A week ago, Roy and I returned from a 1+ week trip to Korea and Japan. It was wonderful but of course strenuous (as always). As today is a public holiday in many European countries including Germany I’d like to take the chance and write a non-technical short article about our Korea and Japan visit – Recap and Thank You!
Korea and Japan visit – Recap and Thank You!
I love both countries. Not only the countries, the food and the things to see, but of course the people. It’s such a pleasure to work with colleagues and customers in Korea and Japan. Both countries are beautiful, still quite different and so well organized, I’d like to take the chance to say a big “Thank You” to everybody who helped making our customer and internal meetings and our workshops such a success. I don’t want to share people’s pictures without permission. But I hope to return soon again. And thanks to my former country manager, Frank Obermeier, who leads now Oracle Japan, for supporting us.
The most challenging part in both countries, in Japan even more than in Korea, is the aim to ensure 100% test completeness. “Do it perfectly right” is the motto even in IT. I like the discussion with customers a lot. And I hope that we can progress things a bit and help to lift database environments to more modern release and introduce agile release cycles (see also: Why does your most important database run on Oracle 10.2.0.4? which does NOT talk about an Asian customer by the way).
Some impressions from our trip
Here are some impressions from our trip from April 2018.
Seoul, Korea
Seoul – Lotte World Tower (554,5 meter height) – view from the Oracle office
(Mostly) girls waiting overnight for Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland and others (Avengers) in front or COEX
Gangnam Style – of course
Just the sides for a Korean Barbecue – I like “spicy” a lot 🙂
Tokyo, Japan
Shibuya Crossing near Shibuya Station during off-peak hours 😉
Sake (Salmon) Nigiri – simply delicious!
The new Olympic Stadium – very close to the Oracle Ayoma Center office
Excellent Sashimi at a traditional Japanese Spring dinner with customers
Sneak Preview: Introducing our new Cloud Migration Tool to important partners
I had to dig for records as well in my spare time – but I didn’t buy this one (the shelf contained the color copy version only – real record (used) to be sold for a bargain of Yen 155,000 (>1400 USD – excl VAT) over the counter only 😉
Not lost in translation – but sleepy – Tokyo is simply amazing
–Mike
