This is one of my regular disclosure posts. You can read more of them here. This one is about KubeCon+CloudNativeCon China 2018.
Flights and Accommodation
My flights and accommodation were organised by The Linux Foundation (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) who run the conference. I stayed at the JW Marriott Hotel in Changfeng Park, Shanghai, which was just around the corner from the conference venue.
I paid for my own airport transfers.
Food, Drink, Etc.
I looked after myself (via my company expenses) for various sundry meal expenses outside of the conference.
Monday 12 November 2018
I had breakfast at the Qantas First Lounge at Sydney international airport, an omelette and a cup of coffee. Other meals were on the plane in economy class on the way to Shanghai.
We landed at 6:30pm and then I had to muck about finding an ATM to get some renminbi because local taxis only take cash (or possibly AliPay) and renminbi isn’t a free exchange currency.
It was almost an hour’s drive to the hotel, and I just collapsed into bed when I got there.
Tuesday 13 November
Breakfast each day was included with the hotel room, and was a buffet style thing with lots of different stations for different food types. When I’m in Asia I tend to avoid the western breakfast things (aside from coffee) and have spicy noodle soup, which is what I did here all week.
I also had a croissant, and sadly it wasn’t up to the amazing standard you get in Thailand.
The coffee was out of an auto-machine thing and was fairly decent, though the milk is local UHT style milk that tastes a bit weird to me. I believe a lot of people in South-East Asia are lactose intolerant, so the milk situation is highly variable, depending on how many western ex-pats there are.
I should probably just go all-in on tea of a morning and find the right kind to complement spicy noodle soup. Something to work on in 2019.
Lunch was some kind of nibbles associated with the pre-conference sessions that I hastily grabbed in between working in my hotel room and meeting with the Project Harbor team and Eduardo Silva from Treasure Data and a maintainer of fluentbit.
Dinner was at a VIP reception in downtown Shanghai at POP Bar at Three on The Bund. The view over The Bund was pretty amazing. Entire skyscrapers have been turned into LED displays, and almost every building is lit up in some way.
The food was a buffet with a kind of pan-Asian/Western fusion style. There were mini-sliders and quite decent cheese and also dumplings and sushi. I had two glasses of red wine and a good chat with some other attendees before battling Shanghai traffic in the buses that ferried us back to our hotels.
Wednesday 14 November 2018
Breakfast was at the hotel. Noodle soup again.
Lunch was a media and analyst luncheon at the conference. A buffet style thing of basic bain marie fare. I had some chicken and salad stuff and water.
Dinner was various nibbles at the conference reception. There were some halfway decent dumplings and similar finger food. I also had a couple of glasses of wine, using the conference vouchers that all attendees received.
Thursday 15 November 2018
Spicy noodle soup for brekkie, and I persevered with the coffee.
Lunch was the conference supplied lunch, and I opted for the Chinese style to the consternation of the people handing them out. I gather most westerners went with whatever the western lunch option was, but I find that it is usually safer to go with the local cuisine options, especially for mass-catering style things.
It was just a simple bento box style thing of rice and a crumbed pork (or was it chicken?) schnitzel type thing with some vegetables. Not some exotic ‘delicacy’ designed to squick tourists to the great amusement of the locals.
I forget what I had for dinner, so I suspect it was just something simple back at the hotel.
Friday 16 November 2018
Breakfast was spicy noodle soup at the hotel, which I augmented with some pastries as I wasn’t intending to eat much until a late lunch in the airport lounge mid-afternoon.
That actually turned into an early dinner because check-in didn’t open until about 3 hours before the flight left, so I didn’t get to the lounge until around 5pm. I had spicy noodle soup again because it was available and looked far more appealing than the fairly sad little sandwich things on offer.
I had a glass of red to help get into a sleeping mood given the time difference of three hours back to Melbourne and the usual plane schedule that meant I’d need to try to sleep almost immediately after the meal on the plane was served.
I ended up snuggling in to sleep immediately and skipped all the meals on the plane, opting to have a late breakfast/early lunch at the Qantas lounge in Sydney while I waited for my connection to Melbourne.
Swag Etc.
- The KubeCon+CloudNativeCon conference t-shirt.
- A traditional Chinese fan, with hand-painted calligraphy of my wife’s name on it, done by a local artist at the conference welcome reception. They were very popular with foreigners and locals alike.
- A SUSE chameleon, with the SUSE brand on its side.