Day 5 (17 November 2016) in Sangli, India

Today is my last day in Sangali. It is also school closing day, which is scheduled to have a fancy closing ceremony. The school participant students was prepared by professional dresser for closing ceremony.

A pause with some of the dressed up students!

The students were dressed up at the lobby of our hotel, and I tried to get myself done and took the hot seat; however, I was dragged away saying this is only for student not for the VIP. Then the lecturers were driven to a special place (I think it was the office for local government official), and they dressed us up beautifully.

  Don't I look like Indian??

If you're wondering how this head scarf can be designed, here is a professional designer who did everybody!

 VIPs for the closing ceremony! 

Some of the School attendee students from different countries around the world!

Fancy closing ceremony of the school!

After attending the closing ceremony for a few minutes, we hit the road back to Mumbai to catch my flight back home. Although it is a bit uncomfortable to reach Sangli, in my view the school was well organized and very successful. It was a memorable trip for me. Sangli is known with its rich sugarcane and Turmeric spice.  

Typical public transport city bus!

These cows reminds me my childhood life!

Day 4 (16 November 2016) in Sangli, India

Nothing new in the morning. Went to conference room and and work on my NASA LWS proposal which is due on Friday (18 Nov). The school ends early for the day. We went to our hotel and locked in my room and work on my proposal before I joined Keith for beer before we head back to the cultural dance evening program.

The evening dance program kicked off at 7:30pm, which was absolutely stunning. In addition to the professional dancers who mostly controlled the stage, some of summer school student participant also performed on the stage; some of the perform dancing and others sing a song. Especially, the only contingent from Egypt represented international school student participants and performed a stunning song in Arabic and received warm applause from the audience.

Some of the performance pauses! 

 One of the school participant, she is smart scientist but also stunning dancer! 

What do you do when you watch such magnificent dancers, except attentively enjoying the act with 150% full attention! 

More pictures of the audience who are also enjoying the performance!

Day 3 (15 November 2016) in Sangli, India

Had excellent sleep and and woke up fresh. After Breakfast I headed to the conference center and stayed at work until lunch. My colleagues, Keith, and I decided to go for shopping  (unspecified shopping), and we asked Gope our Indian colleagues to accompany us and he gladly joined us. One of the local conference organizers drove is to one of the mall, though we did not find that attracts us to buy. We then went to another shop, this time by Bajaj (as the Ethiopians calls it). Before we enter that shopping center, our backpack had to be sealed, and a security guy sealed each zippers shown on our backpack. The purpose is straight forward, i.e., not to pick any items and put it in your backpack.
We're not lucky enough to find anything attractive in this shopping center either. Finally, we decided to go back to our hotel, this time by foot. It was not that far and we walked through the village, by trusting Gope's GPS navigation. We arrived at our hotel without any issue.

Sugarcane transportation!

These typical appearance of Sangli streets!

Guess what, when we got back to our hotel after nearly 2miles walk, our dream was to have a cold beer and relaxed until dinner time. However, the hotel does not have a bar at all. Well most hotel in Sangali do not serve any alcohol. Thus, we had to walk back to one of the really found liquor shop to get beer to our room. Finally, we got what we wanted.

This is the beer you may like to enjoy whenever you visit India!

Day 2 (14 November 2016) in Sangli, India

I had a good sleep, no jetlag at all. After having breakfast, we were driven to the conference room, which inside the campus of the Smt Kasturbai Watchand College. We spent the whole day. My lecture was in the afternoon, which actually went out successful.

This how the Karitika Poornima festival celebrated!

At the end we came to our hotel. Later I picked up by a college faculty member and took me to the festival, know as Karitika Pornima (Kartika Purnima). It is a Hindu and Jain holy festival, celebrated on the Purnima (full moon) day or the fifteenth lunar day of Kartika (November-December). It is also known as Tripuri Poornima and Tripurari Poornima. On that day people went to the nearby river shore and light a candle, put it on aluminum paper (traditionally it was on the banana leaf) and make a wish and place the candle on the river. I was also asked to place one on the river, but did not make any wishes. It was a great experience for me to see such colorful festival.

