Preparing classes would probably be the sensible thing to do right now, but instead, I decided to travel to Asia. I’ll be attending the 28th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Beijing, China from tomorrow on (more about that in a later post), but while “in the neighbourhood”, I also took up an earlier invitation for a work visit to the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Academia Sinica (ASIAA) — say the equivalent of the National Academies. The institute has a staff of about 170 people under the directorship of Paul Ho, and is operated from a new and modern building on the campus of the National Taiwan University.

A key element in the operational model of the ASIAA are active
collaborations with some of the world’s leading institutes, facilities
and researchers. My visit came after an invitation from my friend and
collaborator Ciska Kemper. I’ve known Ciska since I was a Masters
student at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands in 1996, and we
both got our PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2002. After a
Spitzer fellowship at UCLA and faculty positions at the University of
Virginia in Charlottesville and the University of Manchester, she took
up her current position at the ASIAA, where she is the ALMA project
manager.

After 29 hours of traveling (there is a 12 hour time difference
between London and Taipei, so it’s quite far away…), I arrived in
Taipei on Tuesday evening. It has been a fruitful visit, resulting in
several new collaborative projects about fullerenes, dust formation
and AGB stars. As it generally goes for work visits, I also gave a
colloquium, and had a very nice chat with Paul Ho (the ASIAA
director). In addition, there was ample time for social contacts, and
for exploring parts of Taipei and the surroundings. In Taipei,
appartments tend to be fairly small, and often do not include a proper
kitchen, and thus people go out for dinner pretty much every
evening. There’s a large number of restaurants and food stalls; at
street level, almost all building space is used for restaurants or for
shops. I enjoyed all sorts of different cuisines — Korean, Japanese,
Chinese, Shanghai-ese, … all very very yummy! I also gave a guest
lecture about Belgian beer in a pub that was all stocked up with such
liquid delights.

On Saturday, we took the Maokong gondola up to the Chi Nan temple, and
then on to the teahouses where we enjoyed the views, and fresh tea and
a few bites. Later that day, we visited the Taipei 101 — the second
tallest building in the world. Quite impressive! On Sunday, we decided
to go hiking in Yangmingshan National Park, up to the peak of Mount
Qixing which is the highest point in the park. It was — how shall we
say this — a fairly strenuous hike for a person of my fitness
level. In fact, it was brutal. The trail went up steeply at times —
apparently nobody around here believes in switchbacks and thus trails
go up steeply. And the tropics are great, but not so much when you’re
hiking. The temperature was about 36 degrees with a high humidity;
even higher up, it was still much hotter than is comfortable for a
normal human being….As if that wasn’t hot enough, the area is
volcanic and the trail passes over several very hot fumaroles. Along
the path were lots of pretty lizards, butterflies and a lonely
poisonous snake in a landscape of bamboo and other tropical plants and
flowers. I made it to the top, and probably had about 20 less liters
of body fluids to carry down the hill. But the views of the city and
out to the ocean were worth it! After hiking down and taking a very
wild busride back home, a cold shower and a good Japanese dinner by
the water made us forget most of the painful muscles.

And so the week has gone by quickly! Tomorrow I’m off to Beijing and
the IAU GA, but that’s for another time!