Nov 5, 2007
Almost an entire month has passed since I last wrote. How horrible of me. I know it's no excuse, but we really have not slowed down at all here. I've done some more travel, which I'll write about a bit here, and we've kept moving forward on the house.
For the most part, throughout this time, we've been spending our free time most evenings and weekends continuing to fill the house with furniture and other items. It's kind of a shame that Ikea doesn't have a frequent shopper program...we'd definitely have a free sofa or something by now if they did.
We've been getting out to visit Vegas every week. Well, at least Leslie has. When I'm travelling it's harder to take the half day to get out to see him. He's doing well and is less than two weeks away from coming home. It's been a long three months, but it's good to be close to the end.
Mixed in with some of our house stuff has been more exploring, particularly in the downtown area.
But first a quick note on terminology that we've learned relating to that. When we refer to the main section of Melbourne with all of the high rises and government buildings, arranged in a standard city grid pattern, we call it "downtown" since, to us, everything in our area is basically the Melbourne metro area.
We have learned, however, that that area is simply called "the city" here. And this is the case for all of the major cities. Everything else is the suburbs. The only thing that is actually Melbourne is the small section described above.
Anyway, we have explored more of the city (aka downtown). All of the travel books you read about Melbourne talk about it being the shopping capital of Australia. We could see this even in the suburbs where we are, but it's simply insane downtown. Along with the major shopping centers and department stores, there are hundreds of little shops, restaurants, and cafes tucked away down every street and alley. It's really fascinating to wander around and see what you can find.
One thing we made a special trip to was the Queen Victoria Market. It's the huge outdoor market downtown. A lot of it is where people go to get their fresh produce and meats. That part was fun to watch. Most of it, however, seems to have turned into a bit of a tourist trap shopping experience. While there are hundreds of different little vendors, it really just ends up being the same few styles of shops over and over, most of them selling things that residents of Melbourne would never even think of buying. Therefore, we bought a bunch of stuff.
Now on to work. The first of my two big trips in the past several weeks was back to Brisbane in Queensland. I was heading up there to spend a day and a half with a big new client that had recently signed up. A trip to Brisbane normally would not be a big deal. This one was, however, because I was going solo.
I hadn't done any travel on my own in Australia yet. I wasn't worried about the work part. That was easy. Oddly though, I wasn't worried about the travel part. It was just...different, but at the same time cool. I know that it may not seem like a huge deal, but it was pretty exciting to know that I could manage to get around (both flying and with a rental car) on my own in a strange city in a new country.
The trip went very well and the clients were very pleased with the time we spent.
While I was doing this, we were also getting ready for our next big events...in Hong Kong and Singapore.
The reason we needed to head to those cities was because it had been decided that our office would be responsible for Asia as well as Australia. I had always expected this, just not quite so soon. I guess that's what happens when we (the AU office) exceed our goals and impress the home office right out of the gate like we did.
The events we were going to do in Asia were to be similar to what we had done in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane a few weeks back...our "intensive" events. We wanted to get a chance to meet some of our existing clients who had had very little (and difficult due to time zones) contact with anyone at CA. Also, it was a chance for John to do his Sales pitch to any potential clients. That's right....I was going to Hong Kong and Singapore. Needless to say, I was incredibly excited, especially since we would have some free time to explore.
Prior to this trip, Kerri had spent a week in Raleigh to attend quarterly meetings and planning meetings at the CA office. She was then going to fly straight from the US and meet John and I in Hong Kong.
While she was in Raleigh, I decided that Kerri needed to attend a Hurricanes hockey game. We had been selling our tickets still, but one of the games while she was there had not sold yet so I convinced Kerri that she should go. (It didn't actually take much convincing...she was very excited)
Here was the fun part...the day of the game, we could listen to the radio broadcast streaming online. It was a Friday night game, so it started at around 9am Saturday for us. Throughout the game, Kerri was sending me instant messages on the Blackberry when something exciting would happen. When they would score, she'd record the cheering as a voicememo and send that.
The Canes lost the game (horribly, in fact) but she got to see a few fights (on the ice, thankfully, not in the crowd...we weren't playing Buffalo), a lot of scoring, and even a penalty shot.
