Friday, January 27, 2006

Happy Chinese New Year

To all my friends (remember me or not),
 
Wish you a very happy Chinese New Year. I pray that in this season you'll not only experience blessing and prosperity, but reconciliation and restoration. I pray that grace and love and forgiveness will abound in your visitations and your homes.
 
Have a good one!!
 
Joash Chan
 

Friday, January 06, 2006

Public Transportation - Trains (1)

I don't know how or why we started doing it, but now dad sends me to the train station and I take the train to work. It's a 10-minute drive to the train station, a 10-minute ride on the train, and another 10-minute walk to the office. It's half the price of the bus fare, and the train service runs on a schedule - and they are mostly on time. Sometimes they are late, for like 5 minutes the most. At least they have the decency to announce it through the speakers at the train station. The best part is that I don' t have to wake up at 7am.
 
The downside of taking the train to work? Well, for one, my dad has to take the trouble to fetch me to the train station. Can I walk to the train station? Sure, but it'll take 40 minutes. Dad normally wakes up earlier than me, so he's cool like that. Another downside is that he has to pick me up after work again. Sometimes he's not at home, so family friends (ya, we're really blessed like that) will have to fetch me - like I'm a king or something. Truly grateful for all these people.
 
Of course there are smokers at the train station - they seem to be everywhere, and those non-smoking signs or TAK NAK campaign efforts never do stop them. Cigarattes make people fearless like that, I guess that's why most gangsters are smokers. Then there's also the passangers that don't move in so that more can go in, but I won't go into an overly-crowded train anyway. There are little annoyances here and there, but all of life is like that...
 
What never ceases to entertain me are the announcers. Their slangs and different ways of pronouncing the same word give me something to think and laugh about. Some sound depressed when announcing a certain station, I have no idea why. Some just try too hard till they manage to pronounce the word in two different ways. Yes, even when I'm alone, making fun of their voices is a pretty enjoyable thing to do...