Steven’s Second European Saga
~
Version 1.0 (released on 25 October 2006, 2.00am)
Version
1.1 (slightly revised on 25 October 2006, 9pm)
Version 1.2 (several grammar/typo errors are fixed, plus a funny writing about Chasing Souvenir on 27 October 2006,
2pm)
Version 1.3 (final, last updated on 13 November 2006)
Disclaimer
This document was partially created while I was
still in
The purposes of this public diary are fivefold:
1.
To share God’s
blessings and God’s wonderful creation that I experienced/saw throughout my
journey.
2.
To tell my
families and friends the details about my trip in one go, so that I don’t have
to repeat the same story more than once.
3.
To be a source
of interesting information about
4.
To improve my
writing skill in English… I need to write long documents in English anyway
(e.g. PhD thesis), so this will be another training ground for me :). I’m sorry
that I don’t write this diary in Indonesian language this time, and I guess I
won’t have time to translate it…
5.
To record my
own life history that I will read again someday in the future. I like to keep
past travel blogs… You can view them here.
In this document, you will see various writing
styles, for example: “blog-like” public diary,
informative writing, and scientific writing on several interesting stuffs. One
thing in common: I have tried my best to avoid not constructive statements in
this document so that (hopefully) no one will be offended (it still fail in
certain cases especially my section about PhD wives
he he, but I have updated it). I also decide that all
person names be replaced with their initials to help me achieve the
abovementioned objective.
This document contains a lot of thumbnail photos
(total 12mb)… While the documents are being loaded into your Internet browser,
you can start reading the text :)…
PS: You/Your in capital ‘Y’ refers to
God/God-related stuffs.
Table of Contents
I am really aware that this document is very
lengthy. It will be quite tiring to read them all and of course it is even more
tiring for me to type all these sentences :)… But hey, I like to keep
precious memories…
If
you want to directly jump to a specific section, you can use the links below.
If you want to read all, just read the articles in sequence :).
Day
1, Friday, 13 October 2006
Day
2, Saturday, 14 October 2006
Day
3, Sunday, 15 October 2006
Day
4, Monday, 16 October 2006
Day
5, Tuesday, 17 October 2006
Day
6, Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Day
7, Thursday, 19 October 2006
Day
8, Friday, 20 October 2006
Day
9, Saturday, 21 October 2006
Day
10, Sunday, 22 October 2006
What
Makes This Trip Possible?
The
Symposium of User Interface Software and Technology 2006
The
Good and Bad of Traveling Alone
Transportation
System in Swiss
So,
is the Expensive Swiss Youth Pass Useful?
What
to Bring if you want to go to Europe?.
Prologue
Last year, when I returned from my first European
Saga (from Austria/UK back to
1 year and 2 months later, I’m back to
Day 1, Friday, 13
October 2006
God. Thank You. Finally, this day has come. Thank You
for giving me this idea of using anchor points to explain local search last
year. This idea has now evolved into a visualization tool Viz
as what I have today. This idea brings me to
I spend some time in MRT from my house (FP) to Changi and reflecting my year so far. I realize that this
year, my research work mostly revolves around the development of Viz, the visualization tool that I created to help me
diagnose local search behavior. I guess my research is still on track, but I
must remember that developing a (sophisticated, hm…)
GUI tool like Viz is just PART of my final PhD
thesis!! And I have yet to use this tool to maximum… This is a major homework
for me after I return to
After 10 months of (hard, is it to my full potential??)
work --- since January 2006, now this visualization idea and the tool itself
are going to be presented to the experts in the field of User
Interface/Information Visualization/Human Computer Interaction. They know many
existing techniques in this area. Will these experts buy my idea? Will they be
interested with this work? Last May 2006, the reviewers for our UIST paper
said that this visualization idea was good, but what will be the opinion
of the other audiences? Most of them will be UI/InfoViz/HCI
experts but not many knows the field where this tool
will be used, which is about Local Search/Optimization. I do hope that I get a
good response from the audience in general too :).
