day 4: site visits, wandering downtown

In the morning we visited "Taiyuan Electric Power College" which mostly trains people to operate coal-burning power plants. They had full-scale simulations of power-plant control rooms, with students staring at monitors and dials very intently. We also saw a water treatment lab, an air pollution measurement lab, a structual engineering lab. What this has to do with computing is completely lost on me.

But boy, did they bring the lunch. Our group (and the literature and social responsiblity group) were taken (by the Electric Power College) to an AMAZING lunch at some hotel downtown -- put dinner the night before to shame. It was the kind of hotel that mostly makes signature dishes, unreplicable anywhere else. (For example, our closing soup was some kind of broth with fish, some kind of crisp bread, and cilantro.)

In the afternoon, we went to the Radio and TV university for a similar experience -- inspection of their sound studios, audio and video production facilities, and so forth. Viewed their trophy room (teleplays produced there have won national awards), and a few exhibits of student work.

Then Laurel and I decided to cut out and go downtown -- someone gave us a lift to a hotel near the downtown. We first tried to make travel arrangments to Xi'an using that hotel's travel agent. It was classic... at first, it was going well: the woman produced a flight time on the desired day. But then we tried to see if there was a better one. She got on the phone (again), then gestured to us to follow her. we went out of the hotel, down the street and around the corner to an airline booking office. the travel times available there weren't so great either. so we tried to ask if we could book a train. in order to be asked that question, the airline booking woman had to run out on the street and drag in three giggling students who between them had enough English to translate, mostly. But it turned out that she couldn't do trains. So we said, OK, we'll take the plane. But then she only took cash. And we didn't have enough RMB on us. And we couldn't find anyplace around that wanted to change our USD at that hour. So, a glorious failure.

Instead, we wandered around until 10:30 or 11:00, seeing the sights, drinking a few beers, watching people -- we hung out in the main square, bought some tea in a shopping mall, and had Sichuan-style hot pot at a dingy little restaurant out on the street.