Off to Asia (A Day Late)

I'm headed to Asia this Thursday, for a work-related trip of about two weeks. I'll be spending the first week and a bit visiting four of our university partners in Vietnam. Once I'm done with work, I'm having a short stopover of four nights in Tokyo - a place I had planned to visit last winter, before that trip got cancelled. Very happy to have a second chance to visit again!

Originally, during this trip we were also going to visit the fifth university partner in our project, who are located in Iloilo, Philippines. But we were shocked to learn yesterday that the city has been very badly flooded as a result of Typhoon Fengshen, which struck the Phillippines last weekend. It is pretty much a disaster zone, with no water or electricity - so obviously, we immediately cancelled our plans to travel there and spent yesterday trying to rearrange our flight itineraries in order to avoid the Philippines altogether. We are also very worried about our colleagues there, and hope that everyone is safe - though the devastation to property is sure to be terrible.

So instead of departing tomorrow morning as planned, we will leave a day later, on Thursday, and will travel directly to Hue City, Vietnam, for meetings with two of our partners there. We will carry on next Tuesday evening to Hanoi for more meetings, and will be finished work by next Friday (4 July). My boss will head back to Canada that day, and I'll travel on to Tokyo that night. I return to Canada on Tuesday 8 July.

I expect to have internet access for much of my trip, and so plan to blog throughout. Watch this space.