Taipei - Day 8/9
Posted by Pébé in Asia on 08 23rd, 2008
It’s been a couple of days since my last post from Taipei. There is simply just not enough hours in a day. Last day was busy, shared amoung training and meetings. I end up in my hotel room around midnight, packed my suitcases and went to bed. The next day, I left the hotel around 9:30am to go to the airport. I was told to take at least 3 hours… humm 10:10am I was already waiting in the airport, waiting for 10:50 and the opening of the registration desk. This done, I visited inside out, the airport… so cool, no access to the lounge… my blackberry was still not working, could not even read my emails. Finally, catched my plane, no delay, great… 5:30pm I landed in Seoul.
You pass the gate and taxi drivers queue in the airport to hunt foreigners. One came after me, speaking a bit of english, proposing his services to take me to my hotel. How much? 130.000 won! Well I am not familiar with the money here… but it looked bloody expensive at the time. Nicely refused his offer, went to an ATM, got 200.000 won… and try to understand where to go. Hopefully it was not too late and the sun was still shining. After walking around, I found outside a booth where they were selling bus tickets… I knew my hotel was close to the COEX, the Seoul convention center, 
among the korean characters I was able to distinct COEX, this is want I want. Final, 14.000 won 
much better deal. I was a “deluxe” bus, high profile… a bit more than a hour later, I was downtown, near the COEX. Sadly there are 2 intercontinental hotel surrounding the place… I start obviously by the wrong one. Well, after so much waiting, plane and bus, a little walk could not be bad.. It is about a 10min walk between the 2, less funny with my 2 luggages and backpack…
Finally, I made it. Hotel is not bad and I have a nice view… Just time to rest and be ready for the next day.
read comments (0)Taipei - Day 7
Posted by Pébé in Asia on 08 18th, 2008What’s new today? same old same old…work all day, it went pretty fast… had my first bubble tea which is kind traditional in Taiwan…and weird in the same time.
My boss joined me today in Tapei, we manage to finally go out by ourself without any local help and we had quite some fun. Imagine going to a place where you can not communicate and we do not know what you have to do. Basically the idea here, you get a pan with 2 kind of boiling soups… one spicy one normal, they give you some meet and you have a free buffet with plenty of weird thing… so actually we can not be sure what we actually ate and we were very lousy in handly the whole cooking part… The waitress took puty on us, and had to show us the basic moves… but what is the fun of travelling if you can not get lost in a city completly in the unknown!
One word… AWESOME! Like my friend Po would say “No Charge for Awesomeness or Attractivness”
Taipei - Day 5/6 - Week end time :)
Posted by Pébé in Asia on 08 17th, 2008So let’s say you want to have a fantastic week end in a foreign country, what do you do? Well either you invite me to join, lol, either you have local friends to show you around. I spent the saturday with Winson, 
Wilson and Tim and it was great! They picked me up at 10am in front of my office, we took the metro to go to the sea shore… oh nice Taipei is real hot this time of year, the wind next to the sea (well actually the river going to the sea…the sea is slighty further) helped a lot. We had a nice walk, followed by a coffee, a meal, a visit of some crowded streets… This done, we went to the museum where I learned a lot on Taiwan’s history. The night caught up pretty fast, ideal time to go to the night markets… more food and crowd but a must seen in Taipei… with the illegal vendors running away after the rumor of cops coming, which spead quite fast among them… This done, I was back to my hotel by 8:30pm… with great memories and lots of fun. I can not thanks you enought boys!
As for Sunday, well I had set my alarm clock to 10am…but forget to change the “week day only” setting… meaning… well I woke up at 12:30pm… shame…
30 minutes later, so time to get up, have a shower and get dressed…I was in a cab (btw watching the olympics while driving) direction the Taipei 101. Up to now the tallest building in the world, as in 2009 the Burj Dubai should take over. What to say? humm well it is quite tall… I love the architecture, the elevator is impressive. From the 6th floor to 89th in a couple of seconds. It stands at 508m. 101 stands both for the address and the 101 floors it got. You can visit the 89 and some days (sadly not today) you can go outside on the 91st floors. You can grast the view of all Taipei from each side of this tower.
You have many companies in the building and a fantastic great mall at its base. Well it is mall like many others, with the same big brands as usual.
The latest big building I was in was last year in Toronto’s CN Tower with its 533m, but it’s just a tower not a building per say. After that back to the hotel for some rest and chill out before starting work again on Monday. Great weekend!
