Day 4

The jetlag finally got on me, and I would not have woken up on time had I not set the alarm clock. It is ironic, as today is the only day that I have to wake up for my morning presentation.


(U-Bahn Marientplaz station that I switched from S-Bahn to U6 to TUM. I like this station because it is very large and well decorated.)

The presentation with Sylvain went pretty well. Even though I did not practice, I got the timing about right.


(Sylvain talking. To avoid disturbing him I turned off flash of my cell phone camera; this seems to increase motion blur due to longer exposure time.)


(Sylvain talking, viewed from high up)

The dinner party will take place in, guess what, the "booze house" that I photographed a few days ago. I checked the menu to make sure there are things other than potato and sauerkraut that I could eat.


(Hofbrauhaus, i.e. the booze house)


(U6 from TUM to Marienplatz, a rare sunny day in Munich)


(Marienplatz in sunny afternoon)


(Marienplatz in sunny afternoon)


(The dinner party)

Day 2

I finally got my registration done. For some reason, my badge shows only my name, not my affiliation. It is kind of nice as for people who do not know me they would not be able to figure out where I came from.


(My badge; just my name there, nothing else.)

I spent most of the day chatting with people. Here is the interesting thing. The conference took place during the final week of SIGGRAPH review before the committee meeting, so we all know we are not supposed to talk about it. But without that, it is kind of hard for people to talk about something else, and eventually the conversations came (dangerously) close to SIGGRAPH.

To avoid this pitfall, I decided to spend some time sliding down the tubular chutes inside the TUM informatik building where the conference located.


(Entrance of TUM Informatik building)


(Chutes, birds eye view)


(Chutes, side view)


(Chutes, floor view)


I went to Voila Café for dinner. The lonely planet guide described the restaurant as having creative vegetarian dish, so I decided to give it a try. The décor is a definite local bar, and the menu is in German. Initially I thought I would have to scramble to find the “creative vegetarian dish” but I got very lucky; the menu has a designated section for “vegetarisch” and I simply pick the one containing the restaurant name. later on the waitress dropped by and asked me if I need a English menu, and I surprised her by telling her that I am ready to order.


(Menu)

The dish consisted of the usual materials: potato, broccoli, chili, cucumber, tomato, and eggplant, but it is superbly cooked. The potato is probably the best I have ever had for a long time; “juicy” is probably not the word that one would usually associate with potatoes, but that is exactly how the dish tasted like.


(Vegetarian dish)