A few days ago, a good friend of ours Eric who works with Microsoft invited us to have lunch with him to their new facility at Microsoft Village in Redmond. I wanted to visit this famous company for quite sometime now, but keep on putting it off. Just curious how big it is and how does it looks like. All the while i thought it is just the same as the rest of the offices around. To my surprise, the facility is more than I could imagine. While driving around to pick up Eric, I was already impressed on how big the compound was, it feels like they occupy the whole Redmond City ! They have a total of 160 something buildings. They have their own post office, library, and other facility a small city should have.
What impressed me most was the "Commons" this is like a mall, where numerous restaurant from different countries covered the entire building. Not only one building, but I guess three of them and one has two stories even. Outside that building, has a beach volleyball and basketball court ! The place was totally insane and crazy !!! You would feel like you are in the mall rather than in the office. The environment was totally relaxed. I was telling our friend Eric that
Microsoft was like throwing away so much money. The craziest thing is that, they have
refrigerator or rather coolers full of drinks for free everywhere ! You can just grab any drinks you want anytime, anywhere.
After those amazing cafeteria / mall, we headed to their visitor center to check some new gadgets. When you enter the area you would see this giant ball hanging above. Actually it is the map of the world where it indicates the number of emails sent every second. And they said that it is accurate. You would be surprised how many billions of emails sent each second.
Here we are, trying to explore those gadgets and taking a pose with the founder of Microsoft. Can you pin point my husband among them ? Above is my husband taking a pose inside Microsoft store, ended up buying a shirt that says "I'm a PC" and the kids getting their own Microsoft Kids Badge ! It is very cool, kids are so proud of it.
All in all, I was glad that we took the time to visit the place and of course grateful for the invitation from Eric. I was really sweep away, astounding !
A pose at Windows 7 . Here is the coolest thing below. At the lobby of one of the buildings, the center table has an interactive map. Here is kuya Bong trying to find their house in Melbourne Australia by simply scanning the map with his fingers. You can find any place in the world through this. Very Cool!
He is pointing at the street where he live and their house! 
The gang looking back at me for a snapshot! This is the Commons building that serve as canteen, restaurant for all employees and guests of Microsoft. Looks like a mall, two story building full of restaurants, post office, bank, and shops! Microsoft compound looks like a city within the city. The next coolest thing, drinks are free everywhere!
