Friday

Friday morning

Today it’s Friday. Hopefully things will go well today at work so I have some time to visit the shopping malls, and some cultural sites down time on saturday. This morning I took the Taipei Times with me down to breakfast.

Picture: I could have used this line at the late night lady visit yesterday

I told my collegues about my “lady visit” late last night. Of cource they never belived that I showed her the door. Later I heard that my collegues told our host that I had a lady at my room late at night. Thank’s for telling only half the story. Now I understand why they looked at me so suspicious when I arrived at work :/
 

Work

Today was a long day at the office. Finally my collegues could join us at the warmer office and get out from the cold server room. 

It is really nice to have so motivated collegues. They never give up, they keep on installning,  configuring, debugging, testing, etc. I have full confidence working with these guys. Even if I myself have a technical backgroud, and still understand some of the things they do, I am way behind in their expert skills as I have been working with overall planning and account management for so many years now.  

After some 16 hours at the office and already saturday, at 2:30 AM we finally had a system up and running, not the whole system but at least a transaction was generated! A small step for anyone outside this project, but a huge leap for us. Thank you lads for your commitment!

 

Picture: Finally, we have one instance of the system up an running! Cheers!

Now we just have the other 80% to configure

The traffic situation in Taipei 

As we worked so much on friday there weren’t any time to stroll down the town. Instead I will do a summary of the traffic situation in Taipei. I already told you about the lesson I got from Björn when arriving. Watch out in the traffic, Taxis are extreme and allways use safety belt. Before we went to Taipei we got a folder from the Vacination clinic. It sad with bold text. Dont rent a car and never EVER a scooter. Now I totally agree with them.

Picture: Tuesday morning

This was leftovers from the night that I saw on thuesday morning when I just took a quick walk in the local neighbourhood. Two scooters that was abandoned and totally wrecked. I don’t want to know what happend here.

Parking

In Taipei scooters are supposed to on park the pavement. This is a quite disturbing thing when you walk around the town as there are trillions of scooters in Taipei. I read in the newspaper that there are 200.000 registered scooters, and a unknown amount of unregistered.

Cars think they have the same rights as scooters and kind of park everywhere. There are lots of traffic-wardens that write tickets but that seams to be a immensly job as there are so many vehicles.

The warden on this picture is not a secret agent. She just take care of here helth (like many other Taiwanese) and is wearing a mask to protect her from the wast amount of unhealty fumes in this town. This is acctually as common to wear (the mask) as a Trucker cap back home.

Picture: A traffic warden is writing a ticket behind her mask.

I got a first hand view of what happens with your car if you don’t pay your ticket. This car (outside my hotel) was craned from the parking lot onto the truck and towed away. What a great end on a evening with a new date, after a cinema and a good dinner… Where is my car?

Picture: Towed away car.

Talking about traffic and viechles. Can you guess what they offer in the ”office” below? 

Picture: Entrance to…?

Of course it is…

It is a 5 story parking lot! You just drive your car thru the entrance, then the the car is elevated up in the building, safeley parked. Then  when you are back after 3 hours of shopping you just hope that the software works so you will get your own car back. I guess a bug or break-down could make things very complicated.

 This would be a great thing to have at our office in Sweden as the parking lots are allways full when I arrive at work.  

Picture: The parking garage in downtown.

Still to come… 

Before we left office this friday we convinced our host that we were very very interested in Kareoke. So now we have booked a Kareaoke session in the beginning of next week. Stay tuned so you dont miss this increadibly event.

Day 3 in Taipei

Morning has broken

A new morning – a new Lunar Prophecy!  

Picture: Taipei Times – what should I do without it.

Today you are allowed by the moon to work. The only thing you should avoid is to install a stove. I don’t think anyone in Taiwan want to install a stove, they rather use an airconditioner.

I can totally use the Survival Chinese for today – I’m very hungry and will go down for some breakfast with my collegues now.

