San Diego ComicCon 2011

Well, folks. It looks like I will be going to Comic Con this year. Last year was a bit of a bust because I was not able to find cheap enough airfares to get there from here. Yeah. It sucks to be me. Anyway, I have a room booked but I might give that up in favor of the townhouse that one of the Guildies managed to procure. It's a wonderful historic townhouse in the Gaslamp Quarter. Can't wait to see how this works out!

SDCC - People I Met

 So here's Jenni and Edgar.  Jenni is one of the hosts of the Knights of the Guild podcast.  She's also the production assistant for The Guild.  Edgar is the webmaster for The Guild website on Ning.

This is Nas, Dani and Sam. Nas is from Ottawa, so that makes him a neighbor of sorts to me. Dani came all the way from Brazil for SDCC. And Sam.. Well, Sam came along with Jenni. He was cool.

And here's Kenny and Nathan. Kenny is the other host of KotG. Nathan is from San Francisco. Another Guildie met on Guild chat.

And here's Lydia with Dani. Lydia is in the comic publishing business and came all the way from Germany for SDCC. She currently lives in Switzerland though.

So that's just a small introduction of some of the folks I met up with and hung out with. I'll add a bit more in the next entry. Maybe I'll write it tomorrow. Maybe not. Depends on my mood. =p

One Month LATER!

Ok. So just about all the pics I took at SDCC have been uploaded to Flickr. It took me a while to get them up because soon after I returned home, I came down with the flu. Now, I don't know if it was THAT flu, but it was the flu, nonetheless.

Dani, from Brazil, whom I met in San Diego, created this Guildies blog. I made a couple of entries on this blog, but I think Dani's were the best. Her entries for each day were well detailed. I think everyone, including myself, enjoyed reading her entries.

I have a feeling that due to my flu-induced state of mind, I was really not up to writing too much in my entries. Not only does it drain you physically, but mentally as well.

For now, I can't promise anything, but when I feel inspired, I will try to recount my time and experience at SDCC. In the meantime, enjoy the pics I took. :)

Post Con Bug

Well, after the long hours traipsing through the exhibition halls and waiting in lines for various things, I think the exhaustion has made me susceptible to a bug. Today I've been dealing with a mild fever, cough and headache. I slept most of today. Hopefully I will have some time tomorrow to upload my pics.

Patience!

Day 4 - Last day of Comic Con

Well, I have not been able to write much while I've been here. This is due to the fact that I'm out most of the day and usually got in pretty late. Yesterday and today I decided to bring in my iBook and connect from the convention center since there's free wi-fi. However, this did not meant that it was a fast connection. When you have thousands of people here with iPhones, iTouches and laptops, it does take up a bit of bandwidth on the network.

I've taken quite a few pictures. I'll probably upload them to flickr and this blog when I get back. I'll probably write more then about my thoughts and reflections on this, my first ComicCon.

Good morning, San Diego

Got in rather late. Stayed up relatively late. Got up kinda late too. I think the phone ringing woke everyone up this morning around 10AM. It's Tuesday. Not sure what's going on today. Probably take it easy and take in some sights or something. I'll be meeting up with some other people this afternoon. Hmmm.. Maybe I'll have one of my cookies for breakfast or something.

Speaking of cookies, when I picked up my bag at the baggage carousel, I noticed that the locks on the luggage were unlocked. Since they were TSA locks, I assume that the TSA must have checked out my bag in DC. After getting in I opened it up and found the slip of paper the TSA usually leaves behind to say that they were there. I think it was the can of maple syrup that could have made them raise an eyebrow. The cookies seem to be untouched. Yay! Nothing else seemed to be disturbed. Oh, but the thing I had some shampoo on exploded in the toiletry bag it was in. I had fun rinsing the shampoo off of everything that was in that bag. Thankfully it was relatively leak-proof.

So, while I await my turn for the shower, we're kinda wondering what to do with this day. Maybe take a walk around the area or something. Yeah, that sounds like an idea.

