Antony’s Weblog

Finally… this morning at 10:00, I got my driving license in British Colmbia, Canada.  It is not that easy to get one.  I have spent almost C$ 2000 taking driving course and taken driving test 5 times!  The driving license thing has made me crazy for about four months.  Fortunately, I am relieved now….

You can see the result of my driving test in the following picture.

This morning, before I went to the driving test, I was very nervous.  I have a great physiological burden because I have failed four times.  Failing the same test for four times is not a nice experience.  When I studied in the University of Stuttgart, Germany, when we fail the same subject twice, we have to leave the university (without any degree).  Fortunately they don’t apply the same rule for driving test in Canada…. puihhh….

Honestly, I would prefer taking public transportation whenever possible.  Why?  Firstly, we can do some other things when using public transportation, like reading a book.  Secondly, car maintenance and gasoline price are so expensive these days.  Thirdly, I am not good in driving….

I used to drive when I lived in Indonesia, but not very often because I didn’t have a car.  I usually used motor-cycle.  When I lived in Germany and Singapore, I didn’t drive at all.  The public transportations are simply too good, so we don’t really need cars.  Canada is a different story.  The public transportation is s***, especially in suburb areas.  That’s why I feel that having a car is a "must"; otherwise life would be very difficult.

Now my next challenge is buying a car.  I have to spend about $20K (not sure yet what kind of car I want to buy).  Oh my God….

One of the questions that may pop up in our mind when we relocate to a new place is "how much is the living cost?"  Before moving to Vancouver, Canada, I have done a small research too.  However, after arriving here, I was very surprise.  The living cost is higher than what I expected.  I would like to share my monthly living cost in Vancouver, Canada.

• Apartment rental: C$ 975
• Food and groceries: C$ 300
• Public transportation: C$ 70
• Telephone: C$ 50
• Television and Internet: C$ 85
• Entertainment: C$ 50
• Clothing: C$ 50
• Others: C$ 50

If you sum up all of the costs above, you will get the total of C$ 1630.  What do you think?  Is it quite normal for one person living in one-bed room?  Starting from this month, my living cost will be higher because I have a wife now.  It would be even higher when I have applied for mortgage and have bought a car already.

Just to let you know, I have a simple lifestyle.  I don’t have a car because I don’t have a driving license yet.  I rarely eat in the restaurant; most of the time I cook myself.  I don’t really like shopping; usually I buy new clothes when I really need them.

Ok, now let’s do some comparisons.  I have lived in Germany for a couple of years too and here is my monthly living cost there:

• Apartment rental (including television): EUR 300
• Food and groceries: EUR 250
• Public transportation: EUR 45
• Telephone: EUR 50
• Internet: EUR 30
• Entertainment: EUR 40
• Clothing: EUR 50
• Others: EUR 50

The total is EUR 815 or about C$ 1140.  May be it is not that fair to compare this with Vancouver because I lived in a studio while in Germany and now I live in a one-bed room apartment.

Next, I will try to compare with the living in cost in Singapore.  I have lived in Singapore for quite some too and here is my monthly living cost there:

• Apartment rental (including television): S$ 900
• Food and groceries: S$ 350
• Public transportation: S$ 75
• Telephone: $S 50
• Internet: $S 60
• Entertainment: S$ 50
• Clothing: S$ 50
• Others: S$ 50

The total is S$ 1585 or about C$ 1135.  May be it is not too fair either to compare this with Vancouver because I lived in HDB while in Singapore.  What is HDB?  HDB, shorts for House Development Board, is a government subsidized apartment.  It is cheaper than private apartment, but the condition is usually not that nice.

What makes my living cost in Canada so much higher?  Mostly, it is because my apartment rental is very expensive.  However, even if I rent a cheaper apartment (let’s say $700/month), the cost is still quite high.

