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Well, it is day 2 of CTIA in Las Vegas, let me recap my experiences from yesterday. The day started with meeting up with Xavier for breakfast. We had a simple breakfast at MacD’s, but I have to say this McDonald has the look and feel of a coffee shop. It was really interesting. We then walked to the convention center to get my ID and head toward the Keynote.
As we were headed toward the keynote, we ran into couple of Google Androids.
The keynote was ok, a little dry, but you get to learn a bit about the common trend
CTIA Day One Keynote
After the keynote we attending the series of classes on backhaul technology for the future wireless systems. I’ve learned alot and picked up a few new topics to research. (e.g. IEEE 1588 , carrier ethernet, vendor such as Dragonwave)
After we enjoyed our free lunch and can’t listen to any more seminars, we headed down to the show floor.
It’s pretty exciting to see all the different vendors, however, it was not what I expected. I was expecting alot more.. but it was very very few consumer high lights that I’ve found.
Few notes, Nokia was trying to push for their email service, which was lame. Why would I get email from nokia? But what was cool was nokia’s bluetooth headphones!!! no no not the one ear kind, the bluetooth stereo headphones!!!
and of course the HTC Supersonic!!!
The supersonic is the first “4G” aka WiMax phone out there. It is spec’ed with a pretty high megapixel camera and it also has a front camera too… so video conferencing on the go? Neat!
HTC EVO 4G (aka Supersonic)
After the show, we met up with some contractor friends for a show and dinner. Thanks Ryan and Sam!!! Yes, Zumanity was shocking and amazing. When Ryan said, yeah meet us at New York New York for a Cirque du Soleil show called Zumanity, I thought oh ok… that should be fun. I’ve never been to a Cirque du Soleil show and I thought this one was the same PG rated show that you can see in Seattle. Oh… was I in shocked!!! It was a good show!!!
After dinner and show I walked 3 miles back to my hotel and called it a night. Fun huh…
Pictures below are from the walk!! and strangely … part of it reminded me of France.
Vegas Strip at night
Paris?
France National Library?
Bellagio Hotel
First of all Happy New Years Eve Everyone. Well, today is the last day of 2009 and it is also our last day in Paris, France. It was kind of a low key day today, but as usual it is still alot of fun and excitement.
Big head
wonder around paris
Vicky shopping
looking for dinner location.
African Dinner
free RER and Metro
Can’t find Ibis hotel near the airport.
early flight out tomorrow.
Today was a Museum day. It is our second day with the museum pass and our second to last day in Paris and France.
The day started off with a visit to Orsay – The line outside is around one hour long .. However, we have a museum pass and no wait.
Inside Orsay it was pretty awesome, I was amazed to see the real version of a painting that my parents have at their place. I have to say Orsay was an interesting art museum. After a few hours it was time to move on.
We Walk across the pedestrian bridge and on to Louvre park. Along the way, I took some very good black and white stair pictures of the pedestrian bridge. I’ve also took some more pictures of the tower.
From there we walked along Champs Elysees toward the Arc De Triomphe. We stopped by a small side street greek food restaurant and hand lunch. The owner was interesting, when we told him that we were from Washington state in the US, he says oh… I have a relative in Washington DC. I guess, that is a common mistake. DC and Washington state are not the same  .
Afterward, Vicky spent some time shopping on Champs Elysees while I just people watched and got some interesting street photo.
From there we marched on toward Arc De Triomphe. It was pretty funny, we could not find the tunnel to get across to the arc, but when we finally do get there, there was a 30-40 minutes line… however no waiting with museum pass .. yeah!!! The steps going up to the top of the arc was long but worth it. The view on top was great!!!
After the tower, we decided to head back to Notre Dame to take pictures of the gargoyles, but unfortunately when we arrived, they close the line already. We were not able to get up to the tower… This is something for the next trip, i guess. Note to self, Notre Dame line closes at 4:00 pm. Since, we can not make it up to the top of Notre Dame, we got some ice cream on the island and headed toward the Louvre.
The Louvre also had a long line, but with the museum pass… no line!!! yeah!!! Once again, people every where especially all the famous paintings and exhibits.
