Day 6 (October 12, 2018) in Baku, Azerbaijan

Unfortunately, today is the last day of the conference. After concluding the conference before lunch, we’d the opportunity to visit the Azerbaijan’s aviation academy. We did visit different sections of the academy, including the simulator, class rooms with dead engines of the aircraft (helicopter and fighter jet engines that we saw), aviation museum, and some part of the academy’s compound. The president of the aviation academy gave us a tour. Well! talking about the simulator, one of my colleague    from NASA and I rushed in the Boeing simulatottir and tried to fly over Seattle. We took off with so and so but we couldn’t land the plane properly. The penguin at one of the Madagascar movie said to their passages that “we’ve good and bad news, the good news is we landed on the ground and the bad news is we crash landed”. Well my NASA colleague, acted as copilot    , and me as a pilot landed the plane to the ground but crush landed.

At the aviation academy of Azerbaijan, in the flight simulation room (on pilot seat)

Since we’ve free afternoon, a small group (the American contingent) went to the rags museum    and shop where you can find the real and original Persian rags as well as see how they make the rags. The price is not that simple. My two Bostonian colleague bought a good size rug (enough for coffee table area of the living room). When you buy the rug, they packed the rug with a suitcase and provide you a certificate that include the picture of the rug you purchased so that life will be easy at the custom.

This is how the elegant Azerbaijan made rug

This is hows the rugs are made, it takes a couple of months to do one normal size rug~

In the middle of Baku city center!

Baku's Maiden Tower is a legendary place and world-famous landmark in Baku, which listed as one of historic monuments in 2001 under the UNESCO

The Flame Towers that consist of three buildings (South, East and West), as viewed from Shirvanshahs palace. The towers costs an estimate of US$350 million for construction (construction began in 2007 and completed in 2012)

Then we headed to the old city at the center of Baku, where you can find the Shirvanshahs palace. The Shirvanshahs, who has a thousand year history, were the rulers of the state of territory that extends from the Caspian Sea to the city of Gabala north-west of Baku. The feudal kingdom of Shrivan was established in the 6th century. Even the first mention of the name Shrivan in writing dates back to the 7th century. The construction of the he Shirvanshahs palace started in the 12th century; and first modified as well as expanded by Ibrahim I in the 14th century and continue the modification by his successors until the 15th century. In the palace there is also a museum that provides insight into the history of the palace, the dynasty of the Shirvanshahs, and the culture of Azerbaijan. It is actually an interesting cite to visit for anyone who stop by at Baku. Finally, we concluded our time in Baku and went back to our hotel, and start counting the hours down for our departure time.