He started his trip in Sydney, meeting up with his co-worker Haroon. They had part of Saturday to explore together and enjoyed an unseasonably warm, 80* winter day in Sydney. Haroon was then off to Melbourne where Chris would meet up with him later in the week.
Chris tried to attend church on Sunday morning, but when he arrived at the church building, he learned that it was Stake Conference and the meeting was being held elsewhere. Instead, he was able to enjoy a rain-free afternoon listening to General Conference talks while exploring Bondi and Manly beaches.
Monday began a busy week of non-stop meetings and dinners. Exhausting but effective.
One of his texts from Monday: "presentation went well. About 50-60 nontechnical/marketing types. Had the dreaded before-lunch slot in a room 85 degrees."
After a few days working in Sydney, he was on to Melbourne where the temperature was a little less friendly. He was glad to have taken a jacket and to meet back up with Haroon. They were able to explore on Saturday again. He took some time to check out Costco and mentioned that it was 90% similar to US stores, but quite a bit more expensive.
Chris was able to make it to church his second Sunday in Australia. He had only planned to attend Sacrament Meeting, but enjoyed the meeting so much that he chose to stay for all of the meetings.
His flight to Singapore left later in the afternoon (Haroon had left on Saturday). He went from being 16 hours ahead to 14 hours ahead in Singapore. More meetings. More dinners. He did get to have a dinner at this cool building, though there was a dress code and he was only wearing shorts. They brought him these crazy elastic-waisted pants that were barely longer than the shorts he was wearing. I NEED to get a picture of those pants!
His final stop was a day and a half in Thailand for more meetings with co-workers and clients. He stayed in a five-star Conrad hotel where they picked him up from the airport in a fancy-schmancy BMW and checked him in to an apartment-sized hotel suite.
They had some interesting taxi signage.
Chris left Thailand on Friday morning and arrived home on Friday afternoon. Amy had her last class free for the day, so I picked her up at lunch and we headed off to the airport.
We were a little early in arriving, or rather I should say, United was very slow in bringing up the luggage from Chris' flight. We drove around the airport once and then just sat in the Departures area. We thought for sure the security dude would ask us to move, but he walked by us three times. Yay for us. Chris finally emerged from door 600. So happy to see him! This was my favorite part.
