Archive for the 'Competition Event' Category
Day 5 (September 23rd) - Google Interviews
The fifth day in the series is not particularly interesting to be written. The day started with me getting up at around 8am, prepared, and went down to the lobby to have breakfast with Jack (from Australia) and Jonathan (from Malaysia) in a Subway outlet nearby. It was mildly raining at that time, but the weather got better later on. Andoko departed at around 11am, after we checked out of our rooms. I left my luggage with the concierge since I was going to go to my uncle and auntie’s house only later in the afternoon after the interviews.
1 commentDay 4 (September 22nd) - Google Code Jam Onsite Regionals
The contestants were expected to meet at the hotel’s lobby at around 9am that morning. By the time I got there, a few Googlers are already waiting in the lobby, and other participants came soon after. We then proceed to the Google Sydney office, which is located just a couple of minutes walking to the South. Participants are not allowed to take photos inside the office, so this one below the only photo I had in the building.
3 commentsDay 3 (September 21st) - Wandering Around Sydney
On the Sunday morning, we had to the Four Points by Sheraton hotel at Darling Harbour, which is about ten minutes of walking away. Before departing, I took some time to take some photos of the Hyde Park and skyline behind it from the windows of our hotel rooms. In that morning, Andoko Chandra (my roommate for the next two nights) sent a message telling that he’s already in Sydney, and already checked in to the Four Points.
2 commentsDay 2 (September 20th) - Arrival in Sydney
The flight arrived like about half an hour earlier than the scheduled 6:35am in Sydney, but was followed by quite frustrating queues before the immigration (about 45minutes) followed by another some 45minutes queue for the customs (what a wonderful way of welcoming visitors!). By the time we got out of the arrival hall, it was nearly 8am already. I was picked up by my uncle and cousin who live in Sydney, while Irvan joined the other Indonesian team arriving from Singapore (Ardian KP, Prima, and Bramandia).
2 commentsDay 1 (September 19th) - Preparation and Departure
The preparation for this visit to Sydney was a bit rushed, in my opinion. But fortunately everything was set and ready when the time to depart came. My Australian visa was ready about a week before departure (a business visa), while the tickets was not finalized until two days before departure. I also had my new PDA phone (an HTC Touch Cruise, yay!) purchased just less than a week before departure, so I had not got enough time to fill it up with applications other than some GPS maps and musics. For this visit, I borrow a camera lens from my friend Cindy (a Nikon 18-135mm AFS DX lens) which turned out to be great (except for its clumsy plastic lens mount - which is nowhere as sturdy as the metal mount on all of my other lenses).
1 commentSydney and Google Code Jam 2008
It’s been a while since I got back from this trip, but here is the stories about my one week visit to Sydney last September. The last months had been quite busy for me and hence the delay in writing these stories. Processing and uploading the photos took quite a long time as well, mainly due to the quite slow internet connection I had in here. This visit is mainly to attend the Google Code Jam 2008 Onsite Regionals, in which I was assigned to Google Sydney office. An interview with Google Sydney also follows after the competition day, followed by a couple of days travelling around Sydney. Google covered the flight tickets, visa fee, departure tax, and the two nights stay in the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Darling Harbour.
No commentsACM ICPC Indonesia National Contest 2008
June is the time for the ACM ICPC Indonesia National Contest, just like last year. This year I participated with the ‘kurniady’ as the team name again (it’s becoming a habit 
), with Fiona Liausvia and Purnama, as a Binus International team. There was another team from Binus International as well but sadly they did not make it past preliminary.
Day 10 (April 14th) - Short Visit to Downtown Singapore, Return to Jakarta
In the last day of the journey, some of us decided to go to downtown Singapore. As Indonesians, we do not need any visa to enter Singapore. Passing through the immigration, we took the MRT right into the city. We visited a couple of malls around Orchard road, unfortunately at 9am Kinokuniya had not yet opened. I decided then to visit the Sim Lim Square to find if there were interesting computer parts being offered (unfortunately nothing was interesting in particular). The short visit ended at around noon when we decided to return to the airport.
1 commentDay 9 (April 13th) - Transit in Seoul, arrival in Singapore
There was not much to tell about the 9th day. We arrived in Seoul Incheon airport at round 5pm in the afternoon, went through the boring re-boarding process again, and soon take off en route to Singapore. It was around 11pm by the time we arrive in Singapore Changi airport Terminal 2, so we decided to go straight to the airport transit hotel. Since we are two days late arriving there, our free booked rooms were not available anymore. Waited for about an hour before there was vacant rooms (at around 2am), and we tried to sleep for a few hours. The transit hotel is quite a nice place to stay if you have a long transit over Changi airport, as you can rent the room in blocks of six hours (and it’s not so expensive anyway).
-Andrian Kurniady
1 commentDay 8 (April 12th) - Departure from Vancouver
The eight day is quite uneventful. The hotel’s shuttle’s driver was sick so we were sent to the airport with two taxi cabs paid by the hotel. The check in process was normal as well, and since the flight is quite empty, we were allocated one complete row for just the 6 of us. The Singapore Airlines’ Boeing 777 has 3+3+3 configuration, so we have three empty seats inbetween, which is nice.
1 comment