|
Friday, December 03, 2004 |
|
From |
To |
Activities |
|
11.30 |
12.00 |
Meet Zirui & Bang at bus stop after PGP,
took taxi to Changi |
|
12.00 |
13.20 |
Wandering around at Changi airport
(outside), Check in at row 1, terminal 1. It was a slow check-in
because the check-in staff type with one finger?? |
|
13.20 |
14.40 |
Wandering around at Changi airport
(inside) |
|
14.40 |
19.35 |
A long 4 hours 55 minutes on board China
Eastern Airline MU568. The entertainment on board is okay, but everything on the TV is mainly in Chinese…
-_-'''. We are suffering from
jet lag. Zirui is noticeably very tired after the flight. Btw,
thanks God for guiding us to Shanghai safely. |
|
19.35 |
20.00 |
Quick check out at Pudong International
Airport. wow, a long (very long) way from arrival hall until
exit... We are greeted by a team from SJTU. They escort us to
SJTU |
|
20.00 |
21.00 |
Travel by bus from Pudong to SJTU. The
first time I saw Shanghai’s modern city at night (under rainy
condition). The highways are so well developed in my opinion…
After roughly 45 minutes on the highway, we finally make an exit
and travel to SJTU. It seems that SJTU is like NTU, this
university is located at the far end of Shanghai… |
|
21.00 |
21.30 |
Check in at SJTU in-campus hotel… wow, an
in-campus hotel (this is not a hostel or dormitory). I am in a double room
with Dr Tan. Zirui and Bang in another double room. In my
opinion, this hotel is quite good. Then a group of girls approached us and told us that they will be our helper
around the campus throughout the competition. All of them are from English department of
SJTU, no relation to Computer Science. It is a nice experience
for them to practice their English with us, I think… |
|
21.30 |
22.30 |
Supper at Yonho restaurant in-campus. I eat
noodle + drink soya bean. Along the way, we have some informal
conversation with the helpers. |
|
22.30 |
23.30 |
Go back to hotel, take a bath, rest… good
night Shanghai. |
|
Saturday, December 04, 2004 |
|
07.00 |
07.30 |
Wake up… I can’t sleep well last night. Probably
because I can't adapt to the new bed quickly. The bed is okay, but
the weather is a bit weird. I force myself to wake up as there will
be an opening ceremony at 8.30am |
|
07.30 |
08.30 |
Breakfast at hotel. Again, the food is
abundant.
After breakfast, we go to gymnasium to attend the opening ceremony.
I didn’t know that it will be that colossal. We have an orchestra
plus all nitty-gritty formalities… |
|
08.30 |
09.30 |
The opening ceremony is … yeah … as usual a
formal one. The only bad thing is that all speeches are delivered in
Chinese -_-‘’’. I wonder whether they will do the same for World
Finals next April?? (at that time, the audience will consist of
European and American teams who don’t know Chinese) |
|
09.30 |
10.30 |
Short tour around SJTU under windy and rainy
Shanghai with the helpers. Now I
know that why my parents always reminded me to wear more (and more)
clothes… I'm a tropical guy, now I need to adapt with under < 10
degrees Celcius weather... |
|
10.30 |
12.15 |
Back to our room and discuss some strategy… |
|
12.15 |
13.30 |
Lunch at SJTU canteen. Unfortunately the
helpers
order too much food, at the end many were left over… |
|
13.30 |
14.00 |
Wait for practice session to begin |
|
14.00 |
17.15 |
Practice session started. We have agreed that
whoever solves the problem (code it and get Accepted), it is team’s
effort, and therefore I wouldn’t mention who solves which problem,
but rather gave an overview of our practice session. The problem set
given for this practice session is unexpectedly of medium
difficulty. Previously, they are very easy problems that are
solvable in less than one hour… Nevertheless, it was a perfect start with two
(obviously easy) problems solved within the first 30 minutes (except
for a stupid error for forgetting to read from file, but it’s okay
since this is just a practice, nothing is counted). After that we
were still in the advantage since the remaining two problems are
“doable”. But confusion comes when we finished coding problem C that
it got some trivial bugs. Same situation for problem D. At the end
