Melbourne Sunday

This is Flinders Street Station in Melbourne. It says so on the front.

Today we started our first full day in Melbourne. Lovely place. Has trams and everything. At the moment it looks like it is to Sydney what Boston is to New York.

But with more graffiti, which makes it a bit like Seattle too.

This is Federation Square. They have the Australian Centre for the Moving Image here, which has a fantastic exhibition all about the origins of modern mass entertainment. It even has an exhibit for Skippy.  There is also an interesting looking Game Masters exhibition. Perhaps we’ll take a look at that later.  No, we’ll definitely take a look at that later…

After lunch we went down to St. Kilda, which is down by the beach side. Every Sunday they have booths selling crafty bits and bobs, which were fun.

This is the entrance to Luna Park.

This is the main street in St. Kilda, given a very mild HDR treatment...

I just love what they did with this place.

The weather was very kind, but one thing I have noticed is just how fast it can change from bright blue skies to grey.

To this, complete with hardy swimmer.

Anyhoo, after a good walk round and another ride on the trams we were ready to turn in. Jetlag to Australia is the worst I’ve ever experienced. The day is completely inverted and there is no way to ease yourself into it gently. After well over a week we are still waking up at odd hours and feeling exhausted at 8:00 at night. But we are not letting it stop us have a great time. More fun tomorrow.

Hello Melbourne

This is the view from the hotel room. Not too shabby.

Today we headed out of Sydney towards Melbourne. People were telling us that “Melbourne is really cold and dismal in winter”. Australians don’t know what winter is. Winter is when water turns solid and you can see your breath. Winter is when it gets dark at four in the afternoon. Winter is properly cold. What Australians have is “Winter Lite”, where it gets dark a bit earlier and sometimes you have to wear a jumper. Or, was we call it in the UK, September.

Really looking forward to spending a bit of time exploring the city tomorrow.

Fishes, Animals, Robotic Personalities. And Spiderman

Today was our last full day in Sydney. So we did everything. In the morning we went round the Sydney Aquarium.

..where they had some sharks...

..some jelly fish..

..some fishy cupcakes..

...and Nemo.

Then we moved on to the small zoo. This is not on the scale of the big zoo we saw on Monday, but you can get a lot closer to the animals and insects.

Butterflies

All together now, Ahhh.....

..and this would be the wombat. In the afternoon we went to the Powerhouse Museum, which is a bit like the Science Museum in the UK, with some fantastic exhibits including a virtual personality on the end of a robot arm.

I asked it a most revealing question.

It particularly likes Camembert apparently..

They also had a Verbot, which I remember playing with many years ago.

We took a ride back on a genuine, bonafide, five car monorail.

This was the view as we were having tea. Very nice. After we had eaten we went to watch the new Spiderman movie. It was good fun, although you have to ask yourself why they made it. And then you remember that you’ve just given somebody a bunch of cash to see it.

Getting Arty in Sydney

We started the day with a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art which was fascinating. I don’t really understand all the art, but I know what I like, and there was enough of that for me, along with some thought provoking stuff.

From the cafe we got a great view of boats doing a square dance in the dock outside.

After a coffee we went and took a look at the Sydney Harbour bridge close up. Well impressive. Some of the students and judges had been able to do the walk along the top of the bridge over the weekend. You can just see one set of plucky souls doing just that on the left hand part of the bridge at the top. I was sort of keen to do it, except that I suffer a bit from vertigo. And they wouldn’t have allowed me to take a camera….

This is a view of the underneath of the bridge. Solid Stuff.

Exploring Sydney

The Sydney locals call this “The Gear Lever” or something like that. All I know about it is that you can go to the top, and when you get there the views are really, really good.

This is the looking towards Darling Harbour, where the Imagine Cup was based. The bridge in the middle of the picture is lined with Imagine Cup flags 

This is the view of the flags on the bridge, complete with genuine, bonafide, electrified, five car monorail..Once we got down from the tower we walked round to the Sydney Opera Hose.

This is half way around the dock, where they had this chap drawing a really nice picture on the ground.

Once we got round to the Botanical Gardens we waited a while for the sun to set so that we could get ourselves a picture.

Rob Goes to London

It looks as if Her Majesty’s stock is dropping a bit….

Having a couple of days in London. I like the place, but wouldn’t want to live there. Had lunch at The Diner. Always have lunch at the Diner. I insist. And nobody seems to mind. If you want some of the best burgers in London, you should pop along.

