Another day, another 14-hour flight, and another week, another time zone reversal. I love traveling to Asia; I don’t relish the thought of taking a month to get back on US time. That’s what happens every time I travel to Asia. When I visit China, Singapore, Thailand, or any of the places I go to in Asia, I get adjusted to Asia time in one day. Then it takes a month when I get home to adjust to US time. It doesn’t matter if I’m in Asia for 2 days, 40 days, or 13 months (I’ve done all three); it always takes forever to get back on our time. I don’t think it has anything to do with direction; it has everything to do with what’s home. My Asian friends tell me they experience the same thing…when they come to America, they’re on our time in a day or two, and then it takes them weeks to get back on their home time once they’ve returned.
This adventure was two weeks for Susie and me. It started with 4 days in Singapore, where I taught a class to folks working in the Singaporean defense industry. I get invited to Singapore to do that a couple of times a year; the topic this time was Failure Mode and Effects Analysis.
It’s a 17-hour flight from Los Angeles to Singapore. You’d be surprised; it goes by quickly. The courses are fun to do, we always do them in 5-star hotels, and Singapore is a good place to have a good time. I watched Crazy Rich Asians on the way over during that 17-hour flight (it’s the first time I’d ever seen the movie). I was surprised at how many of the Singapore locations I recognized in the film. I like Singapore.
Next, it was a 5-hour flight to Perth, Australia. You’ve read the blogs about it and the reason we went (Susie met her pen pal Adrienne for the first time). We had a hoot. Gresh and Baja John both told me Australia was a lot like the US, and they were right. Still, they do have a few things we don’t…
The morning we left Perth, there was a big hub-bub going on outside our hotel as we got into our Uber car, and to my astonishment, the fellow getting into the car in front of us was Scott Morrison, Australia’s Prime Minister. He had been staying in our hotel. There were a few security folks around him, but nothing like you’d see in the US. He looked right at Sue and me from just a few feet away as he passed. Nope, I didn’t get a photo. Maybe right now he’s telling people he met one of the two guys running the ExNotes blog. His friends are probably telling him it didn’t happen if he didn’t get a photo.
From there it was on to Sydney (a 4-hour flight), and we had another fabulous visit. We didn’t know anybody there yet, but we made new friends and we had a great time walking around in one of the world’s great cities. Sydney is a beautiful city and it should be on your list of places to visit.
And there you have it. It was another 14-hour flight to get from Sydney to Los Angeles and we landed at about 6:00 a.m. today. It’s good to be home again.