Last month I visited Santiago, Chile. It was a short business trip that lasted 5 days. at the Holiday Inn located in the financial district of Santiago. The neighbourhood was very well developed relative to other parts of the city and a lot of people were very formally dressed . The trip was excellent overall except an unfortunate event on the last day – but we’ll get to that story later.
In this blog, I would share a few pictures and stories from the trip.
Outside the hotel
Overall, people were nice and helpful. Don’t expect everyone to speak or even understand english thought the language barrier becomes annoying. In meetings, I noticed that several locals were able to understand English but were either shy or lacked confidence to hold conversations. Luckily, we had people with us who spoke both languages.
The food was ok. On my first day, I said yes to a raw meat dish since I’m a fan of tartare (and its Vietnamese version). To my surprise, I receive an *enormous* plate of minced raw meat with absolutely nothing on it, some (very hot) chillies, lemon juice and mayo on the side. It wasn’t that bad – but I wouldn’t try it again. A local burger joint called Mr. Jack has fantastic burgers. Not to mention Peruvian Ceviche which I enjoyed as well. This discussion is incomplete without mentioning Pisco Sour. I normally watch my sugar intake, but those drinks were just amazing.
Gran Torre Santiago is the tallest building in South America, which is an amazing feat considering earthquakes are common occurrences in Chile.
The weather was perfect. Not too hot, nor cold. Santiago has lots of hills and presents a nice view of snow covered Andes Mountains which looked similar to the Rockies. They have long underground tunnels for traffic.
Hills outside Telco office
The day I and my colleague were supposed to leave Santiago, our luggage got stolen from the vehicle. It probably happened in the parking lot of the mall we visited to buy souvenirs. We lost our luggage and everything in them. I had taken passport out of my luggage for whatever reason before I left hotel so I was lucky to at least not have that stolen. In the end, I was happy to board the flight back home and learned an expensive lesson: don’t leave your valuables in your vehicle – especially if you are going to park it in shady looking parking lot in Santiago 🙂
10K-LOC 