In the beginning of November I attended my first OTN APAC Tour and was speaking in Beijing. It was a busy event:

And the first ever I could not read the agenda: I needed to ask the local people where and when do I speak 😀

And I did speak! My first session was about my favourite features of SQL Developer and the second one was about database designing using Data Modeler:

The Data Modeler session was the last one for the whole event and for some reason the previous session overrun about 45 minutes 😦 So my session started at the time I was supposed to be finishing…but no worries people stayed and I had a great audience for the session.

This was my first visit in China and I want to thank Tony Chen (user group liaison for APAC) for the great hospitality and taking the time (from his extremely busy schedule) to show me a little bit of China. And of course Jennifer for being such a fun company to travel with!

Thank you all my fellow speakers, it was a joy to spend time with you and to learn.

And thank you to the organizers for the great event and the amazing speakers’ dinner! When I was thinking we are done with the eating more food was brought to the table 🙂

And the same food fest was also with the breakfast. I travel a lot and I see many different kinds of breakfasts in hotels but I must say the one in Beijing was one of the best ever: I cannot imagine any food that was not served at the breakfast 🙂 Just some examples:

Travelling is always good but I think this one was really eye-opening: before my trip I did not understand that I should be extremely happy to live in the country that has clean air. In Beijing I though the smog was bad when I arrived:

But I learned it can be even worse:

I really enjoyed my visit to China but due to the pollution I do not think I could live there. But from now on I will never take our fresh and clean air for granted.

Thank you OTN, the ACE Program and ACOUG!

— Heli