After
pondering a little bit more, I see that the objectives of this ((very)
expensive) trip are fourfold:
1.
To present my
10 months research work in not more than 25 minutes + demo session at Monday
night.
2.
To build a
network with many people, especially from Microsoft Research, Google, ILOG, MERL, etc…
3.
To see the
wonders of Your creation, especially the snow at the
famous
4.
To become the
representative of Your Kingdom there.
I’m fully aware that not many people will be able
to go overseas; especially to far away places such as from
Reflection over… So, what will it be like in
Swiss?? People said that the stuffs there are expensive. How expensive?? In the
next 24 hours, after loonnngg flight and series of
train rides, I will see this
Day 2, Saturday, 14 October 2006
I can’t sleep well last night; the seat in KLM
plane that I used is “smaller” than the seat from last year British Airways
plane. So I stuck there for around ~12 hours, occasionally stretching and
walking in the plane. Due to my experience last year, now I choose to sit near the
toilet :), so I didn’t have to wake others when I want to go to toilet. Those
who sit beside me is a couple, but since I’m not a
talkative person, I didn’t talk much with them during those 12 hours flight. On
board, I browse through few chapters from “Constraint-Based Local Search” book
--- quite interesting, and watch “The Devil Wears Prada”
--- average score in my opinion, and “Over the Hedge” --- average score too,
but nevertheless they provide me entertainment during the flight, thanks to
those who created these movies.
Arrive at
The KLM plane lands on schedule, 5.40am
I should have brought a jacket with me (instead of
putting it in inside the check-in luggage). It is quite cold in Schiphol airport and since my luggage is automatically
transferred to my connecting flight, I have to stay at Schiphol
airport for ~4 hours without a jacket. Luckily it is not that cold inside…
This Schiphol airport is
quite big. This airport is a mix of old and new. Kiosks, shops, etc are of
course modern, but some terminals/rooms still used 1980ies monitors, the big
CRT stuffs (maybe it is because they are still working fine so the airport
management decide not to replace it with new LCD screens now). I
don’t spend time too much browsing this airport as nothing much to see
except (expensive) shops anyway. I’m tired too and I want to start typing-in
this diary before I forget the details... Moreover, I forget to bring any money
in EURO. CHF (Confederatio Helvetica Francs/Swiss
Francs) is not accepted outside Swiss… So even if I want, I can’t buy anything
at Schiphol… Converting my CHF to EURO is a
considered a loss of money (double exchange is not good) so I decide not to do
it…
The new & flat LCD screens @ Schiphol.
In another part of this airport, the old, big, curvy CRT monitors are still
used…
In Schiphol, I SMS my
parents and my friend and they replied… So that concludes that my hand phone
can be used for roaming @ Amsterdam :). Good, thanks to the technology.
Arrive at
So, the next one flight is to
However, I misread my
The time is 1pm by the time I ready to explore
Map of
So I decide not to take a risk getting lost in
Geneva, but quickly switch to plan B, which is to go to Lausanne first (on my
way to the conference site at Montreux, I will need
to pass Lausanne) by taking the train (the train routes is much clearer than
bus routes --- a daring move, since the train is actually “empty” when I board it :p). Anyway, I can go back to
Empty train from Geneva Aeroport to
It takes around 30 minutes to arrive to
Lausanne Gare (Train Station) with the famous Olympic
logo.
A place called “Ouchy” in
I follow the instruction, but accidentally I don’t
know that I must alight at “Ouchy” bus stop, so the
bus actually tour around the city twice before arriving at Ouchy
(again) after the second pass. From there, I walk to Olympic Museum (This is
not the IOC office building. They have the main office somewhere else in this
city).