we didn’t manage to make these two problems solved… I hope that we
can do better tomorrow. |
|
17.15 |
18.00 |
After “a bit disappointing” practice session,
we tried to get Internet at SJTU computer center. A bit sad to see
that the PCs at SJTU labs are (very) slow and the Internet
connection is also (very) slow. I wonder why this university can
maintain such a good performance in ACM ICPC considering their
school labs are not equipped with powerful PCs. Maybe their ACM
computer labs are equipped with better PCs… who knows? Any SJTU
friends want to reveal their secrets in doing ACM ICPC training? I'm
sure you guys have much better equipments right? :) |
|
18.00 |
19.30 |
Dinner at SJTU canteen (or maybe I should say:
“restaurant”). We had a Chinese food set meal… Quite okay but the
amount of food is a bit too much again. Still have some leftovers… |
|
19.30 |
21.00 |
Go back to our room and discuss our final
strategy for tomorrow taking into account today’s practice result,
our own knowledge and confidence level, etc etc… There will be 10
problems tomorrow and we want to go home with pride… We’ll do our
best and God will do the rest… |
|
21.00 |
22.00 |
Take a bath, rest… prepare to sleep… Tomorrow’s
contest will start at 8.30am… A good nice sleep is very very
compulsory!!!, I hope I can sleep well tonight. Goodbye
J |
|
Sunday, December 05, 2004 |
|
07.00 |
07.30 |
Wake up, have light breakfast… |
|
07.30 |
08.30 |
Go to Gymnasium and wait… Btw, this is only the
second time since 4 years ago that I didn't go to church on Sunday
:$... (the last time I miss Sunday service was last year during ACM
ICPC contest in Japan) |
|
08.30 |
13.30 |
ACM ICPC Asia Regional – Shanghai contest
A disastrous contest for us… But anyway we should count ourselves
lucky by getting two problems Accepted (out of 10). We are stuck
until the fourth hour before getting our first Accepted solution.
You can imagine our frustration in the first three hours after
several rejected runs (We are attempting 3 different problems at
that time). Soon after that, we got the second Accepted problem, and
then focus to problem C (which was solved by almost all team –
except us). Unfortunately we didn’t manage to code it properly when
the contest ends… This is my last ACM ICPC experience (as a
contestant)… |
|
13.30 |
14.00 |
Lamentation period around the gymnasium. The
ladies are cheering us up but hard for us to quickly forget what had
happened. |
|
14.00 |
17.00 |
We decided to have a tour around SJTU (Zirui
went back to sleep). We play bowling (Dr Tan is very good at
bowling), viewing pictures at Art gallery (I don’t understand the
meaning), then play Snooker (didn’t finish a single game…, Dr Tan is
also good at this…) |
|
17.00 |
19.00 |
Dinner banquet. A Chinese style… Food after
food keeps flowing in. Our table is only half full (5 people from 10
seat capacity)… There is no way for us to finish all the food, plus
all of us have less eating appetite due to previous bad contest
experience. |
|
19.00 |
22.00 |
Awards ceremony + some performances (dance,
songs, martial arts, etc). The bad side is that all are in Chinese
-_-‘’’. Congratulations to SJTU team who (once again) won a regional
contest this year. |
|
22.00 |
23.00 |
Go back to our room and say bye-bye to our helper who has accompanied us for the last three days, I don’t
think we will be able to return to Shanghai (or SJTU) in the near future even
though I didn’t want to say “impossible”. Good night… |
|
Monday, December 06, 2004 |
|
06.45 |
07.30 |
Wake up (a bit earlier than yesterday because
we need to catch up with the city tour), have the last breakfast at
SJTU hotel and then leave SJTU |
|
07.30 |
08.30 |
Go with a mini van to Shanghai city central. |
|
08.30 |
09.30 |
Wait around a public park in front of
government building. We will join a bigger group of this one-day
city tour. Shanghai is a big city. This city is doing a major
development. Many tall tower buildings are being built. Old houses
were demolished and new (and taller, more modern) buildings built on
top of the previous old houses (I saw a lot of old houses are being
demolished). The traffic at Shanghai is different from Singapore.
