monday march five

Day one of the regional meeting of Consumers International that i am at in malaysia this week. This is me and Zinny, representing Australia and it is like the good ole days. We've travelled together quite a bit in our 3 years together at choice and do it well: we went swimming that morning in the olympic-sized pool as the sun was coming up. Chris is not a strong swimmer and I must admit took some pleasure in watching him struggle because he made me run with him on other trips and would periodically jog backwards shouting at me to hurry up. Generally, he hustles me around and i make him late for things. I translate his eccentric turns of phrase and he rephrases some of my more direct communications to make them softer. It works. 

Lady on the left is from Mongolia and rocking what I think you will agree is an awesome dress. It has a sequined snake on the front. 

Here's my later that day at the networking dinner. Check out the awesome sign in the background. My posture looks like an awkward five-year-old but got much worse later when we had to play a fun game i nicknamed 'hostage karaoke': no one got to leave until they sang a song. I went with a telecommunications theme, Lionel Ritchie's Hello. Did I mention it was a dry dinner?

This guy is a sweetheart from Nepal named Raji. I had rather hoped he would be my wingman for the trip but he is afraid of everything - refused to come shopping with me last night and blew a bowling date (alley in the hotel and games are $1.50. $1.50!) because he has never played before. I offered to teach him and he said no, i will just watch you play. game over, i had to cancel. i still like hanging out with him though.