We took Aeroflot, a Russian airline which had a bad reputation in the past for its poor service and random accidents with old airplane model to Moscow en route to Barcelona. But it was fine and service was great!

We met two Olympic Athletes of Russia who played Curling game on the bus and received their autographs insisted by Junil. (Junil is a lovable boy internationally 🙂 Actually, Changil got sick when he got off the plane probably he could not digest food properly sitting for 9 hours then facing Russian cold wind suddenly. He was panting for air in the full bus and beginning to faint but we arrived at the terminal at a timely manner for water and bathroom. Thanks God!

We started off the next day in the old Town in Barcelona visiting the cathedral and revisiting the tapas place with my family that I took my wife 2 years ago was very meaningful.

Jamon caught boys’ eyes in the Carrefour, a local supermarket. So we bought one for morning sandwiches.

Casa Batllo designed by Gaudi reminds a skeleton and you can’t miss it because there are always many people lined up to enter this house.

On a sunny Saturday morning, we visited Park Guell, designed by Gaudi and Barcelona was one the centers of the world trade to enjoy its rich culture and wealth that led to such a luxurious park and Guell was a billionaire who sponsored such project. He was wealthier than today’s Bill Gates in the entire Europe. It’s quite amazing that wealthy Spanish were enjoying such a high level culture 100 years ago compared to Koreans who were not modernized and isolated on its own before the Imperialism was knocking on her door.

Its design is so unique in every corner mimicking natural shape of wave and clouds.

Among the pillars there is a woman who caught my eyes.

This is the world’s largest water purifier which serves as pillars as well. The rain water runs through the pipes in the pillars.

The famous Park Guell lizard. Junil loved this lizard so we brought one home actually from the gift shop.

Then we moved to Sagrada Familia cathedral in the afternoon to check out magnificent and huge cathedral still in construction over 100 years.

Many Bible stories are depicted on the one of the walls explaining to the people who didn’t know how to read the Bible in the past.

It feels like you are in a forest when you are indoors and with the sunshine coming through the stained glass creating a fantastic natural lighting effect, it’s really cozy and warm feeling.

This is the Gaudi’s workshop and he used this model to design the towers by calculating gravity and turning it upside down. What a genius!

This is a old rugged cross on the Park Guell’s hill and my colleague took this photo early in the morning at sunrise.

International Church Of Barcelona was a great community for foreigners and visitors in Barcelona. Praise team was powerful and energetic and I was so inspired by the pastor’s sermon to “Keep up the race!” when I was really discouraged by the business atmosphere in a startup.

We met with a retired pastor and his wife from US and went to American burger place.

Dinner place was one of the best seafood restaurants that I visited based on what Koreans would describe as “Gas efficient”, meaning good value for money.

Next Monday, I had busy schedule at Mobile World Congress to showcase a product demo and attend a media interview.

This is SK Telecom’s next generation smart speaker called Holobox (project name)
Our company scanned a famous girl group’s Wendy, a celebrity singer and created a digital avatar in the Holobox.

High resolution HMD(Head Mounted Display) by a Finnish VR startup, Varjo was quite amazing and I was able to catch up with an old friend whom I met in Helsinki 12 years ago.

This is the Casa Batllo.

After the MWC exhibition, I finally got some free time with family and we went to this Churros snack shop twice.

Barcelona had the same yellow ribbon as in Korea but had different meaning to protest against the government to release the political prisoners who fought for Catalonia independence.

In Santa Maria plaza, I forgot what that torch meant but I think it was for the boatmen who never came back home.

On Friday, I took a day trip to Zug in Switzerland, which was a small town more known as the Crypto Valley. It was the 6th best city to live in Europe.

Back to Barcelona and we went out for family photo shooting on a sunny Sat morning. Street singers were cheering and a antique flea market was going on.

This is the Sant Felip Neri plaza where Gaudi would come here everyday for confession.

King’s Plaza where Columbus met the Queen of Spain.

Real Plaza was great place to hang out and shoot family photos.

Saturday afternoon, we visited Tibidabo, an amusement park and a cathedral on the top of the hill.

Actually, I had very tough time during my business trip to have a lot of fear, worry and anxiety related to my work and I had to pray to God to let it out. Praying to God of my situation, I resorted to Him of what I should do. I believe I heard a whisper in my ear during my shower in the morning from God saying “Try it even if you would fail.” which instantly gave me peace and courage. It was one of the blessings that I received from Him during this long business trip to Barcelona. Glory to God!