travel

Korea and Japan visit – Recap, Thank You and Impressions!

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 …

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Thank you, United Airlines

Well, we all have read a lot of stories about United Airlines in the past months. And my experience with United isn’t that good either.

In the past, UA managed to either let my luggage sit for 5 days in London while I was already in Redwood Shores, and I spent roughly 10 hours in their terrible telephone system waiting for anybody tracking my luggage. Then UA let my luggage sit for only a day and a bit in Frankfurt while I was staying in Pleasanton, CA. And last weekend all my team mates flying in from Mexico to Nashua …

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Beijing, Seoul – and OTN Tour Tokyo – just in one week

Uhhh … next week will be a tough traveling experience. 19870 km (12347 mi), all in cattle class on 4 different airlines.

I tried to avoid Lufthansa as they canceled recently flights I heavily relied on – with no reason! And there’s still a huge risk of announcing just their 9th strike within a year and a bit.

But I’m really looking forward to the workshops, to see all the colleagues, customers and of course some great friends. Roy and I will do two internal two-day workshops in Beijing and Seoul with each more than 50 participants – and …

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Back on Track :-)

No updates for almost 3 weeks? Well … sometimes I need a bit of vacation as well … and for sure I didn’t board an airplane. Thanks for staying tuned and you’ll see the next update within a few hours 🙂

–Mike…

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Back Home …

Now finally back from my short trip to Johannesburg, South Africa. Flying out Monday overnight, returning Friday morning after another overnight flight (all Eco). But thanks to Turkish Airlines – including the short stop-over in Istanbul was worth it as the seating comfort in Turkish’s economy class is far better than Lufthansa’s – as is the food and especially the entertainment system, the service … almost everything. And luckily the Turkish Airline’s employees didn’t go on strike in Thursday 🙂

But after running now 6 internal Oracle Database 12c: Upgrade, Migrate and Consolidate workshops in the US and …

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Long time no update …

I deeply apologize for not updating the blog for some weeks now. I’m still working for Oracle, still in the same group – but due to some other things going on in preparation for Oracle Database 12c I had either no time or simply nothing to report at the moment. I didn’t want to bore you with Oracle Database 11.2 stuff as the slides don’t get changed right now. Oracle Database 11.2.0.4 patchset should be available sometime in early summer with a good bunch of fixes included.

Roy and me had delivered the first internal only Upgrade, Migrate and Consolidate

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Some impressions …

Thanks again to our colleagues of Oracle Japan for the (as always) excellent organization of our journey to Japan in December 2011. And thanks to all the customers and colleagues we’ve met and which did visit the workshops 🙂 We’ll hope to meet you next time again!

And here are some impressions:

Osaka by Night

Silent Cooking in Tokyo

Mackerel 🙂

 

Yes … Otoro and Maguro … delicious!!!

Okonomiyaki – also VERY delicious!!!

Fuji-san in the morning

Ginko Trees in Tokyo

Kyoto – Kinkaku-Ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion)

Beautiful gardens at Kinkaku-Ji in Kyoto
(the picture doesn’t reflect

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Best Of 2010

Hi there,

in Australia, Japan, Singapore and many other countries it’s already 2011 – but in Germany and the US it’s still some time until midnight 🙂 To round up the year you’ll find a few off-topic pictures from 2010. You might click on the pictures to get a better resolution.

Enjoy …

2010_12_31_001.jpgMoscow – Red Square

 

2010_12_31_003.jpgTokyo Train – Cell Phone Mania

 

2010_12_31_004.jpgGreat Chinese Wall near Beijing

 

2010_12_31_005.jpgHong Kong by Night

 

2010_12_31_006.jpgYearing Station Winery, Yarra – Victoria, Australia

 

2010_12_31_008.jpgDublin, Ireland – during the ash cloud

 

2010_12_31_009.jpg– no comment –

 

2010_12_31_010.jpgLiberty

 

2010_12_31_012.jpgSometimes
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Thank you for your support throughout 2010!!!

Now as the calendar year 2010 is close to its end, it’s time for a quick wrap-up. The TV stations have shown all their flashbacks already in early December but we’ll wait until end of the year 😉

I will post some pictures done by Roy or me throughout our travel in the next days. We’ve visited a lot of countries – and did more than 60 full-day Upgrade Workshops in 28 different countries:.

2010_12_23_Worldmap_upgrade_workshops.jpg

But the most important thing: We’d like to say THANK YOU to all the wonderful people who’d attend to one of our upgrade workshops …

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