One of my proudest moment was when I presented with 5 slide my 5 favorite street arts in Berlin

Links from the presentation:

https://www.iheartberlin.de/2016/01/28/following-the-dancing-street-art-girls-in-berlin/

The Greens – Coffee & Plants https://maps.app.goo.gl/AJHYMgt3eRi4UcgS9

https://kiyonosaito.studio.site/murals

Don’t bring, rent

Rent baby accessories like car seat, baggy, baby bad with Lilobebe. I wouldn’t recommend the pick up option in the hills of St Paul, but pick-up and drop-off at your place worked great.

Parc du Colosse – Saint André

• Free water parc
• Paid bouncing castles area

Mahe

We are staying at Marie Laure Suites in Bel Ombre, about 20min ride from the airport. It is a simple and very beautiful holidays residence with just a douzaine of rooms and appartment. The place has a swimming pool which was very convenient with the kids as the beach is otherwise 15 min walk, with pretty bad sidewalks unfortunately. The owner were very nice and accomodating and recommended the driver to come pick up from the airport. There are small shops at walking distance but the restaurant are a bit of a walk if you are with kids.

La Digue

The main appeal of La Digue island in the Seychelles is the limited number of cars and the fact that you most encounter bicycles on the road. Apparently there used to also be ox cart but we did not see any in the 4 days we were there!

We are staying at Mountain View Hotel which is probably not the best located one as it is up the hill, it was a bit of a challenge with the bikes and the kids. But it was free workout!

We had a few shop clsoeby and the Union State where one of the most beautiful beach is located, Source d’Argent. There were quite a few travel blogger there taking selfies and flying drones, so the place felt a little bit like a tourist attraction but at least it was not crowded.

La Faune des Seychelles

Being able to experience the wild life of Seychelles is definitely the highlight of visiting the Seychelles. From day one on the beach we saw little shells digging the sand as soon as the water receeded and the following days we spotted crabs, bats, giant turtles and stingray. The bats in particular were flying during the day time and at the Mountain View Hotel, having a drink at sunset in their restaurant we had all show of flying bats, it was wonderful!

Unfortunately we also encounter twice jellyfishes. Maybe July is the season for them.

Local Tip to treat jellyfish sting

When my two-year-old got stung, we asked for advice to the staff of the hotel. First they asked and checked if there was any remaining tentacule stuck to the skin. Then they prepared an half-lemon with salt that rubbed it on his hand. It pretty quickly got the stung mark to resorb but the pain was still intense so they advised to go to the local hospital.

There a very nice and busy doctor prescribed a cortisone cream that I applied immediately. After a few hours of sleep, my boy did not feel any pain anymore and the stung area was visibly less red.

Another trip highlight

My sister had this crazy idea that I thought was over-the-top to take an helicopter from Mahe to La Digue. Yes it save us all a 1h30 ride on a boat (and some of us are pretty sea-sick) but it did cost 1000 eur for a 4-passengers helicopter ride! Anyway, it was once in a lifetime so we did it and… it was really worth it! We rode with children from 2 to 5 years old and they all reacted very well to the ride thanks to the with ear protection. Two of them even felt asleep by the end of the 15min ride… The view over the lagoon of La Digue, seeing Praslin and all the smaller islands was just amazing. In all case, it is the experience we will ba talking about for the rest of our life.

And the most beautiful beach of the Seychelles was…

on Praslin at Anse Lazio! White sand, not a rock on the beach, a beautiful bay….it was like a dream. And it was also where we had our best meal! if I had to do it again, I’ll stay one night in the area to have more time enjoying this wonderful beach.

About my stay

Finally, I was offered a short stay there for my birthday by my dear entrepreneur friend Irene – who was looking to try it as a place to do focus work and off we drove on a sunny autumn Wednesday morning. We arrived around lunch when the communal meal was being set up, did our covid self-tests, devoured our plates of gorgonzola-spinach pasta, and got a nice tour of the property by Adriano.

