Some more from Melbourne

My epic Australia/Malaysia/Conference/Holiday - part 3

Due to delays in my connectivity with the internets and having given my laptop (with my camera SD card reader) to my boss to bring back to the UK while I traipse around Malaysia... here is a much belated set of photos from Melbourne. Not pictured (yet) are koalas and kangaroos and penguins that I managed to see in the final days in Oz. You know, just hanging out, IN THE REAL WORLD. I'm not inclined to be very verbose with the figure captions, as I am currently knee deep in Malaysian shenanigans, but I am going to try to keep writing in semi-real-time so that I don't forget everything!

I thought I would provide some shots of the convention centre, which came with it's own tall ship, apparently. The building you see in this picture is the plenary hall and some of the meeting rooms, while the long low building in the background stretches for several city blocks and contained multiple trade show spaces. While we used one small hall for posters and exhibitor stalls, the others were used by fisheries and hatcheries people and a mass air-con convention. As always, fun to play the "guess what conference THAT guy is affiliated with" game on the escalators. (Although, perhaps not as fun as when the female body building convention shared the space with us in Canada...)

This year, I gave my first talk at the conference. I would estimate between 150-200 people attended, although the room was huge so that number barely made a dent in the expanse of empty orange seats. Pictured is the last talk of the evening, given by a new friend (who presented really thought-provoking stuff, I might add), to give you a sense of the scale of (half) the room. My good friend Manus, who gave the first talk, appears either exhausted or preoccupied in the foreground. My own talk went reasonably well. I am not thrilled with the amount of 'ehms' that slipped out in the first few minutes, but I think that people listened and understood: someone even asked a later speaker a question in the context of the results I presented :) So yes, talk was alright, but mainly it felt great to have one under my belt.

Despite worrying weather forecasts, we managed to have some decent autumn sun in Melbourne! This is a view from the pub next to the centre. Australian sun is impressive... when it emerges, you strip down to a tshirt, but when clouds return you have to get the winter coat back on. Powerful stuff... isn't the ozone hole somewhere over here?

Following recommendations (thanks Jaani) I managed to find multiple coffee shops I would deem "exceptional" in Melbourne. While very good coffee shops were everywhere (happiness!) the best of the best were in relatively obscure locations down alleys and in reclaimed warehouses. As shown below, a standard trend for Melbourne is the unfinished wall/ceiling aesthetic. And while the "flat white" may be the national coffee drink of choice, and I really did try to like it, I remain a double espresso girl at heart <3

Next up, a slightly random shot of "The Clocks" at Flinders St station, which are surprisingly helpful and efficient and informing late night commuters how much time they have to pick up water or a snack for the train home. Due to the incredible generosity of a friend's brother (a resident of the Melbourne suburbs) I was able to stay in town a few days post-conference without breaking the bank and with the benefit of good conversations over very nice wine.

And finally, a last shot of the Melbourne skyline from the Southbank area where my hotel was. I have many more pictures trapped on my camera, and I dutifully promise to post/caption them upon my return to normal civilization. But for now, I have picked up my trusty (and wonderful) travelling companion Dave in Singapore, and we have just embarked on our 9 day exploration of the Malaysian peninsula. Already an adventure!

A welcome to Melbourne and the conference begins

My epic Australia/Malaysia/Conference/Holiday - part 2


Following a surprisingly enjoyable layover in Singapore, I was herded back onto an A380 Singapore Air flight to Melbourne for another 7 hour flight. This was (whee!) my first time on a double decker plane, and I of course reserved an upstairs seat. Honestly, it wasn't much different from the normal planes, and I didn't even see it from the terminal to coo over how amazing it looks to have two storeys of windows, so perhaps a tad disappointing. Nonetheless, an uneventful flight seated next to one the of the chiefs of my Cardiff lab (yes, we planned it, and yes, there was gossip, and yes, we eventually shut up and let eachother pass out and sleep).


Arriving at Melbourne we faced a ridiculous queue for immigration, followed by a dog-sniffing of our suitcases. This might be the one country where the dogs aren't looking for drugs... they are looking for contraband fruit! Then, in what might be officially the best reception in a foreign country I've ever had, I was scooped up by a driver in a hired car who shepherded myself and Dan (friend from Oxford, from Tasmania) to the house of Dan's brother just outside the city. Sudden torrential rain meant we couldn't avail ourselves of the new hot tub he had just installed in his back yard, but a proper breakfast and shower and brushing of teeth left us renewed and much more capable of facing the challenging prospect of staying awake for another 14 hours or so, despite every cell in our bodies saying SLEEP.... SLEEP NOW.... IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU SLEEP IMMEDIATELY... BEING AWAKE IS INCREDIBLY INAPPROPRIATE.

