Remembering... Taipei

After last night's post and keeping an eye on all the news coming from Computex today it's not really all that surprising that I had another 'Taipei moment' tonight. After an interesting discussion session about ICT in education that Wayan had organized, we went out for dinner and beers. The moment we got out of the building and saw that it had rained I had somewhat of a flashback to my Taipei experiences in 2006 and 2007. The rain, the wet streets, the yellow lights in terms of the atmosphere combined with the fact that I was talking ICT over beers with a bunch of outstanding people from different parts of the world certainly reminded me of all the good times in past years. On top of that I didn't get too much sleep last night and had quite an intense and productive day and so it's not hard to connect the dots. Plus the weather in DC these days is remarkably similar to Taipei as it's hot and humid here and there's no escape from it, especially when the A/C in your office isn't working.

The generally interesting thing here of course being that I had spent quite a lot of time these past 48 hours reminiscing about Computex and Taipei. But it's one thing to think about something and a totally different story to actually be back there, to literally relive these moments long gone. I've often thought about these sort of moments and for some reason they're often connected to out-of-the-ordinary experiences such as Computex or travelling. I'm starting to believe that there are certain situations that the mind simply can't fully comprehend at the time, often due to sheer exhausting, sleep deprivation and mental overflow (been there, done that), which come back at later times to be thoroughly processed. Reliving those moments is probably part of this process. And actually I really don't mind it, quite the opposite, I cherish the chance to mentally be back in situations and places long gone.

So cheers to good memories and here's to many great experiences in the future! ...and could you please bring me another Sam Adams?! ;-)

Listening to Heavens - Patent Pending and In Flames - Come Clarity while I write these lines sitting in the metro on the way home...

Computex 2008 opens without me...

So while my Monday, a great day by the way, is slowly coming to an end I know someone who certainly isn't sleeping at the moment. In fact I'm quite convinced he hasn't slept all that much in the past few days seeing that he just got into Taipei on Monday to attend Computex 2008, definitely the best place to be these days. I'm of course talking about my friend Sascha of eeepcnews.de and epiacenter fame.

At this precise moment he is probably running through either the traditional exhibition halls around Taipei 101 or in the brand-new Nangang Exhibition Centre looking for news-worthy information, photos and videos which will then be rapidly published via the aforementioned Web sites and Steve's umpcportal.com. (On a fun side note: check out operations center that Steve set up to cover Computex out of his home in Germany!:-)

While following the constant stream of news coming out of Taipei over the past 48 hours I couldn't help but feel a little sad that I'm not there to enjoy the raging madness that is Computex. I was lucky enough to be there in the past 2 years and it was a blast even though I probably aged a year during the 6 days each I was in Taipei in both 2006 and 2007. The preparations leading up to those 6 days were always quite cruel, last year I actually pushed myself over the edge as I briefly passed out from exhaustion during the first leg of my flight from Vienna to Taipei via Abu Dhabi. (Needless to say a flight across the globe is the very worst time to lose consciousness.)

Of course the event itself is quite demanding in itself, running from meeting to meeting, always on the look-out for new products and/or booth babes. This is balanced by great evenings and nights spent in the hotel bar of the Grand Hyatt, at small halal restaurants, random watering holes or wherever else. Of course it's always the people that really make these nights memorable, and damn, I miss having the chance to hang out with them. Even though many of them have actually moved on to greener pastures and aren't in Taipei anyway.

Just when I was about to publish this article I remembered that I had taken a short video during my 2007 trip which I uploaded as sort of introduction to the Computex coverage on EPIACENTER.com:



Needless to say that after watching it and looking at some of my photos taken back in June 2006 I just might cry myself to sleep tonight...

China Pa, Carnegies, Taipei 101... I miss you!