The fine folks at Yahoo threw a small reception on Sunday at the French Quartier, a nice jazz restautant nearby. Prabhakar Raghaven, now head of Yahoo Research, used to work with a number of folks now at MSR-SVC, and so a few of us who were about tagged along. The folks we met from UMD were also there, as was another fine CMU student (go plaid!) and a woman from Northeastern who has the distinction of having had her luggage lost two SIGIRs in a row — but apparently the emergency shopping trip worked out OK.

Some of the Yahoo folks invited us to go to a club a few doors down. It was a fun club with people dancing and drinking… all on a Sunday! The only minor snafu came as we were trying to leave. After the band finished its set, we took off… but you pay to get out, not to get in. So we’re trying to get everyone together so Stephanie, who was organizing the event for Yahoo, can pay for everyone. We managed to get almost everyone out, but 3 cards didn’t scan (they’re like parking cards from a pay-as-you-exit parking lot). So Stephanie paid again, and when one didn’t scan, started giving the guy at the door what-for. Next thing you know, they’re all working, and we’re out of there. Fear the irate redhead.

Anyway, while the press out there likes to point out to how companies like Microsoft and Yahoo are aggressively competing with one another, which we are, it’s actually nice to take a step back and realize that we’re all good people with a shared passion for technology, and search in particular. Yeah, we’ll be back at each other’s throats next week, but for now we can talk to each other as people.

BTW… it’s Day 2, and I still haven’t seen anyone from Google…

Monday was spent finding a cell phone SIM card (well, they call it a TIMcard here, as one of the local companies is TIM), and then hanging out on a sunny and rainy (weather changes fast) lunchtime over a few beers. That night, we were treated to the formal Yahoo opening reception for the conference with some wine, beer, hors d’oerves, and a capoeira show. Capoeira (cap-O-ee-ra) is a local martial arts dance that the slaves (Salvador was a big slave port) did so that they could practice a martial art, but not make it look like they were practicing a martial art. It’s very lively and much like a musical kata (a series of moves that you do when demonstrating skills for a belt in karate).

We had thought the reception would have dinner vs appetizers, so afterwards, a bunch of us hooked up with some folks from Ireland and went to another nearby open-air pub / cookery and had some local cuisine. We were they treated to another local custom — pay-for-peanuts. These girls (who are maybe 10-12) walk around with a tupperware thing of peanuts, and pour out a handful on a small napkin in front of you. You’re then supposed to give ‘em R$ 2, which is about $1, so a bit pricey for peanuts IMHO. I wasn’t so much bothered by the price (I’m sure it was a tad inflated for us) as by seeing these girls hawking peanuts at almost midnight on a Monday. I mean, they should be asleep with school in the morning! I understand that people who live in areas that are very depressed gotta do what they gotta do to survive, but still, I can’t help but think there’s something wrong there.

A number of us who arrived about the same time decided to visit the Pelourinho, which is the old part of Salvador. When we arrived, we were greeted by the most aggressive panhandlers I’ve ever seen. The first opened the door to the cab as I was paying the driver, and then kept trying to give me R$ 2 bills and asking for a larger bill in return. I ended up putting the R$ 2 on the ground and walking away. Other people would just come up to us, grab our arms or tug on our sleeves, and ask for money. It was just a gauntlet. We finally ended up in this restaurant area where a portly gentleman in a white suit came up to the panhandler that was still with it and chased him off — clearly the bouncer.

We then had a nice dinner with some folks from UMD at Mama Bahiia, a nice restaurant in the area. It was some great local food, and we enjoyed their hospitality greatly.

We left, and thought about hanging out around the Pelourinho a bit more, but after another 5 minutes with the pan-handlers and not seeing much (it was 6 PM, so a bit early for night life), we bugged out and played some cards by the pool in the hotel until we had stayed up long enough to get a good night sleep and get past the jetlag.

Well, we took off from Bogota after about an hour. The guy on the plane should be OK; he wasn’t doing great, but looks like they got him off in time. And I’m OK with being delayed for that kind of thing… I know I’d want it done if it were me!

