A delegation of four (04) Pinoy Mozillians participated in the weekend-long workshop for Mozilla Localization (L10n) at Mozilla Taiwan office. Heading the delegation was your’s truly, with fellow Mozilla Rep Frederick Villaluna, and Localizers Richmond Lacanlalay and Michelle Manlogon.
Bye, Manila! Hello, Taipei!
The team’s journey began at the NAIA Terminal 2 (MNL) early morning of Friday, 21 Apr 2017 catching a 0730H flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport (TPE). The distance from MNL to TPE is around 1,175 kilometers (730 miles). Around two (02) hours after departing MNL, the team reaches TPE. All team members are first-timers in the Chinese island nation, formerly known as Formosa (Republic of China).
First thing we did after disembarking the aircraft: buy local SIM cards with data! Yes, we did that even before queueing at the Immigrations Counter. Based on my experience traveling, especially if it is your first time in a place, data will be your lifeline. Thanks to the tip of fellow Mozillians, we bought our local SIM cards (Chungwa Telecom) just before the Immigrations Counter. The cost was NT$300 (around PHP500) for unlimited 4G connectivity and some airtime credits (which I later used to check folks at home).
The Immigrations queue was loooong. We landed in TPE just before 1000H, bought our local SIM cards, and was on our way to the baggage conveyor minutes before 1200H. By this time, we were joined by Mozillian L10n Driver Flod, who flew all the way from Italy (he, too was caught in the very loooong queue at the Immigrations).
Next Stop: Buy Train Cards
The fastest way out of TPE (airport) to the city is via train. From the airport terminal, we need to take a train ride to Taipei Main Station via the Airport Metro. Then came language barrier! I asked for a single ticket ride from the airport to Taipei Main Station, but instead was handed out an EasyCard (reloadable train card, similar to our Beep Card in Manila). The cost was NT$300 (card + top-up load value).
The train ride from the airport terminal to Taipei Main Station took around 45 minutes. From there, we transferred to the Taipei Metro (quite a long walk, but the terminals were interconnected) and hit our destination three (03) stops later. Our place of stay is at the Royal Biz Taipei Hotel.
I was assigned a hotel room to share with Frederick.
First Order of the Day: Lunch
We reached the hotel past 1PM and I could feel that my colleagues were starving already (hahaha). Goodness, the hotel offered some welcome cookies, coffee and tea. But we were craving for some rice meals.
After the team members settled down in their respective hotel rooms, we met at the hotel lobby around 2:30PM to roam the streets nearby and look for our first real meal of the day (our last full meal was the breakfast service onboard our PAL flight).
Walking a few blocks away from the hotel, we reached a neighborhood with a restaurant row. We saw an empty Chinese noodle house and entered. We were greeted by one of their personnel and told to come back by 5PM! Little did we know, business establishments there are closed from 2PM to 5PM as their “lunch break” — nice!
We ended up visiting the 7-Eleven branch near our hotel…
Welcome Dinner
Customary to Mozilla L10n Team meetups: a welcome dinner. Venue for this year’s meetup is at Take Five in downtown Taipei. They serve a fusion of Asian cuisine using the finest and freshest ingredients. We were given tent cards with different colors. Each of the cards were explained to us (since writings were in Chinese). Good thing, I have the latest version of the Google Translate app installed on my smartphone…
Post-welcome dinner activities included a walk (under the rain) from Take Five to the Mozilla Community Space Taipei with Irvin and the rest of MozillaTW as our tour guides.
L10n Workshop Day 01
Call time at the hotel lobby for the short train ride to Mozilla Taiwan office: 9AM
Some three (03) train stations away from the hotel, we reached the Xiang Shan station, which is near where the Mozilla Taiwan office is (and very close distance to Taipei 101).
The Philippine delegation went to attend the 2017 Mozilla Asian L10n Workshop with the following goals:
- Find a way to finish the Filipino Term Bases
- Find ways on how to recruit more Filipino localizers
- Plan for activities related to the Buwan ng Wika 2017
The first day of the L10n workshop gave attendees an update on what’s new and what’s kewl with the latest tools the organization use for localization. Most of the discussions revolved around how L10n Drivers can improve the localization processes and make participation to L10n even more awesome.
After lunch, L10n teams were given time to sitdown and meet to address issues and concerns related with their own locale.
Team Dinner for Day 01 was held at Din Tai Fung’s Taipei 101 branch. Thank you to the awesomeness of fellow Mozillians based in Taipei, our waiting time to be seated was just around 5 minutes.
Din Tai Fung has several branches in Metro Manila, but never had a chance to dine in any (as queue is always long). Heck, what could be more awesome than trying out xialongbao in Din Tai Fung right at the heart of Taiwan, where it is from originally?!
Capping Day 01 of the 2017 Mozilla Asian L10n Workshop was a trip to the Maokong Gondola via the Taipei Zoo Station to Maokong (top of a mountain, comparable to Tagaytay in the Philippines) and back. Too bad, it was dark already and weather was still not cooperating, but we had a very good laugh inside our cable car (imagine having a Filipino, Indonesia, Korean and Japanese inside).
L10n Workshop Day 02
Same drill as with the previous day: call time at the hotel lobby was at 9AM. We then all headed to the Mozilla Taiwan office via train. This time, the weather is somehow cooperative. Our last full day in Taiwan.
The morning session was devoted to Pontoon — what is now the defacto localization tool for Mozilla. Discussions on what’s new with the tool, and how to make it even more awesome lasted until around lunch time.
A panel discussion followed lunch and it lasted until we have to close the 2017 Mozilla Asian L10n Workshop. Dinner was set at Sau Sau, which is a walk away from the Mozilla Taiwan office (passing by Taipei 101 and the City Hall).
Bye, Bye Taiwan! Until next time.
We checked out from the hotel around 6AM to catch our 9AM. Hopped on to the city train then transferred to the airport railways for TPE. Landed safely in MNL just around lunch time.
As mentioned to my team during the weekend, this is not the end but rather where real work starts. There are a lot of things needed to be addressed by the Mozilla Philippines L10n Team and being part of the 2017 Mozilla Asian L10n Workshop is an awesome way to be recharged, synched and aligned with the organization’s goals and plans.
Looking forward to the cascading session to the rest of the MozillaPH L10n Team members in the days to come.
