#ipesummer18

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In Retrospect

—It’s hard to believe that the program has ended. I’m already missing the convenience of 饿了么 (eleme) delivering food from any restaurant within a 5km radius, and how cheap living in Shanghai is.

At PVG, it’s strange that I don’t need to take off my shoes and walk into a back-scatter X-ray machine, and it’s simply just walking through a metal detector before getting scanned with a portable metal detector.

Terminal 1 at PVG (Source)

Similarly, I was surprised when I had to actually check both of my bags because my airline, China Eastern, limits carry-ons at 10kg maximum. Regardless, I was ready to come home.

I actually flew to Toronto, before transferring to Detroit, since oftentimes air fare is actually cheaper to fly into another airport besides Detroit, such as Chicago, Vancouver, or even Los Angeles, at the cost of a longer trip home. In total, I spent approximately 16 hours flying from Shanghai to Toronto, before finally stopping in Detroit.

The first thing that I did when getting back here is disable the VPN—an annoying inconvenience to access tumblr and Google services in China. After that, I enjoyed my first American meal in a long time, a hamburger and fries. I think being away from all the junk food in the US made me miss the lack of it, and while there are fast food restaurants in Shanghai, like McDonald’s and KFC, nothing quite came close to the greasiness of the average American cheeseburger. I can’t wait for the new semester to start.

Signing off,

Brian Lou CSE UM-SJTU Joint Institute Shanghai, China.

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Final Days

Wow, what a way to end it all. We had a program dinner at a local western eatery, and enjoyed the rest of the night there. On my way back, I’m reminded by how idyllic SJTU is at night, when all the traffic has essentially stopped, and all that remains are the streetlights. I’ve grown accustomed to the view during the day, with distant car horns echoing across campus, but at night, the bustle is replaced by a quiet serenity.

I’m definitely going to miss this campus and biking to class, a rather stark contrast to my life at U-M.

Underpass on Nanyang Rd.

The roads around campus are completely bare.

It’s quite the departure from the typical Shanghai-at-night feeling, simply because the campus itself is mostly fenced-off most of the time, save for the the main gates, meaning that little traffic gets in or out. For the most part, this applies to most of Shanghai as well, as traffic disappears from 9-10pm onwards.

Until next time,

Brian Lou

CSE

UM-SJTU Joint Institute

Shanghai, China

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Wrapping up & Typhoon Weather

Weather in Shanghai reminds me of Michigan a little bit. There are days where in the morning it will be sunny enough to give you sunburns at 7am, followed promptly by downpours a few hours later. It’s a kind of temperamental weather cycle that’s not unlike what I’ve experienced in Michigan, with sudden squalls and thunderstorms punctuating bright summer days.

In fact, it’s hard to believe these pictures were taken a few days apart in Xujiahui, just by the sheer difference in weather.

Walking along the street at night, during a rainstorm.

A busy intersection in Xujiahui.

As I’m preparing for the program to end, I’m reminded more and more of the similarities and differences between my home in Michigan, and “home” in Shanghai.

With final exams approaching, outings are becoming a lot rarer.

Until next time,

Brian Lou

CSE

UM-SJTU Joint Institute

Shanghai, China

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Cancelled Races

The annual GT Gala was in Shanghai this week, and with it brought a host of interesting cars. Various homegrown Chinese tuners and racing groups were stationed at Shanghai International Circuit, as a mini car show of sorts.

I enjoyed looking at the various tuned cars and track machines lined up on the concourse, rivulets of water streaming down the otherwise spotless paintjobs the cars sported. Car culture seems fairly universal, as I saw similarly stanced and spoilered Audis and BMWs around the concourse, with the whole works: brakes, rims, suspension. engine tunes, etc.

There were various group CN cars hotlapping on the track prior to the scheduled race time, providing a source of entertainment despite the rather miserable weather.

Unfortunately, due to the sudden weather changes due to typhoon season, the race ended up cancelled due to inclement weather.  A real shame, as all the GT cars had been undergoing various checks and warm-ups, all stationed within the garages in the pit area.

Until next time,

Brian Lou

CSE

UM-SJTU Joint Institute

Shanghai, China.

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Cat-fes

With finals fast approaching, I decided to head to a cat cafe with some friends.

It was quite interesting locating the cafe itself: in a random office building (~30 floors), it occupied a corner office on the 7th floor. I was extremely suspicious of the place from the outside, since the office building itself did not seem well-maintained. However, stepping inside the converted office itself, we were greeted with this:

(Source)

Wonderfully cozy to spend a few hours just relaxing with cats.

Desserts and drinks were served on trays with cat-themed silverware.

Most notably, the cafe took many cues from Studio Ghibli movies, and even had a small projector room playing various Studio Ghibli films, with cats entering and exiting through various cubbies.

A nice way to spend the afternoon.

Until next time,

Brian Lou

CSE

UM-SJTU Joint Institute

Shanghai, China.