I managed to make my Varig flight, only because it was delayed 2 hours itself. My 4-hour layover turned into a 1 hour layover and an extra 4 hours on the plane (we were 1.5 hours south of Bogota, so an extra 3 hours flight time + 1 hour on the ground). The flight was fine, and we arrived in Salvador without incident. I found myself an ATM and got cash, and found a taxi stand that shipped me out, so all is well.

The Pestana is right on the beach, and provides lovely views from every room. It also has a small balcony and a wide door to let in a lot of light and see the ocean. I’ll see about uploading some pics when I get an opportunity.

Welp, off to dinner!

The plane ride from Dallas to São Paulo was relatively smooth. I ended up sitting next to a woman with a beautiful 9-month old, Amanda, and she did pretty well, considering she was a lap-baby for a 10 hour flight. Or a 7 hour flight followed by a 3 hour flight. About 3 AM Brazil Time (definitely 11 PM PDT, but I may be off by an hour or two) the plane was diverted to Bogota, Columbia. One of the passengers was having medical difficulties — diabetic shock, I think (the captain had asked for some device and mentioned if you were a diabetic you’d know what it was). Two paramedics boarded the plane, and they wheeled a guy off in a wheelchair, and looks like his wife or girlfriend followed him off the plane. We still ended up camping out in Bogota on the plane for another 30 minutes or so — that’s where I’m writing this, as we all have some time to kill on the ground.

Bogota is interesting at 2 AM… it looks like a quiet city, and clearly in a valley of some sorts as there are lights on the hill. We appear to be out in the boondocks, as there aren’t many lights nearby. The airport looks like every other airport from the outside… the familiar walkways are there, and there’s another American Airlines jet parked to one side. Looks like a 757, although perhaps it’s a 767 (what we’re on now… aka the FedEx Cargo Special). It’s interesting to me how a city sleeps…. Even though it’s a completely different country, and has its share of problems, at night and from the air, it looks like any other city.

Amanda and her mother have finally sacked out… luckily, her mother is getting some sleep as well. They’re also heading to Salvador, although they may have a tougher trip than I. I was scheduled to have about a 4-hour layover, so with this side trip I’ll probably arrive in time to make my connection onto Varig. I don’t think they’ll be as lucky, as they only had about an hour and a half to catch a flight on TAM, the other local airline to Brazil. Which means delays and re-routing… I hope they’ll be able to get onto the Varig flight. So far, Amanda’s done well, but clearly hasn’t been happy – there have been a couple crying fits, which you might expect on a 10.5 hour flight. It makes me wonder how well Laura would do on an international flight… probably ok, as at least she’d have her own seat, but it’d still be hard for her, I think.

Anyway, more when we leave… for now, nothing much to do but kick back and wait. Yee-haw!

In 1986, my father took my brother and I on a trip to Europe - mostly Germany, both East and West, as well as some time in Yugoslavia and Austria, and of course Lichtenstein.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped at this pretty impressive looking palace:

Nearly 20 years later, I have no clue which palace it was, but I’d like to know so I can reference it. Hmmm… here’s an interesting shot. And probably one I over-exposed (14 year olds with manual-everything Yashica cameras tend to do that):

Huh… I wonder if at full resolution that sign says where we are…

Chinesisches Teehaus? Hmmm…. wonder what good ol’ MSN Search has to say… no, no, no…hey, what are these refs to Sanssouci Park? Bingo! This was the summer palace of Fredrich II, his “Sanssouci Palace.” Sans souci is French for “without worry.”

I love my job.

Just saw this BBC article about Japanese whaling. It mentions how Australia is trying to get Japan to stop hunting a lot of whales for “scientific research” as new methods don’t require it.

I don’t think they really get it, but are just playing the politics. The thing is, at not just one but two sushi places I went to in Tokyo (and I suspect more, as these were fairly random sushi places, not at all the “high scale” places you might expect) had kujira, or whale. And, well, it’s yummy. Yeah, I know, it’s very un-PC of me, but about a billion people in India think the entire beef industry is an insult to their religion, so let’s just leave that be.

