Ecuador at the Imagine Cup Japan 2005 finals
In our last chapter, we left our heroes very tired after a really long trip (by modern standards, anyway). Actually, we got to Yokohama at 7:30 A.M. on Wednesday (Tuesday night in Quito), at pretty much the same time as several other teams. That's why this day was dedicated for the teams just to recover themselves. At night, the Imagine Cup hosts throw a "Welcome Party":
As many other official Microsoft parties, the night was kind of boring relaxing but there was still good chance of making new acquaintances, like Christian here who is already good friends with the Costa Rica team (which is in the Office Design category, and therefore not in direct competetion with our team which is running in the Software Design category):
A nice surprise was a ryu-kyu dance énsémble, which performed an intriguing mix of folkloric and modern rhytms:
The presentation was not only unexpected, different, cool and, dare I say, educative, but, amazingly, ended with many developers-developers-developers dancing and claping on stage:
This of course included the andean/ecuadorian team (do you recognize some of them in the above picture?). All in all, it was a nice relaxing time, great for getting used to the local ways and for making new friends:
As in other Microsoft parties there was no alcohol (which in this case was mandatory because of the kids as young as 14 who are running on the High School category, they traveled with their moms by the way). At 9:30 P.M. the place was closed, which is just good, as tomorrow (well, today) the serious stuff will start and we need the neurons of the team as clear as possible.
Edgar Sánchez