Antony’s Weblog

A new adventure is coming…. I will fly to China this week for Christmas vacation. I and my girl friend, Emi, will explore some cities in China, including Hong Kong and Beijing.

This would be my first visit to China. Although my grandfathers are originally from China, I have never been to China. In fact I don’t speak Chinese either, although I look like a Chinese (many people even think that I am from China). Anyway… I will have a chance to visit my ancestors’ country in the next few days. It now becomes the fastest growing country in the world, in terms of economic growth. I do like traveling and involve in new adventures. I have been visiting many places around the world. Sometimes I still don’t believe it because I was a chicken-hearted boy (not sure whether this is the right English term… :)). I was always afraid of going to new places without someone accompanying me. Not only to another city, but also when I went to new places in my hometown. A lot of questions always popped in my mind: how do I get there, how do I go home, what will happen if something go wrong, etc, etc…. That’s why, I usually went anywhere with my mother until I was in the senior high school. You can laugh now, but that was me long time ago. That’s why I never thought that I could go to another country at that time.

The situation changed drastically after I studied in Germany. The adventures began….

Now, five years later, I have visited 14 countries with different cultures. Here is the list of cities and countries I have visited so far:

• Indonesia: Magelang (hometown), Cianjur (my girl friend’s hometown), Yogyakarta, Semarang, Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Bali, and many small cities in Java island.
• Turkey: Istanbul.
• Singapore: Singapore
• Germany: Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg, Meinheim, Munich, Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Ulm, Konstanz, Hamburg, Berlin, Bremen, Hannover, Bochum, Essen, Dortmund, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe.
• France: Paris, Strasbourg.
• Switzerland: Zurich, Luzern.
• Finland: Helsinki.
• Czech Republic: Prague.
• Belgium: Brussels, Liege, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp.
• Netherlands: Maastricht. Italy: Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice.
• Spain: Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona.
• United States: Tampa (FL), St. Louis (MI), San Jose (CA).
• Canada: Ottawa (ON), Vancouver (BC), Victoria (BC).

Reading a Vancouver transportation map is quite challenging.  What I mean transportation here is public transportation, like bus and subway.  When I first looked at Vancouver transportation map, I need several minutes to figure out how it works.  The picture below is an example of how the map looks like.  It is a map of Chinatown area in Vancouver downtown.

So, now let’s try to play a little game.  Suppose that I want to take bus #3 at Main Street.  Where should I wait for the bust?  Where is the bus stop?  Well…. there is no information about bus stop at the map.  You have to walk along Main Street and look for the bus stop.  Hopefully you don’t need to walk that far.  Why doesn’t the map contain bus stops?  I don’t know either….  Hope the Vancouver authority realizes what’s wrong with the map.

Assume that I know where the bus stop is.  I take bus #3 at Main Street.  The bus is going to the north and then we are arriving at the Main - Pender intersection.  Look at the intersection that I mark with black circle.  Will the bus #3 turn left or go straight?  Again, you have to guess or ask the bus driver.  Hope that you will meet a nice bus driver because I have met many rude bus drivers in Vancouver.

Why don’t they use different color for different bus route?  Once again, I don’t know.  They draw everything in red color and hope that everybody can understand and read it.

Now, let’s look at the bus stop.  The picture below shows one of bus stops in Greater Vancouver area.  In fact, I took the picture on my first day in Vancouver.  At that time, I wanted to go to my office and I had to change bus in this area.  Now, tell me which buses stop here.  Also try to find out, what time they will arrive at this bus stop.  You won’t have any idea because no information at all.

You can see "Peak hours only", but you don’t know what time the bus will come.  What do you need to do if you arrive in this bus stop at 8.45?  Will you wait for 15 minutes hoping that you haven’t missed the last bus?

Why doesn’t Vancouver transportation authority provide more useful information?  Most probably is because everybody is driving in Vancouver and only a few people will take buses.

I have to admit that I don’t really like driving. I would usually prefer walking because it is also a good exercise.  When I worked in Germany, I used to walk everyday from my apartment to the office.  Not only healthy, but it is very cheap too.  Sometimes, when I have to go somewhere further, I take subway, tram or bus.  I can enjoy my trip by reading a book, playing mobile phone or just seeing the scenery from the window.

Unfortunately, we need a car to live in Canada.  Many places are simply not reachable by public transportation.  I would say public transportation is s*** here.  Furthermore, many places are not designed to be pedestrian friendly.  That’s why I must have a driving license to survive here. 

