South Korea Vacation

From March 21 to 24 of this year, Celine, Mama Chelle, Mitch, Wayne, Jerome, and I went to South Korea for a very short vacation. This blog post summarizes the highlights of our trip. I plan to blog more about the specific days and the places we visited, soon.

We arrived there evening of March 21, took the train and went to Namsan Guest House to check-in. We had dinner in a nearby barbecue restaurant. On our third day, we went to Nami Island for a day trip and took a lot of photos. In the evening, we went to Gangnam and meet some of the Google Developer Group (GDG) managers from South Korea. We had dinner at a Samgyupsal place nearby. After dinner, we also bought some food to bring to friends in the Philippines.

With the GDG managers from South Korea [Photo from Nuri]

On our last day (March 24), we went back to Gangnam, visited the Google Seoul office and had lunch/meeting with the Google Developer Relations Manager Soonson Kwon, and prepared our stuff to go to the airport.

It's a pretty short trip but we enjoyed our stay there. We visited different palaces, temples and other historical/cultural places there. There are still a lot that we haven't visited though. I wish we could go back there in the near future.

5th ICT Youth Convention

+Celine and I went back to Ozamiz City on February 27, 2014 for the 5th ICT Youth Convention organized by La Salle University-Ozamiz. The convention was a three-day event (26-28) but we were only there for the second day.

We were picked up from the airport and went to the hotel to pick up Ralph, who will be doing a design workshop in the morning. We had breakfast first and went to the hall. I talked about Google Developer Tools and Technologies and then Ria Lu of Komikasi followed with her talk about the four types of gamers.

We had lunch at Mooon Cafe and we ate baby back ribs. After eating, we went back to LSU. I went to the laboratory for the Android workshop and the rest went to the afternoon talks, where the first speaker is Celine, with her talk about Google's programs for student. Around fifteen students and teachers attended the Android workshop. My laptop charger broke down before I even start my talk. The laboratory technicians were able to do a temporary fix for it but the power went down. I had to talk for a few minutes without slides. When the power went back, I continued with my slides and the workshop. The power went out again when almost all students are nearly done with their work. Unfortunately, I found out that all the computers are in deep freeze so all of their work are now gone. I gave them a copy of the finished code and continued with the talk.

After the talk, Celine and I were asked to judge the entries in the Flash Contest and Digital Art Contest from Day 1. We went back to the main hall to watch a bit of the ongoing Philnits quiz bee. We then check in at Royal Garden Hotel and rested for a bit. We were picked up around seven in the evening for the Socials Night at Beatriz Hotel. Most of the students are in formal attire while we were in jeans and shirts. There were performances by teachers and students. We left earlier because we have an early flight the next day. We missed their beauty pageant contest.

It was great to be back in Ozamiz! Thanks to Miss +Leslyn and +Jerome for inviting us.