On 8/6/2011 3:00 AM, Fred Baker wrote:
On Aug 5, 2011, at 12:46 AM, Glen Zorn wrote:
I note that there is an opening on the IETF meeting calendar for an
Asian meeting in 2013. Here is a suggestion:
Meeting Facilities:
http://www.qsncc.com/venue-information/our-facilities.html
There are 7 pages of "Official Hotels", starting at about $60/night.
Official Hotels: http://www.qsncc.com/visitor/official-hotels.html
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Thanks for the suggestion.
I find your CC line highly confusing. I changed it.
And I changed it back, to include the IETF.
I have a few standard questions.
Most of which, I imagine, should be answered by the IAOC.
Where I'm coming from is that, from my perspective, there should be
someone for whom any meeting is "at home"; it can't help but be a jaunt
for many, but there should be a group of people that is actively posting
drafts,
commenting on lists, and perhaps even chairing a working group for whom
it's not a jaunt.
There is no place in the world that is "safe", but we don't need obvious
complications like periodic coups, human trafficking in front of the
hotel, and so on.
I don't know how to interpret the term "human trafficking" here. Are
you suggesting that there are slave markets in front of the Sheraton
(you might be, depending upon where your "news" comes from)? I suspect,
though, that you are using it as a code word for prostitution. If so,
tell us: did you raise the same objection about Quebec City?
Maastricht? Prague? Seoul? Vancouver? Paris? In fact, prostitution
is legal in 3 of the last 4 cities in which we met and 2 out of the next
3...
There are various dietary issues based on health concerns and religious
matters. And oh yes, one of the issues is cost.
Who from the IETF comes from there (Bangkok)?
Me, for one. But for that matter, who from the IETF comes from Quebec
City? Maastricht? Prague? That hotbed of Internet innovation, Orlando?
In the photos, I saw no breakout rooms. I imagine they are built as needed
using folding dividers or etc. What can you tell me about those facilities?
Ask the folks at the Convention Center; they are quite nice, in my
experience, and helpful.
Cost is an issue, and costs often trade off. A long and expensive flight to
an expensive hotel
that is separate from the conference facility and therefore doesn't help
us negotiate conference facility prices,
and oh by the way is far from a limited set of food options, is
something of a worst case. Finding ways to mitigate those helps.
You have suggested $60 rooms, which helps. Do any help with the price of
the conference center? How does catering fit?
Again, these would seem to be questions that the meeting organizers
should ask of the venue managers; I am a member of neither of those groups.
The "food" section mentions a food court nearby: tell me about local markets
with fresh healthful food, which some will need specific access to,
"Fresh" and "healthful" are loaded words which mean different things to
different people; for some if a vegetable isn't wrapped in three layers
of plastic it can't be "healthful"...
markets or restaurants that cater to kosher and muslim dietary rules, etc?
My understanding is that "kosher" has nearly as many meanings as there
are rabbis ;-); there are many halal restaurants nearby.
How is getting an airplane ticket? I went to Cisco Travel's web site with a
view to pricing a round trip ticket to Bangkok,
Going to Cisco Travel was probably your first mistake ;-).
determining whether the current unrest
What "current unrest" would that be?
affects travel advisories, and so on, and found that the vast majority
of itineraries available to me two weeks from now are sold out.
Hmm. Popular destination, huh?
The Hipmunk Agony Index (http://www.hipmunk.com/#!SBA_BKK,Aug20_Aug27)
suggests that one could do worse, but there are relatively few flights
that actually get me there.
BTW, you'll note that, hat tip to folks who complain about long strings of
flights,
this one for me is SBA->SFO->NRT->BKK, and NRT->BKK is not a jump of a
puddle.
So, in other words (ignoring the SBA->??? hop which, unless SBA has
grown immensely since my last visit, will exist for just about any
destination outside the Southwestern US), it's one stop for you to
Bangkok. Admittedly the mileage isn't inconsiderable, but in what
universe does that qualify as a "long string of flights"? Bangkok is
one stop from every major airport in the US; there are quite a few
non-stop flights from Europe and, of course, Asia. BTW, THAI Airways
flies non-stop LAX->BKK...
For me, more or less par for the course, but I guarantee that the folks
who plan meetings will be castigated for picking an out of the way place
if we go there.
RE:"out of the way", see above.
A worry: how many companies will choose to send less people as a way to
manage costs?
A quick spot-check of current prices suggests that tickets to Bangkok
are about $300 more than to Paris at the moment. Is that going to break
the bank?
The site spoke of "WiFi Internet Areas". We would of course change that. How
well is the building set up to support that?
What capacity is available to the backbone from there? Same question re
the $60 hotels of which you speak?
The $60 hotel of which I spoke is the Amari Boulevard (hardly a dump); I
have no idea what their WiFi is like, but again that seems like a
question the organizers should ask the hotel.
Note that when the IETF shows up in common business hotels that have
pretty reasonable Internet access, we completely overload that service,
and as a result we have taken to replacing it while we are there. How
will that fit?
My daughter took her honeymoon in Phuket.
Sorry to hear that; although the scenery around Phuket is amazing, it's
the last place I would go for a honeymoon (OK, so Las Vegas would be the
_last_ place, but nevertheless). Koh Samui or Krabi would have been far
preferable...
Several stories related to that are strong advertisements for Thailand.
Some Really Are Not. Great subject in the presence of adult beverages.
But just looking at the web site, it seems like a nice facility, and the
pictures are great.
Apricot was held at the convention center a few years ago and it worked
out quite nicely, I think. In any case, the statement was made during
the administrative plenary that the IAOC was having trouble finding
venues in Asia w/o $300/night hotel price tags; this is a suggestion for
investigation. I suspect that similar results could be had in Kuala
Lumpur, Jakarta, Manila or Phnom Penh (though those _are_ out-of-the-way
;-). I don't intend to do your job for you, but if you (IAOC) could
come up with a set of specific, detailed questions I would probably be
willing to drop by QSNCC and investigate.
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