Then went off in search of camera stuff and bits and bobs. Paid homage in the Apple store (I always go in there wearing a Microsoft jacket to see if it will burst into flames). The new Macbook Pro looks very nice. But at the moment I’m loving my Samsung Slate 7 (on which more later) and so I’ll stick with that for now.

I’m breaking in a new camera at the moment, so I took a whole bunch of pictures.

Bright Shades

Patriotic Bike.

Singapore Rocks

Before I went to Singapore a few people said that I’d like it there. They were right. I’d go back tomorrow if I could. For a Brit it has a weird “Abroad without being abroad” kind of feel. The cars drive on proper side of the road. Lots of the streets have familiar, English sounding names. Even the mains sockets look the same. And yet, unlike the UK, there is a vibrancy about the place that is really rather nice.

They have lots (and I mean lots) of shopping malls. They have Prada and even Mont Blanc shops like other places have Starbucks. And they have Starbucks as well. I’d love to have had more time to take a bit more of a look around, most of what I saw was basically like a tidy, well run city anywhere in the world.

My advice; if you get the chance to go, just go. Even if it means a 30 hour journey.

Flying to Singapore–Day 2

A rather expensive sticker...

This was a bit nerve wracking. I was transferring planes in Jokarta (another airport that looks very like all the airports I’ve been to on this journey) and the chap at the desk asked if I’d paid my “airport transfer fee”. ‘No’ I said nervously, ‘How much is it?’. Turns out that the sticker above costs 150,000 rupees. This was seriously scary. I had visions of having to sell the house just so I could get onto a flight to Singapore. ‘How much is that in US dollars?’ I asked eventually. Turns out that it is 20, which I can just about raise without selling anything major. After that things went swimmingly. and I got to my room in the Fairmont Hotel in time to go straight to bed. Session starts at 10:30 tomorrow morning. Can’t wait.

Flying to Singapore–Day 1

o

Heading off to Singapore today. Should arrive tomorrow. Had a rather nice sunset at the gate as we were waiting to board.

Campfire Packing

Spent the evening preparing for my trip to Singapore tomorrow to speak at Campfire. Really looking forward to it, in spite of the 29 hour journey to get there.

Time spent to decide which clothes to take and pack them:3 minutes

Time spent to decide which gadgets to take and pack them:: 2 hours and counting….

Out and About in Raleigh

Raleigh State Capitol Building

Lesson 1: Raleigh is properly pronounced “Raw-Lay” here. Lesson 2: It’s a very nice place. I had a quick wander around once I’d finished playing with my slide decks for tomorrow and sorting out emails and stuff. They have some lovely museums that I didn’t really have time to look round properly, but I did spend some time in the Museum Shop, which had some lovely stuff in it. And with it being Feb. 29th today they were offering 29% discount, which was very nice.

On the way back to the hotel I wandered past artspace. This was great. A large building has been given over to artists studios where you can view their work and even see them making it.

I had a quick wander round and even had a chat with some of the artists there. This chap, Kyle Highsmith, was even happy to have is picture taken. I loved his stuff, which you can see more of here. Unfortunately I don’t think any of his canvases would have fitted in my suitcase. There was a huge variety of work on show in Artspace with prices at all levels and anyone passing through Raleigh should seek it out.

If you need to find your way round the place….

If you are at SIGCSE and want to come along to my sessions tomorrow I’m doing two:

10:45 am–12:00 pm room 305A

Empowering Students: Teaching Software Development with Windows Phone

1:45–3:00 pm room 305A

Creative Uses for Kinect in Teaching—with Curriculum Materials

Flying to Raleigh

This is not Raleigh, this is Boston airport. It was pretty much dark when I arrived in Raleigh.

Flew out to Raleigh in North Carolina today to present some sessions about teaching with Windows Phone and Kinect. I’m speaking at SIGCSE 2012 and the thing that is worrying me most is that in my presenter bio I rather stupidly put “..and Rob knows a lot of jokes about cheese”. Snag is that at the moment I can only think of two…..

Heading for Berlin for Windows Phone Fun

Why can you never find a mouse when you need one…

Flew out to Berlin today. The Nokia Windows Phone Training is moving on to yet another country. I wasn’t able to make the Madrid one on Friday, but I’m told it went well and that a good time was had by all. And here I am in Berlin. Lovely city. I’m wandering round remembering why I like it so much.