The cost above does not include yearly trip to my home country, Indonesia.  Once a year, I go back to my home country to visit my family.  If I include the flight ticket, then the cost in Canada is even much higher.  Here is the comparison of flight tickets between Germany, Singapore and Canada to Indonesia:

• Germany - Indonesia: EUR 750 ~ C$ 1050
• Singapore - Indonesia: S$ 500 ~ C$ 360
• Canada - Indonesia: C$ 1500

Two days ago, one of my old friends sent an email.  He was asking, why I never write a single blog about Magelang, our hometown in Indonesia.  He said that I have written many blogs about Germany, Singapore and Canada; but not a single one about Magelang.  Well… he is true in a way.  As a matter of fact, I do have some pages and pictures my childhood in Magelang.  This gallery is one example.

So, where is Magelang actually?  Magelang is a small city in Central Java, Indonesia.  If you open your map, you can find it at 7.28′ S, 110.12′ E.  Why do I call it, "Magelang, a city of hope"?  That is what we usually call our city Magelang Kota Harapan.  Actually harapan in this context is not hope.  It is an acronym of Hidup Aman Rapi Asri Nyaman.  I’ll try to translate it into English: Life Safe Nice Beautiful Comfort (not sure if they are the right translation though).

There are some sites about Magelang on the Internet, e.g.:

• Magelang at JogloSemar.coid
• Magelang at Wikipedia.org
• Magelang at Britannica.com
• Magelang.org (unfortunately available in Indonesian language only)
• Borobudur Temple - the largest Buddhist temple in the world, located near Magelang.
• Borobudur Park - the official site of Borobudur.
• Another page about Borobudur Temple.

I have taken some pictures too when I visited my hometown during summer vacations.  Enjoy the pictures….

My mother and brother at our house in Magelang

My brother at our house in Magelang

A local citizen riding his bicycle (may be just came back from the market)

A very nice view in Magelang…

The most popular hotel in Magelang.  If you ever visit Magelang, I really recommend this hotel.

Today I bought a 1-liter box of orange juice in a big supermarket.  When I buy a food product, usually I check the expired date.  I don’t what was wrong with me this morning.  I didn’t check the expired date of my orange juice.  Guess what…. when I arrived at home and check the date, it is written "05-Sep-05".  So the product has been expired for more than 4 months already.  Unbelievable…. isn’t it?

Can you imagine that?  A very big supermarket in Canada sells expired products.  What would happen if the person who bought it didn’t check the expired date?

Anyway, since my first day in Canada, I have been a little bit frustrated with "expired date".  I have visited many supermarkets in Vancouver, Canada, and I have seen many food products that don’t have expired date.  Yeah, I am not kidding….  Sometimes, I have to spend a couple of minutes, looking for "Best before…" sign.  In some cases, I simply couldn’t find the expired date.  There are two possibilities when I am stuck in this situation: 1) trust the supermarket that they won’t sell expired products; or 2) don’t buy the product.

The following picture shows a food product that don’t have expired date.  It is a pork luncheon meat sold at a supermarket in Vancouver, Canada.  Can you help me finding the expired date?

I am very interested to know, what the policy of Canadian government regarding of "expired date" is.  Do they require all food products to have expired date?  I don’t believe if a country like Canada doesn’t require expired date on every food products.

Today, I took driving test for the fourth times.  Guess what, I failed (again)!!!  It’s time to evaluate what was really wrong.  First time failure is very common.  Second time failure is still acceptable.  How about third time?  May be that is not very common, but in some cases acceptable (because of bad luck, for example).

So what was wrong in my case?  Four times failure!  I wish I would have known what the reasons are.  At the moment, I can only see three possibilities:

• Myself.  May be I am too stupid.  I admit that I am only good in something related to the left brain, like mathematics, programming, physics, etc.  My right brain is somehow not well developed.  That’s why many of my friends said, "You look like a dummy, but in fact you are quite smart".  I am not sure whether driving is related to the left brain of the right brain.  Another possibility is because I don’t have self-confidence.  I am a type of person who feel confident when I am sure that I can do it.
• Instructor.  I am not blaming my instructor.  He has been teaching driving for more than 20 years.  He is also an approved driving instructor in British Columbia province.  Based on these facts, he should be a qualified instructor.  Anyway, I will change my driving instructor.  Let’s see whether this will help or not.
• Examiner.  There are so many driving examiners who are very picky.  Just one small mistake can cause us to fail.  My examiner today is one of them.  Why?  In my first driving test, the examiner pointed out what my mistakes was.  However, she also gave compliments to some of my maneuvers.  In the third driving test, my examiner said that I almost passed the test (the exam sheet was almost empty).  Unfortunately, I broke the law by turning right at "no right turn on red" intersection.  Today, I was driving with the same styles as last time… guess what, my exam sheet was full of mistakes.

