iphoting's Sink

There’s this verse that I come across that is simple, but it does have many levels to it. That is, John 1:1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The amount of data loss during translation is really insurmountable. ‘Word’ as above in Greek is actually ‘logos’. The difference in the English and Greek meanings are left as an exercise for the reader, though close yet different.

There’s this saying, simple sentences can hold simple and/or complex ideas; yet complex sentences can only usually hold complex ideas. Using complex sentences to means simple things would make things unnecessarily complex, rendering the whole issue, complex.

Whatever.

I’m halfway through Richard Dawkins The God Delusion but I’m still not an atheist. There’s a loophole in this arguments here and there. I need more time to accurately put my finger to them.

Meanwhile, school work is bugging me to no end.

I wonder what Education means in the Singaporean context. Let me quote the Ministry of Education from its website.

Education does two things: it develops the individual and educates the citizen.

Education is about nurturing the whole child. Indeed, this is the traditional Asian understanding of the term. Education means developing the child morally, intellectually, physically, socially and aesthetically.

So in short, a child, should at the end of each educational process, see improvements in areas such as moral, interllectual, physical, social, and in the aesthetics. If such outcome is desired, the place of learning, as a role model, should also exhibit these virtues. Failure of which would result in products contrary to the high ideals set by the ministry.

After reading this post, it made me wonder again; what exactly is the outcome of education and what positions do institutes of learning hold in the lives of those being changed.

Why?

Achieving all awards in one end, while losing morality on the other is an utter failure on all counts. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37). I wonder.

In this second part of my trip to Hong Kong, I’ll wrap up my last post and jump on to food.

I was last talking about Trams which cost S$0.40 a ride, flat-fee. The tram system transverses the urban areas of Hong Kong length wise. Though they are not fast and are usually crowded, they are very very economical and can save one lots of walking. HK$2 for a few MTR stations vs HK$5.60 is always a steal. Trams are fast during peak hours but lag behind buses during off-peak hours. However, when travelling long distances, it’s always advisable to travel via buses or trains. There might be more direct routes offered.

The taxis there are reasonably priced, unlike that of in Singapore. There’s no stupid things such as midnight surcharges which essentially is a dictated cartel monopoly and abuse.

On major holidays, such as Christmas and New Year’s Day, most public transport systems (including MTR trains) operate through the night (overnight). As for Singapore, I have got no idea what transport operators here are up to. Economy growing too fast I guess, need to create inconveniences to slow things down a little. The lousy excuse provided by MRT that trains and tracks must be inspected every night sounds unconvincing. If by skipping one single inspection for continuous operation will affect safety levels, then surely, the system is questionable. If MTR can do it, and so far, I haven’t seen them crashing due to a lack of a one night maintenance inspection, I have no idea why MRT can’t.

Maybe it’s just an issue with mindset.

Now to food, my favourite. There are a few major and non-cheap restaurants that one must check out if dough is available. 稻香 restaurant is a must try. (Maxims too.) It has one of the best reputation and from my experience there, their 点心 is reputed. As for steak, there’s Boston Steak House which is very good too. There’s this another (westernised-chinese) restaurant which is classic, 太平官.

As for budget food, Tea Restaurants, 茶餐厅, serve very good breakfast sets. The 鸳鸯 (coffee, tea and milk harmoniously mixed) is usually known to be very good if the tea house is there long enough (haven’t closed down). Tea restaurants usually serve western dishes with a chinese taste or style.

Then, on to the semi-fastfood restaurants. Cafe de Coral and Maxims are the two prominent ones, Fairwood is quite rare these days. They serve chinese dishes with a slight western taste, but that’s largely perspective.

Fastfood wise, MacDonalds is the cheapest in Hong Kong when compared to the world. From this, you can easily see the fierce food competition in the market. It looks as though the food market is saturated, but look again. Hong Kong people have a skill of creating markets.

One thing anyone must know when you dine in Hong Kong is that there is a price discrimination between peak and off-peak hours. Peak hours are the most expensive and crowded, i.e. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Off-peak hours however, are no less crowded but food items tend to go for half to three-quarter price. Obviously, off-peak hours are non-peak hours, i.e. Brunch, High-Tea and Supper.