The driver of a car sit on the left side of the car (in
Singapore/Jakarta, driver is on the right). So everything on the
road is the opposite here. There are (too) many bicycles and some
motorcycles. Those who ride on bicycle have special lane on the
road, but surprisingly they can bypass the red light?? That’s why
Shanghai’s traffic is still a bit messy (in this part, Singapore
wins). Stuffs at Shanghai are considered as the most expensive among
all other cities in China, but however, they are still cheaper than
those in Singapore (or in Tokyo, Japan). That means with the same
amount of Singapore dollar, I can buy more at Shanghai compared if I
spent the same amount of money in Singapore (for example, to buy
some snacks, drinks, etc). I also haven’t seen any church building
in this city so far (I think they should have churches, but I don’t
know where). I haven’t seen mosque or temple either… Is it true that
majority of people in this big city don’t care about the Creator??
Anyway, that’s some introduction about Shanghai, I’ll continue with
today’s trip. |
|
09.30 |
10.15 |
The guide explains us about the surrounding
building (in Chinese -_-''', of course). She said the architecture of
the government building was designed to be like Judge Bao’s head?? |
|
10.15 |
11.00 |
We went inside Shanghai Urban Development Hall,
and get a big overview of the layout of Shanghai in their one-floor
mini city replica (I wonder how they built these??) |
|
11.00 |
12.00 |
Went to the side of Huangpu river and then have
a (short) cruise around that river. We saw Shangri-la hotel (the
location of ACM ICPC World Finals April 2005), as well as the
neighboring buildings, such as: Oriental Pearl TV Tower (wow…),
Hyatt Hotel, etc… |
|
12.00 |
13.00 |
We then go for lunch at a Chinese restaurant,
again, dishes after dishes… Luckily this time not much is left over
(because we have to pay this time :p) |
|
13.00 |
15.00 |
Went inside the Oriental TV Tower, go up to the
263rd meter Observation Floor. This tower is similar to
Eiffel Tower in France and Tokyo Tower in Tokyo, where you can have
360 degrees view of Shanghai. A (very) very beautiful scenery. We
can see a lot of tall buildings scattered around Shanghai. Btw to go
up, we need to pay around 50 Yuan (10S$) but if you want to go up
once more (to 350th meter), you need to pay another 50
Yuan. |
|
15.00 |
16.30 |
Went to a local market. I frantically need a
lip gloss as my lip is always in burning condition (very dry… same
situation as in Japan last year…
-_-''').
I need to drink a lot, and thus forced me to go to toilet very
often… Finally with help from Dr Tan (in negotiating with shop
owners in Mandarin language), I manage to obtain a lip gloss
which quickly remedy my lip’s problem… After that we stroll around
the complex… I want to buy something as souvenirs but at the end I
decided to save the shopping spree at Nanjing Lu (Orchard Road of
Shanghai) tomorrow. |
|
16.30 |
17.00 |
Check in to our hotel, Xin Kaifu hotel, very
near to Nanjing Lu, but we decided not to explore the road today as
we need a lot of time to do that. |
|
17.00 |
18.30 |
Take a bath, rest for a while and then go out
for dinner |
|
18.30 |
20.00 |
Strolling around the area near to our hotel,
eat some noodles, buy some snacks and fruits, and then go back to
our room to rest (or study for final exam like what I did now). |
|
20.00 |
23.00 |
At hotel room studying… It's a bit funny to
study for your final exam... overseas :p |
|
Tuesday, December 07, 2004 |
|
07.30 |
08.30 |
Wake up, Dr Tan spotted a water leakage in our
room’s toilet. So we have to switch room… (to a smaller room
actually). Then we have breakfast at Xin Kaifu hotel. We met one of
NUS graduate (only Dr Tan knew her) who were going for a tour around
Shanghai… |
|
08.30 |
10.00 |
Walk from our hotel to Nanjing Lu. We spent
some time exploring a book shop along the way. I bought some
Christmas card with Audio CD of Chinese Christmas songs…
Interesting, and they are quite cheap too… We pass by some hand
phone stores but I still haven’t see any shop selling computer
stuffs. Maybe they are clustered in some “simlim” (computer shop
district in Singapore) area of Shanghai… |
|
10.00 |
16.30 |
Exploration of Nanjing Lu… We start from one
end of this shopping district to the other end. Going inside shops
that interests us (electronics shop, bookstores, toys for kids, etc)
and skipping those that are “for ladies only” (fashion, shoes,