At Work

As this is Björns last day on-site we will have a lots of meetings today to sum up the status and issues.  At 4 PM Björn left the office and now I was on my own, as my other collegues still were at the data center.

Internet Citizen 

Today I established an VPN (Thank you Sven for fast and accurate help) to our office so now I hardly notice that I’m on the other side of the globe. Acctually its even better to work from here as you aren’t interupted by phone calls, coffee breakes and Grunditz. Afternoons, at 2PM, the collegues and customers in Europe starts to wake up and appear on MSN, Skype and ICQ. Isn’t Internet fantastic. Does anyone remember how it was before Intenet, email and Skype…. except Björn then, as he is pre-Fax-Machine-age :)   

Before Björn left the office he was so kind to lend me his Skype phone, and instructed me how to get a a Skypout number. With this I can call home to Sweden for the very low price of:

• €0.24 to a mobile phone
• €0.02  to a wired phone

This has to be considered a bargain as it’s really long distance calls.

I checked Telias rates (mobile calls to Sweden) and it was €2. Wire-to-wire was €0.3-0.5. Me like Skype! 

So now I’m fully equipped for anoter 10 days in Taipei!
VPN, Skype, Skypeout, Icq, MSN, e-mail, Aftonbadet.se, smp.se

Another very important “Internet tool” to set up was the Sweden Rock Radio. As the SRF-festival kicks-off just 2 days after I come home to Sweden, i.e two weeks from now, I need to start switching mood and listen to some “real” music so I’m well prepared for the festival. This will be the 10th time I visit this festival.

While talking about Rock/Metal music. In Taiwan they all have one chinese name and one European. I guess that is to make it easier for us to communicate in email etc. Anyway, one of the developers at partner offce like Europe (the Swedish band) so much that he have taken the name Joey from Joey Tempest. Cool!  I wonder if there might be someone in Taiwan that named himself to Lars after Lars Ulrich in Metallica or maybe Lemmy in Motorhead  

10 days total makeover

The first day I heard that my collegues (not Björn) had tried out the hotel gym at the 14h floor. Well, I thought, as I’m going on vacation to Spain after my Asian tour It could be nice to shape up for the beach, and also chok my wife and family with a Total Makeover. If they can do miracles on TV I can  see what I can do 10 days at the Fitness machine in Taipei   

Picture: You never though you would see this!

Don’t expect to much as this is the first day. I might find many good excuses for not doing this – but know I have at least published it on Internet so I know your expectations when I’m back home.  

Picture: Me in Spain in two weeks from now

No Frida – I will not shave my chest.  

A very unexpected incident

At about 10:30 tonight a strange thing happend. I was at my hotel room surfing the web, reading Aftonbladet . Suddenly, it knocked at the door to my room. I opened the door and outside there was a well dressed woman (mid thirty something) with a very strange look on her face. She looked a bit afraid and signaled with her hand that I should be silent. Then she kind of entred the room and told me to close the door. A bit chocked by this confrontation I just stood there. I thought she was afraid of something or someone and had to hide for a short while. So for 5-10 seconds I just stood there, thought I have rescued a woman in trouble.

Then I suddenly understood what her intention was. She started to ask me If I had some money, and that she could offer me all kinds of strange physical services. I opened the door and kindly showed the lady out. After this incident I had some difficulty in falling asleep…  

Why does all these strange things allways happen to me?

Day 2 in Taipei

The quote of the day

Now when I’ve learnt that Taipei Tiemes is outside my room every morning I have an excuse to go back to bed again before heading down to breakfast. Nice, almost as home.

The quote of today from the newspaper is “I can’t eat another thing”. To bad Björn, Dennis and Mattias didn’t know this phrase when they were out dining with our host the first time. Could have been useful  

Picture: Survival Chinese for today

The Lunar prophecy tells us that this is ”a bad day for everything else”. Hrm, I planned to go to work today but now I have to reconsider.
I might stay in bed the whole day so I don’t disturbe the Lunar prophecy . It’s ok to take a bath so I might head down to the coast and the beaches….

