand and stylish. I was amazed by the sight of the Duomo when I came across it on my first night. And the city is beautiful at night. Old buildings with very big doors, full length windows showing the latest fashion, well lit plaza with grand gate. I'm just in awe.

Two days in Florence is just enough to know what is available. I want to come back one day. And I met some students from California State Polytechnic University, they were in Italy for the Formula SAE competition, building a car and race it with other universities in the world. When I told them I'm from UWA, they burst out their admiration on UWA Motorsports team. I was quite happy about that.

2007_09_15-17 Florence

I took a short train ride from Florence to Pisa to see the famous leaning tower. It was a rainy day and I was trapped in the rained and had to buy an umbrella at an ultra ripped off price. Anyhow, the leaning tower is cool. And I met a nice Taiwanese girl Han ZhenHui. She asked me to take some photos for her, and she helped me took some also. Then we went off doing other things and met again at the train station. She was reading a travel guide full of pictures written in Japanese (so much cooler than Lonely Planet) and planned to go to another small town call San Giorgnenanmitmkajdsj?@#$. I chatted with her and then decided to tag along since she had it all planned. Eventually we didn't get to the place since there was no bus coming back after we reached the train station that we had to change to bus. So anyhow, we decided to go to a restaurant and eat. The pizza was good!

Coming back to Florence it was after 9pm, and I was still thinking about the pig besides a market that I saw in the morning while I followed a guided tour. The legend is that you touch the the pig then you'll return to Florence one day. Then she accompanied me to fulfilled the Pig quest. And here's her blog in Chinese - Han*Han's A Story.

And here are the photos in Pisa.

2007_09_16 Pisa

Conference photos at Modena are up

Four days of the International Conference of Image Analysis and Processing (ICIAP) in Modena.
I split them into two albums, first one is the conference part - talks, posters, my presentation, my hotel, cool buildings, interesting toilet, etc. and the second one is the highlight of welcome cocktail at the Ferrari Museum and the very grand conference dinner.

2007_09_10-13 Conference days	2007_09_11-12 Galleria Ferrari & Conference Dinner

If you want more, there are more photos on the conference website photo page.

Amsterdam Photos are up

Yeap the photos are up.

Let me recall on the trip a bit. Before I set foot on Amsterdam, I had on my list several things I know about it - Tulips, Van Gogh, Red light district and diamond. I set out to see the later 3 and I did.

I reached Amsterdam late at night. It took me some effort to get to the Shelter City hostel as it's all dark and I didn't have a proper map of the area. But luckily a nice officer at the train station helped me up. Dutch people are nice. :)

Then I checked in the place, pretty crowded 8 beds dormitory. All other beds are already taken. I got a bed on top. The locker is outside the room. So I chucked my stuffs in the locker and went out for a night venture.
It's funny that the hostel is a Christian hostel with big "Jesus loves you" sign on the wall to greet the guests. But I found it rather strange that it is actually located within the red light district. And some of the girls' business locations are just besides an old church. Sin and savior have never been so close together. I have this irony in mind and one of the volunteer (a nice German girl with fantastic voice, and she played the guitar singing one song she wrote. I'm like melted) there shared a great vision with me that the church should really be at the dirtiest or sinnest place on earth, those people are the one most in need of salvation. I was awe struck, well said!

Anyhow, I did go deep into the redlight district as an observer of life in the very different part of the world. Lots of girls dressed in bikinis pose in their own windows to get business. Some are really good looking, but there are also some which made me pace faster. The good thing there I guess is the "No pimp allowed" law there, so all the girls will get what they get paid for without another layer of exploitation.
Another surprise I get is that I actually felt quite safe walking around there alone. It's very different from my imagination of mafia, sex trade, gang fight, guns and marijuana. I did see people rolling marijuana and smoking it in pub.

I took a boat trip on the day. It's a great way to experience the many canal and see the leaning buildings. They say "Nothing is straight in Amsterdam", the road at funny angles with each other, the buildings are leaning left and right, and even the people, hehe, it's the gay capital!

