Nǐ hǎo! writing this blog on the last day of 2023 at 3 AM at my parents home. I presented my first in-person talk at KubeCon China, experience of which I have already blogged here. This post is more about my personal experiences during my China trip.
Chinese Visa
I never thought I would get a chance to visit China, but it happened. Immediately after receiving the confirmation email, I looked up the Visa appointment date, but no slot was available during August. I somehow managed to get the appointment for 13th September and had flights booked for 23rd; see how risky I play every time with visa dates 😂 I took the express service and got the visa within five days.
The Great Wall of China
I landed in Beijing for a day trip to the Great Wall of China, which was exciting to experience one of the world’s seven wonders personally. After which, I took an overnight train to Shanghai. Some folks went to Honzhou to experience Asian games, but I decided to rest and practice for my talk the other day.
KubeCon
KubeCon China was a relatively smaller event, and the leading conference was only for one and a half days. However, it was a unique experience since everyone there was using WeChat; I missed collecting a lot of goodies as WeChat was required for it. There was also a communication gap because many people struggled to speak English.
The talks were mainly focused around platform engineering, kubernetes security and even on LLM.
After KubeCon
I stayed three more days after the conference to explore the places in and around Shanghai. I also went to Suzhou, a beautiful small town nearby. I think it’s not required to mention that I also entered the third tallest building in the world - Shanghai tower
Then I flew to Hong Kong, to spend a full day at Hong Kong Disneyland, a place full of magic! Highly recommended!
No Goolge and Meta software works on China network, either you have to use a VPN or use international roaming pack to browse those apps, I did the later.
It’s already 4 AM. See y’ll next year 👋