I was In Paris this week

The business trip for Paris finally went through and got scheduled and I am just wrapping up a 5-day training seminar for Groove. Things were pretty busy while I was here so I wasn’t able to update this blog or even really sightsee. The trip was tied tightly to my work week – arriving late on Sunday and leaving Friday afternoon. After this Paris trip, I have to fly to Bangalore for an IT regional summit. I was originally planning of flying straight from Paris to India but there was a delay in getting my visa for India. I have to fly back to Tokyo instead of flying straight to India so I couldn’t stay in Paris like I originally planned. I couldn’t come early, either, because our household goods shipment arrived on the Friday before and I needed to be there for the unpacking. So, I got out to a couple of Paris restaurants but absolutely no other side trips at all.

The Dassault Systemes HQ is located in Suresnes near La Defense and it seems to be a pretty nice area. My jet lag woke me up a little early the first day so I decided to walk around the area a bit before I went to work. The area is full of classic, two story row houses and single homes that are in excellent shape. A lot of them have very nice yards, nice cars parked out front, and other hints that you’re in a very well to do area.

The hotel I’m staying, however, is not so nice. It’s not that bad but it really isn’t that good, either. I’m staying in the Best Western Atrium Hotel Suresnes and it is a reasonably priced business hotel but it seems to have some issues. The biggest drawback as a business hotel is that the wireless internet access doesn’t cover the entire building. You need to go to the atrium area to get a reliable connection. At least they have plenty of couches and tables to work at.
The smaller annoyances are the fact that that it doesn’t have air conditioning, the elevator is amazingly slow, and the rooms are pretty noisy. Since May isn’t that warm, I guess I don’t care about the a/c but Paris can get pretty uncomfortable in summer. And, the hotel fronts a busy street so you can’t leave the windows open.

I’m writing this on my way back but I won’t be able to post it until I get back. I’m at Charles de Gaul airport right now and the price for wireless access is a little high for just a blog post. I’m at Terminal 2E at CDG airport and it looks like they are 2/3rds of the way through a very nice looking remodel. However, that also meant that the security lines were incredibly long because they only had a couple of scanning machines running and all of the stores are closed up. There is one little coffee stand open but that is it.

For this trip, I flew business class on Korean Air from CDG to the new(ish) Inchon airport near Seoul to Narita. They are flying a fairly old 747 type but they have done some recent upgrades so it fairly comfortable. The business class seats are definitely a better way to travel then coach but they aren’t that comfortable. I still had trouble sleeping and it is still a 16 hour flight. However, the short check in lines, nicer food, first off the plane, first through immigration, and first at baggage pick up is definitely worth it. My trip to India will be by coach, thanks to the last minute change of schedule, so I guess I should enjoy my trip now as much as possible.