Australia

Just got back from a 8 day trip to Melbourne to meet my team and learn the business in Australia.  Good trip from a business perspective and nice to see Australia.  I was there during the height of their summer, so the weather couldn't have been nicer.  Melbourne is a beautiful city on the southeast tip of Australia.  It had been awhile since I studied Geography in school and had to be reminded when I was there that the size of Australia is about the size of the U.S.  Big land mass...but only 22mm people in the whole country.   Compare that to England which is less land area than the state of Missouri and there are 55mm people in the country.   

A lot of folks from the UK and other parts of the world are migrating to Australia for their weather and economy - which seems to be booming - but it is an expensive place to live...I believe it was recently named the 5th most expensive city to live in.  Lunch at McDonalds is about $10 for one person.

Some pics below from the 24 hour flight

8 hours to DUBAI

8 hours to Singapore

8 hours to Melbourne

I went out for walks each morning before work to get myself adjusted to the 11 hour time adjustment - I went out the first morning and found some rental bikes and enjoyed riding bikes each morning exploring Melbourne.

 See the row teams?  The river was full of row teams practicing each morning.