After the Louvre, it was time for dinner. We bought some things at the super marche next to the hotel, however, I thought it was a good idea to get some cheap French Chinese food. Well, it was not cheap and the food was not good at all… another learning experience.
So Tomorrow.. is new years eve… and my last day in Paris.
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We have one of these at home in Auburn
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Spent and super tired
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Near Orsay
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More Stairs
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Big White bear… Coke anyone?
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Metro!!!
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Stairs on the bridge across the river
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The Paris Wheel :)
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Stair in side the Arc!
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New Arc
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Back at Notre Dame
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In the Louvre
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The Mona Lisa and Min Part 2
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The Mona Lisa and Min
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Chilling with Dum Dum
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Outside of the Louvre
Today we went to the famous chateau Versailles. We woke up early to take the RER to Versailles. Oh and RER stinks. Anyways. We grabbed some breakfast in the metro station and jump on our train to Versailles. Today, the weather was pretty flakey. We stood in the rain to get inside. The line was super super long and after inside there were so many people we immediately realizesthat to get to the garden we had exited … What a waste of time. My comment on Versailles is that it is so huge!!! It took forever to walk around. We even saw people on Ez-go’s and Segways. The Versailles’ winter garden is really disappointing. I have to agree with my mom, it’s probably much better to come here during the summer. After a long walk around the huge garden, I was so tired from walking and decided to take the “little train”. On the transport something funny happened. We drove by a field and saw a bunch of sheep, and the girls behind us asked, “are those pigs?”. Oh Wow…. the person next to here immediately responded… “have you ever seen pigs eating grass? ” City folks… ha ha ha
Once we got inside the chateau, it was nothing like the chateau near Tours. First of all there were so many people. Just people everywhere. Second, maybe it is because of our visit near Tours, I just find Versailles pretty boring. Every room is just another room with different color furniture. After fighting through the crowd, we took the early train back to Paris.
After returning from Versailles, Xavier took us for Lamb dinner J’go near the Opera.
oh another wonderful day in Paris… tomorrow… the Museums!!
PS… see I am in new clothing today  Finally got my luggage.
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Wet and Nasty Day
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“Are those Pigs?”
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People People everywhere…
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Back in Paris
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J’go Near Opera
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Yummy Lamb
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So today started off pretty late, I guess I am pretty tired from all the long nights from previous days, but it is the beginning of a new week and the beginning of my last week in France. Today started with my panic attempts to access the internet to finish my work timesheet. With all this traveling, I forgot that I still need to fill out a vacation time card for work. So, I ended up at the local McDonald trying to use their free internet to VPN back to our office to complete my time card. Yes for some reason our internet did not work in our hotel. 
Amazingly, right after finishing my time card, we discovered that there is an Air France Office nearby. We’ve been here for a few days and there is an Air France office just right next to where we were staying, AMAZING!! Since we have not gotten our luggage yet, we decided to go and see if they can help us. After around 20 minutes of waiting and talking to the reps, we got our new hotel address updated in their system, and found out that they have found one of our luggage and maybe delivering it today. Woo hoo!! With that wonderful news, we help our friends drag their luggages across Paris to our new hotel.
Our new hotel is a bit nicer, it even have an RFID key for opening room doors. How cool huh? However, the location of the new hotel is a bit farther than the previous location, but it is still very close to the metro.
Once we all checked in, we decided to go for another city bicycle ride around Paris. Oh, I just love riding bikes around Paris!!! This time, we rode to the Picasa museum and the Victor Hugo’s House. Unfortunately the Picasa Museum is closed until 2012 and all other museums are closed for Monday!!!
We parked our bikes and stopped for lunch at the Cafe Hugo. Yumm Yumm… Beef and Carrots!!
Victor Hugo’s House.
 After a short break we decide to get another bike and ride to Pompidou center. However, I ended up getting a bad bike and unable to return it properly so I was not able to check out another bike. My friends ended up pushing their bikes along the side walk all the way to the pumpadu center. sorry guys…
More stairs!!! This is one of my favorite stairs shots.
After a short visit around the Pompidou center, I got a new bike (paid another 3 euros) and rode to the islands to have some ice cream with my friends at the Berthillon ice cream shop. Yummy!!! They have, supposedly, the best ice cream in Paris. So on a cold winter day, we were having ice cream.