I went to Van Gogh Museum and learnt that he's another very sad and depressed artist. Artistic wise, there are nice paintings to see. That's all I can say. Haha! Oh, a surprise is that there are some Japanese geisha painting (typical Japanese style) that Van Gogh drew to learn different style of drawings.

I went to a diamond polishing factory to admire many diamonds and unexpectedly caught a Chinese tour group. So I got some free guided tour with an exclusive diamond sale behind locked security door. The factory has some Chinese employees to take care of the rich Chinese buyers. It's good to be Chinese. Haha! A random Caucasian tried to sneaked in like me and got told off without much difficulty.

After the diamond tour, I had all the things I wanted to see checked off my list!

Another interesting thing was the dinner. I went to a pub to have dinner - some sort of chilli mussel with salad, for 10 Euro. I ordered it and got myself a Heineken to sip. When it finally arrive, it's a huge pile! Pretty tasty, I can't help but to count them, it total at 70+. Great dinner!

I think that's about it for my Amsterdam 2 nights 1 day tour. Now go hit the photos.

Sneak peek of my trip photos

I arrived back to Perth last Saturday. Spent the last couple of days adjusting jet lag, unpacking, doing laundry, going through 2500 photos, stack of receipts, etc..

Here's a sneak peek of a collage of some of them.


I've put photos of the first 3 days up on picasaweb already. See below for links, or simply scroll down.
Flying with Emirates and landed in Dubai
London Day 1
London Day 2

Venice is fantastic, Florence is stunning

Went to Venice on Friday. So happen that I bumped into Wojceich from Adelaide U at breakfast and he decided in 1 minute that he'll come with me to Venice. So we did and had a jolly great time with some 200+ photos. Venice is very beautiful. The water is greeny and looks clean. It is fantastic to go with someone.

Saturday, I met Alessandro at Fidenza and he drove me to a castle on a mountain at Bardi. It's not a touristy place so everything is in Italian and there castle is not super impressive like those with lavish paintings. The torture chamber is grouse. But I really enjoyed the alternative tour, seeing the country side from high up, and of course catching up with Alessandro.

We parted at about 3pm and I took a train down to Florence. It's already dark when I checked in and get myself settled, but I decided to went out for a walk. And the Duomo (cathedral) is simply jaw dropping. It literally stopped me and drew me to see it closer. I took some nice long exposure shot using only the floor as support without tripod, most shots turned out quite good. And there was a Charlie Chaplain buskler at one of the plazam very funny and entertaining.

Florence is currently my top ranked Italian city so far. Somehow, I just love it much more than other places.
Also the youth hostle I stay in (which is where I'm using the free internet) is great too. It is decorated vby many copies of paintings and sculptures by some local arts students. Very nice.

Yes! Presentation is done

My first international presentation. Spent the whole day flashing up the presentation so that it makes more sense.

OK, they need to close the room now.

In short, it's done, and I enjoyed it.

Amsterdam and no internet

There's no internet in the hostel I stayed in Amsterdam and I'm dead tired to write anything on the first night after a whole day of cycling in London, and a whole day of walking in Amsterdam the second night.

Now I'm in Modena, Italy. Conference is going on well. I'm very lack of sleep for many days due to flight schedule, and a long dinner last night that finished at around 1am. It was good though, a new Bologna friend took me and another new friend from Uni Malaya to a local italian restaurant and tried some authentic Modena food.

My presentation is at the last session tomorrow, shall prepare for it.

London Day 2

8/9 Sat

I woke up after 6 hours of sleep at 7:30am, got myself ready and the luggages packed. Woke Sylvia up to let her know I'm heading off at 8:30am and let her know what happened the night before. Then she sent me to the tube at Turnham Green to catch the underground to Liverpool Street where I'll meet YikGio. The trip was smooth and I got there 15 mins earlier so I called Tanliang up for a chat.

YikGio showed up at 9:30am and I followed him home. His place is just <10m mins walk from the Liverpool Station, fantastic location. I dropped my luggages there and we set out for a whole day of bicycle tour of Central London.

It is awesomely awesome to see London on bicycle with a good friend who knows the places quite well. Wow, where do I start, we went to so many places. I think we started off at the Tower Bridge and ended at the National Museum. In between there were the Big Beng, Packingham palace, Westminster Abbey, Thames River, London Eye, Bolough Market, lunch at Chinatown with his landlord Paul, St Peter's Cathedral, etc..

