Back in Melbourne, and leaving again !

I'm still tired.

I spent most of Wednesday hurtling through the air in a tin can with wings, flying from Singapore to transit in Kuala Lumpur for 2hrs, before taking off again to Melbourne.

I hate flying Malaysian airlines. No offence to the Malaysians out there, but comparing Malaysian airlines to Singapore airlines is like comparing economy to business class. Its the small details that count, like attitude of flight staff and quality of meals. I always frown at the supposed dinner that comes with the longer flights: what looks like a small baguette with some kind of stuffing, on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in cellophane. Yuck. Only bonus points I'll give are the episodes of Firefly and Extras on their in-flight menu.

Total flight + transit time = 12.5hrs. You can add another 1.5 hrs to that with Australian customs' warm and friendly methods of screening, x-raying, prodding, poking and sniffing every bag for possible traces of organic produce and illicit materials that might harm their precious farming eco-system. Somehow that episode of the Simpsons where Bart introduces the cane toad to Australia comes to mind as a pretty funny poke at the irony involved. Read more here

Thur 9am.
I really miss the coffee here in Melbourne. Nowhere else I've tried can compare or come close. Malaysia and Singapore was littered with dozens of Starbucks which make the most disgusting coffee I've ever tasted (but my gripe with bad coffee deserves a separate post later on). I got my usual skinny cappuccino with no sugar from Spiga downstairs, was even glad to see the regular blonde barista make my coffee.

Walking into the office and I hardly gotten into the chocolate sprinkled crema on the top of my coffee cup when Vik greets me and asked how the trip was, how the unpacking was going along. Great news, he said. Don't bother unpacking because you're gonna be flying up to Brisbane next week to help the functional team do data mapping at the Charlotte St office.

Huh? What?! I did a double take and pondered on this for a minute. Then I looked out of the window to see the freezing winter wind lashing out at people bundled in layers running across the street before a smile appeared on my face at the prospect of a few days up in sunny brissy weather. A further phone conference later that afternoon with our guys up there confirmed the finer details: I'll be flying up there on Monday morning with another contractor and returning on Thursday.

Did I mention that I like my job and company at the moment? Well I do.



Almost finished unpacking......... almost there...........