I made four international trips during the past year – which is more than I have done in recent times. The first was to the US last September – Washington and the Bay Area. It was a short trip – about 9 days. The second was to Japan (Tokyo) in January – to understand how the mobile internet (and especially mobile social networking) has grown through the years. The third was in April to Singapore for a presentation at the Mobile Marketing Association event. The fourth was a vacation in China – Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Shanghai.
There was a time when I would travel a lot internationally. The period between 1999-2004 saw me filling up passport pages with visas and stamps quite rapidly. Those were the years when I was searching for new ideas. Many of the ideas that I tried then did not work out. As I was telling someone the other day, the risk of failure is built into what I do since I am trying things which few have attempted before.
International travel all by myself is something I like to do every few months since it works as a mind refresher. The long hours in the flight give me time to think – with no interruptions. What else can one do belted in an airline seat?! I hope I can continue the international travels this year.
Continued tomorrow.
