Afterwork in three steps... (Del Mar beach)

San Francisco

After about 10 months avoiding each other, we eventually managed to arrange a week-end... And since Paris did not work too good for us, San Francisco appeared to be en excellent option, as it was their summer roadtrip last stop (have a look at their nice blog...). For me, it was a nice 3-day break in my summer research at UCSD. I flew in Friday, and out Monday night...

On Saturday morning, we went for a walk between the Golden Gate bridge and Cliff's house, where we had lunch, american style....

Despite all recommendations, I went to SF without a jacket, wearing a light sweater. (Which by the way ended up being a good choice, as we had an amazing weather all three days).

In the afternoon, we visited the Golden Gate park - which is by the way not close at all of the bridge :-S.

On Saturday night, another nice restaurant, with nice people, followed by a jazz lounge, around Japan town.

San Francisco has to be one of my favorite cities on this side of the atlantic. Its ambient is absolutely amazing. On Sunday we went to see some of the highlights : Fisherman's wharf, chinatown, Lombard St, some more Golden Gate bridge...

And to the museum of modern art on Monday morning (note that it is at least the second reference to a museum on this blog, I am getting literate...).

If you dont have enough, I think there is another nice one on J&C's blog...

And here are some pictures I took on the flight back. The first one does not need caption I guess...

This is UCSD from right above (bottom left is the Geisel library, and close to the center is the building where I "work").

And back to downtown San Diego...

San Diego

I eventually made it to San Diego... Luckily enough I managed again to get an emergency exit seat :-).

After a long flight from Beijing to San Francisco, here is the first contact I got with the US... An apple juice can (how sad...). Note that I am getting healthier, as my first post last year was about beer.

The thing is, I still wonder what 100% apple juice mean... Especially as it specifies just below that it is apple concentrate, with "added ingredient". I am guessing they are trying to keep it secret. shhhhhhh.

It took me a couple days to adjust from the 15h jetlag. I even woke up at 8.30am this morning, which is not very usual for me on a Sunday.

I was glad to see Teddy again. I actually see him everyday, as they serve the best coffee there.

Tsinghua University

Here are some pictures of this week... On Tuesday, the cultural event of the Symposium : Tsinghua University's orchestra. The program consisted of both chinese and european classical music. For some surprising reason I enjoyed more the chinese part, but I think that mostly had to do with the interpretation of Berlioz and Tchaikovski...

I did not go to the small Great Wall excursion (900 scientists, 20 buses, bad weather...). There are already some nice pictures of it on this blog :-D. Yesterday was the banquet, in the "small" ballroom of Beijing grand hotel.

Unfortunately I had my talk in the next morning, so I could not abuse of the wine. It was not too hard, as I had never had such a bad wine (I might be exagerating a bit). And they said it was French. I would say it was a cheap copy...

And this picture is for the best readers of the blog... I took it 30 min before my talk, that went well btw.

I'll try to publish some more pictures this weekend, now is time for celebration, I am staying here until Sunday!!