Xavier making Hot Chocolate!!
The shops on this street have some really interesting things.
A night view of Notre Dame de Paris, as we walked toward the near by Metro Station.
For dinner, we went to a small wine shop near Bercy. So, tonight I learned that you can not call red wines smooth, you have to describe the wine as fruity or not so fruity… so many things to learn about drinking wine.
Sausages and beans.
Duck breast salad.
After our wonderful dinner, Xavier took us to a night stroll near the France National Library.
and more “stairs” pictures
After we finally returned to our new hotel, half of our luggage was waiting for us!!! YEAH!!!! However, the other 1/2, my half is still missing!!!… so far I have travelled in the same clothe for 7 days. Oh don’t worry, I do wash them nightly . Tomorrow: Versailles
It is Sunday today, not much going on, so I will just start with some of today’s highlights.
First, Bastille market!!! It’s amazingly cool, it is like the French Market in New Orleans or the Taiwanese open air market in Taiwan. It’s pretty awesome with all the fresh food and goods. It really makes me want to buy some food and cook. Unfortunately we do not have a kitchen .
Look!!! it’s actually a fish bowl with gold fish on his head!!!
Our breakfast break… We bought some bread and beef and carrots. YUM YUM!!!
Churros … freshly made… much better than Costco churros!!! Lunch … French McDee’s. uh.. they are actually not very good.
After lunch, took the metro to met up with our friends Xavier (aka French guy) and Huey. From there we took the RER (the regional rail) to a French outdoor outlet. Since my luggage hasn’t arrived yet, I decided to get a new shirt while I am here. I bought a nice purpose dress shirt with french cuffs and chinese knot cufflinks!!!
Afterward, since we were so close to Disney Land Paris, we decide to visit the Disney Village. From the short visit there, I get the feeling, Disney Land is more like American Land, everything there is about the American and Disney culture.
Bam!!!
 After our short visit at the Disney village, we decided to head back to Paris for dinner. When we returned to our hotel, we walked out to the beautiful street of Paris and found Leon’s. It is a restaurant that serves mussels. What we did not know is, Sunday night is all you can eat mussel night!!!… Yep after 3 rounds of mussels, I was super super full… so good … so yummy!!!
Finally, still nothing about the where about of my luggage and tomorrow is a new week and we are moving to a new hotel.
So tonight I’ve reserved my train tickets from Paris to Tours. It’s going to be interesting… I will be riding on the TGV!!!
So what is the TGV… TGV is the high speed train in France. I remember reading about it when I was a little kid. I remember reading about the bullet train in Japan and the French TGV. Oh… and now I will have a chance to ride in one!!!! woo hoo!!!
I am very excited about the train ride…I love trains… I remember seeing a steam engine train when was little and riding a the back of an old train with my dad … so many train memories…
so… more information on TGV!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TGV
Next job rental car and stuff to do in Tours… any suggestions?
I know I supposed to be writing everyday… but the past few days has been busier than I expected and I still haven’t got my server to the point where I can put a second wordpress on my server just for December… so I will just continue to post on my main blog. Which is just fine.
Well… after a long night of company party and talking with my friends about hotel rooms in paris, we finally reserved a few rooms in Paris. They look ok… but I am not going to put too much hope into it… but the good thing is they are very close to everything so that’s good.
So here is were we are going to say.
Dec 24 – 28
Hotel Opera Vivaldi
http://www.parishotel-operavivaldi.com/
Dec 28-31
Hotel Le Prieure
http://www.hotelgrandprieure.fr/
View Paris Trip 2009 in a larger map
My Shared Google Map
Today is my first day back to work after Thanksgiving. It was a busy day and I still have this nagging cold. This is very annoying.
But one good thing is that we manage to book the a hotel in Tours France for the first few nights. We are still looking for the hotels for the rest of the trip in Paris.
But this is where we are planning to stay for the first few nights.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187130-d219884-Reviews-Hotel_du_Manoir-Tours_Loire_Valley_Centre.html
View Paris Trip 2009 in a larger map
More to come… I am feeling tired .. so I am going to bed now… I will try to set up a new site for this month’s activities… maybe tomorrow.
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