Day 2 ( 2 September 2009)

Woke up early this day, washed up and went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast.

Waited for our transport to the Messe Stuttgart, where Nokia World is at.

The first thing we saw is this huge sign.

I feel so welcomed!

Went in for the keynote but before going in, I caught a glimpse of the new Nokia Booklet 3G.

Nokia Booklet 3G

I’ll save you guys with the boring (not so boring to me) stuff. If you want to know more about the keynotes and stuff like that, buy my magazine next month. hehe.

I played with all the new devices they launched that day, Nokia N900, Nokia Booklet 3G, Nokia X6, Nokia X3, Nokia N97 Mini and a few others.

Nokia X6

Nokia N900

Nokia N97 Mini

Did a few interviews and went back to the hotel to get prepared for the Nokia Party.

My party tag!

Person holding the Party sign

It was a long drive to the party place. It turned out to be a really old and nice place. I think it’s a castle because I saw “something-something Kastell” on the way in. Not too sure though.

The party place

Nokia World 2009 Party

One of the games area

The party was a little boring. It was basically a drinking thing with nothing much going one. A band from the UK, The Noisettes, performed at the party but we left before that.

We went back to the small town and headed to a pub.

Half a liter!

Left the pub after midnight and walked back with the rest of them to the hotel.

Day 3 (3 September 2009)
Woke up early in the morning again and had breakfast at the same place. It’s a little gloomy this day.

Rain clouds

I’ll skip the work part here as well. I did a few interviews on this day as well.

We went back to the hotel right after lunch because there’s nothing much we can do at the halls. We went to the town center again because we saw a few shops the night before. Walked there again in the afternoon and spent 3 hours there, mostly walking, and went back to the hotel for another Nokia dinner. This time, it’s regional, the SEAP Group.

We were driven to this place. A hunting lodge cum vineyard for one of Germany’s Kings. DAMN NICE!

The hunting lodge/vineyard

Me and the hunting lodge/vineyard

They served finger food and wine before letting us go in. We are assigned to specific seats.

My seat

The set up

The ceiling

Dinner served and it was fine dining style. Look at the cutleries you’ll know lah…

Salmon, crayfish appetizer

Close up on the crayfish

Asparagus soup

Chicken rice, high class style!

They had different kinds of wine for different kinds of food. White and red. Just look at the glasses!

Everyone had at least 5 glasses!

The power of LUMIX LX-3!!!

The dessert buffet

Everyone got a bottle of wine after the dinner to take home. It’s one of the ones we had at the dinner.

Red wine. Luckily I brought an extra bag!

Next: Free time and going home!

I woke up late this morning because my room mate’s alarm was on snooze all the time. Anyway, I woke up just in time to meet the Sales Director of Notebook Division of MSI for breakfast, talked about some of their products.  It was a casual meeting cum breakfast thing at a five star hotel about 5 minutes away from my hotel. 

After that, we proceeded to Nangang Exhibition Hall and visited NU‘s booth and took some pictures, went to Kingmax’s booth and visited their booth, taking pictures and stuff.  It’s funny that both of the booths had some form of water feature, with NU showcasing their waterproof devices and Kingmax displaying their waterproof products.

Met up with the boss of Kingmax, interviewed him on stuff like SSD transitions, future plans – the usuals. It lasted about 30 minutes and it was free time.  So I took Huei along with me and dropped by ASUS’ booth and took a few pictures at MSI’s booth.  

We then took a shuttle bus to the other exhibition area near the Taipei 101 building, where Hall 1 and 3 of the TWTC, as well as the TICC was occupied with the exhibition.  We went to the TICC first for Intel’s keynote, then left to raid Hall 1 and 3.

This year’s Computex is REALLY quite.  I’m not too sure if it’s the first day but as compared to last year, it really toned down a lot.  There aren’t many door gifts too.  Then again, I spent most of my time at TWTC and TICC and the bigger brands (sans Gigabyte) are all at Nangang.

Anyway, when we could hardly feel our legs, we had coffee and ice cream at some funny cafe with SUPERB ice cream! The prices were not too bad.  Both of us racked up about NT430, which is slightly less than RM50.  Well you can’t expect too much for stuff like this, especially when it’s located at the Taipei 101 building itself.

We went to the MSI Media night for dinner at about 6.30pm and met up with the rest of the Malaysian journalists.  There were performances at the dinner, namely some catwalk with MSI’s latest notebooks, followed by a bar tender flare show and ended with some contest which I didn’t join.  I was just too tired because there are blisters on my toes.

When the dinner ended, we the took a cab to Rao He Night market which is about 10 minutes drive away.  Like what Huei said,”Nothing fantastic here besides the petshop,”.  Shi Lin Night Market is 100 times better than this and I’ll see if I can make a trip there one of these days.

Anyway, I have to sleep now.  Early day tomorrow as well.  Will be meeting with Galaxy’s people for breakfast, then their booth.  Cheah needs my help for his ASUS thing and there will be a Kingmax party later in the day.  All are at Nangang but I’m thinking of going to the Gigabyte Reunion at Taipei 101 tomorrow since they sponsored my trip last year.  I’ll see how it pans out.  Good night!

P.S. Oh yeah, I will try to catch up with CHIP Indonesia’s Lab Director, Dedy Irwan, tomorrow.

P.P.S. Will try to have MOS Burger tomorrow at Nangang!

I arrived at the Tao Yuan airport at about 7pm just now.  The flight was ok.  It was the first time I travel on a flight with individual touch screen and I managed to catch Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li and part of Watchmen.  The plane landed before I could finish Watchmen.  The meal wasn’t too bad as well.  I had some chicken fried rice thingamajig.