The thing of it is, the Japanese like whale. So they hunt whale and eat the meat. If you want to stop the whaling, you have to convince people that it’s bad, which won’t happen. So, you end up doing something like legalizing it a bit, and jacking the price way up, so it becomes rare, not common.

But I doubt that will happen either. Some people like whale, some people like alligator. Just the way omnivores are, I guess.

My friend Becky, whom I worked with at dear departed FizzyLab, is now working at MSRA (well, ATC at MSRA). She has a nice little place in the hutong near one of the back lakes (three small, man-made lakes behind the Forbidden City). We were planning on going to the Forbidden City (and perhaps getting some coffee at the Starbucks there… now there was a well-placed bribe!), but went to get some hot-pot for lunch instead. We ate quite a bit, went back to her place to digest, and started drinking some find Yanjing beer. Or Tsingtao. One of ‘em. Anyway, turns out they’re a whopping 3 quai (that’s 3 RMB) for 2 if you return 2 empties… that’s like $0.18 a bottle! for 750ml of beer! So we drank and chatted the night away. Another one of her friends, Jaime, from Mexico City, arrived in the evening, which was the time I needed to get going — had to catch a 9 AM flight the next morning, which means airport by 7 AM, which means taxi at 6 AM, and getting up at 5 AM…. ewwww…..

Wei-Ying hooked me up with two of his students, Guirong and Xinjing, who took me to the Pearl Market on Sunday morning to get some pearls for MK and Laura. It’s an experience… pearls are on the 3rd and 4th floor. The 3rd floor is a zoo, and it’s where the lesser-quality pearls are. You eventually find your way to the 4th floor (we were invited by one of the 3rd floor shops, and had to go up a sketchy stairway to get it). Then, it’s relatively quiet and the shops look like, well, shops. We went through a bunch, and it turns out Xinjing is a bit of a shark in negotiating for jewelry. Pearls by Amy was our second stop, and after a bit we returned as they appeared to have the best quality stuff. I let Xinjing negotiate… our plan was to get the price down at Amy’s, and if they wouldn’t hit what we wanted go somewhere else (we saw all the places on the side w/ Pearls by Amy, but didn’t go to the other side yet… some nicer looking places were there… Yonghong and Fanghua). I’ll not post the price quite yet, as I don’t want MK to know until we have the appraisal! but we got a good deal - Xinjing, a shy, demure female Chinese student is a total shark! It was impressive to see her in action. We picked up 2 21″ strands of 10mm pearls + matching earrings (8mm), one white and one black. Note: normally, you get 18″ strands, and that 18″ includes the clasp.

Now, you might be asking if they’re fake… after all, most everything else in China is. However, these are real. The deal is that the Chinese are using freshwater culturing and doing it at mass scale, so the price is very, very low. Check out this article from Nova.

Nick and I hired a driver for the day for 600 RMB. We started off at 7:30 and went to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall — mostly to avoid the throng at the Badaling section that is closest to Beijing. It took about an hour and a half to get there, but that was fine. Once there, we went through the gauntlet of people shilling stuff — but they were mellow, as they knew we were going up and would come down at some point. We then took the cable car (i.e. skiing gondola) up to the wall, and started hiking about.

The main bit of this wall is a very steep section towards the left (I’d like to say west, but I have no idea, actually). It took us about an hour and a half to get up, but once there, it was well worth the view. It was also well worth the $150 buying some new Vasque hiking boots at REI two weeks previous! It was clear that the wall had been recently (within the past 100 years, probably 50) been restored… for example, I suspect they didn’t use 12″ square tiles back in the middle ages in China, nor did they use 1/2″ mortar. However, it did look like most of the supporting wall was original. This was confimed a bit as we got to the top and saw that the continuing section was overgrown and unavailable to tourists — that’s some old wall!

We headed back down and then through the hawker gauntlet. The first one (we forgot there were others, selling the exact same thing. After being lured by the call of “2 for 1 dollar!” Nick looked to buy two, then got haggled up to 150 RMBs for both. It appeared the real price was closer to 50 RMB (as some were calling that out), so probably more like 15 RMBs or 20 RMBs. Total tourist trap. I only imagine what’s at Badaling.