Good Karma!!

Our last day in Melbourne on the 22nd was our hottest day there. Temperatures hit an amazing high of 43 degrees Celsius; HOT, HOT, and HOT. Despite the heat, we tried to head out to St. Kilda (an area near the beach where there are markets along the streets and restaurants and shops) but even the vendors had closed up shop and gone home early due to the blistering heat. It was like walking out into a sauna and on top of that there was a hot wind which made it TEN TIMES worse. We decided to go back to Pam’s and take shad indoors and do NOTHING but drink beers and have some din din before our 12:45am flight to Hanoi, Vietnam later that evening/morning.

Our stay in Melbourne has been a great one where we were able to spend time with a dear friend, have many laughs and see what this wonderful city has to offer. To top our visit off though, we experienced yet again another bout of extreme generosity which was unexpected and touched all of our hearts.

Chris had decided he would brave the heat to make us BBQd chicken wings for dinner and made the 5 minute trek to Safeway to pick some up. He grabbed some money without noticing what he took and went along his merry may. When he got to the checkout stand, the total for 2 different bags of chicken wings and 1 bag of drumettes came to around $9 Australian dollars. Chris paid the cashier with what he thought was $20 Australian but in fact it was $20 Fijian dollars that we must have forgotten to exchange and which Safeway did not accept. He did have $5.70 Australian in change and asked the cashier to put 1 bag of the chicken wings aside to see if he would have enough money for that. The total came to $6 and the cashier was nice enough to tell C not to worry about the 30 cents. Just as C was thinking how that was gracious of the cashier, an old Australian man from behind grabbed his arm and told Chris he wanted to buy the other bag of chicken wings for him. Chris insisted that he couldn’t accept his offer but the man was persistent and said "Let me do this for you please". So Chris came home with 2 bags of chicken wings, 1 bag of drumettes but even better than that, an experience that doesn’t always happen every day. It was the perfect way to end an amazing left of our trip.

After dinner, some drinks and packing, we heading to the airport. Our flight was an 8 hour one to Kuala Lumpur where we would have to 5 hours for a lay over before catching our connecting flight to Hanoi. By the time we get to Vietnam, we will have been up for over 16 hours but it will be well worth it to see the family in Hai Phong. There are also 12 of us from Canada meeting up in Vietnam for a family reunion which is sure to be full of good times, lots of talking and laughing and LOTS and LOTS of eating I’m sure.

Watch out Bui family, here we come....

Cooking up a Storm

Dinner in the Italian District

At the Airport

Saying Goodbye to a Dear Friend

To Pam - We raise our glasses to toast you: a wonderful friend with a heart made of gold. We love you and can never thank you enough for what you have done for us, unless of course you want a few more home cooked meals in Thailand. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)