The funny thing is that I didn't learn all these places in English, so the names really do not mean anything to me at all. It's until I translate it into their Chinese names, then I go "Wow! I'm at XXX!! It's unreal." Like the da ying bo wu guan, tai wu shi he, etc..

Cycling around London is fantastic although it could be a bit scary at times too. But it's a really efficient way to see the place. There's no way I could have covered so many landmarks in London in such a short time if not by cycling. And YikGio is a fantastic tour guide, he took many photos of me in front of the landmarks, which is something I don't get very much as a lonely traveller a lot of the time. Thank you very much my friend.

I'm now on my way to the Stansted airport to catch my flight to Amsterdam.
Photos should follow when I get time to load them up.

Updates:
Photos in my picasaweb

Windsor Castle, Oxford and dinner with Winson

As the title said, that's what I did today. Took quite some photos today. Need to sleep now. Watch this space for photos and details.

London Day 1

7/9 Friday

My first morning in London. The jetlag did not bother me much and I'm well adjusted from a late-nighter to a early-morninger by the jetlag. I woke up at 8:30am, Sylvia went out for an appointment already so I had some organic honey muesli myself.

Sylvia came back at around 9am+ and she made me some very nice omelette with smoked salmon, avocado and spring onion, on toast. It's fantastic. Then we decided to go to Windsor Castle together and after that I'd go to Oxford myself and come back to meet Winson at Fulham Broadway.

1 hour in Oxford, rush like mad. Saw a girl who looks like RongZuEr on train. Met Winson and his A level friend Jeff (a Medical researcher from from Malaysia living in Ireland).

Night back late, stucked at Earl's Court for half an hour got home at about 12:30am.

Updates:
Photos in my Picasaweb

Arrived London

I touched down London at 8:15pm local time. Took about 1.5 hours to clear the custom, so many people.
My cousin Sylvia came picked me up and we reached her home at 10-ish. Relaxed a bit and bath, now it's mid night at London, which is 7am Perth time. I was still rather hyper active when I reached London, I think I'm ready to collapse anytime now.

Good night world.

Flying with Emirates and landed in Dubai

Emirates airline is fantastic. Movies, TV programs on demand, huge selections, altogether aboutmore than 500 channels to choose from! The screen is bigger than MAS and SIA and its a touchscreen! In addition, there are two live camera I can watch, one looking infront of the cockpit and another looking down to give a bird-eye view.

The air stewardess are very pretty and friendly too. Haha.
I got a window seat, but it really didn't matter because all three seats are empty, so I got 3 seats to lie down and had a good sleep. :)

The food are great. Breakfast was some cheesy crepe with salmon and baked tomato. I forgot to take a photo of the menu. :(
And the lunch was fried Hokkien noodle with seafood, and some salad with two small pieces of cooked salmon.

I watched a romantic pseudo musical "Because I said so" and half of Aaron Kwok's award winning "Father and Son" (After this we exile(?) was the proper name).
In the 11 hours flight, I slept (probably 5-6 hours), watch 1.5 movies, had two meals and went to toilet 4 times.

Oh by the way, there's WiFi on the aircraft also, and it's free to preview the inbox. To use it for 4 hours costs 10 USD. I didn't try.

Before landing at Dubai, I looked out the window, the sight is amazing! It's all sand, just a huge desert. And there are clusters of houses here and there connected by roads that looks like highways from the plane. And there are power line as well stretching vast distance. When it get close to the airport, suddenly there are patches of greens and knife-cut built-ups. The sight is just amazing! It's amazing that in the middle of a desert, a city is build and is flourishing.

Walking out of the aircraft was another shock. 35 degree celcius with high humidity. But tht only lasted for 20 seconds before I walked into a shuttle bus that took me into the airport.

The Dubai International Airport looks like any western airport with dutyfree liquor, cigar, perfume, huge posters, etc. The only difference is the people, many dressed like Arabic - white over cloth for man or black overcloth with veil covering everything except for the eyes for lady. Strangely, it looks to me that it is just as acceptable as any other clothing. The cultural/religeous stereotype somehow become relaxed when people are in a foreign land. This is probably my first bit of eye-opening experience on this big trip.