I also tried my wish and placed a light on the river with one of my colleague! 

Day 1 (13 November 2016) in Mumbai, India

I'm back to India (my third visit to this country in 10 years). This time to the western part of India. My first stop is in Mumbai where I spend a night at Bawa International hotel, which is located in the vicinity of the Mumbai international airport. This is just a transit one night stay to my destination called Sangali. I'm heading there to take part at the ISWI summer school as an invited lecturer. The school kicked off last Monday, a day before the Americans surprised the world by electing a controversial president. However, my part at the school starts this week and that is why I came a week later. 

Beautiful Sunset on our way to Sangali!

Just arrived at Sangali after more than 7hr on the road. Not an.easy drive, but thanks God we made it. The good thing is we were connected throughout the journey because the car has WiFi. 

This is one of many clubs in India (a leftover British heritage) where we're welcomed for dinner!

We have been awaited by other lecturers, who came from different countries, for dinner at one of the fancy club center, "the Officers club". we had a wonderful time and dinner. Finally, we were driven to our hotel "ICON" hotel. Tomorrow we will start our official mission at ISWI school.

Day 6 (12 March 2016) in Taipei, Taiwan

Today is my last day in Taiwan. It was very tight schedule but very successful trip. All my flight schedule was as planned. Just before I concluded my blogs for this trip, I just want to say something about Taiwan. 
Taiwan (formerly known as "Formosa"), which was mainly inhabited by Taiwanese aborigines until the Dutch and Spanish settlement during the Age of Discovery, is a sovereign state in East Asia. In the 17th century the Han Chinese began immigrating to the island. In 1662, they expelled the Dutch and established the first Han Chinese polity on the island, called the Kingdom of Tungning. The Qing dynasty of China later defeated the kingdom and annexed Taiwan. In 1912 the Republic of China (ROC) was established in mainland China. After world war II, in 1945 Japan's surrender and the ROC gained control of Taiwan. During the Chinese Civil War, the Communist Party of China took full control of mainland China and founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. ROC loyalists fled to Taiwan and re-established the national government there, claiming to be the legitimate government of all of China. The ROC continued to represent China at the United Nations until 1971, when the PRC assumed China's seat via Resolution 2758. The ROC lost UN membership. International recognition of the ROC gradually eroded as most countries switched their 'China' recognition to the PRC. 21 UN member states and the Holy See (Catholic Church in Rome) currently maintain official diplomatic relations with the ROC. Numerous other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices via institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates.
In the 1980s and early 1990s Taiwanese society transformed itself from a military dictatorship (one-party rule) to a multi-party democracy with universal suffrage. Today Taiwan maintains an advanced industrial economy and become one of the Four Asian Tigers  (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and is a member of the WTO and APEC. Its high-tech industry plays a key role in the global economy. Taiwan, in which its economy is the 21st largest economy in the world, is ranked highly in terms of freedom of the press, health care, public education, economic freedom, and human development.
Since 1945 Taiwan has a number of unresolved issues; which include: the complication about exact nature of Taiwanese national identity, its ambiguous international status, and its difficulty of maintaining relations with the PRC across the Taiwan Strait. Within Taiwanese society these issues always generate debate among political parties and candidates. Despite all these complications, according to the 2014 estimate, Taiwan's GDP (nominal) is $505.452 billion (26th in the world) and per capita is $21,571 (39th in the world).

Day 5 (11 March 2016) in Taipei, Taiwan

Today is the last day of the conference, and as usual my jetlag still alive and I woke up at 3:15am. The morning joint session talks were so nice, followed by round table discussion before the conference officially adjourned just before lunch. 
At 1230pm, the bus were outside, waiting for those of US who would like to visit the NSPO of Taiwan. This is the place where they built all the satellites the country has launched so far, FORMOSAT 1, FORMOSAT 2, FORMOSAT 3 (six of them). Currently the country is preparing two other missions; FORMOSAT 5 ready to be launched in June this year, and FORMOSAT 7 (twelve of them) to be launched in early 2017. During our visit we saw the engineers were busy working on FORMOSAT 7 satellites. We also had a chance to see their mission control room, the place where they track their satellites. It is very fascinating to see how the country really advanced in building technologies. We also see their animation room, mainly for public outreach purpose but also tell how the country has developed in producing such hightec equipments.