During my stay various area of Coconat were booked for corporate/institute workshops: the university of Dortmund, Global Diplomacy Lab, just to name a few. Through the connection of one of the American co-founders of the place, many American companies book the space for retreats.

We met Dr Kerstin Schulenburg during our communal lunch who told us about the community she is building close by, how they are using sociocracy and that she recruits interested parties through her website cohousing.de.

Later at dinner, we made a friend from Hamburg who was staying for “only 9 days” as she proceeded to explain that her roommate had been at Coconat since April. She introduced us to her interest in circular economy and recommended us to take the guided tour of the “Alpenhaus” of Beelitz Heilstaetten, an abandoned sanatorium now taken over by nature.

About the place

The place used to be a hotel for weddings(1), it has 4 buildings: the main building with several rooms for coworking (the library, the laboratory, the salon, the garden room, the cafe) and the sleeping rooms. Another closeby fully renovated building hosts the communal kitchen which closes on Saturday to be used as a pizzeria (they have an outdoor oven), a yoga space, and other local businesses like a massage room or a video editor studio. With an intention to integrate the local community with the visitors of the space, Coconat calls for local initiatives to add services to the place. Coconat also has a small sauna and a pond to swim in during the summer months, and a very large garden. Currently, the place can host about 60 people in 19 rooms (18 “private” family rooms – including four beds) and one dorm room). People can also camp outside (in summer) or come with a camper.

What’s next?

Two other buildings are a work-in-progress: one will host an additional dedicated co-working space and Fab Lab and the barn will be turned into a workshop for local handcraft (particularly woodwork apparently).

There is also an old S-Bahn wagon that will soon be turned into additional coworking space.

My thought-download

Spending time here allowed me to take a step back and connect the dots between several ideas that started floating in my mind recently:

• our farm project
• been introduce to the emerge podcast (which happened to have a conference in Berlin this month)
• reading “The Future We Choose” by Christina Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
• the Klimatstreit / Fridays For Future in Berlin on Oct. 22

While I came here looking to experience the place as a cool-new thing to try, I’ll leave after a short 24h-experience feeling like Coconat is just the visible tip of the iceberg of a much bigger movement. This movement already going strong in Germany is well-represented by the Zukunftsorte network, but the trend is also picking up since COVID in many Western societies (thanks to the wider adoption of remote-work): living megalopolis cities and dynamizing the countryside.

I already loved Berlin because it feels so different from other capital cities like Paris, London, New York, Beijing… When I first step foot in Berlin I asked my friend if it was a holiday weekend because there was nobody in the street on a Saturday afternoon (and no it was not a holiday). Berlin is a city that feels breathable, community-oriented and very artsy. I believe a big contribution to this model is the german urban policy(2). Germany has several layers of polycentric urbanization: as a federation, each Lande (state) has their own capital, there are often not one large city in each state but a group of similar-size cities (Rhine-Ruhr cited as the best example hosting Cologne, Dusseldorf and Dortmund), and the city itself usually have several vibrant city centers (in Berlin we commonly say that people from a certain Kiez (area) never leave the Kiez).

Pushing this model of decentralization further why not see some of these large cities create several mini-hubs in the countryside? It would fit the description of ” The World We Must Create” (chapter 3 of The Future We Choose) and is an inspiring next step.

(1) https://een-bb.de/fileadmin/temp/EEN_Erfolgsgeschichten/20200909_Erfolgsgeschichte_COCONAT_DE.pdf

(2) https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/urban-rural-and-regional-development/urban-policy-in-germany_9789264173194-en

Other references about German urban policy (non-curated)

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305900610000747
• https://sciendo.com/article/10.1007/s13147-011-0090-6

In 2019 I joined my first wheel-throwing ceramic workshop after my friend Alesha suggested the idea. It was in a private workshop, in the back room of a wine shop in Neukoeln with 5 students. The course was 4 times 2h:

• 2 x 2h to learn to turn the clay, center it, make it rise, make it go low and then do what you can to make it looks like a bowl or a vase or a piece of art.
• 1 x 2h to trim your pieces, remove as much clay as necessary, make the foot of the pieces and decorate them
• 1 x 2h to glaze them. The secret with the glaze is that….as a beginner you never really know how it going to come out, it will be a surprise.