The stuffs inside the Olympic museum allows me to
learn more the history of Olympic, e.g. now I know that Pierre de Coubertin ---
the one who re-introduce modern Olympic is actually a French but at the end he
chose to move IOC to
At Olympic Museum
I continue my journey to Montreux, it is quite fast
too, in less than 30 minutes. Then I spend quite some time to find the Montreux Youth Hostel --- a not so expensive
accommodation for the youths who travel around
From sky (on the plane) I can’t really see Swiss
since the sky is covered by white clouds. But now I can see
Most of the time, this
After check-in to the hostel, I take the long
awaited shower, after one day traveling thousand of kilometers (the distance
between
Day 3, Sunday, 15 October 2006
I wake up very early, 6am, since I slept at 9pm
yesterday. Wow, around 9 hours++ sleep. My jet lag has been cured, but I’m very
hungry… So, I spend some quite moment alone at the ground floor of Youth Hostel
waiting for the breakfast buffet to start at 7.30am.
The breakfast session is SUPERB. Wow… It is
called “breakfast buffet”, which mean I can take anything that I want… GOOD.
I’m very hungry after skipping my dinner yesterday. Imagine this: lots of
breads, hams, cheese, jams, honey, milk, chocolates, small snacks, yoghurt, and
orange juice (you feel hungry too?? Sorry I can’t help :p)… Wow, I eat a lot
this morning. Thanks God :). Now I guess I can cut down my lunch cost by
purposely eating a lot during breakfast and just eat some light food in the
afternoon :) (if the “standard” lunch/dinner is around 15 CHF, having a lot of
breakfast for “free” at the hostel and changing my lunch into something around
8-10 CHF burgers/kebabs is a saving :)) --- the saving
can be used to buy more souvenirs...
I actually have another roommate last night, but I
didn’t talk to him until this morning. His name is P. He is from
The Anglican Church (
I attend Anglican Church at 10.30am, there is no
other English based church nearby so this one is okay. The church attendance is
not that many, but they are friendly. I was greeted by one of the lady in
church door. The church is an Anglican church, more like Catholic rather than
my home denomination: Presbyterian, but I’m very fine with these differences,
we are one body of Christ anyway. I only have some difficulties adjusting the
worship style, so the standard trick that I used is that I wait for others to
stand up/sit down/kneel before I follow them :). The service is about one hour.
After church they invite me for tea/coffee. One of the deacon is the manager of
the Youth Hostel :O (I saw him yesterday during
check-in). We talk about my origin (hey, “
I do self traveling (walking) around Montreux. The expensive 272
The Casino Barrierre de Montreux. The venue for UIST 2006.
Ehem… so by now I have indeed entered a REAL casino
during my lifetime…
Actually there is a “Doctoral Symposium” (which is
part of the UIST conference) today, but since I’m not registered for this
event, I’ll give this event a miss… Oh yeah the UIST 2006
conference will be held at a CASINO. A real casino!! Before I go to Swiss, I
know that the conference venue is called “Cassino Barrierre de Montreux”, but I
didn’t realize that this is a REAL BIG casino… So, I guess this will be my
first time spending few days going back and forth into a real casino (but for
the purpose of attending a scientific conference).
Beside
At around 4pm, I go back to the hostel, bring this
laptop and sit beside
When I return to the hostel room, I met another
roommate, JS from
Interestingly, during the conversations, the term “PhD comics” is
mentioned between us and it is not quite surprising to know that most of us
aware of the term “free food”, “procrastination”, “slackenerny”,
etc… Jorge Cham (author of PhD Comics), you surely have changed the life of
many PhDs :p.
At night, I check the UIST conference proceeding to
see how our paper looks like in print and to skim through at other people’s
works (Hehe, NUS
Day 4, Monday, 16 October 2006
So, my second scientific conference starts today…
The conference is opened by a Turing lecture by PN… For those who are studying
Computer Science, do you remember BNF (Backus Naur
Form)?? He is one of the inventors, hm... His talk is
about Computer versus Human Thinking, a new way to explain how human think. Not
yet published (or in fact not yet accepted by other researchers as it is still
quite provocative)… The talk is quite interesting…, especially I like his
comment, which is roughly like this: “so far no computer model can emulate how
human think” --- I will need this statement to hold at least until I have
finished my PhD hehe…
44 talks, I’m one of them..