The first satellite (FORMOSAT 1) the country had developed and launched it in 1999!

Heading to International Space Station :)

 

Part of the group who visited the site with me!

Humm! see how global warming is real!

Part of the country outside Taipei!

Finally we drove back to our hotel. It is about excess of an hour drive. This actually gave me a chance to look at the country's structure outside Taipei, which I would say is well developed but highly populated. According to Wikipedia Taiwan is one of the most populated country in the world, i.e., 649 people per square km.
My Friday in Taipei concluded by having dinner with group of people from UCAR, Australia, Poland, and Taiwan. The Taiwan guy was the supper star of the night.

Day 4 (10 March 2016) in Taipei, Taiwan

Not that much activities throughout the day, except attending the conference. One thing that needs to be pointed out is the lunch time presentation by the former UCAR president (Prof Rick Anthes) about the intriguing story of the US - TAIWAN joint COSMIC project. The idea started from the informal conversation between the UCAR president and a visiting Taiwanese scientist at the dinner party in Bolder, CO in 1997. That started the ball rolling towards the many ups and downs journey of the project. Finally, the US and Taiwanese scientists manged and launched six COSMIC satellites on April 14, 2006. Although the mission anticipated to be a three years life time mission, the COSMIC constellation is still healthy and providing valuable data to the scientific community. Happy 10th years anniversary! Of course, this successful project leads to another bigger joint project. Right now scientist from both nations are working to launch twelve more COSMIC 2 satellites. Six of them will be deployed at 550km altitude with 24 degree orbit inclination. The remaining six satellites will orbit our planet at altitude of 72 degree of 72 degree orbit inclination. While all the scientific instruments on board will be provided by the US government, the satellite airbus will be fully developed by Taiwanese engineers with full support by their government. All the twelve satellites will be launched in early 2017. 

 USA contingent at the conference!

For dinner I was invited to join a group to goto the famous Din Tai Fung restaurant, which is known in making the best and testy dumplings. It is a walking distance from our hotel. You can tell how famous it is by looking at the waiting line to get into the restaurant, about 45min waiting time. It is indeed very testy dumplings.

Waiting line to get into the restaurant!

One of the Taiwanese beer!

Din Tai Fung was founded in Taipei, Taiwan in 1958 as a cooking oil retail shop. In 1972, it transitioned into a full fledged restaurant specializing in soup dumplings and noodles. The restaurant was soon winning rave reviews from all over the world. Outside its native Taiwan, Din Tai Fung also has branches in Australia, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, the United States, Thailand and Dubai. Din Tai Fung was named one of the top ten restaurants in the world by the “New York Times” on January 17, 1993.

Day 3 (9 March 2016) in Taipei, Taiwan

Today is the day that the conference kicks off. As many Asian meetings, the opening ceremony was so decorated and attended by many dignitaries; that includes: deputy minister of Science and Technology, the US government representative in Taiwan, and others.

The conference official group photo!

My presentation in the afternoon went out very well. The first day of the conference concluded with the conference dinner here at our hotel. 

Day 2 (8 March 2016) in Taipei, Taiwan

Today is my free day in Taiwan. In the morning I met one of the US contingent. We went out for a walk in search of Starbucks. We found one which is not that far from our hotel, and stay their until lunch time. We went to the Subways that we saw on our way to Starbucks. In the afternoon we went out for a walk just to see around, and out walk took us to one of the Taiwanese top university, National Taiwan University. We walked around the campus, which is very neat and beautiful. 
Finally for Dinner we decided to give a try of the Italian restaurant that we found through google. It was quite a distance of walk, but we decided to do it. On our way to the Italian restaurant, we found an Indian restaurant and their menu (place outside the gate) looks very attractive. However, when we get at the Italian restaurant, the menu did not look what we were expecting it to be. It was more Taiwanese style than Italian. So we decided to head back to the Indian restaurant, which was not that far from the Italian restaurant, and had a wonderful dinner.    

