Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Kuala Lumpur, 9 - 12 Sept 2007

As a MIC advisor, I got an invitation from Microsoft to attend Faculty Summit 2007 in KL, which was held concurrently with the TechEd 2007 conference. The venue was in KL Convention Center (KLCC), at the heart of KL city. I went with 3 other MIC advisors from UI and ITS. We were lucky to have an accommodation at Impiana Hotel, just across KLCC. The good thing about the hotel was that it is close to great objects in the city center, namely the famous Petronas Towers and the KL Tower.

It was not long after we arrived at the hotel, we snapped our cameras and started taking pictures of the beautifully-lit twin towers. It was good to find out that KL still offers space for pedestrians to wander around the city, so we went from a corner to another to admire the view of the towers. Even from my hotel room, the towers still show their beauty. They are like two tall candles reaching out the dark sky.

On the second day, we were invited for a dinner at the revolving restaurant on the top of KL tower. Located on a hill, it is a 255 meter tower not far from the twin towers. The restaurant rotates at about 1 rev/hour, and the view is breathtaking. The twin towers looked like siblings, shining in cool white.

I think this KL trip's theme was best named as "grandeur in height".

Oh, and the Microsoft event itself was very interesting. There were a lot of talks about new trends and technology. Some of them are even accessible by academics. Looking at the effort to organize such a big event, I just thought how big the power Microsoft has, and how it exerts its power to penetrate into all sectors (academic, business, government, ...). No wonder their credo is "world domination"...

Btw, I have moved all the pictures of my visit trails to Google's Picasa web album. Enjoy my web album !