Day 1 of conference

After 2 nights at XQ's place, it was time to move to my rented room.

We had breakfast early in the morning at stall near her place. Traditional soy milk with taiwanese style onigiri and fried cruller wrapped in a flaky sesame pan cake. Though it was kind of  oily, I did enjoy the fried cruller wrapped in a flaky sesame pan cake. I liked the crunchy and flaky texture together with the fragrance of the sesame.

After packing, I went to XQ's Uni and even visited her lab.

Got a free tour around her campus

I've always envied universities with big fields for activities or nice walkways as the universities that I've studied in never had any or much space.

After that I moved my luggage to my rented room and headed to the conference venue at Academia Sinica.

The phone-book thick abstract book that I only got on the last day of the conference and was too heavy to bring back. Lol....

Free live music~ every conference should start having this!

Apparently there were 1100 participants~!

It was my poster session on the first 2 days. There were so many posters and people all around the conference venue.....I felt like a fish out of water there.

Plus it was the first time I've attended a conference that huge that there can be 4 concurrent symposiums. Definitely an eye-opener to see the research that other people around the world are doing. As if I didn't already felt small, this made me feel even smaller. But it definitely motivated me, seeing the passion that others have for their work!

Unlike conference here which feeds you 4 times a day starting from breakfast, tea, lunch and tea again, this conference skipped breakfast. 

Their tea selection was interesting, with lots of sandwiches and different types of cakes.....some of which are japanese inspired. And they taste great! I ate so much during every tea. Then for lunch, instead of buffet, it's a simple lunch box of either chicken, fish, beef, pork, vegetarian or subway. I think I took the fish lunch box every single time. Yummy warm lunch box that came with rice, the main dish, and 2 or 3 other sides plus one half of an egg!

That night, we were also treated to a buffet dinner with live music at the conference venue~!