Smart way of parking the bikes!

Part of the National Taiwan University campus!

Unlike Chinese, Indian, and African drivers, the Taiwanes driver obay the traffic rules!

Day 1 (7 March 2016) in Taipei, Taiwan

Where did my Monday go? :) I woke up at 3:00AM to catch my flight to Taipei from Boston via San Francisco. My flight was on time, and kicked off my long flight journey. I landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in Taipei on Monday at 6:30pm. Where did my Monday go? Hotel car was waiting for me and drove me to my hotel (Howard International Hotel) safely. The hotel rooms are so tiny but clean, which is very much okay for five night stay!

Day 9 (14 February 2016) in Davao, Philippines

Today is my last day in Philippines. In general my scientific mission in this country was a success; two my AMBER instruments are now successfully deployed and are online, pushing data back to Boston.
Before I close my story about my trip to Philippines, I just want to say a few words about the country. The Republic of the Philippines (political official name), is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia located in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,500 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The capital city of the Philippines is Manila, the most populous city. The traffic in Manila is a mess, that is why the government coded all private vehicles; meaning a private vehicle with a specific pate number ending will be off the road one business day per week. For example, if your plate number ends with '1', then your car will not be on the road every Monday. The population of Philippines is more than 100 million people, and that placed the country the seventh-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. An additional 12 million Filipinos also live overseas, comprising one of the world's largest diasporas.

In terms of colonialism, Philippines has been under colony by the Spanish empire for 375 years and by Americans for about 45 years. The arrival of the famous Spanish explorer,  Ferdinand Magellan, in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Spanish colonization. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago (the people who were living there) Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. The Spanish occupation continue until the Philippine Revolution, which was led by a secret anti-colonial organization known as Katipunan, that began in August 1896. The Philippine revolutionaries, led by Emilio Aguinaldo, declared independence from Spain on June 12, 1898. However, as part of the deal to end the Spanish-American war, Spain ceded the Philippines islands to the United States for $20 million in the Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898. On the other hand the first Philippine republic objected to the terms of the Treaty of Paris under which the United States took possession of the Philippines from Spain, in other word, the Philippines got brand new colonizing power. The Filipino did not accept that and the fighting between United States and the Philippine Republic forces erupted on February 4, 1899; and on June 2, 1899, the First Philippine Republic officially declared war against the United States. The war officially ended on July 4, 1902, with a victory for the United States. Then after, aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, when the United States of America recognized the independence of the Philippines on July 4, 1946 through the Treaty of Manila. The date was chosen because it corresponds to the American Independence Day, which was also recognized as Independence day in the Philippines until May 12, 1962, when President Diosdado Macapagal issued Presidential Proclamation, shifting it to June 12, the date of Emilio Aguinaldo's proclamation.
Since its full independence in 1946, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which includes the overthrow of a dictatorship by a nonviolent revolution. The people have been enjoying the genius democracy that include changing their leaders by elections not by civil wars. Philippines has a constitutions of presidential system, in which the President functions as both head of state and head of government and is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The president is elected by popular vote for six-year limited term. During the time of my visit there was hot campaign for the next presidential election which is set to take place in May 2016. Although Filipino and English are official language, the Philippine islands have 19 recognized regional languages. Because of the extended Spanish occupation, Catholic is now the dominant religion in Philippines.  

Presidential election campaign 

The Philippine economy is the 39th largest in the world, with an estimated 2016 total gross domestic product (nominal) of $369.188 billion and per-capita of $3,568. Primary exports include semiconductors and electronic products, transport equipment, garments, copper products, petroleum products, coconut oil, and fruits. Major trading partners include the United States, Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Germany, Taiwan, and Thailand. Its unit of currency is the Philippine peso (₱ or PHP); at the time of my visit $1 = 47.7 PHP).
In my view, although it a young nation since its independence, the country has gone a tremendous achievement towards building stable democracy and institutions. As African origin, I'm so jealous of all these; because when I looked at many of African countries, which are much older than Philippines, struggling to even have fair and free election, I ask myself 'when do African leaders stop thinking for themselves but for the future of their country?'.