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Last day in Japan

Today was our last day in Japan, and it was packed with events. In the afternoon we had our final presentations for the Automotive class. I presented on a type of network system called CAN which is used to allow communication between different types  of electronic sensors. These can be all the way from the rear view camera all the way to the LiDAR systems in today’s autonomous cars. The presentations went from 1:30pm all the way until 5pm. Right after was the farewell party hosted by the NUSIP staff. We had some amazing food served by the university and after all of the students gave short speeches regarding their time in Japan. The party was bittersweet. It reminded me of all of the memories I made in these 6 weeks with some of the most incredible people I have met. Its hard to imagine that all the friends I made in these 6 weeks will be thousands of miles away from me the next day. Some of the students are already planning to visit the US sometime soon and all of us in the US are planning our whole reunion, given that it happens in the US. This whole experience would not have been possible without the University of Michigan (The University of Michigan actually started this entire program. The Dean personally flew to Nagoya University and asked if they could start this program for international students)! So with that being said I would like to thank the entire IPE program for this once in a lifetime opportunity as well as Nagoya University for offering such a great education in these 6 weeks. I will post some of my pictures from the farewell party below, and I hope that you enjoy. Thanks for tuning into my blog posts, and this is Vinay Revankar, signing off!

This was the strangest dish on the table but also the most delicious. It was prawn meat topped with mayonnaise and the head portion was stuffed with egg

Here is me with the three Japanese Sensei who taught me and everyone else an incredible amount of Japanese in these six weeks. Tanoshikatta desu! (I had a very good time!)

Here is Rui-san and Takaya-san, the tutors who drove me and others to the Ryokan last weekend. They were incredibly helpful during the entire study abroad and I hope to meet them again, either in Japan or the USA!

And of course, I cannot forget the amazing people who I met during the entire journey. This is not everyone of course, but I hope we can all see each other in the near future. Mata aimasho! (Lets meet again!)

Vinay Revankar

Computer Science Engineering

NUSIP in Nagoya, Japan

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Ryokan!!

For out last weekend in Japan, a couple of us from the NUSIP program went and stayed at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese hotel. We drove up there with two of our tutors, Rui-san and Takaya-san. The drive was about 5 hours, so we stopped at a tourist village called shirakawa. We ate authentic soba noodles while we were there. Soba noodles are traditional japanese noodles made from buckwheat flour. Its hard to find traditionally made soba noodles in Nagoya! Later we saw the entire village from a cliff not too far away. It was an incredible sight and the weather was perfect.

The restaurant in which we ate our soba noodles. Instead of chairs, we were given little cushions to sit on. It really was the full experience!

The view of the village from the cliff. It was not a barren cliff and had shops and tourists walking by. This is by far one of the best pictures I have taken in Japan!

When we arrived at the Ryokan and ate dinner, we watched the World Cup Semifinals and played cards until late into the night. The Ryokan rooms were very different from any other kind of hotel. There were no beds; instead you had to pull out a thin mattress from a closet and sleep on that on top of the bamboo floor. It was interesting to put myself in those shoes and see how traditional Japanese people lived back in the day.

This is a panorama of the room I took in the night. Me and another NUSIP student slep with out two tutors as seen in the picture. On the left is Rui-san and the right is Takaya-san. They were amazing during the entire trip and made the experience so much better by translating most of our questions. And we were able to improve their English as well so it was a win-win! 

When we came back from the Ryokan, we thanked both Rui and Takaya profusely for their driving and letting us experience another aspect of Japan. It was sad that it was our last weekend together, but it was one of the best weekends here in Japan.

Vinay Revankar

Computer Science Engineering

NUSIP in Nagoya, Japan

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Xuhui, Lujiazui

These two districts in Shanghai are arguably the most notable in Shanghai. Since the weather these past few days has been fairly nice, I decided to go and visit the two areas.

The Oriental Pearl Tower, seen from the metro station.

One of the many façades of the office buildings in Lujiazui.

The major financial buildings of Shanghai (left to right: Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai World Financial Center, Shanghai Tower).

Traffic during peak hours in Xujiahui (a section of Xuhui).

The two areas in Shanghai are divided essentially by the Huangpu river. From the pictures above, it’s fairly obvious which district is newer (and wealthier). In Xuhui you can very quickly pass from extremely upscale shopping districts to more traditional housing, in fairly stark contrast to the entire Pudong area, which has been under heavy development and as a result, is much more upscale. 

In either case, it’s almost shocking the sheer concentration of shopping opportunities in both districts: in the image from Xuhui, there are four malls pictured, all essentially across the street from each other. It’s almost dangerous to spend any prolonged period of time in these areas, just by nature of the low prices (relative to the US) and as a result, the temptation of spending money. Regardless, it was still cool to visit the two districts.

Until next time,

Brian Lou

CSE

UM-SJTU Joint Institute

Shanghai, China