Before you enter the restaurant for a seat, always ASK for the high-tea (or whatever) menu. The prices are miles apart and will make food in Hong Kong seem dirt cheap. If there’s no high-tea menu/prices available, go next door or something. There’s bound to be a restaurant with such within walking distances.

Hence, it pays to wake up slightly late, i.e. 10 am, have breakfast at brunch timings (11 am), have lunch at high-tea timings (2.30 pm) and have dinner during supper timings (8.30 pm).

Just a heads up, Books Warehouse Sale will be on from 29th Dec to 2nd Jan at Singapore Expo. It’s a place where you can find good books at good prices.

The internet connectivity has been horrible over the past day or two. Hence, I can only come to a single simple conclusion. That is, internet connectivity cannot be guaranteed in South East Asia during times of crisis like war and such. There’s just too little redundancy for extremities.

I’ve been training up my memory for the past month using various methods. The first and most effective for the photographic and topographic component is map familiarisation. Simply put, I read the map of the an unfamiliar location which I am about to go and leave the map behind when I leave the house. I’ll then navigate the area using purely memory and ‘intuition’. This way, my ability to fully visualise, simulate and rotate the map mentally by memory has improved by leaps and bounce. I hope one day, I would be able to go anywhere by just having a single quick glance on the map. This practise never failed me while I was in Hong Kong, navigating the complicated maze of streets in Causeway Bay alone, attempting to locate KrispyKream Doughnut shop, without asking for directions (I just needed the challenge).

The second method that I’ve employed is to subconsciously/intuitively remember every card that is played and to be played in a game of Bridge. I hope this explains my response, ‘intuition’, when asked on how I knew what cards are coming out next or that no card is left.

Looks like school is zooming in real close and the internet connectivity has not improved in any single way. Access to Google is hampered.

Statistics out, church received a weekend attendance of 45,333. Number of respondents in altar calls are still pending but the last one that I saw was massive. Almost the whole floor of the Expo Hall was filled up with respondents. From the stage front, sides, to the aisles of chair blocks to the back.

We shall see what all these mean.

I suspect that the telephone exchange that my house phones are connected to got fried by the rain, or something to that effect. The house is no longer receiving external dial-ins while dial-outs work fine. Whenever someone calls, they will hear a ring or two and lots of static, similar to what you see in horror movies.

Apart from this, my internet connection has become intermittent. The problem is that the repair man would only be here tomorrow morning.

I hope my modem holds up to this as I don’t have a surge protector for telephone lines.

I was at SimLim square some time ago and I overheard this conversation in the tiny lift. Since the couple was talking about Macs, I became interested in what they have to say.

The lady was whining about how bad the Mighty Mouse is - “It has only one mouse button at this time and age!” Their Keyboards too are more expensive than any other similar competing products. What’s more, all the software are all so expensive and they all have to be original.

Sounds good. It’ll be nice that the perception of piracy be kept in the Windows world, so that Mac developers can create even better and prettier software for normal people to use. I’ll be even happier that ignorant people are kept locked in the PC world as there’s “no software for the Mac”.

Unfortunately, the school holidays are about to end; I’ve just got my Literature books. I prefer sleep to work.

Here’s something that I hate about Singapore - all talk and inaction. In the article mentioned above, it brings up the dire traffic situation along Orchard Road. Anyone who has owned a car and driven through Orchard Road at an unfortunate time will know that the traffic situation is not just “due to the festive season”. Major bypasses should have already been built and bus services should have already been improved.

Yet, all LTA can say is that “the implementation of the Orchard Road Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) cordon last year has resulted in a drop in the ‘through traffic’”. Charging people who use the road when there are no viable alternatives is NOT the way to go.

That’s why like they all say, improvements only come when they retire.

This is the DAY.

Anyway, apart from the iPod Nano, my cousin gave me a cool book. He’s the rebellious do the different way kind of person. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I do have a slight interest in the opposite school of thought, i.e. atheism, however. So I guess, this book will be a nice read.

Was at IKEA Tampines just now and was amazed by the number of people who are there. In a remote corner of Singapore, there was a massive traffic jam along the road leading to and from Courts and IKEA. Surprisingly, most of them left IKEA and/or Courts with their hands filled with some form of purchases.

Surely not everyone there is looking for new furniture, I hope. Cheap hot-dogs maybe.