Heading back home!

Anyway, I'm now back home safely without any flight delay. Stay tune for another upcoming trip for another scientific mission.

Day 8 (13 February 2016) in Davao, Philippines

Today is my last day in Davao. I got a message from Matt that indicated data gaps. When I got that news one thing clicked on my mind, i.e., the GPS antenna might not have enough visibility because I put it on the same pall that the USGS people used but lower than their antenna. So I decided to move the antenna location.
After having breakfast, I packed up my stuff and went downstairs to checkout. Efran was there waiting for me. I checked out and left my luggage at the hotel and went to the site. On our way to the site, we stopped at two different shops to buy bamboo for fencing the sensor and rope for the fence and huck for GPS antenna mount. We quickly moved the antenna, make a few unsuccessful trouble shooting for SCINDA computer, and left back to the hotel.

 Bamboo shope 

 Here is how the GPS antenna looks like at its new location

 Fr McNamara took as at the top of the Jesuit residence building; take a look how they electrified the building, so huge solar panels imported from China

Fr McNamara took us for lunch at the Jesuit residence, where we enjoyed nice buffet lunch. After lunch Fr McNamara made arrangements to take me out for site seeing. He took me to one of the beautiful site called eagle foundation park where I truly enjoyed watching those unique eagles and other animals as well as the magnificent naturally beautiful garden. Most importantly I enjoyed driving outside the city which gave me a chance to see the country side of Philippines. I dd not have words to explain its natural beauty, it's landscape and amazingly green nature. The deep green appearance surprise me because the temperature around this are is so hot and the humidity is more than 90%. A variety of fruits, mostly banana trees, are everywhere. Then they took me to another famous park, which harbour soooooo many crocodiles, so big ostriches, tigers, and so many other animals. Here is the surprising, may be shocking to most of you, thing. You can have snake massage. Yes! You heard me right "snake massage".

 At the main gate of the Eagle foundation park!

Picture paused with one of the Eagle!

 Local people dressing style!

 Seeing is believing, here is where you can have snake massage! 

One of the biggest Ostrich I even seen

Finally, we got back to my hotel and had to say good bye to Fr McNamara and two of his technician (Efran and Ruel). In general, my Davao's mission was a success and I earned a lot of experience. However, this success would not have been possible without the unreserved support that I have received from Fr McNamara, who made everything to go quick and smooth. Thank you Father.
When I get to the airport I learnt my flight got delayed. However, the guy at the checkin counter, offered me to be in the earlier flight. Hummm! He meant the flight that was supposed to leave at 6:20pm but delayed to 10:30pm. Gladly accepted the offer and  got into my Manila airport side hotel at 1:10am. Hope my next flight won't be interrupted!

Day 7 (12 February 2016) in Davao, Philippines

Today is the most successful day of mine since I came to Philippines. The site technician came to my hotel earlier. However, Fr McNamara came later and he took us to the IT guy, very smart engineer. The engineer taken care of us after that. He knows what I want. He took us to his office and tested the BBB and it seems working there. However, he would like to make sure if it works at the site. We came to the site after lunch, and got it solved immediately. Matt confirmed that he can login to the BBB here in Davao, but the data flow to be confirmed by UCLA by tomorrow morning. 

AMBER in Davao got permanent home!

AMBER electronics share a table with SCINDA!

AMBER in Davao is housed here!

GPS antenna for AMBER timing is mounted at the top of the building!

AMBER internet connection get resolved by these team (Bonse, next to the lady is the mastermind of this connection)!

These two technician will be the backbone of AMBER at the site!

Meanwhile, the Manila BBB also reconfigured successfully and get its own IP address. The two engineers back home and I have been texting back and forth, thanks to Viber, and finally confirmed that the data is now flowing to us. What a successful day today.
We met Fr McNamara after work and he took us to the nearby restaurant and we celebrated the success. I owe him a lot because this could not have been possible without his unwavering support. Thank you father! 

Finally we celebrated the success of the day with Fr Macramana!

Davao city viewed from AMBER site

 Here is one of the beautiful women's tradition clothes in Davao for Manobo tribe call Tinalak clothes.