Back to the driving test, what was really wrong?  There might be several reasons:

• I wasn’t used to drive on the right side.  We drive on the left side in my home country, just like England.  As you might know, about 1/3 of the world drive on the left side, mostly are ex-British colonies.  This URL contains a list of countries in the world and information on which side of the road they are driving.  Even though I have been practicing to drive on the right side for almost 2 months, sometimes I am still confused.
• The examiner usually has prepared a very tough route.  At first attempt, the examiner took me to a wide road and not so busy.  The speed limit on this road is 50 km/h, but all the cars there run at about 60 - 70 km/h.  During the test, I just followed a car in front of me.  Suddenly I realized that I broke the law by driving at 65 km/h.  Of course, this automatically made me fail.  Interesting?  I believe all the drivers on that road have passed the test too, but they still broke the law.
• I was used to drive in a country where nobody has ever done driving test.  I am not kidding.  It is no longer secret that Indonesians can get driving license by paying some amount of money to the police.  All of my friends and families do that.  Can you imagine than how the road situation is?  We have to be very careful when driving there.  Many crazy drivers, especially bus drivers…  As an example, a driver may pass a car by changing lane of the opposite direction.

Well, I have an appointment to take the fourth driving test at the end of January next year.  Hope I pass this time….

Today I saw a very interesting advertisement in a local newspaper.  The ad is about a new car model from one of the largest car manufacturers.  It is published in one full page.  There is a picture of a very nice car in the middle of the page.  Just below the picture, there is price information; it is written "from $13.000*" (I forget the exact price).

I said to myself, wow… it is a very good price for such a nice car.  But wait a second… there is * sign next to the price.  There must be something wrong (just like many advertisement from American).  Ok, I look at the bottom of the page.  There is a paragraph written in a very small font so that we can hardly read it.  It is written that the price of $13.000 is for different model.  The model shown on the picture is about $18.000.

What the h*** is that?  They put a picture of a product and then write the price below it, but the price is for different model.  Am I too stupid or are they too smart?  Yeah… I hate this kind of marketing.  Unfortunately, this kind of ad is very often in North America.  Another thing that I don’t like here is the fact that they exclude tax from the price list.  If we see price list on American shops, we can expect that we will pay more.  Not to mention, there might some other hidden costs.

When I live in Germany, if we buy something, the price we have to pay is what we see on the price list.  An interesting fact, they have a law that requires every restaurants to put their food price near the entrance door.  The purpose is, of course, to allow the customers checking the food price before they eat in that particular restaurant.  The written price must already include tax.  This is actually very good practice, especially from customers point of view.

Well… every country has different way of selling something.  My advice, if you see an advertisement in North America: read carefully the small text at the bottom of the page.  You will find the "truth" there.  If you buy an expensive products, like car, make sure you know the final $$$ you have to pay.  Don’t get surprise at the end….

Recently I asked myself, why does North America use different system of measurement than the rest of the world?  They measure length in mile, while the rest of us use meter.  They measure weight in pound, while the rest of us use gram.  They measure volume in gallon, while the rest of us use liter.

Basically we have two systems of measurement, i.e. metric system and English system.  The metric system, a.k.a. SI (Système International d’Unités) is the most widely used system of measurement.  The base units include meter and gram.  The English system, a.k.a. British system, was originally introduced in the United Kingdom.  They use familiar objects or parts of the body as the basic units of measurement.  For example, distance on the ground is measured with foot.  Volume is measured with gallon (the old name of pail is gallon).

When I moved to North America for the first time, I was a little bit confused.  I am more familiar with SI and many people here are more familiar with English system.  They say something like "It’s only five miles from here", "The baby’s weight is 10 pounds" or "The area of this apartment is 800 square feet".  Although I had a lesson how to convert English system to SI in the high school, I have forgotten most of them.

Why does North America still use English system while the rest of the world uses SI?  Actually the US government has required the use of SI in all business activities.  Read more information at NIST web site.  Unfortunately this mandate is easier to say than to realize.  Americans are still using English system in their daily life.

How do we convert English system to SI (or vice versa)?  The "no brain" way is to use Google Calculator.  You can type the following expression in Google search box:

• 5 miles in meters
• 10 pounds in kilogram
• 800 square feet in square meter

I have also compiled a table of conversion between English system to SI:

• 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters
• 1 foot = 0.305 meter
• 1 mile = 1.609 kilometers
• 1 ounce = 28.35 grams
• 1 pound = 0.454 kilogram
• 1 (square foot) = 0.093 square meter
• 1 gallon = 3.785 liters
• 1 mile per gallon = 0.425 kilometer per liter

There is an interesting fact about 1 ounces.  Some Indonesian people believe that 1 ounce = 100 grams.  They even use this "standard" to buy something in the traditional market.  Interesting, huh?  In fact, when I was a kid, I was taught that 1 ounce = 100 grams.  I don’t know the history and background of this.  For all Indonesian people who read this blog, let’s tell our friends and relatives to correct this mistake.

Personally, I hope that Americans are willing to adopt SI.  It’s too difficult to live with different standards with the rest of the world.  Just an example in the mobile phones industry, Americans who use CDMA network for their mobile phones will find difficulties when they are traveling to Europe or Asia.  The rest of the world is using GSM network, and many countries don’t support CDMA network.

Updated: I have comments from my readers that 1 ons in Indonesia is actually from Dutch measurement system.  They use 1 ons = 100 grams.  This is not the same as ounce in BTU.  Thanks to Supique and Tedja for the comments.