I really liked the workshop, I found it so meditative and satisfying. I decided it would be the first but last session I’ll have with clay. Then COVID happened, I decide to learn the harp and I put this plan in the back. But I never completely forgot. I also encounter more people who were also into it like me, as a recurring hobby. My sister-in-law, my cousin, my cousin’s girlfriend. Talking with some of them I realize that it is a very trendy activity, for example, there is a waiting list of several months to reserve a seat in a ceramic workshop in Paris.

But I can’t blame their initial scepticism. When I moved here in 2014, little did I know from the city – even thou I did visit it during a high-school exchange. It just didn’t leave a strong impression and like most persons, I mainly associated Berlin and Germany with its 2nd World-War history and the Cold War. Not so fun for a tourist destination. I only got convinced to give it a try because:

1. “You don’t even need to speak German!” – a buddy who had been there several times
2. Great tech and start-up scene
3. Not as crowded as Paris or London
4. Also not as expensive!
5. One of my high school friend was already living there for a year, so it must not be bad.

Only after I moved there did I realize how wonderful a place Berlin was and still is. And because I am tired to repeat myself at every visit, I decided to compile a list of my top recommendations, my personal and local tips for the slow travelers.

Visiting Berlin for the first time

I am not going to cover here the most popular Berlin tourists’ attractions like the Reichtag, the Brandenburger Gate, Check Point Charlie or the East Side gallery. You can simply find those on Tripadvisor.

My personal tip for those who are visiting Berlin for the first time will be to spend your first day as follow.

Head out to Hackersher Markt to start by visiting the Hackershe Höfe, eight beautiful interconnected courtyards dating from before WW1. Glance at the beautiful tiles and one of the smallest cinema of Berlin. Grap a coffee at Ben Rahim or a pizza at Capvin Rosenhöfe to fully take in the Art Deco architecture of this magic place.

Do not missed out my favourite courtyard, one that is not interconnected and that I name “The graffiti courtyard”. The entrance is right in front of the Apple Store and once inside you can not be mistaken, this is a pure street art paradise. Also worth a visit if time allows is the Monster Kabinet. I never saw anything like that before!

Finish with dinner at Tadshikische Teestube (better book in advance). Alternatively Hummus and Friends and Knight Kitchen are other very good place for dinner in the area.

If you feel like a drink before bed time, hit the Vault Bar and its smoking cocktails. It is a speakeasy hidden bar located at Oranienburger Straße 4. Only 4 options for non-alcoholic cocktails but I hope that will change in the future.

Free places to visit in Berlin year-round

Teufelsberg – The former American listening station to spy on the USSR during the cold war. Ideal to visit on a good weather day but if you are into urban art and abandoned buildings, it is also worth doing on a cloudy day. It is a bit outside the city and you will walk through a park/forest for 30min before reaching the station turned street art gallery but once there you can chill at the beer garden and enjoy the view of Berlin. My recommendation would even be to take one of the tours in English and if you are lucky you will be guided by a former spy who was working at the listening station (He explained that his job was closer to an office job than to a James Bond movie but it was still great to hear about the place from someone who knew it inside out). You can contact the place there but tours have been suspended until further notice due to COVID-19.

While being in the West side of Berlin take the opportunity to check out the Schloss Charlottenburg (from the outside) and the Berggruen museum a small and underrated museum that still hosts pieces from Picasso, Matisse, Klee and Giacometti. The most interesting thing about this museum is the research it supported about the provenance of its own pieces in the context of the 2nd World War and art stolen by the Nazis. The museum hosted a temporary exhibition in 2018 described here pointing out the difficulties of tracing the origin of art and with the intention to restitute any piece that would have been stolen. I randomly watched Monument Men the day before going to this exhibition and it was perfectly on point. A nice place for dinner in the area is Funky Fish, one of the rare good seafood places in Berlin.