Tapei - Day 4
Posted by Pébé in Asia on 08 15th, 2008
Another pic in a restaurant? No… not today… may be tomorrow. I wanted to show today that I am actually working. The guys at around 1pm… after we finished our morning session. Nobody is asleep after almost 3 hours of training. We had a 10 min break obviously. So either they are enthousiastic about the class either they are relieved that it is over for the day… your call.
Anyhow, I am having a great time… they are just all great. Thanks a lot guys!
Taipei - Day 3
Posted by Pébé in Asia on 08 14th, 2008
I was about to get to bed without a new post. How rude! Not that what I am writing everyday is of a real interest for anyone… but is that really the purpose of a personal blog… Do not think so. Either you blog to get lots of people and make some $$ either you do one for yourself and do not care if it is actually read or not… what is the pleasure then? It is useless!!! Got it? no… well another time may be.
So back to business nothing impressive today, great dumplings thanks boys… and work all day. Ah yes….walking down the street I saw a three-wheeled scooter… astonishing, no? like would say one of my heros…
Taipei - Day 2
Posted by Pébé in Asia on 08 13th, 2008Hum no! I am not spending my day in restaurant as you might be thinking. I am just not taking picture while working.
..
So what have we got today? Well better let the guys pic for me… I am not really sure what to get…
And I did so well…Chinese dumpling…fantastic. Jiaozi typically consist of a ground meat and/or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of dough, which is then sealed by pressing the edges together or by crimping. They prepare them right in front of you.
We had 3 kinds vegetable, pork (you can see on the pic) and shrimps… that you dip in some kind of spicy sauce…Well what is the worse thing that could happen? I am not that skilled with chopstick and I drop one…in my sauce…filling up my shirt with red dots! I had a great afternoon doing training and reviews with such dirty clothes. Note for later: Keep a clean tshirt in my backpack…
Taipei - Day 1
Posted by Pébé in Asia on 08 12th, 2008The first day went really well. 2 fellow yahoos went to pick me up from the hotel and we went all together to the office in order for me not to get lost. Now
they have given me my “cheat sheet”, I can move around by myself. I have the main addresses.
After a 2 hours class this moring we went for lunch and I was able to try out different kind of food like the century egg and the traditionnal beef noodle soup, worth the try. I can tell you that I will definitly have another soup… :p
Almost time to go…
Posted by Pébé in India on 08 5th, 2008I came back from Bangalore on July 27th…been over a week already and 
I did not post any feedback. The week over there was really busy. I had a great time with all the guys down there. They are really dedicated to what they do and fun to be around. Every night someone was available and willing to go out. I have been travelling for many years and to many places around the world and it is not like this everywhere I can tell you.
The offices are great and extremenly busy, always something is happening. One of the things that shocks you is the mix between poor and rich people. This is a pick taken from my hote
l, on the left side (not available on the pic) I had a fantastic golf course and on the right people living in small wooden house with no electricity / water.
This being said I will definitly go back to India in a couple of months as I have more and more people to visit. 
Thank you guys for the fantastic time I had.
I left on saturday and the day before 7 bombs exploded in the city, hopefully the number of victims was not too high… I was not aware of terrorist activities in India….
News from Bangalore…
Posted by Pébé in India on 07 22nd, 2008Yes! I am in India. After leaving home on Saturday 9am, I landed in Bangalore at 5:00am local time, meaning 0:30 french’ one. What to say? Well, my suitase was still in London, I was afraid to face the same situation then last April in California where I received it 5 days later. Anyhow, you pass the passport control, you pass the customs and you are out.
First thing interesting, you have hundred of people outside the airport waiting but between the gate and the exit only few people are allowed. They are working for the main hotels in the neighborhood arranging transportation for the customers.
Mine was not planned, so the guy called one of his buddies cab driver to take me to my hotel. I had to get some cash before hand… but what was the change? I took out 10.000 Indian Rupees and hope for the best. The 30 min drive cost me 1100 INR, around 16 euros. Finally, in my room at 6:30am, I went to bed and woke up at 3pm. Couple of emails later, I went for lunch in my hotel, they have great pub and back to bed by 10pm to try to adjust with the TZ.
First day at work, I went from 1 office to the other taking the company shuttle… I was scared all the way. Indian driving is rather particular, they need the horn. I felt we would have killed hunder of people on the way. We took unsane u-turns on busy roads, fighting with cows to cross. So the myth about cows in the street… so TRUE. I have seen it.
Up to now, I am having a great time, even with spicy food for breakfast at 9am.