jewelerry, etc). Along the way we have lunch. Btw, I want to buy an
MP3 player here, but I’m afraid that it will be very troublesome if
there exist some errors with the machine (where to claim the
warranty?). The cheapest MP3 player’s prices are still comparable to
Singapore cheapest MP3 player (90S$ ~~ 400yuan), so at the end I
decide not to buy. At the other end of this road, we encounter a
travel agent which have a one-day trip to Suzhou (a place near to
Shanghai). People said that this place is good. Thus, considering
that we have no plan yet for tomorrow and it will be very very
expensive for us to go to Shanghai again next time, we decide to
take this opportunity and have a heavy one-day tour tomorrow… (oh
no, how about my exam??) |
|
16.30 |
18.30 |
Walking back to the first location where we
start our trip this morning to reach Shanghai Tan (Beach of
Shanghai, I hope I didn't spell it wrongly), the place where Shanghai mafia were lurking around in the
past… It is actually not a beach -_-'''. It is just opposite
Shangri-la hotel, the same place where we took a Cruise tour
yesterday. But the night scenery along this area is truly
breathtaking. Oriental Tower and the surrounding buildings are
nicely lit with decorative lights… Wonderful… |
|
18.30 |
19.15 |
Small incident at KFC… (no need to mention
this) so we decided to walk
out from that restaurant and move to the neighboring local
restaurant and have our dinner there. |
|
19.15 |
20.30 |
Watching the Shanghai Tan area once again (this
time all buildings already turn on their lights), took some photos…
We did this under a freezing weather (I guess it is less than 10
degrees again). Even though I already wear 4 level of clothing, I’m
still shivering. My fingers, ears, lips… are all cried for warmer
weather… We then took taxi to return to our hotel, but before that,
me and Bang bought some traditional Chinese snacks for gifts to our
friends at home. |
|
20.30 |
22.30 |
Return to hotel, take a rest, read some more
materials for my final exam (tomorrow I won’t have time to do that
because I will be at Suzhou…). Goodnight |
|
Wednesday, December 08, 2004 |
|
05.30 |
06.30 |
Wake up, quick breakfast, go to train station
which will take us to Suzhou… |
|
06.30 |
19.00 |
Suzhou trip… Suzhou is a small city near
Shanghai. Suzhou can be considered similar to what Bogor city is to
Jakarta city in Indonesia. Suzhou is (previously) a canal city, the
houses are separated by rivers, maybe similar to Venice in Italy?
The Chinese government decided to preserve the nature of this city
by not allowing any tall buildings to be built in Suzhou (imagine if
Suzhou has a lot of sky crappers buildings like in Shanghai, the
tourist will lost all the old views of Suzhou...). We (three of us,
Dr Tan didn't join us today), joined a local one-day tour around
Suzhou. We visit several traditional gardens (like those in Chinese
movies... now I got the first chance to see these houses using my
own eyes :D). We also went to Silk factory, several pagodas, etc.
I'm glad that I can experience the flavor of traditional Chinese
through visiting those places in Suzhou :). |
|
19.00 |
20.30 |
Return to Shanghai, to Xin
Kaifu hotel, take a quick bath, and pack everything... time to
return home... (we are in a very tired mode...) |
|
20.30 |
21.30 |
After saying farewell
words to Dr Tan (stays in Shanghai for another week) and Zirui
(going back to his hometown, Hebei); me and Bang took taxi to
Shanghai Pudong international airport. I don't know why they built
airport so faarrr from the city?... I think we are traveling for
about 90km on highways to airport... |
|
23.40 |
05.00 |
Return flight from Shanghai Pudong airport to
Singapore Changi airport… The end of my last ACM ICPC experience…
bye-bye Shanghai… I hope I can visit this city again sometime in the
future, and I expect many more changes can be seen when I return if
they keep the constant (or exponential) rate of city development… |
|
Thursday, December 09, 2004 |
|
05.00 |
05.30 |
Finally, me and Bang
arrive safely to Singapore Changi airport after some shaky
adventures on the sky... The airplane that we used encounters a lot
of turbulences... |
|
05.30 |
06.00 |
Stupidly we took taxi at
5.30am -_-'''. Singapore's taxi fare is 50% more expensive if you
took taxi from 00.00am to 06.00am... We should have wait another 30
minutes at the airport before going home :(... But nevertheless...
that's all... Time to resume our daily life as per normal. Good bye |