Best places for culture in Berlin

Boros Collection (aka the Bunker) – In the middle of town walking around Friedrischstrasse you might bump into this impressive bunker and wonder “what is that and what is it doing here?” Well, it was a bunker during the second World War, then it was turned into a club, and more recently bought by Christian Boros who made his fortune in advertising and invested in Art. He opens his private gallery to the public every Friday, Saturday and Sunday and only 12 ppl are let in for 90min. The collection is modern art and both the pieces and the location are quite impressive. Book long in advance.

Dark Matter is a permanent exhibition of light installations from Christopher Bauder that just opened in 2021. Christopher Bauder was the artist being the Lichtgrenze (“light border”) from 2015 to recreate the delimitation of the Berlin wall for the 25th anniversary of its fall, and the temporary exhibition Dark Matter (see pictures here). The location is in the outskirt of Berlin so while being in the area why not dropping by the famous Berlin club Sisyphos. They sell tickets on Wednesday for the upcoming Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Like most Berlin club they are open 24h so if you are not a party animal you can also enjoy a day-dancing experience in this large indoor + outdoor venue. You can also enjoy a nice meal or drink along the Spree at Hafenkueche and enjoy the nice riverside walk back to the S-bahn station Rummelsburg.

Kraftwerk is an old power station, a huge concrete hangar turned art space for temporary exhibition. If there is anything going on there at the time of your visit, it might be worth checking it.

Hoffmann Collection – Similar to the Boros collection, the Hoffmann Collection is a private gallery opened to the public only on Saturday. It welcomes even less visitors that the Boros Collection, is much less publicised and can only still be visited until 2022. I heard of it because my best friend who works in Culture had arrange for us to visit it during one of her visit to Berlin and it was a blast. The visit finished in the living room of the owner and we could exchange a few words with Ms Hoffmann. It was a very unique experience.

To eat

Einsunternull (Michelin) Nice, classy and delicious dishes focusing on high quality ingredients. I was there for a team event at lunch but it seems that they only do dinner now.

Tim Raue (Michelin, featured in Chef’s Table season 3 episode 5) Haven’t tried yet but it is on my bucket list.

Shiso Burger – my confort food in Berlin. Order the Ebi burger. Weirdly enough they open a branch in Reunion island.

W der imbiss – I always thought it was sri lankan food but it turns out that they describe themselves as vegan/vegetarian/salmon dishes influenced by Indian, Mexican, Californian and Italian cuisine…. what matters is that they are delicious!

Liu 成都味道面馆 Nudelhaus Spicy Chengdu style noodles, very authentic… I’m mouth-watering just thinking about it.

House of Small Wonder (for Brunch) This is the cutest place to start your weekend and have a delicious breakfast, cake or japanese lunch. They don’t take reservation and it will get full so go there early bring a book to stand in line. This is the sister restaurant of House of Small Wonder from New York.

To have a great coffee

Ben Rahim and take the chance to wander around the 8 courtyards of Hackersher Markt and the “Dead chicken” alley.

Bonanza Coffee Hero and wander in Mauerpark.

To have a drink

Klunkerkranich – Despite its impossible-to-pronounced name, this bar offer a very chill ambiance in a very original location. It is located at the top floor of a shopping mall but you need to access it by lift to the parking lot, than walk the way up to the last floor. As Berlin has mainly short buildings you have a pretty amazing view of the whole town and a beautiful sunset view.

Just landed? Here are my favourite ressources to survive in beautiful Berlin

• Useful websites
  • https://www.settle-in-berlin.com/
  • https://allaboutberlin.com/
• Interesting newsletters
  • https://handpickedberlin.substack.com/
  • https://theberlinlife.substack.com/
  • https://thenextday.substack.com/
• Dedicated help to move to Germany
  • https://expath.com/for-individuals/relocation
• Youtube channel of Berlin expats
  • https://www.youtube.com/@ectomorphe_

More general Germany ressources

• https://howtogermany.com/
• https://settle-in-germany.com/
• https://www.youtube.com/c/SimpleGermany

Many things happened during that time, and not one month passed by without me thinking: “Damned I should really go back to blogging”.

