Final Week in Chonburi and Bangkok

At LCP with IBM Thailand Country Manager, K. Parnsiree

We were very busy preparing final presentation to deliver in our final week.  We did manage to visit the local floating market in Pattaya.  It is not nearly as big as the famous Bangkok Floating Market but our local team suggested this would be a good alternative since travel time to the Bangkok market is considerable.  It was especially constructed for tourists so it was a bit Disney-esque but we enjoyed nonetheless.  We tried Mexican food that evening at Tequila Reef owned by an American.  It was not the best but after experimenting with  Italian and Brazilian on other evenings, we’ve decided to stick with Thai cuisine for the remainder of the visit.

The schedule for delivering final presentations was hectic with multiple locations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday including a press conference at Pattaya City Hall.  All sponsors including the Chonburi Governor, Pattaya Mayor and Laem Chabang Port Director were impressed and remarked that we exceeded expectations and they will share with other key stakeholders.  After a dinner at a local seafood restaurant on the Bay of Bangkok hosted by Port Director, K. Sutthinan, we had a very sad good-bye to the Port team and ventured two hours to Bangkok for our final days.

The final weekend in massive and bustling Bangkok has been somewhat manic with sightseeing, eating (of course), seeing Thai boxing (Muay Thai),  shopping and saying good-bye  to the IBM Thailand team. 

To all at the Province of Chonburi, City of Pattaya, Port of Laem Chabang and IBM Thailand, you touched our hearts  more than we ever imagined.  We will never forget you and this experience.

-- Michael

Some press links:

http://www.pattayamail.com/localnews/chonburi-selected-for-ibm-smarter-cities-challenge-2012-18142

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/technology/IBM-team-joins-smarter-city-project-30193251.html

http://www.pattayapeople.com/default.asp?Folder=16&IdArticle=33096 

Pattaya Floating Market Dancing Show

Press Conference at Pattaya Hall with Mayor

Gift exchange with LCP Director

Farewell Dinner hosted by LCP Director, K. Sutthinan

Atop Bangkok Lebua Tower (Hangover 2 setting)

Good bye evening with IBM Thailand Team

Bangkok Wat (Temple) Phra Kaew

Wat Po - Reclining  Buddha

Ferry across to Wat Arun

Weekend Market

Muay Thai at Lumpini Stadium,

Amazing Kids - Mechai Pattana School

On Sunday we had one of the best experiences of the Service Corps assignment.  We visited Mechai Pattana School to conduct a workshop on Innovation and Careers with the 10^th Grade students in residence there.  The school randomly selects about 30 students each year from rural farming villages in Thailand to provide them an outstanding education.  Please learn more and donate here:

http://www.mechaifoundation.org/school_donations.asp

Students welcome us with song.

The students welcomed us with songs and their rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine moved us all tremendously.  I wish I could share but Blogger is choking on the video upload.   They happily showed us their lush campus full of lime, papaya, coconut and banana trees.   It includes an integrated farm where they work to supplement operating expenses and their food supply.   They were very excited to share their plan to grow and sell limes in the off-season to command a higher price – amazing entrepreneurs! 

I kicked off the workshop by telling them about my own 16 yo, Finn, who would be surprised to learn I was in front of classroom of kids his age giving a lecture.  We split the class in two with Mauricio and Anna taking one half and Denise, Krishnan and I taking the other.  There were aspiring doctors, architects, engineers, and an international businesswoman in our group.  We talked about iPhones, iPads and cars that will drive themselves.  The kids were enthused and asked many questions about our career path and how schools in the U. S. compare to Mechai Pattana. The session ended with an exchange of gifts. The kids also presented us a beautiful pumpkin-shaped, hand-made thank you card for their classroom full of new flat-panel monitors from IBM.

Many thanks to the students, for your hospitality at Mechai Pattana School and to IBM Thailand's Corporate Social Responsibility Leader, Apapan.    This was really a special day for us.   

Viewing Mauricio's gift of Entrepreneur book.

Introductions

Smarter kids.

Learning more about Mechai Pattana.

Group discussion with IBM team.

Group shot during campus tour.

Future doctors, architects and engineers.

Learning about Greece from Anna.

More entertaining than we expected!

Week 2 - Pattaya Survivors

 

Lunch at the mall food court near IBM

This weekend is here and I haven’t posted any news from last weekend or the work week.   We had a lot of fun excursions last weekend including visits to a disco, beauty pageant, and a short boat trip to the nearby island of Koh Larn for some beach time.  The people are wonderful here, very warm and welcoming.  The beach was beautiful and you can certainly see why the world flocks to resorts in this part of the world.

Some Google searching found St. Nikolaus Roman Catholic Church in Pattaya.   After a late night, I managed to awaken at 7:45am for 8:30am English mass.  3 km away which meant I had to figure a way to get there quickly.  Motorcycle taxi to the rescue!  Pretty cool way to travel to mass, including the driving against traffic in the opposite lane to get ahead of traffic at a stop light. 

