- 1/7-Feb-2003, Similan islands -
6 days holidays in Thailand for diving
- End December-2002, YunNan -
5 days holidays in the province of YunNan, southern China
- July/August-2002, France -
3 weeks holidays, went through so quicly ...
- June-2002, North Korea -
Simply the most amazing country that I have
ever seen. I strongly recommend anybody to go and visit that place ! Amazing is the key word here !
- 31-January-2002, Back to Beijing for work -
I just signed a 2 years contract in China. New job, new
responsibilities too ! I'll be doing some management from now on ...
- January 2002, Phuket Thailand -
- November 2001, KunMing China -
1 month work in KunMing, in this very nice city.
I also went to Hangzhou for a few days meeting.
- New Year 2000-2001, Tokyo -
- Oct-Nov 2000, NingBo China -
2 months working in China with a tough customer.
Quite stressful but every weekend I went traveling to Beijing, Guangzhou or around the region.
- 2000-2001, Asia -
Frequent trips all around Asia: Philippines, Singapore,
Thailand, Malaysia, China. Home base is Taipei though.
- 2000-March-3, Hong-Kong -
I go to the fake Taiwanese embassy for
renewing my visa. Once again those *#$#%@ agents find a cheap excuse not to give me a
multiple entries visa. This time, only HK residents can apply for this type of visa.
If I want to get this visa, I should go back to my home country and apply there. Thanx,
you are very kind ... and also extremely bloody stupid. In 2 weeks time, I might have to go
back to the Philippines ... and I will once again lose one damned day in HK for this
visa application. Well, after all at 3:30 pm, I get the visa with a SINGLE entry (not
extendable of course, they don't give presents so easily...) and I go to take my plane.
I arrive in Taipei as forecasted and go directly to my hotel.
- 2000-March-2, Hong-Kong -
I arrive in Hong-Kong at around 8 pm. Big
surprise when I take the cab ! I meet the first friendly Hong-Kongese so far ! He can speak
mandarin and tells me that he knows Taipei very well since he goes there very often. He
also knows where's my office. After the ride, he gives me his name card and tells me that
I can call him anytime if I have any kind of problems ... "For free" he adds. It's better
to precise that in HK. The hotel is quite a good one: 5 stars in HK ... Well, one night
costs around 1500 FIM but Nokia has a special rate here. Anyway I don't care since I have
a corporate credit card :)
- 2000-February-27 -> March-2, Manila -
Sunday, noon: I just arrived at my hotel. A message is
waiting for me: the sister of a good Filipino friend from Finland called me. I need to give
her a ring back. Nice conversation, she sounds to be a very nice girl, we'll meet in 1 hour
at the hotel. I only have time to settle down and refresh myself. One hour later, she's
here. I recognize her very easily since she looks like her sister. Anyway, we go for a walk
around the hotel which looks like a pretty nice and wealthy area: of course, it's the
business center of Manila ... For not even 16 FIM we go to watch a recent movie. As I am
pretty tired, we then go for a nice dinner and I decide to go back to the hotel for
sleeping.
Monday 28: I attend my telecom training until
5 pm. With the trainer, we decide to go in one of the biggest shopping mall I have ever
seen (certainly more than 1 km long) for some window shopping and watch a movie. Then, we
go for a dinner in a western style restaurant. Ah !!! It's been several months that I
haven't eaten that well ! I really eat like a pig and when the time comes to go back
to the hotel, I can hardly walk coz I ate so much :) Ahhh ... I'm a happy man !
Tuesday 29: Class until 4 pm. I follow two of
colleagues to the Nokia office. I'm suppose to show them how to use the software for
modelling GSM networks. They have the same job as mine, but they are based in Manila.
I go back to the hotel at about 6 pm. Phone call from my sister's friend: she's going to
pick me up to take me to her sister's office. On the way, her driver drop her to the
church (Filipino looks very much catholic .. sometimes fanatic ?). Anyway, we cross the
whole city in 50 minutes and finally end up at her office. As she hasn't finished her
work yet, she invites me for a guided tour of the company. She's responsible of the main
Filipino TV channel's website's promotion. So, her office looks like a start-up company
with computers everywhere and young guy/girls their nose stuck to the screen. Her role
is to sometimes interview celebrities to promote the website. So, I can go through her
guestbook with Filipino celebrities signatures & pictures. After, she's done, she takes
me to a hotel where a show is going on for the promotion of a new commercial product.
Well, we are a bit late ... only one hour and a half :) So people are already leaving.
At the entrance some kind of hostess make us sign a paper and we get 2 big bags full of
beauty products. Cool ... it's free and it looks like quite good quality stuff :) In the
main room, some very famous actresses pose for the pictures. Everybody's fighting to be
on the pics. Well, nothing much to see apart from those actresses. My friend is a bit
disapointed coz the celebrities she wanted to interview are already gone. Nevermind, we
go for a walk in the splendid hotel. We take the cab to go for dinner in an austrialan
restaurant to enjoy good steacks. Really delicious ! It's such a pleasure to eat that
good food. A bit later, her sister join us back from the mass. Around midnight, they take
me back to my hotel and set up a new meeting for the next day.