ATM

Before I went to work this day I needed to withdraw some cash. There is no probelm finding a ATM in Taipei, they are all over the place.
I found one very cute ATM near the hotel. The name was Pukii (sounds a bit like Schnappi… Ich bin Pukii, das kleine Automat).

Picture: ATM for kids? Not sure…

As I thought it would be a bit embarrasing to step in and use the “Schnappi-ATM” I proceded until I found a ATM for grown-ups.
I found a machine nearby and was ready to withdraw…. Hrm, ok…, what does that mean?

 

Picture: ATM interface in Chinese

After 3 attempts (first put in the cards incorrect, seconf I didnt find a way to switch to english) I finally got my Taiwan Dollar. Been there, done that.

If anyone is interested this is how Taiwanese Dollars looks like.

 

Picture: 661 Taiwan Dollar

For this amonunt (661 Dollar, about 130 SEK, €15) you get either:

• 3 branded T-shirts
• 10 packets of Marlboro cigarettes
• 5 MC Donalds meals
• Taxi to and from the office for 3 days
• 30 single trips zone 2 in the Subway

After work

After work today we went to a nearby restaurant. We had a great Chinese meal (Hong Kong style). Don’t ask us what we ate, but we know we  managed to avoid the “komage” (Is the english word ripe?).

As we are Swedish men we like to drink beer to the food (acctually we don’t even need food ) so we orderd four beer. I guess this was the happening of the year on this restaurant as they asked us three times if we really should have FOUR beer? They are very large the waiter explained. Ok, they were 60 cc but we are Swedes

When the meal was finished we wanted to give the waiter some tip. I think the meal was $2000 for all four of us so we gave her $200 (a normal European tip. First she didn’t accept it, then Björn insisted and we started to leave the restaurant. The waiter suddenly went to the cashier with a hurry. Then, when we were halfway down the stairs to the place she came running and stopped us. She gave us two credit vouchers 2*$100. Obviously tip is not especially normal in SE Asia

Note: I later double checked with my LP-guide and it sais that tipping is not customary in restaurants and Taxis in Taiwan.

A walk in the neighbourhood

After the visit to the restaurant I took a walk by myself in the nearby blocks just to get familiar with the town. Of cource there was the Big M as in all major cities. In Taipei you get a Big Mac (I think it was) for $125 – that is about 25 SEK. Good price, nice to know whenever you need something familiar.

Picture: There is allways a M in town.

The street outside our hotel is one of the main streets in Taipei. There are loads of shops, ATM’s, Seven-Eleven, neon signs and traffic.
I wonder what the signs sais?

Picture: Neon signs on the street outside San Want hotel.

Thats all for today. Stay tuned for tomorrow mornings Lunar Prophecy and Survival Chinese… 

My first morning in Taipei

Taipei Times 

Great, you get Taipei Times at you door every morning!

 

Today I learnt that it is a great day to planting crops or getting married. I should avoid installing doors!? Damn – have to take that from my todo list today

You also get a daily lessson in Chinese “Survival Chinese”. That could be usefull.

Stay tuned for more Taipei Time News. The morning newspaper have at least more readable artcles than my normal morning newspaper (Smalandsposten), where you only can read about ”latest news in Ryd”.

Morning in Taipei

Picture: Outside San Want first morning.

Just to prove to my daughter that we DON’T have sunny skies and beach weather. She is so afraid that I should get a tan before her as we are going to a vactaion when I’m home in two weeks. Its very warm and nice, but there are some 90% clouds in the skies.

So to you Frida I say “No my darling I will not get a tan as we are inside office buildings with aircondition all day, and we get out its dark. There is a small risk that I might get boiled though, as the humidity and the temperature is very high”

Time for work

As Björn is flying home in two days I have a lot of things to catch up with. The first lesson I got was how to get to the office. Bjorn said, never leave home without the adress to the office in Chinese. The taxi drivers might have some English skills but you never know where you will end up. The second most important thing is to put on the seatbelt as the traffic here is quite hectic compared to Sweden.