The hotel I’m staying for the next 4 days has the same name as the one I stayed in last year but I think they shifted.  The one last year was horrendous but this time, it’s a little better.

Oh yeah, I just went to a dinner/supper with one of the suppliers here and I got my first gift! I wasn’t expecting it to be so fast, but yeah.

Ok, I’ll need to sleep now.  I have a breakfast appointment at 8.00am and an interview at 11am. 

Good night!

P.S. Internet here is fast, I’ll try to blog everyday.

Thumbing this on my BlackBerry Bold now at KLIA. Leaving to Taiwan for Computex. My flight is at 2.20pm and I still have about an hour to go. I’ll see you guys in about 5 days time! Bon voyage!

I don’t know how many of you are going to Computex this year but inspired by bytebot’s post, I’ve decided to write a first timer’s guide.  I know I’ve only been there once but having a guide is better than not having one right?

First things first, Computex is held anually in Taipei and since last year, there are two venues, Taipei World Trade Center, which is at the Taipei 101 building, and TWTC Nangang Exhibition Hall.  Both venues are far away from each other and you won’t be able to walk from one to the other.

Let’s start!
Before You Go
The most important thing before you go is to book your hotel rooms and flight tickets.  Everyone in the world will be going to Computex, go figure.

Go to Computex’s official site, register yourself.  You can register at the venue itself but why do it last minute?

If you can, register for a Press Tag.  You’ll get more goodies with it.

Language
If possible, stick to someone who knows the language, i.e. mandarin and Hokkien (they call it the Taiwanese language but it’s Hokkien).  While I’m pretty sure you’ll have no problems during the expo but when you want to get out at night after all the work is done, you’ll need it to get around. Start learning some simple phrases if you can.

Getting Around
Taxi is not as cheap as the ones in KL but for it’s still considerably cheaper compared to places like Tokyo and London. My most expensive taxi fare was about RM20 for a 20 minute drive, including traffic jams.

There are shuttle busses shuttling between Taipei World Trade center and TWTC Nangang during the expo, just make sure you get onto the right one.  There will also be shuttle busses from major areas (where most hotels are) shuttling you guys to the expo.

The MRT system (or whatever they call it) is very comprehensive in Taipei.  Just read the map and you’ll be fine.  Oh yeah, don’t forget to grab a map from the airport.

Get your hotel’s card as well or write it down some where so that you can show it to the cab driver when you are lost.

What To Bring?
Bring comfy shoes. Trust me, you’ll need them as you’ll be doing A LOT of walking.

Bring a laptop, or better, a netbook.  If you can, bring a portable DVD drive as well (if you are bringing a netbook).  You’ll be getting PLENTY of press releases and they usually include softcopy versions of the press releases.  Copy them into your computer and you’ll safe some luggage space when you go home.  Most hotels last year provide free WiFi or LAN in the room so you’ll be ok when you need the internet.  Bring an Ethernet cable with you as well.

Bring a bigger bag, not just one that fits all your clothes.  You’ll be getting SWAGs (Stuff We All Get) when you visit booths.  Some of these SWAGs are really bulky, like the casino chip set I got from XFX last year.

You’ll need a power plug convertor.  Check this site for more info.  If you can charge your mobile phones, gadgets and stuff using your laptop, bring the cables and leave the chargers at home.  It’ll save you a lot of luggage space.

Bring your camera with plenty of memory cards.  I don’t know about you guys but I brought my DSLR with 4GB memory last year and it lasted me 1 day JUST NICE.  So bring more memory! If you are planing to bring your DSLR, a flash gun isn’t necessary as unlike the PC Fair in KL Convention Center, the halls are very well lit.  I’ll be bringing mine anyway, just in case.

Bring a backpack along with you to the expo.  It’ll come in handy for all the press releases.

Plan Your Itinerary
Just imagine, there are two venues and thousands of booths to go.  You’ll need to plan your time there well.  Depending on your agenda (some of us have sponsors’ events that we have to go), find out which booth you want to go to before hand.  You can get a directory at the venue itself, spend 30 minutes or so and study where are the booths that you are supposed to go.  Time is very limited and there are plenty of stuff to do!

There will be dancers around Computex and girls promoting their clients’ stuff, don’t just stand and stare at them, remember, you don’t have time!

You will get time to yourself (depending if you have and sponsored dinners or not), so you can go to some local night markets to do some shopping.  Make sure you don’t sleep too late as the next day is another full force expo ahead!

Currency
The currency in Taiwan is New Taiwan Dollars (NT).  Make sure the ones you bring are NT.  Last year I got conned by the money changer in Bangsar.  He gave me a combination of old and new notes and he said both can be used.  I found out that the old notes can no longer be used anymore, although they are worth more for collectors just like our old notes.  You’ll have to go to the Taiwan Bank to get it changed if you have the old ones.  Taiwan Bank is not like Bank Negara, they have branches every where but it’s not easy to spot one, kinda like Standard Charted Bank here.

Things are not really expensive in Taiwan, a little like in KL city.  A decent meal will cost you about NT200-300.  So just estimate how much you are going to use.  Bring more, just in case.

Others
If you are using a prepaid number, make sure you load enough money into it.  If you are on a post paid plan, get roaming activated.  You’ll need your phone to be working when you are in a foreign place, whether or not you use it is a different story.  I used mine last year sparingly and Maxis charged me about RM15, which is not too bad.

One of the exhibitors told me last year that it rains every Computex.  It rained last year at Computex as well and I guess it will rain this year too.  So if you want to, bring an umbrella.  You can buy it there (it was NT100, about RM10, at the night market last year) but I broke mine, on the same day I bought it.  So bring one if you need it but you’ll be indoors most of the time.

I don’t know what else to add but when I think of more, I’ll update the list.

Drop a comment if you need more info.