I was then deposited at my hotel once check in was available, and left to fend off jetlag alone (which is surprisingly challenging). After noticing that, around 4pm, I was literally falling asleep while standing and drinking coffee, I came up with a very simple plan: walk. Walk until you can't anymore. It was the one thing I could do without nodding off! I survived until 10pm before passing out, and so I think I successfully dealt with the worst of the jetlag and have been able to be awake and have meals at appropriate times since then. There is still a strong urge to nap around 3pm though.

The next morning, Ashley stumbled in after her own trans-Earth flying ordeal, and I encouraged a day of seeing sights to help her own acclimatization. 

Melbourne is set on a river, with a satisfying number of bridges for pedestrians, cars, and the ubiquitous trams. The weather might have been frustratingly Welsh-like, but the trees told of a different climate.

Lots of random acts of art dot the riversides. The tall building with the gold top is a casino next to my hotel (shorter and not visible) on the south bank. The Southbank area is roughly a mini-Vegas for the city; restaurants are pricey and there are even towers shooting alarming fireballs outside the casinos, but it's convenient to the convention centre and has access to morning espresso (all a girl needs!).

Ashley and I also stopped in an art museum (Ian Potter museum... thanks Jaani!) that featured contemporary aboriginal art (they only started painting on canvas in 2001, to put it in perspective). I was immediately attracted to the colors/patterns of the style, although the gift shop did not* have the same taste as I did when they chose what they offered as prints (alas, I even have a poster tube prepared for this type of thing!)

The geography, attitude, and tastes of the city I shall have to address in a less long-winded post. I am also being remiss in not mentioning the purpose of the funded trip to the other side of the globe: the conference. It is the annual meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), where 5000 people get together for a weekend educational session and 5 days of talks, posters, venders, and general mayhem (erm, I mean, "collaboration").  It's fun--there is a lot of seeing old friends and some meeting of new ones. It's exhausting--conference fatigue already hovers, after only a day! It's rewarding--this year I have my first talk at this conference, and I am ever so slightly petrified. It's pretty damn awesome, actually. Perhaps I'll even mention the science in a future post :-p

The foyer of the centre, prior to invasion. There are two other conferences in the centre... air conditioning and fisheries and hatcheries. I think it's pretty easy to spot the MRI folks, although not quite as easy as when we shared a centre with a female bodybuilding convention.

The beginnings of an adventure

My epic Australia/Malaysia/Conference/Holiday - part 1

I am writing from the floor of perhaps the nicest airport on Earth...

Changi airport in Singapore is hitting all the spots, as did the national Singapore Air. The flight was nearly empty, so I and the other guy in my row moved up to the vacant bulkhead before anyone else could grab them. Most people were able to snag 3 seats together and lie down horizontally (it's possible, when short) while I was explicitly told by long-haul pros that I should *not* sleep during this leg of my trip to help with jetlag; so I watched Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and read a trashy Patricia Cornwall book I bought in the airport from the comfort of the bulkhead seat. They give you fleecy blankets and Givenchy socks. An easy flight, despite being the longest I've taken to date (13 hours I think?). Upon arrival at Changi, I leisurely picked up a fancy exotic flavored Starbucks frappucino before getting the LAST seat (phew/whoops) on a free tour of Singapore meant for people with long layovers. The bus drove us into the city from the airport, gave us 15 minutes to take pictures at a temple in Chinatown, a twisty tour through various other neighborhoods, and drove us back, all in about 2.5 hours. I learned several fun facts... did you know that 85% of Singaporeans live in apartments, rather than houses? But about 90% of them own their home rather than rent? OK, so it was terribly touristy and consisted mostly of people taking pictures through the windows of a coach bus, but it gave me a nice overview of what I might like to come back to on my day in Singapore post-conference... the national museum, the narrow streets of Chinatown, Arab St, etc.

Back at Changi, and following a long walk, a train, another walk, and a shockingly informal security process, I was back in my terminal with still plenty of time to kill (case in point, I'm blogging). Some scrumptious curry later, I explored the airport's own Butterfly garden:

Next up, another long flight to Melbourne, but this time on the upper deck of my first two-storey plane! One of the heads of my lab has the seat next to me, but odds are we both just pass out and try to avoid painful jetlag come Australia. Wish me luck!