The trip to the office building was only 100 Taiwan Dollars. That’s  about than 20 SEK (€2).

Finally at the office and met up with the other collegues of mine (Ehh, Dennis had to go and “wash his hands”).

Welcome dinner

In Taiwan it is a custom to take you out on dinner the first day. I think this is a very nice gesture as there is some time out-of-office to get to know each other a bit more. Björn told me about the day they arrived and how much food they got. He said they just brought in more and more and more, and they ate until they could barely walk. Then I explained to him (because I had done my homework and read the Lonely Planet guide). The idea is to serve or order far more than everyone can eat. Empty bowls imply a stingy host. Rice is considered a sheap filler, don’t ask for it as this would imply that that the main cources are insufficient, causing embarrasment to the host. I think they broke all these unewritten rules. Not so easy for us Swedes to know who is brought up with our mother saying “It’s unpolite to not eat up the food.” . That is the fun with this trips – you get familiar with new custsoms and manners.

Anyway, we went to a very classy and modern Taiwan restaurant that we never could have found by ourselves. The walls were clean concrete walls and very sterile, but the lightning and the music made it very classy.

Picture: Me with the “sticks”. 

This time we were prepared to not eat up from every bowl. The dinner was superb. The most interesting dish we had was Frog! Don’t be afraid, it was better than it sounds. It tasted like chicken.

  

Picture: What happens with the rest of the Frog?

After the dinner our host ordered Taxi for us (there is no bar-hopping as in Sweden) and we went back to the hotel. As I’m sure you have read Björns Taiwan blog you know what we did next. Of cource – had a GT in the hotel bar

In Taiwan

The eagle has landed 

Picture: A bit tired, but finally there.

Arrived at Taiwan/Taipei airport late at night. The flight was once again very nice (Thank you Thai Airways). No problems at the customs. I only have one question – my passport have several (more than ten) completely empty pages, but still they persist to use the first pages and squeze in everything there? Why?

Picture: My one-pager Passport.

 The company we visit here in Taipei had arranged pickup so in less than 40 minutes I arrived at our hotel. San Want Hotel. Very comfortable.

 

After the standard check-in I headed towards the elevators to go up to my room. The elevator stopped and guess who was in there. My collegue Björn. He had just finished his last GT for the night and was going to bed. We had a quick chat about the project, then it was time to call it a day. It was nice to meet up with the collegues again.   

One Night in Bangkok…

… makes a hard man humble.

That was how Murray Head described the “oriental city” in Thailand. Now I totally understand what he ment!

Bangkok was really an exiting experience! East meat West in a strange and sometimes unhealty way - so close to total chaos, but for some reason it doesn’t break apart.  It works just fine down here.

Two things struck me the first day:

1) Thailand is close to the equator and we Swedes are not use to those temperatures. The day I arrived it was clowdy, still 35 degrees hot and humidity was around 98%. In my bag I had packed my fleece jacket, 3 pair of long trousers, a long sleaved sweater. Really cleaver Niklas! What were the plans with the fleece jacket and the warm sweater? Ballast? The only thing you can wear here is a pair of shorts and a short sleaved shirt/t-shirt.

2) Thailand is a very poor country, but still people here are so super friendly. They take very good care about their tourists and avoid any type of trouble. I’ve heard this from many friends that have visited Thailand but never really understood what they ment. It is not that they treat you as a king, but they take care of you and help you… allways with a smile.  

In the Sukhumvit area (where I lived these few days) there were luxury 5 star hotel, where you have to pay €300 for one night. I payed €92 for two night, breakfast included (thanks for the tip Daniel).

Picture: My room for €92 two night. A bargain!

Eating out

On the main road the restaurang farang-charged european prices for Thai food.
If you walk into an alley you only paid 35 bath (7 SEK, €1)  for the same meal. 