Well, I have spent more than C$1,300 to prepare and take driving test, but still no luck.  I have to spent a few hundred bucks more to prepare the next one.  Just wish me luck next time.  May the Force be with me….

Vancouver is voted as the best city to live in year 2005 by EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit).  Read also the news from CNN and BBC.  The second place and third place are Melbourne and Vienna respectively.  The study was mainly based on the political climate, so the cities with lower perceived threat of terrorism will be ranked higher.

I have been living in Vancouver since 6 months ago.  Well, actually I am not living at the heart of Vancouver, but in Richmond, one of Vancouver’s suburb areas.  Vancouver is definitely a very nice city (I think everybody agrees).  It has spectacular natural scenery on the one side and a busy metropolitan area on the other side.  Unfortunately, I don’t really like living here for some reasons (read also my blog).

A long time ago (in a galaxy not so far way), one of my best friends told me there five factors that make us enjoy living in a city (or country).  What are they?

• Language.  Language is very important because you can’t live in a country if you don’t speak the language.  I had this experience when I came to Germany for the first time.  It was a very though time since I don’t know German language at all.  It’s true that you can learn the language while living there, but it is not as easy as it sounds.  Some people, like, me, cannot learn a new language so quickly.
• Weather.  You don’t want to live in a city that has extreme temperature, do you?  A city with very high temperature during summer and very low temperature during winter is not nice.  For you who live in a tropical country may not consider weather at all.  However, I can tell you it is very important factor.  I have lived in a tropical country for almost 25 years, and I never checked weather forecast when I was there… :)  Now, I realize that weather forecast is an important thing to check before you go out.
• Career.  Of course, all of us need a job no matter in which city we are living.  However, there are some cities (and countries) where it is too difficult to find a job.  Even if we can find a job, sometimes the salary is not good enough to live comfortably.  In some other cities, the living cost might be very high, so even if you receive a high salary, you still cannot live comfortably.  So, we should have a balance between our salary and the living cost.
• Friends.  Do you want to live in a city where you know nobody there?  You won’t have a social life living in such condition.  It’s true that we can make new friends while living in a new city.  Sometimes, it is also not that easy because of culture differences and some other factors.
• Entertainment.  We all have to work, but we need entertainment too.  It can be watching movies, sports, reading books, window shopping, or many other things.  Don’t laugh when I say "watching movies".  My hometown in Indonesia doesn’t have a cinema at all.  I do like watching movies, but I can’t do that in my hometown.  We did have some cinemas more than 10 years ago, but all of them have filed bankruptcy.

Of course, there are still some other factors.  Each of us may have our own lists too when considering a city to live.  Some people may say Vancouver is the best city to live, but some others might say it is not….

I have been living in 7 cities in 4 different countries so far, and here is my version of the best city to live.

1. Singapore
2. Vancouver, Canada
3. Yogyakarta, Indonesia
4. Jakarta, Indonesia
5. Stuttgart, Germany
6. Magelang, Indonesia
7. Bochum, Germany

Hello all….  Happy New Year to all of you….

This is my first posting in 2006.  I have been blogging since last year.  I will still be blogging this year, and hopefully more regularly (my target is one posting every week).  Looking back at year 2005, here is the summary of my blog activity:

• Antony’s Mobile Blog - 13 postings - This is my personal blog about mobile phone technology and wireless industry.  The postings include mobile phones trends, tutorials and mobile development.
• Antony’s Personal Opinion - 14 postings - This blog contains postings from many different topics that interest me, including economy, finance, engineering, computer, etc.  They might jump from one topic to another completely different topic.
• Antony’s Personal Life - 16 postings - This is a blog about my personal life, starting from my daily life, career and love.  If you want to know about my personal life, then this might be a starting point.

In total, there were 43 postings since March 2005.  It means 4.3 blogs every month or about one every week.  It’s not a bad number, isn’t it?

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….