It's 2:30pm in Dubai now, 4 hours behind. I have another half an hour until boarding.

Updates 25/09/2007:
Photos are up at my picasaweb

Big trip Italy

I'm at the airport now, 5am in the morning. The flight is at 6am. 11 hours to Dubai, then transit for 2.5 hours, and the another 7.5 hours to London Heathrow. This will set a new reocord for me as the longest flight.

I'll spend 2 days in London, staying with my cousin Sylvia and will meet up with my Hobart housemate Winson and highschool mate Kenny (Yu4 Jie2).
After 2 days in London, I'll be off to Amsterdam for 2 nights 1 day. Then flight to Milan and make my way down to Modena where my conference will be.

The conference is 5 days, first day I'll only attend the afternoon session which is tutorial. I didn't plan to attend that as it cost 150 Euro and I didn't know who was presenting. But later the price dropped to 50Euro and Mubarak Shah is presenting. He's a leading researcher in my field and I read and use some of his papers. I'm very excited to be able to attend his tutorial.

Then it's 3 days conference. I'll be presenting my paper on Wednesday last session. (haven't brush up my last bit of presentation yet). Then I'll go to Venice for a day, Florance, Pisa (leaning tower) for 2 days. Naples (Pompeii) for a day and Rome for 3 days.

More updates will come with photos. Hope internet will be good.

Stay tuned.

Hillarys

They got KL wrong! Shame on them.

We went to a cafe at Hillarys boat harbour after AMWA youth went to AQWA.

More photos on amwa website.

Italy here I come

The long anticipated email finally came today at 3:30pm WST. It was supposed to be announced on 1 May, and I thought my paper is rejected because I didn't get the "notification of acceptance" on the date.

Congratulations - your paper #1569032579 ('Projective Transformations for Image Transition Animations') for International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing 2007 has been accepted for ICIAP 2007 Oral Session.

Yes! My second paper (yes,only) is accepted. I'm so happy!
ICIAP is a 2nd tier conference according to CORE ranking of ICT conferences. And it'll be in Italy which is somewhere I have never really thought of setting my foot on before. Oh well, I never really think of going particularly anywhere anyway. Haha!

The conference will be on 10-14 Sept 2007, held in the Palazzo Ducale (dated 1634 DC, Baroque Ducal Palace) in Modena "the capital of engines" as it is the home of many famous sports car manufacturers (eg. Ferrari). A tourist page of Modena is here.

Searching and reading about the touristy places makes me excited.

I'm travelling

I'm going off to China again tomorrow.
After that I'll be in Singapore and Malaysia for 2 weeks.

:D

Photos from my phone

I like my phone. The convenience of having a good camera built in to the phone is just great. I took some photos with it when I don't have my big Canon S3IS with me, and it recorded some of my life adventures.


This one is when I was transitting in Changi Airport, took a photo and tried the phone built-in image editing tool. [1/12/2006 8:47AM]


A flyer in the hotel room in Shanghai. Funny English. [6/12/2006 11:06PM]


Kelly was leaving back to Taiwan for good, so me and Michael caught up with her for a lunch and coffee. [13/12/2006 1:46PM]


Yeeting was flying back to Brunei for Christmas and New year Holiday. I sent her off to the airport. [21/12/2006 11:53AM]


I bumped into Eleanor couple of weeks ago and we decided to find one day to catch up. So we did 2 days before Christmas at the beautiful East Perth waterfront. [23/12/2006 4:43PM]


Nola invited me to the St George's Cathedral for a mid night service on Christmas. Very old Gothic style building, beautiful choir and music. Nice!
[24/12/2006 11:12PM]


Bloody Summer! My cassette converter melted in my car! Cost me $20! :`( [27/12/2006 1:23PM]


I found this big sun clock at Cottesloe Beach when I was jogging there. Cool! And this is the kind of photo I will not get without the convenience of a camera phone. And it was almost 8pm then, still pretty bright, I love daylight saving! :D [28/12/2006 7:45PM]