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!