Meeting & Information

    Background

   The 7th Argo Data Management Meeting will be held from October 31 to November 3, 2006 at National Marine Data and Information Service (NMDIS) of State Oceanic Administration of China, which located in Tianjin, the second largest commercial city in China, not far from Beijing.

    Related Documents

     National Report

      Agenda

      Agenda-V1.21.----------27/10/2006

      Important Notice-20060927

    1. Instructed by Dr.Sylvie, the Executive Meeting of 7th ADMT will be held on October 31, 2006 (Tuesday) between 15:00 to 18:50 at the conference Room of NMDIS. The Plenary meeting will start at 09:00am on Wednesday, 1st November, and finish around 14:00 on Friday, 3rd November.

    2. All the participants can be received at Beijing and Tianjin Airport upon arrival. Please let us know your arrival date and time and Flight No. at your earliest convenience.

    3. The hotel rooms have been reserved for all the participants at Astor Hotel not far from NMDIS

  Local Information

    Acess to NMDIS

         NMDIS is one of the operational centers under the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) who is in charge of marine data and information management in China. Act as a National Oceanographic Data Center, it holds the World Data Center-D for Oceanography (for detail information, please see the English version of Website http://www.coi.gov.cn), China Argo Data Center (http://www.cadc.org.cn), China Delayed Mode Database for NEAR-GOOS (http://www.coi.gov.cn), as well as a ODAS Metadata Center (http://jcomm.coi.gov.cn).

NMDIS is located at the city center of Tianjin Municipality. The detail address of NMDIS is as follows:

    Visa Application

         Participants are kindly requested to contact the visa office of the Chinese embassy or General Consulate nearest to their permanent residence to obtain information on access to China. Delegates who are required to apply for a visa may do so at the visa office of the nearest Chinese Embasy or General Consulate with official invitation letter. Official Invitation letter will be sent to the participants from the State Oceanic Administration upon receiving the pre-registration form from the participants.

    Accommodation

         The hotel rooms will be pre-reserved by the Local Organizing Committee for participants at near-by 4-star Astor Hotel with favorable price.
Address of the hotel: 

    Transportation

        There will be a complimentary airport pick-up & see-off service from and to Tianjin Airport and Beijing Capital International Airport by NMDIS car according to your arrival and departure Flight schedule. The people from NMDIS will be waiting for you at arrival gate of Beijing airport.
Just in case, the participants who couldn’t be able to get on board the NMDIS car, you can take airport shuttle bus from Beijing airport to Tianjin. The shuttle bus service runs every half an hour between 8:00am to 10:30pm at Beijing airport, and from 5:00am to 5:30pm at Tianjin. The Pick-up place is at the Parking Lot just opposite to Departure Gate # 13 of the airport. The destination in Tianjin is in front of CAAC office (113 Nanjing Road, Tianjin), taking about two hours from Beijing airport to Tianjin. The cost of the shuttle bus is RMB70.

    Weather& Clothing

         Tianjin falls within the temperate zone, and, being a port city at the coast of Bohai Sea, it is frequently affected by tidal air currents. 
        Tianjin has a warm temperature and semi-humid monsoon climate with four clearly distinct seasons. It has cold winters and hot summers while spring and autumn are short and pleasant. The annual average temperature stands at 14oC. January is the coldest month with an average temperature of -4oC. July is the hottest when temperature can reach over 30oC. The frost-free period last for about 230 days. The annual rainfall averages 558-679 mm, concentrating mainly in July and August. Tianjin receives between 2610-3100 hours of sunshine per year.
         Generally, the weather of Tianjin in late October and early November is good, with average Maximum temperature of 19゜C and Minimum of 6゜C.
         For clothing, woolen sweater or warm coat is needed.
         For live weather forecast, you can see from: http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast

    Map of Tianjin

    City of Tianjin

           Tianjin, also known as the diamond of the Bohai Gulf located between Latitude 38o42' and 45o15'N and Longitude 116o42'- 118o04'E .The city center is 50km away from the Bohai Sea coast. Tianjin is also a gateway to the capital of the People's Republic of China, 120km south-east of Beijing, the capital of China. With total area of 11,305 square kilometers and a population of more than 10 million, Tianjin is one of the biggest industrial and port cities in China. 
          As one of the municipalities under the direct administration of the Central Government of the People's Republic of China, Tianjin is the economic center of China 's Bohai rim and is being built a modern port city and a major economic center in Northern China. Tianjin is also a State-level city of historical and cultural value. 
Attraction & Sightseeing In Tianjin
       As one of the tourist destination in the north of China, Tianjin boasts a history as long as, if not longer than Beijing. What's more, with less tourist crowd invasion, Tianjin can still be viewed as a traditional northern Chinese city because of both the well-kept folklore and the historical sites without too many renovations.
       Tianjin is nicest for its varied and interesting buildings. From the thousand-year-old wooden Temple of Solitary Joy to the beautiful Grand Mosque , the area also holds a lot of religious interest, both Western and Asian. The mosque, as well as the imposing Notre Dame des Victories , are of particular beauty and active significance. For the Chinese, although not overtly religious as such, the Confucius Temple is an obvious area of pilgrimage, as, for the Buddhists, Mount Pan Shan is.
        For those who have not yet become true heroes (Those who do not reach the Great Wall are not true heroes: Bu dao changcheng, fei hao han), there is also a section of the Great Wall here that is normally quieter than its Beijing cousins. It should be noted that another major reason for coming to Tianjin is for the shopping here, the Antique Market (Jiuhuo shichang) is a great place to wander, amongst old Mao badges and apparently genuine Ming vases - worth a visit even for those not interested in purchase.
Cuisines in Tianjin
       After improvements of over three hundred years, Tianjin food has quickly developed into one of Northern China's major cuisines. Like its northern counterparts, it is characterized by its strongly salty taste. In Tianjin, you will have the opportunity to experience all kinds of cooking styles, including deep-frying, stewing, braising and steaming. 
        In addition, you may come across varieties of specialties in the city, among which Goubuli steamed stuffed bun (Goubuli baozi) and Fried Dough-Twist (Tianjin mahua) should be tried.
Shopping in Tianjin
        Tianjin had long been a business center in northern China, even before the Opium War about 150 years ago. 
        Nowadays Tianjin is probably one of China's best places to come across a bargain, from antiques to western modern clothing. The markets and stores here are notorious as a shopping paradise for those bored of Beijing, and as such, on weekends, the place is flooded with antique hunters or those after a new wardrobe. 
         The best of the streets for general shopping has to be Binjiang dao, a huge street with block upon block of stalls and shops containing almost anything you might fancy. For department stores, the Quanye Bazaar Department Store, a nine-story steel construction on the corner of Changchun Dao and Heping Lu, is popular as the only one in China that uses real people instead of mannequins to models its clothes.
Peddlers here simply spread out a newspaper and put on display their arguably authentic curios for passers-by to peruse. Originally centered on Shenyang Jie, it has in recent years expanded into the neighboring streets and alleys. The size of the market varies according the time of a year and also day of the week, with Sunday attracting swarms of Beijing people bargain hunting. Be sure to try a verify your products, cynicism and hard bargaining are mandatory for the successful hunter.
         Finally there are a variety of specialty goods that Tianjin produces, the most obvious being the carpets, New Year posters and clay figurines. There are many factory outlets in the Tianjin area that produce its famous handmade carpets, although this is an expensive option, best done by those who know what they are doing. 
       Clay figurines have been famous in Tianjin ever since the Master of clay, Zhang mingshan, came on the scene in the nineteenth century. Beyond galleries and art viewing, the best place to get these figurines is in the Nirenzhang Clay Figurine Store on the Ancient Culture Street. The best place to purchase your New Year posters is the Yangliuqing New Year Poster Shop, Yangliuqing being the famous town to the west of Tianjin that has from early times produced these prints.