Leaving Paris soon

date: 2008-10-18 14:05:00 +08:00 category: travel

My trip to Paris for the RECOMB Comparative Genomics workshop is coming to an end. It has been a great week.

The RECOMB Comparative Genomics Workshop was held from Monday to Wednesday. My talk was on the second day, it went smoothly but ended a little early. There was only one question, but after the talk a couple of people came and gave me some suggestions. On the same day as my talk, there was a dinner cruise on the river Seine and I got to meet some other folks during the dinner. All in all, it was a great conference as the topics discussed are closely related to my own work.

The only problem I encountered was being unable to use my N82 to take pictures. Meddling with the settings and doing a reset did not help, in the end I had to buy 2 disposable cameras.

After the conference ended on Wednesday, I visited Le Panthéon. The most interesting part is the underground crypt, which houses the remains of distinguished citizens of France, including Marie Curie. Given the number of CRPG games with crypt levels, I was half expecting skeletons and zombies to jump out at me. After that, I went to Jardin du Luxembourg, the largest park in Paris. It was a refreshing change from the concrete jungle of the city.

The first half of Thursday was spent visiting Prof Frej Tekaia. We had a good discussion on some research problems of mutual interest. After that, I went to see the Eiffel Tower, it looks a lot bigger up close as compared to when I saw it from afar during the dinner cruise.

Finally on Friday, I visited the Louvre Museum and saw the Mona Lisa, among many other sculptors and paintings. Personally, I don’t quite understand why the Mona Lisa is so famous. The last place I visited was the La Grande Galerie de l’Evolution (roughly translated as Grand Gallery of Evolution),I found it more fascinating than the Louvre.

Hopefully, the pictures from the disposable camera can be developed. Then I’ll scan them and add them to this post.