Wednesday 1 March:
Class until 4 pm. I'm really tired and I go for a siesta until 7 pm. My friend calls me
and inform me that she will be late. Around 9:30 pm, she comes and pick me up with her
sister. We also go and pick some of her friends. Then we go and eat in a restaurant where
waiters/waitresses sing. Kinda cool ! Since the restaurant is closing, we lead to a bar
street. In one of the bar, I meet the brother of one of my friend's friend. We talk about
mobile phone (a very hot topic in the Philippines) and he shows me all the merits of
Nokia over its competitor. I get to know later that he's doing mobile phone business
and he tells me about the non-digital phone tricks to phreak. Hehehe ... good guy, I
like him ! Anyway, every evening has its end: this brother takes me back to my hotel
and I thank a lot my friend for her hospitality.
Thursday 2: Class until 1 pm. I change my flight schedule for an earlier flight. No
problemo. I leave the hotel and arrive very early to the airport. I'm leaving to
Hong-Kong...
- 2000-February-04, Taipei -
Today is the beginning of the Chinese
new year. Concretely, it means everything is closed even the MacDonalds [Damned ! Where am I
going to eat ? :)] and streets are desperately empty. Taiwanese went back to their
hometown and are spending their new year's eve with their family members.
- 2000-February-01, Taipei -
I finally arrived in Taiwan
and straight begin to work that day. As far as I know, this job really looks challenging
and interesting. I think that I was lucky to apply for this position because
the career plan seems really great. I'm now a "Switching Network Planning
Engineer", sounds nice, doesn't it ? :) Well, I now have to work pretty hard to assume
this title !
- 2000-January-31, Hong-Kong -
I spent the whole day in Hong-Kong to
apply for my visa. The Taiwan representative office didn't want to issue a multiple
entries visa because my letter of invitation was not from my current employer
(Nokia Finland) but from my future employer (Nokia Taiwan). Well, eventhough I try
to discuss that I was going to sign my contract the next day and that Nokia was an
international company (therefore the same company in Taiwan & Finland), the brave
lady behind the counter with an obvious limited IQ didn't want to grant the
multiple entries visa, instead I'll get a 1 month single entry visa. Well, let's hope
that my work permit application won't take more than 1 month.
- 2000-January-30, Beijing -
I unfortunately left the great Beijing
that I love. I had a lot of trouble to pack
all my luggage but my very good friend was here to help me. Thanx so much to her
otherwise I don't think I could have made it on time for my flight. It was hard to
quit my friends and this wonderful one year of my life here. I'm sad and feeling blue ...
- 2000-January-23, Beijing -
Another beautiful and cold Sunday. I still
haven't visited the summer palace in Beijing. As it was probably my last week-end, I went
there with my Chinese friend. We ended up walking on the huge frozen lake. Hmmm ... very
romantic but deadly cold ! :)
- 2000-January-12, Hong-Kong -
After spending 3 hours to check and
give some calls in Beijing, Air China doesn't want to give me my
return ticket HK->Beijing because my multiple entry visa is not valid. It's true that
the extension of my multiple entries visa is really wierd, the Chinese and English
versions don't match ! Anyway, I have to stay overnight in HK to apply for a
Chinese visa the next morning.
- 2000-January-10/11, Taipei -
I went to Taipei for a job interview
in Nokia. Everything went fine and I got the job which will start at the end of
the month. It was enjoyable to have a +18 degrees C (radically different from the
-17 degrees C of Beijing !)
- 2000-January-09, Beijing -
This Sunday, the weather was really
beautiful eventhough the thermometer showed -15 C. I went with my best friend to
BeiHai park to skate on ... chairs ! Really fun indeed !
- 2000-January-03, Beijing -
Return to Beijing from Indonesia. I
have now a very short time to concretize my job offers. If I can not find a job
in another Nokia unit in Asia-Pacific area before the end of January, I'll have
to go back to Finland. Quite a busy schedule in perspective !
- 2000-January-01, Bandung (Indonesia) -
I spent the new year with my great
Indonesian friends. After the midnight bell, we went to drive the car in the busiest
streets of Bandung to celebrate the new year with our noisy trumpets. Kind of something
fun ! :)
- 1999-December-22/28, Bali (Indonesia) -
Well, if you are looking for a place with
drugs at every street corners, if you like being ripped off, swim in a garbage sea and like
to lay on bin-like beach, Bali is the right place for you ! I don't have any other
comments about Bali :)
- 1999-December-17, Jakarta (Indonesia) -
I met my friends who were studying with
me in Beijing. That was really great to follow them and see how they live. Then Carol
(my Chinese-Indonesian friend) and me took the train to Surabaya where we met her father
who finally took us to Bali. To summarize we cross the whole Java island in 2 days !
- 1999-December-17, Singapore -
While waiting for my plane to take off
to Jakarta, I had a phone interview for a job in Taiwan. It seems like it went
pretty fine ...
- 1999-December-14, Beijing -
I just got to know that I can not get
the promise contract in Nokia China because of the new WTO agreements that will allow
a freer market in the telecom field in China -> much less business for the well
established telecom equipment companies. I have to find a new job very quickly if
I don't want to come back to Finland.