Cvander:

It’s been almost two weeks since I landed in Tokyo, making this my first trip to Asia (by the way, a destination that I always had on my goals). Since minute one in Narita Airport dealing with customs where a guard took everything out of my bag, but in a very polite way, to the meal a few minutes ago where I asked (finally) for a tea refill in japanese, I’m amazed with this city, with the culture, and those places where western and eastern culture come together like Shibuya:

I still get lost on the subway, take a long time to understand the simplest signs on the streets (I’m learning some basic japanese in an autodidact way with a couple iPhone apps and a few books) and have a big list of places to visit for the following weeks. I’ll be here until march and then will hit the super fast trains to travel around the rest of the country.

The best thing of being here, is that despite the amout of blogs, books and stories that you can hear from Japan, it’s so umpredictable and the smallest things can make every day into an adventure.

In Buenos Aires, people from the web industry is gathering for Palermo Valley, a great networking opportunity. Last Wednesday I joined them in the nice Marca Futuro showroom and found out about many new projects and also great results for current companies in the country.

There’s a lot happening around here. Many good projects like Copada, Geelbe, Keegy, LemonTV, Popego, PsicoFXP, Coworkcentral, Killer Startups, 11Feeds, Finclu, etc. The best part is the cordiality of the Argentinian entrepreneurs, so I’m glad to be around. A short video from there:

It’s been a while since my last video. This was shot in the Campus Party event in Colombia this week. The event first started in Spain and now is expanding strongly to Latin America. This is a Lan Party that gathers groups of users like gamers, developers, bloggers, free software enthusiasts, etc.

Blogging from the airport of Guate City, getting ready to board to San Jose, Costa Rica where I’ll meet a couple of good friends to catch up and find out what’s going on in the Internet scene in Ticoland.

Next week I’ll head to Bogota (will be my first time there) to also meet good friends from Colombia and be part of the first Campus Party over there. Will it be better that the one in Brazil?

Then, I’ll do another short stop in Lima. Next Saturday 28th, I’ll meet with bloggers, twitter users and web people to chat and record another chapter of InSilico, a nice project from Alexis.

And finally, Buenos Aires. While listening to Puerto Madero from Kevin Johansen, I wonder about the adventures ahead.

If you’re around let me know.

Great week in San Francisco for the Web 2.0 expo. Some final thoughts.

I’m in California enjoying San Francisco and the surrounding cities. This week is the web 2.0 expo.

Since I haven’t been writing much this days in the blog, I did a short video:

Uma saudação desde São Paulo, uma gigantesca metrópole que está recebendo pela primeira vez o Campus Party no Parque Ibirapuera, ou Bienal, como melhor se conhece. Graças à equipe de Windows Live eu vim passar uma semana no Campus, onde pude contrastar interessantes diferenças entre o mercado de Espanha e o de Brasil. E sem dúvida, encantado de conhecer este pais tão latino americano e tão especial, onde a alegria predomina e vem socializar, aprender e compartir.

The last paragraph was translated with the help of my friend Anna. I was basically telling about my first trip to Brazil to participate in the Brazilian Campus Party here in Sao Paulo. I had the chance to be a Campusero in the Spanish Edition of Campus Party in Valencia twice already. It is a great event to meet people involved in development, design, blogs, videogames and other computer and internet stuff. And we’re talking about heavy users so watching their habits and enjoying all the user content that populates flickr, twitter, youtube and tons of other websites is amazing.

If you want to learn more about Campus Party in Brazil, check the posts in spanish from Eduardo in Alt1040, Manu in Gizmologia, Carolina and Juan from Clipset and also the work from the Pixel and Dixel team (they are also updating the official Spanish blog). Laneros is also broadcasting live for the colombian community where the Campus is heading next. And if you want to follow all the information for the event, check the great aggregator fromo Blogblogs.

Another story of how sometimes it becomes inconvenient to use some online reservation systems.

I used to bought train tickets in the Spanish Renfe online system. They even sent you an SMS message with your booking number and you’re ready to go.

Well, they upgraded their system and now when you book online, as a last step you get a webpage to print the boarding pass. And now to get on board, it’s mandatory to show it. My only trouble was that I didn’t have a printer, so I had a pending visit to an internet coffee shop.

So, I went to one of those coin operated internet places where you get the chance to remember good old times with Internet Explorer and Windows Server… something… haha…
I accessed my email account to check for the order confirmation and there was no link to the boarding pass, and they insisted that the email wasn’t a travel document.
I went to Renfe website to try to generate the boarding pass again, but I couldn’t find the option.Just some nice advertising about the new machines to print your passes in the stations that will be available in Barcelona soon. I printed the email and showed up in the station.

They did let me take the train, but I got a warning that next time I might not be that lucky and could miss the train. I did try and it seems like they forgot to be more nice to their paying customers.

Cities that I visited during 2007 not including airport stops. The * is for cities that I visited multiple times in non-consecutive days. Links to some pics in my flickr.

Guatemala City, Guatemala*
Miami, Fl*
Barcelona, Spain*
Madrid, Spain*
Padova, Italy
Venice, Italy
Valencia, Spain*
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Malaga, Spain
Granada, Spain
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Helsinki, Finland
Tallin, Estonia
San Sebastian, Spain
Bilbao, Spain
London, UK
Berlin, Germany
Seville, Spain
Paris, France*

The original idea is by Jason Kottke and I found it in Eduardo Arco’s blog.

2008 seems like a good year to extend the list. Dopplr is a great tool to share this.

One year ago I read online about LeWeb3, this year on its Fouth Edition, I decided to not only read about it, but to be part of it, thanks to the people of Zemanta.

I’m heading to Paris on tuesday.. that means that my twitter, tumblr and flickr account will be on fire.

The biggest internet event in Europe, more than two thousand participants, many entrepreneurs and great speakers…the perfect atmosphere to get inspired!

Update: My review of LeWeb 3 (in Spanish)