My own presentation is at 2.55pm-3.20pm… So, after
10 months (or more if I count from the starting date of this idea, which is
early 2005) of research work of developing Viz from
scratch, I will explain it in not more than 20 minutes. Will it be a successful
one?? The answer is “not really”. There are several reasons… Previously I give
tutorials to 30-40 students. I’m quite confident for that (1 teacher versus 30
students). But now the number of audience is around 150 PhDs, Professors,
Researchers, Lecturers, etc… (1 newbie versus 150 experts) -_-‘’’. The session
is also video-taped :O, this is not told beforehand,
so I’m getting more nervous. At the end I need to wrap up my presentation
quickly nearing the last few slides as I’m running out of time.
Big room, around 150 people listening… and most of them are experts
:O
The talks are recorded…
The presentations before and after me are the most
relevant presentations for my research in this conference. The presentation
before is about “comparing slide presentation”, using the similar technique as
mine: “visual comparison”, the next presentation is about “direct manipulation
from information visualization” by TB. I will follow up their papers soon…
On the night, there is a demo session. Not many
people come to my booth but some people do attend and express their interest…
Anyway,
thanks God that I have completed my presentation and demo of my work to the
UIST audience. :)
Day 5, Tuesday, 17 October 2006
Since my presentation and demo is over, today (and
tomorrow), my job is just to listen to other researchers’ works, hopefully they
have something interesting that can be useful for my research. However, since
the other topics are mostly UI stuffs (which is not directly related to my
research), I listen to the talks without full concentration and actually spend
some time online, sending emails, chatting, and updating this diary.
Today, I really aware that I’ve just wasted around
~60 CHF by buying 8 days Swiss Youth Pass… Because on Sunday until Wednesday, I
didn’t travel that much around Montreux :S -_-‘, stupid. Miscalculation. I
should have bought 4 days
Chateau de Chillon (front)
Chateau de Chillon (side)
Miniature of Chateau de Chillon,
It is well known as the best castle in Swiss (is it??)
Time for social event. Sadly, I’m not that good in
interacting with new people… especially older people…
At night, we have a banquet inside an 11-th century castle… Wow…
At night, we have a banquet inside the
(legendary??) chateau/castle de/of Chillon. This
castle is great. It is bigger than the Kruzeinstein’s
castle near
Chocolate Fondant, very delicious…
You want it?? Erm, sorry, I can’t bring it back home… :$
Some friends: JS (US), me (Indonesian/Singapore), K (Japanese)
After the banquet, me and JS go back to the
hostel and then go to sleep…
Day 6, Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Today is the last day of three-days
conference… At the end, only few parts of the talks are interesting (read: related
to) my research. I’ve been trying to motivate myself to listen but at the end I
only manage to get some insights to improve my research work, which I’m going
to discuss with my supervisors later. The summary of what I got from this
conference can be found in this section here.
During lunch hour, I talk with TB about our
visualization works. Hopefully it can be interesting for the people in local
search research department in his company.
The closing of the conference is quite short. Just
the announcement of best paper awards (not for me of course), paper published
in UIST 10 years ago that still have impact until now (lasting impact award),
and quick introduction for the next year’s venue (US).
Vevey, the
neighbor of Montreux. Vevey
is slightly bigger than Montreux.
As it is just 6pm, I decide to visit Vevey, the neighbor of Montreux. The headquarter of Nestle (a big name in food industry) is
in Vevey. I pass through it, but didn’t react quick
enough to take a photo… Vevey is slightly bigger than
Montreux. I only spend less than 1 hour here and then
quickly go back to Montreux.
On the night, after packing my stuffs, I spend some time to create a program to help me solve a Sudoko game… Hehe. Sudoku is quite popular here… Btw, now I realize that there are many Sudoku games (and their variants) available in the website… You can just download/play online, e.g. http://www.websudoku.com. I will not continue my