Now, on to Asia. John and I got on a direct Cathay Pacific flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong that was scheduled to take off around 1am. The flight was how you want a flight to be...smooth, comfortable, and uneventful.
The timing of the flights was pretty impressive. About the time John and I got to the baggage area in Hong Kong, Kerri's flight from the US arrived in the same area. We gathered our bags and got in our hired car (essentially a nice taxi) to head to the hotel. We were staying in Kowloon.
Quick geography lesson for those who don't know...Hong Kong itself is actually an island. Kowloon is the major mainland area just across the water from the island. I actually knew this before I arrived, but not because of my top-notch education. I learned it from James Bond movies. I'm pretty sure that 007 has been to Hong Kong more than just about any city (other than London).
For those who remember "The Man With the Golden Gun"...the Peninsula Hotel still has green Rolls Royces. A whole fleet of brand new ones. We saw the cars on the highway and parked at the hotel.
The views on our first day were a bit foggy and smoggy, but I didn't care. I was in Hong Kong.
Having been a British territory until around 1997, just about everyone speaks english and all signs, etc are in english. Very helpful for those of us who don't speak anything but english.
We had time our first day to explore a bit. The great thing was that Kerri had been to Hong Kong many times in the past so she knew where to go for the good sights and shopping (both huge shopping centers and the small markets where you can haggle for just about any cell phone accessory imaginable.
I didn't care where we went. I was just enjoying every sight, sound...and smell. I had forgotten about the wonderful smells that can come from a crowded city in Asia. It really is a great part of the experience, but unfortunately one that can't be captured and shared very easily.
That night we wandered a bit and then hit the first of many restaurants where I had to act like I knew how to use chopsticks. The food was good..I just couldn't eat too much of it due to the extra effort involved in getting from plate to mouth.
The next day was our Intensive event. That went very well and wrapped up by around lunch time. After catching up on emails and a quick change of clothes, we did some more wandering around Hong Kong. John had gotten in touch with a friend of his who lives in Hong Kong and we planned to meet him for a drink later.
Being a local, John's friend showed us some great areas of the city that the average tourist most likely would never think to go. Dinner was at a tiny Thai restaurant hidden on the 2nd floor of a shady looking building with an even shadier elevator. But the food was incredible.
After dinner we started the walk back down the hill to the ferry back to Kowloon. Normally this would not be a problem. This night, however, was Halloween. Hong Kong has started to embrace the holiday. I didn't see a ton of costumes, just a ton of people. There were mobs of them in the streets to celebrate.
The next morning, we headed to the airport early for our flight to Singapore. It was about a 3 hour flight and went well.
As with Hong Kong, we had time to wander a bit. But instead of Kerri being the expert, John was the one with experience in Singapore. His younger brother has been living there for several years.
From our hotel we could walk to many of the major landmarks, mostly the old hotels from the old British days. Like Hong Kong, it was colonized by the British at one point.
The fun part for us was how different it was from Hong Kong. As crowded and dirty and fast-moving and loud as Hong Kong was, Singapore was clean, very green, laid back, spread out, and calm. It was a bit more westernized than Hong Kong, if that's possible. There may actually be more ex-pats than locals in Singapore.
Our Intensive event the next morning was incredible. I think the attendees found great value in it, but I may have learned more than they did about how we can help them. It was a great success.
We wrapped up the trip by checking out the Little India area of Singapore before catching our overnight flight back to Melbourne. I got to the house around 7:30am and propmtly went right back to sleep for a few hours.
At this point I am still kind of recovering and trying to get my sleep schedule back to normal, but the trip was totally worth it. It's exciting to think that I'll get to go back eventually.
While I was gone that week, Leslie had some fun with the girls (that would be John's daughter and Kerri's two younger daughters).
First, she offered to take them trick or treating on Halloween. Then, she took them to the zoo on Saturday afternoon. Everyone had a great time.
I think that is all for now. One thing to note, though, is that we all have to get used to new time differences. We started daylight savings time two weekends ago so we moved ahead an hour. Then, the US ended daylight savings time and moved back an hour. This means that we are now 16 hours ahead of the east coast of the US. Kind of strange that we didn't physically move but we lost 2 more hours of difference. Oh well.
Hope everyone is doing well and look forward to hearing from you!
