After my time in Beijing, I flew back to the UK but instead of London, I went to Manchester for IPExpo conference. The first time I visited Manchester was 20 years ago. I was a 15 year old high school kid and I visited my great aunt and uncle one summer with my sister. I remember I had such a good time back then.
Unfortunately, I never had a chance to visit Manchester again and it was quite nostalgic for me to be back. I was hoping that I would remember Manchester a little bit but to my surprise, it was like a brand new city to me.
Apparently, Google has a small office in Manchester. I did a quick visit (my 36th Google office visit!) and after my talk, I got to visit Manchester United’s iconic stadium, Old Trafford. I was too late for a tour but it was still nice to see it from outside. I also had dinner with my great aunt and uncle again after 20 years 🙂
IPExpo
IPExpo is a 2 day conference that happens in locations like London, Manchester and Nordics. I spoke at IPExpo in London for the first time last year. It’s a conference that happens in a giant expo hall where they have a number of companies with their booths. The talks happens in the four corners of the expo hall.
IPExpo in London last year was a unique and challenging experience for me because I wasn’t used to speaking in a large open expo hall with a ton of background noise. This time, I was much more comfortable with the setup and enjoyed doing my talk.
I did my Intro to Kubernetes talk to about 100 people. After the talk, I got a number of basic Kubernetes questions, so it was an engaged audience but I don’t remember the questions anymore unfortunately.