I love the food in here!

The food in here is amazing! Especially the fruits! I even did not know that there are so many different sorts of mangos, watermelons, ect! All I mean all fruits taste so much better in here than in Finland! Probably I cannot be eating “Finnish” fruits after this….

On Wednesday I, Duke and Robert had an excellent lunch in Imay’s which is local seafood restaurant – I think the picture give you an idea… and price under 5€…

Duke and I had also a pleasure to Visit West Negros University. Loida gave us an excellent tour on University. I was very impressed the way things are here. For example we had a change to see the laboratory where nursing students practice; those dolls on which they practice on can actually speak, turn into blue, lose the pulse… Amazing

We had a ride with motorcycle with sidecar, interesting experience :D

Visit to Bacolod Town Hall and welcoming-party

In the morning we had a pleasure to visit Bacolod City Hall and briefly present the IBM SCS and our team to the Vice Mayor and City Council members in the council chamber. The council started with a prayer and city's anthem. It was quite charming; the group of employees of City gathered together singed and played guitar!

I, Duke (3rd left), Jocella (4th left) and her staff in her office

In the evening our client, BNEFIT, hosted welcoming-party to whole team. We had excellent dinner with local foods like Chicken Inasal and surrounding atmosphere was very very welcoming. All our clients (city, the universities and city) were present in the party as well as couple local news reporters. Let see what we can read from the paper…
After the lovely dinner we had the possibility once more introduce our selves and learn more on our customers.

Learning on Bacalod and its history – experiencing the great hospitality of Filipinos

Isabelle, Duke & Guillermo in Bacolod

Today we had a kick-off session with our clients. The meeting was hosted by University of St. La Salle. The clients gave the presentations on how they are operating and what are their expectations on how we could be supporting them. And believe me they are wanting the moon from the sky… ;) IBM CSC team also had a pleasure to give a presentation on the CSC assignment and introduce ourselves. After the kick-off session we visited a couple of museums and the split up to continue with the clients.

Team ready to go to the kick-off meeting

Duke presenting

The head of our client is the “super woman” called Jocelle Batapa-Sigue; Congresswoman and the first ever woman candidate for Congress! With her Duke and I had the honor to be able to participate to the 6th Bacalod History Quiz for high-school students in Bacalod. It was great to see how enthusiastic the kids were on the history of Bacalod and it was amazing how much they know! At least I learned a lot! We had also the possibility to discuss more closely on our assignment and we agreed to arrange three full day and one half a day seminar; one for business development, one for faculty development and one & half for University students.

It is really true when they say that Filipinos are known for their hospitality and joyfulness! And I am very honored to be able see and feel that. For example before the quiz Jocelle arranged us a private tour on the city with Maricar and invite us to have a dinner with her, her husband, Maricar & Loida from West Negros University, and list continues...

Pictures from 6th Bacalod History Quiz

Greetings from Phillippines!

After 12 hours flight we arrived to Manila. The travel went quite quickly. We arrived to the hotel around 11 local time and learned that the rooms are ready around 14 o’clock. So no shower but we (Giselle from Brazil, Jaydip from India, Qiong from China, Robert from US, Alina from Russian, Guillermo from Spain and I) went for a lunch and look around.

After receiving the rooms a part of us hopped to taxi and went to see the city of Manila. There are not any signs of flows in the parts of Manila we visited...

Guillermo, Robert and Sunil in packing themselves to taxi

Local busses

The traffic in Manila is something you really cannot describe – you need to see it…. It seems that there are no traffic rules. People take driving in middle of lanes; fours car side by side on the road with three driving lines… But we did not see any traffic accidents!

Lot of trash in Manila bay - maybe because of flows?

In the evening we went to have a dinner with IBM Philippines Country Manager, Waya from ABV and Andrea from IBM Philippines. After that I finally had a chance to go to the shower and have a good night sleep! Weird how you can enough so much on such a small things ;)

On Sunday we flow from Manila to Bacolod. This seems to be very nice “small city”. Out hotel is very nice; rooms are just renovated (you can still smell the paint) & there is a wireless connection in the room! In the evening we packed into two taxis and headed to restaurant called “Chicken House”. We learned that there are actually two restaurants with the same name in Bacolod. The other taxi went to correct “Chicken House” and I, Duke, Robert and Guillermo to other. Bit funny but the food was very good also in this “wrong Chicken House Restaurant”.

12 hours and I am sitting in the airplane!

And I did it! At least according to my weighing machine at home, my luggage weights 20 kg! I hope that is showed correct weight... Actually the challenge is the flight from Manila to Bacolod; the weight limit is 15kg...But extra kilos costs 1,5€ :)

I will be flying via Amsterdam to Manila. In the airport of Amsterdam I will meet Alina from Russian, Guillermo from Ireland and Isabelle from Belgium. It is great to finally meet them! The flight from Amsterdam to Manila will take 12 hours and 35 mins + time difference of five hours.... But I am sure that that I have a great company so that flight goes quickly :)
We will be staying only one night in Manila. On Sunday we'll fly to Bacolod where we are staying.

Bacolod City is the capital and largest highly urbanized mid-size Philippine city of the province of Negros Occidental. Bacolod is located in mid & west of Philippines and it has a total of 499,497 inhabitants as of August 1, 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacolod_City & http://www.bacolodcity.gov.ph/).
Map:http://maps.google.fi/maps?hl=fi&q=bacolod+map&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Bacolod+City,+Filippiinit&gl=fi&ei=zPTMSuS1H5P0_AbVstG3BQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it!

One week to go! I cannot believe that the departure is so close! Now I should start to think what to pack...

Our CSC team has ten member coming around the world; US (2), Brazil (1), Ireland (1), Belgium (1), Finland (1), Russian (1), India (2) and China (1). We have had multiple team calls and I looking forward to finally meet the team!

We got to know our assignments last week. The first one which I am working with is Organizational Capability Development. With this assignment I am going to be working with Duke from US. Our task is to assist the non-profit organization to develop organizational capability to Bacolod and Negros area to attract BPO companies to set their BPO Delivery Centers to that area. The second assignment is to arrange a seminar to the same client. In the seminar each member of our IBM CSC team will create their own presentation. Topics vary a lot but everyone will be discussing on the issues they are familiar with. Guess to what my topics relates? Proposals :)

CSC in Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance published this article on Corporate Servise Corps today:http://finance.yahoo.com/news/IBM-Expands-Corporate-Service-prnews-4010035348.html?x=0&.v=1