IAD Gate C19

At least my connecting flight is suppose to depart at gate C19. It's about 5PM but my flight does not leave until about 8PM. So I've got some time to kill. However, the downside to this is that I forgot the charger for my iBook. In my indecisiveness of what pack to use, I forgot to take the charger from one bag and put it in the one I did end up using. Grrr. Oh! And on top of that, I ran out of juice on my iPod. The good news is that there are some Mac users amongst the friends I will be meeting up. So I should be able to find a charger amongst them. Worse case, it will be a trip to Best Buy.

This airport has got to be one of the worst ones I have ever been through. For an airport for a nation's capital, it sucks. There are not enough eateries to service the number of people who go through here. And the airline now charges for the food they have on board. I might try to grab a bite in an hour. I doubt it'd last me through the flight, so I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and purchase a snack box on board. Bleh. Not even a decent sandwich place here!

Okay, enough griping. Can't do much at the moment except to just relax and look forward to San Diego.

YUL Gate 83

So here I be again. In the waiting area of a gate at an airport. I think it's been over a year that I've gone anywhere of any interest. The last time was Spring last year when I went out to San Francisco. I don't think I had a chance to blog any of that trip. I did take a few pics which are on my Flickr page.

The flight for IAD departs in just a little over 30 minutes from now. I picked up a couple of Canadian treats to share with my friends in San Diego. I won't say exactly what I'm bringing, but let's just say that we'll probably be hopping about on a sugar high. Might require scraping some of us from the ceiling.

Anyway, I'll see what the net connection will be like in IAD. It looks like I will have a couple hours before my connecting flight. Yay. :P

Week 3

Monday. Start of week three here in Asuncion. The weather is still on the nippy side. I buckled and bought a fleece jacket over the weekend. My other light fleece hoody was being laundered and only came back today. At least I have something to alternate with. I had been wearing the pink hoody for most of the past 2 weeks!

I think the time passes more quickly during the week. All I do is get up, have some breakfast and then head off to the customer site. We spend 10 hrs there before heading back. By the time we're back at the hotel it's almost 7:30. A bit too late to really do much else. Plus, after being cooped up in an enclosed, air-conditioned environment, it just makes you that much more tired.

Yeah, I know. This is one REALLY exciting blog entry. But hey, it's something, right?

I am really hoping I can fly home Saturday and not have to stay the 4th week. We'll see. So far, most of the testing we're doing is going along pretty well. But, you never know...

Maybe I shouldn't blog about my work-related trips here. Vacation trips are more interesting.

Sweetness

Something I noticed at breakfast. And this goes for both of the hotels I've stayed or am staying at. There's an awful lot of sweet items. There are croissants filled with fruit preserves or dulce de leche. There are other pastries that are sugary sweet. There are cookies and other small sweet items. Aside from the sweet stuff there is also some fruit, breads and ham and cheese.

At the Andares del Agua, you can ask them to prepare something specific. A few times I've asked for fried eggs. Gotta have something warm sometimes.

Thursday, Asuncion, Paraguay

It's a national holiday here in Paraguay: Dia de la Paz del Chaco. However, being that we are on Canadian work week, my colleague and I went to the customer site. We were hoping to get this one last group of test cases done for this particular interface test. Alas, our being here would be for nought. Let's just say, nothing worked.

Some observations...

I read somewhere that there are still people who drive horse-drawn wagons. I've seen a few for sure on the ride from the hotel to the customer site. I have yet to successfully take a photo of one.

The roads here are not the smoothest I've seen. The main roadways seem to be the smoothest since they're paved in asphalt. However, I don't think they use the same methods as in North America. A lot of the streets I've seen so far are cobbled red brick. It makes for a very rough ride in the car. This would also explain why our driver always slows down on these roads. Of course, the car is not the newest thing either, but it runs!

The streets are not all level. It's almost as if some streets were added on at different times. There are intersections where there are significant dips and/or inclines. Again, gotta slow down for these. Sometimes there are these "gutters" that run right across the street. Then there are some streets that have speed bumps all along the entire length of the street. It's kinda like no two streets were built the same way.

Street lights are few and far between. I think they only put them up at the very busy intersections. Otherwise, you just go when you have an opening. Surprisingly, traffic just seems to flow like this. Since it's the norm, drivers expect it. There may have been some close calls, but I haven't seen any accidents yet.