Back to business on Sunday sifting through all the data we gathered in the first week.  Our project is to advise two organizations on strategy.  We worked this week between the office set up at our Holiday Inn and the local IBM branch office near the Port of Laem Chabang.  The local IBM team has been outstanding in their support to our work.  I especially appreciate Jackree because he laughs at my jokes.  We had a productive week which started with some storming but we’re ending up with a nice deliverable.  Ahead are some more weekend excursion fun and briefing our findings and conclusions to the City and Port.

Having a wonderful time here but I do miss my family and my Homeland.  

Koh Larn beach

St. Nikolaus RC Church

Look what I found! Just wanted coffee?

Jackree (far left) enjoying some Preis-induced levity at the office.

Real World Chonburi Started on Monday

Team with Porntipa (Oaa) at LC Port Observation Tower

Publishing a blog was much easier when I was jet lagged and not sleeping!   

We had a full itinerary on Monday as the team started the project.  We first went to the Port of Laem Chabang where we met with the Managing Director and his leadership team which included over 30 people.  Following lunch, we traveled to Pattaya City Hall where we met the energetic Mayor of Pattaya.  We noticed the Press for the first time at this meeting taking photos and video of the meeting.  Our final meeting of the work day was the Smarter Cities Challenge – Chonburi Kickoff that was led by Kittipong of IBM Thailand, Chonburi Governor, Pattaya Mayor, the Port Managing Director and our team.   Also present were many of the Pattya City Department heads.  The media attended this session in great numbers and our team enjoyed celebrity status like we’ve never seen.  Our day ended with a Celebration Dinner at the Pattaya Hilton featuring more fabulous Thai cuisine and dancers from the local school.

Lunch with the IBM Thailand team

Since Monday we've been very busy interviewing stakeholders at both the Port of Laem Chabang and Pattaya City discussing the Smarter City Challenge project.  Of course the enjoyment for the day is when we go out for lunch.  The servers in Thailand put all plates in the center of the table for everyone to share.  I commented at lunch the other day that I always seem to be the one eating the most.  One of the Port of Laem Chabang staff responded with "You like to eat, and you don't mind if you get big!"

 

Anna wai-ing in. Wai=Thai Greeting

Pattaya City Kickoff with Mayor Itthiphol

LC Port Kickoff with Managing Director

Team Photo at Smarter Cities Challenge Chonburi Launch

Mauricio represents!

Student Dancers at IBM Smarter Cities Challenge Chonburi Launch

 

Top Chef - Pattaya

The ABV team organized a Thai cooking class for us as a team building exercise on Saturday, 27 October.  We joined local Chef Sherri on a trip to the Pattaya market where we bought ingredients including marble eggplant (pak chee), kaffir lime  (bai magrood), palm coconut sugar (nam tan peep) and noodles.  We also saw some interesting items like pigs’ heads and live turtles.   

Chef Sherri shows how to pick the veggies.

 Preparing the food was a great time and thankfully Chef Sherri instructed and prevented any disasters.  I may have annoyed her when I kept asking how many minutes were left.  Top Chef must not telecast here?  The menu included Penang Curry with Chicken, Pad Thai, Spicy Noodle Salad (Yam Woon Sen) and Papaya and Sticky Rice (Khao Neaw Malakx).  We definitely had some ringers in the group.  Mauricio was a pro using the pulverizer to make a fantastic curry paste.  Anna, a self-proclaimed novice, made amazing dishes.  We were all very full after the event.  What else is new?

We met in the office set up for us at the hotel on Sunday evening to organize for the work week.  We’re all set for the great project kickoff with the local team on Monday!

Denise checking out the tofu at the market.

Sherri and attentive students.

 

Yam Woom Sen ready to eat!

 

 

Pigs head are often used as offerings.

Rapid Start

Krishan, Denise, me, Mauricio, Anna, and Jean

I arrived in Bangkok at 11:05pm local time on Thursday night by way of Seoul.  Door to door was just over 24 hours so I was pretty wiped out and happy to get to the very comfortable Pullman Hotel.  Friday (Day 1) started with meeting the team in person for the first time at breakfast.  We have nice global representation with Krishnan (India), Anna (Greece), Maurcio (Brazil), Denise (Chicago) and me.  Australian Business Volunteers representatives (www.abv.org.au), who coordinate our project logistics, include Jean from Australia and David and Tang from Thailand.  Working on about 5 hours sleep in the last 48 and it was all business the first day.  We headed to the IBM Bangkok office where we spent the day with the local team to learn more about our project scope.  Not much time to do any sightseeing but we're enjoying the fabulous Thai cuisine.

On Saturday we traveled two hours to the project location in Pattaya, Chonburi.  The city is  a lot bigger than I expected with a crescent beach and massive hotels.  More meetings today and of course some more eating.  I did run on the treadmill for two miles but I think I'm going to need to increase the distance if we keep eating at this rate.  Pad Thai with shrimp or chicken is my favorite and one of the most common dishes here.

Thai folk dance demonstration

We met our local team of translators who will assist us for the next three weeks. I made a Thai phrase cheat sheet but I'm struggling putting the sounds together.  I think I've got "thank you" down, pronounced cop-koon-kup.  Say that fast three times

We met our local translator team at lunch today.