Tantalizing Tess left today for her grandfather’s funeral. Sombre moods. I am sitting at our computer sipping a glass of white wine. It’s about 11 PM on Friday night. I am taking a moment to catch my breathe before Saturday morning when my work week partly spills over into my weekend.

Work was intense this week. As a result, Tess and I didn’t get to spend much time together. My company had our quarterly Asia Pacific management meetings (QBR) Monday/Tuesday, a management training program on Wednesday/Thursday and HR meetings on Friday morning. With dinner meetings every night, everything was pressurized. But I do have to say it was a highly productive week that ended with a bang.

Several weeks ago when the jury was out on exactly what my schedule for this week I received a call from the Asia Pacific CEO of one of our recruiting vendors. (Let’s call them ABC.) This particular company is one of the largest global search and recruiting firms by revenues and their account manager for my company provides good service. The CEO invited me to speak at their regional conference in Macau on the afternoon of Friday, April 15. I looked at my schedule, “Ugh,” I thought, “that is going to be unrealistic but wow I would love to talk to them.” Of the dozens of recruiting relationships we juggle regionally this firm is one of three or four that go above and beyond to help us think “outside of the box.” To address one hundred ABC consultants at one time would be a great opportunity.

In parallel with this invitation were several other invitations to speak at other conferences that stemming that from a keynote address I gave at the Employee Relocation Council’s Asia Pacific Conference in Hong Kong. One of those invitations was for a Warsaw conference. That invitation I debated in my mind long and hard. Finally and regrettably I declined. Truly a difficult decision since I love interacting with European HR professionals and the ERC always delivers excellent conferences. However, with the conference smack in the middle of a workweek the trip would suck a lot of precious work time. With the following week targeted for when Tess and I would be back with my family in Canada, Warsaw was unworkable. Finally I chose not to go and informed Tess. Walking into our bedroom one evening I said, “I’ve decided Warsaw won’t work.”

Ever supportive Tantalizing Tess replied, “I know that’s a hard decision but I trust your judgement.” We talked for a few minutes about the conference and then I concluded with, “…and ABC invited me to speak in Macau on April 15.”

“Really? Are you going to?” Tess asked.

“I don’t see how I can. That week is the QBR, management training, EVERYONE is in Hong Kong and we have an HR off site on the Friday morning. It’s possible I could do it on the Friday afternoon but I would never make it in time with the ferry schedule,” I explained.

Then Terrific Tess came up with a BRILLIANT idea… “Ask them to fly you over,” she replied.

Macau, a former Portuguese colony that returned to China a few years after Hong Kong’s return to China, is about a sixty-minute ferry ride from Hong Kong. By the time one adds up checking in for the ferry, waiting for the ferry, the ferry ride, Immigration at both ends of the trip, you end up easily dealing with a two to three hour journey. But flying there… now that is fast. Not only is the flight only sixteen minutes long but passengers also get Fast Track treatment at Immigration. Flying there on the helicopter can easily knock two hours off the trip. I fired off an e-mail to the CEO. He replied, “We’ll do it.”

I colleague of mine, Paul, (also known as Mr. E and referenced by Tantalizing Terrific Tess a few times in her blog) accompanied me and at 3:00 PM the two of us boarded our helicopter. This was my third helicopter trip (the first two were in Monte Carlo when I spoke at another conference in 2003) and the aircraft is much more exciting than an airplane. Unfortunately the weather was overcast and visibility not so good but I managed to video parts of the flight for Sebastian to see on the TV.

We had an excellent discussion with ABC, concluding with a lot of enthusiasm. We had reached a point of creating some ground breaking and innovative recruiting solutions for both parties. The ABC team headed off to an awards dinner that we’d been invited too but I was keen to return home quickly. With a few minutes to spare Paul and I ventured into a casino next to the conference venue. I dumped 100 HK$ 2 coins into the slot machines and just by the skin of my teeth managed to hit a small jackpot of HK$ 294 before we had to leave. Instead of betting more I listened to Tess in the back of my head and cashed in. (Paul was also encouraging me to “wrap this up quickly” to avoid missing our flight.) We dashed off to the HeliPort.

Unlike the flight to Macau, full to capacity with twelve passengers, the flight back to Hong Kong only had four passengers. Paul and I sat in a row of four seats. I sat on the starboard side to video the Hong Kong approach. The blades whirred faster, the engine growled deeply, and we lifted off the platform. Macau, ablaze with lights, drifted away from us as the pilot lined up Hong Kong in his instruments. Across the water we buzzed at 150 knots into total darkness except for the occasional fishing boat far below us, and the dim glow of the cockpit lights. And that’s when the oh-so-surreal sensation set in, accompanied by the musical score of whirring blades above us.

After the flight, Paul shared how the view of the Macau night-lights as we lifted off the helipad reminded him of a lifelong goal to get his pilot’s license. For me the flight summoned a reflective side. I speculated in my head that after nine years in Hong Kong, flying to Macau at least once in a helicopter would be a probability not a possibility. But still, the flight harkened me back to my peculiar trip to Monaco, and once again swirled the fog inside my head as I continued to reconcile the events of the last fourteen months. When I first came to Asia, everything was new. But as each year passes the paintings on the wall blend into the background to become a little less noticeable until a new and atypical event like today dusts them off. Returning home with Tess away was unusual. Walking into the nursery to see four kids sleeping was even more bizarre. Carys rustled in her bed. I was tempted to lift her up for a few minutes. Instead I quietly hovered then pulled myself away.