Was sagst du? 樣樣都德

After 5 straight days of the Neuroscience Meeting, my brain felt a bit drained and needed recharging. A short break was what I needed! My first day of holiday was about shopping. The prices of many goods in the US are lower to start with (e.g. compared to Europe), and there's generally a greater variety to choose from. The freefalling greenback now makes it more affordable than ever to indulge a splurge in the US. Little wonder then I have spent about US$200 on books alone; a few of them were purchased during the conference where I could make use of special discounts. An old friend of mine came to join me from Stanford (in the San Francisco Bay Area) that evening for a short break as well. The next day, we set off with a couple of other people from our hostel to the aircraft carrier USS Midway, which is now decommissioned, docked in the San Diego Bay and turned into a museum. Our first impression upon entering the hangar deck was that the Midway was rather different from other norm...

Yesterday marked the last day of the annual Society for Neuroscience Meeting of the US. 一連幾天的美國神經科學學會會議，昨天終於落幕。 This meeting is no ordinary one! It is basically an enormous gathering of more than 30000 people in the San Diego Convention Center, which was filled with people in every corner and corridor. Lunch time, as well as the start and the end of keynote lectures, would bring about massive pedestrian traffic which is reminiscent of Le Louvre in Paris. The main lecture hall was also filled to capacity with thousands of audience during the first keynote lecture of the meeting on the first day. 這個會議可有來頭，規模以「鼎盛」形容絕不為過，一共有三萬多人出席，聖迭戈會展中心到處都人頭湧湧，尤其是午飯時候或大型演講前後，整個會場都是人潮，不禁令我像起羅浮宮。會議的第一個大型演講，數千坐席，更是無一虛設！ Why do I think of Le Louvre? I described Le Louvre as a kind of a shopping plaza where there are so many things on offer and everyone can take what they need. The scale of this meeting permits breadth and depth at the same time, as the meeting has to cater for a wide spectrum of researchers...