Down Under

I just returned from a trip to Australia where, due to an unprecedented hot summer, the temperature was in the 38-42 ºC range (for my fellow metric-system-challenged Americans, it was in the 100-107 ºF range), which is enough to melt you, if you are outside for more than 30 minutes. And, by the way, the day I left Toronto, right after a winter blizzard, the mercury here had dipped down to -14 ºC (-7 ºF).  Or, in other words, I went from a deep freezer (first picture) to a blazing oven (second picture)…so no wonder, following the laws of thermodynamics, my body expanded right away (and that is how I explained these extra 2 inches I gained around my waistline in a week to my dear wife-cum-my-nutritionist-cum-my-personal-trainer Anshu when I returned….obviously, it had nothing to do with elaborate dinners plus pitchers and pitchers of Australian beer). The good news is that she never reads my blog so she will never know the truth.

In this trip, the first thing I learned about Australia was that…… it is too far. Of course, too far from Canada, and not necessarily from other places, for example, say New Zealand. Once I settled down in the plane, I had a few drinks followed by a 5-course dinner, watched 3 movies and 4 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, tossed and turned for a couple of hours, then slept for 6 hours, got up, ate breakfast, read a book for an hour, had a glass of wine, watched another movie, chatted with the beautiful flight attendant, stared outside, and read some more before we FINALLY touched down….in Hong Kong.

I still had another 8 hour flight to Perth. And by the way, there was also a 7 hour layover in Hong Kong between these two long flights. From the airport lounge in Hong Kong, I did a video-call (thanks to Anshu’s 2 Facebook accounts, which, by the way, puts a big dent in FB’s claim of a billion “users” because I am sure there are many users like Anshu with multiple accounts…so those of you holding the FB stock (e.g. Vani) should be suspicious of FB’s growth projections) with my family in Canada for a few hours and once they went to bed, I chatted (thanks to omnipresent Whatsapp) with my lovely sis-in-law-cum-my-virtual-travel-concierge-cum-my-spritual-mentee, Kanya Bahwa for the next couple of hours, who at that time was attending classes at her college, and hence, obviously, had nothing better to do than chat with me anyway. I know what you are thinking, Kanya….and you are welcome! (So how do I know what Kanya was thinking? I know it because I am a mind reader. So, you do not believe me that I am a mind reader? Ok, this is what you are thinking right now, “No, he is no mind reader. No freaking way!” There you go. I just read your mind. Any more doubts?)

And talking about chatting with Kanya, I do not know why, in every conversation throughout the week when I was in Australia, she was complaining so much about incessant rain in Delhi. After returning to Toronto, I was talking to a friend in Delhi to check on Kanya’s story and he told me that the rain in Delhi was not bad because during that week it rained only twice – first time for 4 days and second time for 3 days. I guess some people (e.g. Kanya) are just simply whiners. And, by the way, I have to make several references to Kanya this time because she was not mentioned in my last post, and apparently she did not take it well….as evidenced by a broken mirror and several dismembered Barbie dolls in her room.

So going back to the trip to Down Under, I would say that a long layover in Hong Kong while going to Australia was not necessarily a bad thing because on the return journey, the flight from Perth was a little late getting to Hong Kong so the original layover of 1 hour 10 minute was cut down to around 29 minutes. And, at this huge airport, we landed at gate 4 and my connecting flight to Toronto was from gate 66…… which was roughly 8 miles away. And when it comes to sprinting, I am no Oscar Pistorius (when it comes to shooting your girlfriend, I am no Oscar Psitorius either….wait, scratch that…I do not have a girlfriend and I do not own a gun (though maybe I should, looking at some of the threatening comments my friend Meenu left on my last blog)…and hence that argument does not apply here) so I barely made it to my connecting flight.

That way, sometimes the small airports are much more convenient.  I remember flying to Timmins, Ontario for business last year. When I landed there in the morning, I realized that it was a pretty small airport. And, of course, my hypothesis was proved right on the way back. When I reached the airport (is it grammatically correct to say “the” airport? Because “the” here implies as if there was only one airport in the world, which kind of defeats the purpose of air travel….just like if there was only one user of Facebook….posting pictures and status updates all day long but no one looking at them) that afternoon and received my boarding pass after checking-in, I noticed that there was no gate number on the boarding pass. I went back to the check-in agent and said, “Excuse me ma’m, but do you not have the gate number yet for this flight because the space next to the Gate is blank?”  She responded, “Sir, we have only one gate right there”…pointing me to “the” Gate.

And talking about airports, one of the guys I went to see in Australia told me that he was from a small town 3 hours south of Perth where they have a really tiny airport. There are only a few flights everyday but before every landing and take-off, a guy from the airport has to drive his car on the runway to chase away all Kangaroos so that planes do not hit them. Wow, what a cool job that will be! I am sure that my 7-year old son, Kush, would love that kind of job because when I was leaving for Australia, all he wanted me to bring back from there was a live Kangaroo. I do have Global Entry/ NEXUS so I do not go through immigration in US/Canada but still smuggling a live Kangaroo into Canada during a business trip would not have been a good career move for me.

However, I cannot explain that to Kush, who is still upset at me for not bringing back a live Kangaroo from Australia. Ever since he fell in love with his Dinkar Mamu’s dog, Tutu, during our 2010 trip to India, he has been constantly asking for a pet and who can be a better pet than a Kangaroo in your backyard? I am hoping that some day he will get over this desire to have a pet….just like he is over many other things he used to passionately love, such as, Thomas the Really Useless Tank Engine, Percy the Somewhat Useful Engine, Completely idiotic Telletubies, Commercialized to insanity Mickey Mouse, Mickey’s ex-wife Minnie, Mickey’s new hot girlfriend Dixie, Half-naked Winnie the Poo, Really scary Big Bird (who almost committed suicide after Mitt Romney’s comment about cutting the PBS funding during the last Presidential election campaign), Not at all scary Cookie Monster, Low-Self-Esteemed Elmo, Obese Barney with a total cholesterol of 540, and so on and so forth.  And speaking of Barney, I seriously think that he should start smoking.  As you probably know, obesity has replaced smoking as the number one killer in the US and Canada.  In that case, if he is going to die of the heart attack soon anyway, why not have some fun and enjoy smoking too (Statutory Warning: Smoking is injurious to health. Smoking causes cancer).

And, as always, my final thought with a picture this time:

A mesmerizing sun set in Perth, Australia – a stark reminder of life’s finality.

Disclaimer: All events and characters (including Kanya Bahwa) in this blog post are real. Any resemblance to anyone living is purely intentional. There are no freaking coincidences in life so get over it.