Getting Ready to go..

For the last 6 months, I have been planning this trip to Asia - and planning, planning and planning. Well, it is here - I can hardly believe it. Next Wednesday is D-day!

I have many mixed emotions about this trip. The more reasonable part of me knows this is the trip of a lifetime and the other part of me is apprehensive about being that far away from home for four weeks. Really, what it means is I hate to leave the dog for that long. HA! Contrary to her beliefs, she will be very well taken care of by grammie and grampie. The thought of 24 hours in plane (yes, 24 hrs) is NOT exciting to me at all.

Planning for this trip is in full swing. Stops along the way include Singapore, Shanghai, Thailand and Hong Kong - as you can see, we will be headed a number of places. I have my single entry Chinese visa (to get it, I had to surrender my passport - that was a little scary. But amazingly enough, it came back!) my typohid shot, my hepatitis shot, flu shot and teatnus shot. The evil cold I contracted last week was enough to encourage me to plan for any illness I might contract - a trip to Target and I have the American version of everything I could possibly need in the event any other form of evilness invades my body.

This is a work trip - which in my mind makes it even more interesting. Myself and 2 other people from my company are headed over there to look at some processes related to my company's outsourced manufacturing. We will be visting three manufacturing sites in China, and working in offices in Singapore and Shanghai. In addition to seeing the general culture of these places, we will also see how people operate in a daily work environement, and see how different/similar it is to what goes on in my daily life. It should be interesting to say the least.

I know I have talked about this trip to many of you, and I thought this would be a good way to keep everyone up to date of where we have been and what we have seen. I spoke with one of my contacts in Chicago who frequents Singapore, and he provided lots of good information for me (primarily about food and shopping)

I hope everyone is doing well and that you enjoy this blog. Keep in mind there is a 13 hr time difference, so once we get there, it is likely you will be reading this when I am headed to bed!

Have a great day and GO BUCKS.