But I didn’t. Because of time and failing inspiration. Still I have a list of things I definitely would want to write about:
– The difference in start-up culture between Beijing and Silicon Valley
– Top 10 things I did in California
– Organizing Makathon and the Maker movement
– What inspired me to become a Data Scientist
– Top 5 mistakes you’ll do when moving to Berlin…

But today I just want to introduce my new self and give a little bit of background on what happens in the last 2 years:

Last year I turned my life around. After a year in Silicon Valley (SV), travelling back and forth every 3 months, I spent Christmas holidays 2013 in Paris with friends and family and realized that… it wouldn’t be that bad to come back to Europe.

At that point I had spent 7 years outside of Europe. And to be completely honest, if I had any good prospect to get a package “awesome job + working visa”, I would have stayed in SV. But I didn’t want to stay at all costs. I wanted to switch career. And I wanted to find a company I was passionated about. Yes, my new dream was to join one day Facebook Data Sciences team. But I knew that would take time. So life pushed me out of the USA and I wonder “where would be the most fascinating place to be for a free-thinker and techie person in Europe”? I asked around and everyone pointed me to Berlin.

April 2014 I set foot in Berlin and found everything I was expecting to find when I first arrived in San Francisco:
– a strong creative vibe everywhere in the city,
– kick-ass infrastructure and transportation system,
– open minded people who don’t try to make you fit in a mould,
– a vibrant grassroot tech scene with friendly community (where sharing is more important than competing).

After 10 months here, meeting like-minded people, old friends, new friends, switching my career into my new passion of Data Analysis and Visualization, joining one of today’s most exciting tech company in Berlin… I can say that heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un long voyage (happy like Ulysse coming back from the Odyssey).. it feels good to be back home.

NHN for those who are unfamiliar is like the “Google+Yahoo” of South Korea. It is the biggest internet holding and they have something like 90% of the search and portal market (number to be verified) in this market.
They are super innovative, came up with the first IM and forum service and their culture is very much oritented around creativity and great design (see naver, see nciku, see LINE). And they have branch office in Japan, US and China, Beijing where I joined them.

When I was first looking for a job in Beijing back in 2008 I created my luck and interviewed with 2 major companies: Sony Ericsson and NHN.
I believe I’ve been declined to join Sony Ericson because my profile was too similar to the girl who made me pass the interview. I wouldn’t have added much value to the team.
I got invited to join NHN for a 1 month mission to study the French legislation regarding online gaming and betting and I made my way from there. I stayed at NHN 2.5 years, it was my first real job and I learn a lot: about internet, about process, about working in a big corporate, about working in a start-up like project, about working in a cross cultural team (Chinese, Korean, US, Italian, Cameroun, German..), about working for others.

But now almost 3 years after I left I know what has been the most valuable things working for NHN: the network. I worked with wicked smart people and am still in touch with most of them.
People from the local team are now in diverse tech companies like Renren, Sohu, Weibo, ku6. Some started their own startups, others changed industries and worked in Toyota and Boeing.

Among the consultants (team of Korean mid-level managers send from Headquarters to help out the young Chinese team) most of them stayed in NHN, stepped up and returned to headquarters. 2 that I know of left for Google, Yahoo or inmobi.

But the friendly connection remains. We regularly chat on facebook or if we get a chance to be in the same geographical place we’ll meet up for a coffee. If I need a favor or intro I ask them and they are always helpful.

I had a lot of complain about NHN when working there but you know what we say “we always stand naked in front of the mirror”. With distance I realize the company culture was and still is amazing and they attract very good quality people.

I am glad I’ve been part of NHN story. And NHN has been a very important part of mine.

Click to view slideshow.

