{"id":3033,"date":"2012-04-03T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-03T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fpisani.wpengine.com\/journal-off-again\/"},"modified":"2012-04-03T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-03T07:00:00","slug":"journal-off-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.francispisani.net\/en\/journal-off-again\/","title":{"rendered":"JOURNAL \u2013 Off again – Francis Pisani"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"flight<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that time again. I\u2019m writing this in Recife, the first city I\u2019m visiting during my first \u201creal\u201d world tour. By this I mean that, after Mexico, North Africa and part of the Middle East, this time I headed west out of Paris, and am coming back from the east. During which I\u2019ll lose a day \u2013 I forgot about the International Date Line.<\/p>\n

From here I\u2019m heading to Rio, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Sydney, Djakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Cairo. I plan on returning to Paris May 2nd.<\/p>\n

Outside of a few changes, I laid out this journey in\u00a0my initial mapping of the trip<\/a>. My second Achilles Tendon surgery forced me to make a few major modifications, though. Notably in the schedule.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the plan as it stands:<\/p>\n

I plan on leaving again May 18th for Johannesburg, Kigali and Tel Aviv; returning June 2nd.<\/p>\n

After that, from June 18th to July 18th, I\u2019ll do a tour of Eastern and Northern Europe: Belgrade, Warsaw, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Tallinn, Helsinki and\u00a0 Berlin.<\/p>\n

My second around-the-world trip will be an inverse of the first, taking me east (and north) Ho Chi Minh City, Manilla, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and San Francisco between August 16th and September 30th.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not leaving out the possibility of a few changes, but I hope to be able to stick to the plan this time.<\/p>\n

People I meet \u2013 and some of you who write me \u2013 ask me all the time\u00a0how I choose which cities to visit and how I prepare each step<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing especially methodical in putting together the list. For example, the latest addition, Manilla, is there because it\u2019s one of the most dynamic and innovative cities, in terms social networks. And it\u2019s less known than Singapore, which is always mentioned when talking about information technology.<\/p>\n

Tallin, on the other hand, could seem like a strange choice for people who don\u2019t know that it houses the NATO\u2019s European cyberwar preparation center, the HQ for Skype\u2019s software development and that a friend promised me a contact \u2013 always an essential element.<\/p>\n

Cities in Western Europe, or those in the US besides San Francisco, aren\u2019t on my itinerary because they\u2019re so well known.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, I intended on ending this trip in Johannesburg (after Mumbai), to do a tour of the southern BRIC countries. But that would have have been a long trip. Instead, I\u2019m going to Kigali, because Rwanda is one of the countries that has most clearly bet on IT in its development strategy \u2026 and because a contact promised to help me.<\/p>\n

Ever since I started the project, I\u2019ve prepared the trips in a pretty relaxed manner.<\/p>\n