                  

Picture: Buy from the “pölsemannen” in the alleys, and not in the Farang-places on the main streets. 
Personally I think the food in the alley tasted better. A bit scary to eat brown eggs and “something” fried though, but ok.  I havent died yet .

 

Picture: Brownish eggs, yummy!

Things to do in Bangkok

My mother told me that there two things I have to do in Thailand. Visit a night market and take a ride with a Tuk-Tuk. I did both the same night. Scary… The trafic situation in Bangkok is like…. have you ever seen a ant hill (myrstack)? That’s the best way to describe it. I’m quite convinced that Thailand have some kind of traffic rules, but I’m as convinced that no one is using them – at all. To ride on a small 3-wheeled moped in 80 km/h, at night, among 2 million sccoters, taxis, busses, other tuk-tuks, motorbikes is quiiiiiite scary I can tell you. But as I said in the beginning. Everything still works in Bangkok, even if it is a fraction from total chaos.

Picture: This T-shirt kind of explaines everything about the trafic situation in Bangkok.

At the night market (huge) I bought the standard fake T-shirts (99 bath each). As these t-shirts are presents to my kids back home I can only show you one. I guess you understand why I bought this T-shirt .

 The last day in Bangkok I spent shopping and sight seeing. I took the comfortable Sky-train to the main city. I’ve heard alot about MBK that is a big shopping mall in the center of Bangkok. I was surprised to see a different Bangkok only two stop with sky-train, from Sukhumvit. In the center there were many fashionable shopping malls and marble walks and shiny buildings. I guess this is the “new” Bangkok where only tourist can spend their money. Sad but True!

 

Picture: The view from MBK entrance.

After some shopping I decided to head back to my neighbourhood (Sukhumvit ) and visit some famous and unfamous places. Unfortunataly I managed to set my camera to 120*160 pixels so all pictures became thumbnails . The two pictures below were the only good ones.

  

Picture: A relaxing beer at Soi 4 near my hotel.

Picture: The famous Soi Cowboy. And no – I wasn’t there at night  

Next day was once again a travelling day. I went to the airport early as I wouldn’t want to stay in 30 degrees carrying two bags and a laptop. I definitly liked Thailand (I think) even if I just have seen Bangkok in two hectic days. It’s a very friendly but chaotic city. I liked the food, the people, and also the climate. There  were some things that was annoying like taxis that stopped you on the street wanted to drive you around town or down to some “massage” place in Patong, and all the 70+ year old europeans with canes, holding hands with 25 year old Thai women.  But I definitly will go there again if I have the time (and money) The flight is the only cost, once you are here you only need 50-100 SEK (€5-10) a day.   

Next stop is Taiwan/Taipei 

Far away from home

A two weeks trip to SE Asia

Duty calls - On Friday PM I started my trip over to south east Asia to meet up with a team from the company I work for. They have allready been there for one week so hopefully most of the work is done. You can read all about their adventures on Björns and Dennis blogg. When I read their blogs I realize that I have a lot of things to catch up with - have they really been working the last week  ?

I will stay in Asia for nearly two full week but first I will take a short stop in Bangkok  (1.5 days) and do some speed tourism, before I continue to Taipei (capital of Taiwan) on monday.

Thai Airways have big birds but tiny air hostess

Wow, impressive! A 747-400 version 2!

Picture: This will be my first ever trip with the 747. Finally!

This beauty will take me all the way to Bangkok. It will be a nice and cozy little trip of 11 hours before we land at Bangkok International Airport (Suvarnabhumi).

I was lucky, the plane was not crowded so me and a danish guy could share three seats. Nice – no risk to fall a sleep on a strangers sholder. For the interested reader I had seat 41a that was really great for flying continental in economy.

 

Picture: Really good seat in economy. No need for expensive business class.

Picture: My best ever meal on a continental flight. Excelent service Thai! Highly recommended!