2003 – The first laptop I bought when I left my hometown and when study in Paris was an Apple. I stayed with Apple since that. At that time, my boyfriend was studying to become a software engineer and was nagging me:
bf – “Why would you buy Apple, a computer that doesn’t have the best performance but is much more expensive than others?”

me, being provocative and also very honest:
– ” Because it is pretty. It makes me feel happy and good about myself”.

2004 – After the laptop I bought myself the ipod shuffle when I was in Japan and customized it with a Hello Kitty skin.

2008 I bought myself the ipod mini, red.

2010 I was not convince by the iphone, I was thinking I want a phone just to call, and other device for music and entertainment. So I bought the iPod Touch.

2011-2013 I have been thinking to buy myself the latest iPhone but was always short of cash and couldn’t find a way to justify so much money on a phone.

2013 Next week I will buy myself the Samsung Nexus. (death silence).

I still love Apple, and for laptop, I have no plan to switch to another OS. But the thing is I see the small signs of decline in Apple products and companies.

The latest laptop I bought is not performing up to my expectation, sometimes it is super slow, even if I habe 8GB. It goes to sleep with no reason, the electrical plug doesnt work all the time… I dont know I am just a bit disappointed in my MacBook. Yes I bought a MacBook to be a little retro and not join the mainstream of MacBook Pro or Air. But now I find it a bit too thick.

Also my friend gave to me her old iPhone 3 and it is cool and slick, but super super super slow. I can not launch the facebook app. It is too slow to go online with wifi, I end up using it as a dumb phone. And anyway most cool apps I want to have are not compatible with the version.

Maybe I haven’t try hard enough to fix my laptop and iphone shortcoming, but that’s the thing. I didn’t choose Apple to then be tolerant of its weakness, I choose them because of their reputation of being top performer. And they are failing. Sure if you like a team you root for them in thin and thick but there is something else about Apple.

After Steve Job passed away I thought “How will be the world after Steve Job?”. And the world kept turning. And I thought “I guess Apple will be fine and as a great company”. But reading Steve Job biography I realize it won’t.

Tim Cook seems like a great guy, a high performer. But in Steve’s word: “He is not a product guy”. Basically he is a great captain when he has someone – a visionary – to give direction. I dont believe in can be the person who give the direction (no offense Tim!). He might be better than most at leading Apple but he is no Steve Job. And don’t get me wrong I dont think Steve Job is irreplaceable. He is like all of us. But Tim Cook is not the one to bring back the magic at Apple.

Apple is a cult. And what is the difference between a cult and a religion? For me, a cult is about one person. A religion is about an-ongoing community. This week the Christians have a new pope. There is a clear process to replace the pope and even if the religion / faith of the followers will be impacted by the personality of the pope, the church make it so that it impacts at less as possible.

Apple? not the case. Everything as been make to be about Steve. Like his Board of Directors. And that’s typical from people who fear abandon. He set up the ground for the company to fail after his disparition so that the world will remember: “It was better when Steve was around”. And that include choosing Tim Cook as CEO to replace him.

Another clue for Apple is not make to be a self-walking company (can not survive without Steve Job) are their products themselves. You buy an iPhone 3 and it become obsolete as soon as the new version come out? Apps are not retro- compatible? WTF?
It is like a person an insecure person telling you: “Yes you married me but now I’m different so you have no choice but adapt !”
I personally am not a big fan of threat in personal relationship. And the fact that Apple doesn’t value their community enough to ensure the best user experience for all their device is very disappointing.

One great CEO from my hometown, Alfred, was explaining how building a company is really just about building a system. You create a product but also a system to make sure the production of the same product quality will continue no matter what. And you sell the whole thing as an exit, not just the product. He is a great CEO with 2 companies but travels most of his time. He empowered people in both company to move forward without him micro-managing. He just advice or come help when needed.

In my view, this is how CEO should be.

Again how games can impact real life. And people doing interesting stuff. A bit crazy but interesting.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/mf_chainworld/all/?pid=6414

I NEED to go to GDC now… (Game Developers Conference)