Travel to Asia

Our travel plans to Asia next year are getting clearer. We settled for March. I managed to get the month off from work. That was the first step. Now, we're looking into which places to go to. The plan as it stands is to start with about 10 days in Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka) - since I watched Lost in Translation I really want to go to Tokyo -. We would then take the boat to Shanghai and stay around the city a few days. Followed by some trekking on the Yellow Mountain. Beijing would be next on the list with about 5 days there - I happen to have a friend from university living in Beijing -. To conclude the journey we would then spend a week in Hong Kong so I can meet my girlfriend's family and see where she grew up. This is all very exiting and I can't wait to go. I think it will an amazing trip. My first in Asia!

Christmas is all around

I can't believe Christmas is just around the corner. It makes me wonder what I've done with my time this year. Well, first I worked, and a lot - not sure that's a good thing: you see, I like my job most of the time but I find it quite demanding. That means I don't have much time for my own activities.
Otherwise I of course spent a lot of time with my girlfriend - no complains here :). We don't go out too much but we always try to go and see an expo or catch a movie.
We also traveled a bit: France - a few times -, Vancouver - meeting the in-laws -, Rome, Istanbul and in two weeks Poland. That will do for this year. Next will be China (more on that in a coming post).
I also met with my friends. Not as often as I would like but always nice.
I addition, it was my first year in London. So what do I think you might ask. Well, it's been great so far. I enjoy leaving and working here. Although from time to time I need to get out of the city, I'm quite happy to work in central London and leave quite close to it. It makes things very accessible.

All in all a pretty good year so far. Let's hope it will end the same way it started.

Google conference

I'm regularly going to these mobile monday conferences all over London. The basic idea of this community is to bring together anybody interested in the mobile industry. From developers to CEO of mobile startups, to marketing manager there is a good mix of people. Each month, on the first Monday - hence the Monday in the name -, a conference is organised around a different theme / facet of the industry - hence the Mobile in the name (it all makes sense!). And it is hosted by a different company each time. I quite like the idea because it makes you meet a very eclectic crowd and allow you to visit all the big companies around London. This month it was at Google. Their UK headquarter is in Victoria. Besides getting a free t-shirt and some nice drinks & food, the conference was quite interesting. The theme was mobile trends. There were a few presentations on what people use their phone for and where business opportunities are. I also met with people from my previous job so we could catch up on things. A nice evening indeed.

What's happening at work

Besides us getting a new fancy coffee machine that actually doesn't make good coffee, we finally released our new mobile dealing application last week. It is a complete UI redesign of the previous version. I've been working hard to get it out and although the release didn't go as smoothly as I hoped it's a good feeling to see our clients using it. We're also preping a marketing push to get more people to deal on their mobile phones so the coming months should be quite exiting, providing that my server does not blow up with the load. That's actually my next project. I've titled it : Project "server never dies...please!".

A great trip

We are back from our trip to Istanbul. That was something. First we had to wake up very early on Friday morning to catch a bus, then a coach to Luton airport to get our flight at 6.15 am - budget airlines are cheat but usual flying times are just stupid. We got a bit of sleep during the 4-hour flight to some small airport near Istanbul. Once landed and our visas sorted - actually being French I didn't need one :) - we had to take another coach - not again! - to reach the city center. It was in fact quite pleasant as we got a nice view of the city on the way.

Right, so here we are we thought. Job done! Well, not quite as we could not find a taxi driver who would understand the address of the hotel. Never mind, we decided to give the hotel a call to get directions. They told us to get this elusive 4T bus that we never found. So we ended up asking for help in another near-by hotel. The very nice person at the reception desk helped us finding a bus going to the area our hotel was located. After probably another 2 hours we finally made it to the hotel. WOOHOO!

We went to bed early that day so we could get up early the next. We started the next day with a visit of the Sultanahmet and the Haya Sofia (see picture above). These mosques are very pretty. We then decided to make our way towards to new city center (Taksim area) but stopped for a very nice meal on the way. Istanbul is really a huge city (more than twenty million people). We visited the Galata Tower and then went to the less historic and more lively areas near Taksim. There's a massive shopping street that leads to Taksim square with also lots of nice restaurants in the adjacent streets. We had a nice dinner there before deciding to go back to the hotel (now we knew which bus to take :).

Our last full day in Istanbul arrived so quickly with still so much to see and do. We started with a rather short visit to the Grand Bazaar. A very interesting place I would say. I like the atmosphere of all these people packed on these little streets. We then took a boat trip on the Bosphorus. It was OK but not as great as we expected it to be. With a few hours ahead of us we made our way back to the hotel area when we saw the entrance to this nargile / coffee shop. We went inside and had a smoke and a tea there while chatting with the brothers owning the place. A very relaxing experience. We then tried the Turkish bath. At first I wasn't too exited about the idea of having a big half-naked guy washing me but my girlfriend convinced me to try so we went. It was quite nice actually, I felt very clean afterwards :)

That concluded quite well our trip to Istanbul. Well, almost because we still had to go back to the airport and head back home. That proved a bit more challenging than expected. We actually didn't take the right coach and ended up at the wrong airport :( After panicking a little bit we found somebody who spoke English to help us and arranged a taxi for us. After some crazy driving from our taxi driver - or pilot I should say - we finally arrived at the correct airport and even on time for our plane. Phew!!
Now we're back in London with our memories and wishes to go back to this great city.