The part of town my hotel is in is one of the nicer areas. The much swankier Sheraton is about a 5 minute (or 3 dollar) taxi ride away. There's a decent but small (by N. Am. standards) shopping center across the way. Not too far in Villa Morra is another nice shopping area with some nice bars, clubs and restaurants.

Last night, one of the guys down here on another project said he'd swing by to pick me up to go out for some dinner. I thought he'd grab a cab. Before he came by, he called and said something about meeting up with Sergio (this is another story) but will be by shortly. So I'm waiting in the hotel lobby, when I eventually see this car pull up. I saw a familiar hand wave at me. Huh? That's a friggin Mercedes. Apparently, this Sergio guy is some prosecutor in the ministry of justice. Yeah. Just HOW do these guys meet up with these people??

Anyway... We went over to the Sky Restaurant & Lounge. It's a really nice place. It's expensive by Paraguayan standards, I guess. Unfortunately, Sergio was not able to stay and have dinner with us as he had other things to attend to. So, we had some wine, some starters and dinner. By the time we finished it was a bit after 11PM. Yes, dinner starts pretty late here, no earlier than 8PM. Gotta splurge on the nice dinner once in a while.

Not sure what's happening tonight. Gotta see what the boys are up to. I don't think they're having as easy of a day as I have had so far.

Asuncion, Paraguay

Well, I made it here. After traveling for nearly 24 hours, I made it to Asuncion.

My flight left Saturday evening from Montreal to Toronto. From Toronto, it was about 10.5 hours to Santiago, Chile. After hanging around the Santiago airport for a few hours it was another 4.5 hours to Asuncion, with a short stop in Ciudad de le Este.

So it was Sunday a bit after 6PM when I finally got into my hotel room.

Monday, went to the local office and met briefly with the project manager. Met my colleague who was already here a week. We headed off to the customer site. We worked until 7PM. Afterwards, I met up with one of the other guys from work who's here with another guy for another project. They're here for another 2 weeks.

I'd update more, but with the hours I've been keeping so far, it's hard to find the time to write up a proper entry. I did manage to take a few pics on the car ride to the customer site this morning. I haven't uploaded them to the laptop yet to see how they came out. So be forewarned.

In the meantime, I'm just gonna chill a bit before heading out for some dinner tonight.

Photos are up!

Okay boys and girls! I've finally uploaded the pics to Flickr. I've also managed to clean them up of duplicates and multiple shots.

Enjoy!

Follow-up...

Okay. Trip is over. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I am still working at getting the pics uploaded to Flickr. I will try to get this done before Christmas. I promise!

Some thoughts:

Hong Kong: It's an interesting place to visit. I think we only got to see some of the main attractions of HK. I'm sure there were other things and places we could have checked out. I wish I had brought along the Lonely Planet. Oh well. Perhaps another time.

Shanghai: First thing I noticed about this city: the smog. I think the sky was gray everyday. It might have been sort of clear in the evening. I'm pretty sure I saw a star out in that smoggy, night sky. Next thing I noticed was the people. They're rude and push a lot. It's every person for themselves. Plus, they cut lines. They just push and shove. I don't know if I could deal with that on a long term basis. I'd probably go postal or bash someone's head in.

Tokyo: What can I say? It's not the first time I've been here. However, it was a definite welcome respite from that chaos that is Shanghai. Back to some semblance of civility and order. A place where people apologized for having to rush past you. A world where people queue up in an orderly fashion. In some ways, it's a little surreal as well.

Anyway... Until my next trip, it's back to some everyday babbling elsewhere. ;)

Rockabilly in Yoyogi Park

Get a big amp, some rockin' tunes, some beer and you have a Sunday afternoon at Yoyogi Park!

Outdoor Karaoke, sort of

This guy was REALLY into singing along with whatever was plying. I think it was some David Bowie. Too bad there was too much ambient noise in the way.

Bus ride on Lantau Island to see the bronze Bhudda

According to my Mom, some improvements were made to widen the road since she and bro visited 7 years ago.