The flight went ok, some wining and dining and I think I slept thru the movies. At least I don’t remember the end of any. I woke up somewhere over India (between New Delhi and Calcutta) as there were a huge thunderstorm outside my window.  I have never seen anything like that ever. Two or more lightnings struck each second and it was like looking at the crecendo in a firework at new year. It completely lit up the dark sky. Even if we flew on 37000 feet we had many of the Cumulunimbus clouds higher parts above the airplanes route.  I’m glad I was above the earth as this must be h**l of a storm down at the ground. Acctually I’m also glad that I wasn’t inside the supercell.

I filmed the spectacle because it was so beautiful, but unfortunately (for you) the film was so big in MB so I cannot put it here. 

Next stop Bangkok! 

UPDATE:  When I searched the web a couple of days later I found that this thunderstorm had killed 27 people in India that night! Scary. I’m feeling a bit bad having said that this was a beautiful storm.

Triangular living in Amsterdam

The Trip  

Last week me and some collegues attended a convention in Amsterdam.

Picture: My two collegues on the plane.

It was the annual online gaming affiliate convention that is held yearly at three locations world wide. An affiliate is a partner to the online gaming sites – they bring new players to the Casino and/or Poker and get a share of the Net gaming from the players they reqruite.

I was there to meet up with some of the customers/partners I work with and have some business and social meetings with them. The event is also a great place to network, and I met many new and old friends.

 The Hotel 

We stayed at the Die port van Cleve hotell that was quite nice hotel. Could have had better Internet facilities – you had to sit in the lobby to get conneted. Not so good when you have your “wake-up-in-the-morning-read-email-abstinence” . 

Picture: Nice shape, kind of triangular?

I got an exiting room at the top of the building. It was kind of triangular. Never mind – as long as there is a bed to sleep in.

Picture: Here you have the explanation for the odd shaped room? Look at the upper left corner.

 

The Opening Party 

What is a convention without an opening party? Well, as long as you go to the right adress. I, my collegues and a partner to us (Ebba) walked some kilometers to find the opening event. When we finally were there it was dead silent?!? We asked the staff if we were there to early, but she had not heard anything about a party that night? A bit depressed we had to walk back to the hotell and check the agenda. Then we realized that we had walked to the adress for the 2nd night party. Ok – now we at least know where that is

Finally, at the second night we went back to the club that was so quiet last night. Now there was some action there!
The party was sponsored by a new and promising Poker operator. All drinks where on the house (we like).

Picture: View from the VIP balcony.

As a former collegue to us now is the head of the company that supplies the party-sponsoring operator with the software we managed to get a VIP-pass to the second floor (Thanks Mattias).  The picture is not the best quality, but its a big screen on top of the dance floor that show the Poker software. The yellow and blue spheres represents the earth and the moon (I think).  

Going home

I and our partner (Ebba) flew home after only two days but my collegues stayed all 4 days. When we drove back home from Malmo we missed a turn. After about 40km Ebba points out to me that there shouldn’t be any water (ocean) to the left. Ouch! We are in Landskrona!  We quickly take the decsion to not drive back. Instead we take a short cut and drive east. Hrm, not the best decision. We had to pass all small villages (Reslöv, Eslöv, Teckomatorp etc) in the middle of the night without finding any sign directing us to the highway. After 1.5 hours driving on small roads we finally found someone to ask how to find the highway (E22). Easy – the kind lady responded in “bred skånska” (a south swedish dialect) – “Kour baura houger, vaenster, raukt fraam, sin houger igenn å seen koer nii naaougra killomeiter seen aer ni i på Aetjytvaaun”. Thanks! We have managed to drive 30km in 1.5 hours After yet 1.5 hours we where home.

   

Poker night with collegues

This saturday we had a poker night with some friends. 

Picture: And here comes the Turn!

My son and his friend joined us and my son was the shipleader after 5 hours of game played. Impressive! Maybe that was because he was the only one that was sober

  

Picture: My son with his best pokerface. You kind of see who is loosing (tip… 2nd at the left).