The hotel suite I’m in is the biggest one I’ve ever stayed in. It has a bigger living room than our house. I did actually get lost in it at one point. I’m only here for a couple of nights, back in Hull on Thursday, but I really could live in this place. Me and around ten of my friends…

Ryanair Knees Up

Flew home on Ryanair. They really know how to work an airplane. It must have been on the ground for less than half an hour. In that time they got everybody off, along with their luggage, got us all on the plane and took off again.

I think they’ve moved the seats even closer together since I last flew with them. I’m not a fan of aircraft seats, but these were really quite painful to sit on. Oh well, at least it was a short enough flight.

Last Day in Brno

We spent our last full day in Brno wandering round, having great coffee and buying a few souvenirs and presents. We have had a great time here, and would come again in a heartbeat.

We wandered up to the cathedral and discovered a bunch of fast cars. It seems like the Diamond Race was passing through town. So I took a bunch of photographs.

Cool Cars

I think the rusty effect is painted on.

Maybe next year I’ll enter with the Cube….

Společnost pro Moravský kras

We went to see some caves today. And an abyss. David was kind enough to drive us out to the Moravsky Caves near Brno. They have some fantastic stalactites and stalagmites and even an underground river that you can go along in special electric boats. It was great fun.

This is a proper abyss. Of course there is a local legend which ends with a wicked woman hurtling down to the bottom. Isn’t it always the way…

There are some beautiful forests too, reminded me a lot of Dalby Forest.

We had a traditional Polish meal at the restaurant. These are delicious.

Thanks to David for looking after us so well.

Campus and Castle

The Department of Graphics and Multimedia has a really nice courtyard. And you could play croquet on that lawn on the left…

Adam was kind enough to show us round his department (Computer Graphics and Multimedia) in Brno University of Technology this morning. It is s a great department, based in new and restored surroundings. It was interesting to hear about another department in a different country, and find out that many of the issues that they are addressing are also the ones we worry about at Hull too.

Another one bites the dust….

After that we went up town to Brno for lunch and then on to to Špilberk Castle. On the way we passed this amazing sign:

We’ve no idea what made them put the one in the middle on the lower row, and frankly, we don’t want to know…..

The castle was great, and if you go to the top you can get some great views of the city.

Windows Phone in Brno

 

There are some great places to wander round here, and some superb pavement cafes.

Today we spent the morning wandering round Brno and then in the afternoon I went out to give a couple of Windows Phone talks.

As usual I took a picture of the folks who turned up, there is another on Flickr which shows the rest of the room. The talk was great, really good audience. You can find slide decks and demo programs for the two sessions here. The sessions you want are the Introduction to Silverlight (02) and  Introduction to XNA (11). The decks are part of the Windows Phone Jumpstart series, you can find decks on lots of other interesting Windows Phone topics as well.  In a little while there will be some videos as well.

After the talk we went out for a drink and then headed for a walk around Brno by night.

Enjoying a drink..

The bar had these really cool speakers

These folks were really (and I mean really) good.

Brno station by night.

Thanks for doing such a great job of guiding us around folks, it was a really splendid evening.

Ready for Tech Days

I’m doing some bits and bobs at TechDays around Europe this week, starting with a Windows Phone gaming session in Antwerp on Wednesday 27th, then a keynote session, a Micro Framework session and a Geek Night Windows Phone session in rhyme on Thursday at The Hague in the Netherlands. On Friday, assuming I survive, I’m doing another Windows Phone gaming session. At the moment I’m busy preparing all the content and demos. I’m making something completely new for the keynote, and I’m rather pleased to find that it is mostly working, which is nice. 

You can find out about TechDays in the Netherlands here:

http://www.techdays.nl/

You can find out about TechDays in Antwerp here:

http://www.microsoft.com/belux/techdays/2011/

I head out tomorrow, I’m trying to squeeze a robot, microcontroller, laptop and all my other bits and bobs into a single carry on bag.  

Dalby and Ducks

Went to Dalby Forest today. (having a tiny holiday) Great place. Once we arrived we had a coffee at the Purple Mountain Cafe. If you like riding bikes at great speed down steep hills you should go there. They arrange all kinds of races and stuff (including truly scary sounding 12 hour ones). Find out more here:

http://www.purplemountain.co.uk/

“Excuse me, can you hire these bikes?”
"Certainly sir, they have a small adjustment at the back”

Note – this joke completely breaks if you write it down….

Then we went for a walk around, and I took the big camera.

Look! Blue Sky!

We rounded off the trip with a visit to Thornton-Le-Dale, which has a lake and ducks.

Nobody mention oranges.