A Trio of Haikus

There is no give and take

Always done well and fulsome

Week in, week out, can-do!

Decisions to make

Opinions shared and thrown

Yet, so much still to do

Nearly two decades

Working away from home

What does it amount to?

Photo from fancy.com

Running

INo, not running away

More like that ABBA song, that when all is said and done, even when I am at the crossroads, there is no more need to run.

Instead, I now run for the joy of it. I wish I had liked it way back when living in Zurich with the woods behind our apartment in Wangen. Nonetheless, it's not too late and today I had one of the best runs of my life. It's slightly over 2 kms from the hotel to the Lincoln Memorial here in Washington DC. 

I have been in Washington DC two, three times before but never got here. So, it's a real pleasure to meet this giant statue, befitting the legend of the man. The memorial fittingly resemble a Greek temple. Lincoln freed a people and then united the country.

So it made a lot of sense that 2 Asians and 6 Caucasians of 4 nationalities ran together. Setting off at 6;30am with a bunch of colleagues (2 women, who led the way, and 6 men) we took just a little over 10 minutes to the memorial and another 10 minutes back. In fact, I set a record of doing 6mins/km this run.

More running to come, of the joyous kind! :-)

World traveller

I think there are a number of airlines; British Airways come to mind foremost, that describes their customers in this vein. Increasingly, I am feeling this label describes me more than ever. At most first time introductions to business acquaintances, the conversation naturally drifts to how much I travel.

Here's a typical year of air travel

- once a year to the US (worst of all, east coast cities mostly: New York, Boston, Washington)

- twice a year to Europe (this being a favored global meeting location)

- quarterly to an major Asian capital (Mumbai, Delhi, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Tokyo, etc)

- monthly to Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam each

- weekly to Malaysia

That's nearly 200 flights.

Growing up, I wanted to fly around the world. Heck, my first job was even in the aviation industry to get closer to this dream. Even then, I did not dare dream of taking a flight every other day!!!

I am presently on another trip to the US, Washington DC to be precise via London. It's a relatively long layover of more than 3 hours. The Virgin lounge, cooly dubbed The Clubhouse however makes up for this. It's funky and sassy. I even planned for and got a nice haircut here, and my bushy hair is now looking stylishly 'Oxford Street' chic.

The flight back is even longer, but after all that traveling one sure hopes I have figured out how to make this painless.