Missing baggage and some parting shots

Well, something got left behind in Chicago. :p

I remember picking up BOTH bags in bagage claim and bringing them over to get checked back in for the connecting flight. One made it, the other one didn't. I filed a misplaced baggage report with Air Canada. I guess it didn't make it on the evening flight from Chicago. Let's see if they can find it and bring it home tomorrow. *Fingers crossed*

*UPDATE*
I just checked and it looks like the bag made it here. They just need to contact me for delivery. Yay!

Meanwhile, I got around to uploading the movies and remaining pics from both cameras.

Tokyo/Chicago: Friday/Saturday

I was a bit too lazy to post an update last night. I slept in and left my room around 11AM. I decided to hit Tokyo station and the Ginza again. I needed to have my watch fixed. I asked the concierge if she knew where I can get my watch battery replaced. She suggested a department store. After I grabbed a couple of onigiri and ate them by the fountain near the Imperial Palace, I walked over to the Ginza.

First, I checked out HMV to see if I can find the Kubrick Edition of a Daft Punk album. No dice. I kept walking. I saw the Seibu department store and went in there. I asked at the information desk about watch repair. The girl directed me to Bic Camera which was a short walk away. I went in and managed to figure out that watches was on the 6th floor. After I got up there, I asked and found the watch repair section. I tried to explain that the battery needed to be replaced. He gave me an estimate of Y1575. That's cool. And it's a 1 hour service. Okay. That should be me time to wander around some more.

I made my way to Yamano Music. There, I found the limited edition Kubrick Daft Punk. They had 3 copies. I bought 2. One for me and one for Frankie. After that I wandered over to the Itoya store. After going up a few floors, I found it to be a tad too crowded and warm. Back down I go. I checked the clock on the mobile. Ooh! It looks like it's time to head back to Bic Camera.

I made my way back to Bic. I got my watch. The final cost was Y1230. Cool. After wandering around Bic a little while I decided that I have had enough and headed back to the hotel. It was still early, so I decided to grab a nap. Later, I sent an email to my friend Wayne. He was still at work. Eventually, I got a call from him. We'll meet by Meguro station and get some dinner. We went to Laxmi for some Indian. afterwards, we said our goodbyes, I gave him back the mobile, gave each other a hug and parted ways.

After I got back, I was busy trying to fit every last thing into my luggage. It was a bit tight, but I manged. Of course, i had to take into account what I needed in the morning.

Saturday:
Got up, showered, finished packing. I went down tow ait for the airport limousine bus. Got to the airport, checked in, got through security, then waited at least a half hour in line to go through customs. Oy. I had wanted to buy some sake. However, because I am transiting in Chicago, I would not be allowed to carry that through security. Well, that just blows. :p

Roughly 10 hours later, I am in Chicago. I guess we got some good tail wind. Now I sit in Terminal 2, Gate E2 waiting for my flight home.

Tokyo: Thursday

I tried to sleep in, but I was afraid of missing breakfast. But I did hang around my room until about 11:00 or so. I figure I'd check out Odaiba.

Odaiba. It's an area created from reclaimed land. There are a number of complexes on this piece of land. I visited two of the large shopping malls there. I nearly got lost in one of them by going around in circles (but that was partially my fault). There's a huge, free Toyota car exhibit. Fuji-TV has a building there with a huge sphere that has an observation deck.

One of the shopping malls, called Venus Fort, made my jaw drop when I saw the interior of the place. I had read a description of the place online before I went. It was suppose to evoke an image or feel of Venice. In any case, the main shopping floor was easy enough to navigate. There were a lot of boutiques and designer shops. In one "courtyard" there's this fountain with these statues in it. There were colorful lights making the whole fountain glow. It was actually rather nice. There was a store that sold cute little sweaters and t-shirts for small dogs. Anyway, it looks like there was something for everyone.

Getting to Odaiba is kind of interesting. There's a monorail that runs from Shinbashi to Odaiba. It's a private company so you had to buy tickets separate from JR for it. I opted for the all-day pass for Y800. Afterwards, when I checked out the cost from going from one station to another like I did (to get from one mall to another and back) it was worth it.

Anyway, I managed to kill the entire afternoon in Odaiba. I wonder what I will do Friday, my last full day.

BTW, I won't mentioned what purchases I've made in Odaiba. However, I think a couple of you already know. :p

(Pictures to be posted later.)