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.