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Showing posts from June, 2011

The Railway Station

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A train station is called a little differently depending where you are from or what kind of heritage you have. In Singapore, we call it the railway station (British heritage) while people from the USA may know it as a railroad station. Whatever it is called, it serves the same purpose - it is a facility for trains to stop regularly to unload and load passengers and goods, a connection between two points, two countries and an efficient and cheaper mode of transport. The world's oldest railway station still in use can be found in Liverpool. It was built in 1930 and is on the Liverpool to Manchester line. A terminal or terminus is a station at the end of a rail line. Trains have to end their journey there or reverse out of the station. Hence the railway station. Once when I was in Brussels, in attempting to travel to Brugge, I took a train from the airport to Brussels City centre to connect onto another train but got totally lost in transit as I emerged from the train onto the plat

Sway

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Sometimes in life, people will blame bad luck when things do not go their way. Be it about money, business and especially in gambling. They say it is bad fortune and they try to rearrange the furniture so that bad vibes will not flow in and got trapped there. Some gamblers believe that they should not change their underwear. Haha. With two casinos here, such superstitions will only increase but they do not realise that the only way misfortune will not strike them is simply not to gamble. The casinos will being in thousands of jobs but I can't think of the costs to people's lives in the next 10-20 years. One argument is that the gamblers were already gamblers even before the casinos were here. They would travel to Genting, Leisure World in Batam who lure old folks here with free meals (this is true as I used to golf at Batam in the past and we were the only golfers in the ferry with the rest adjourning to gamble on arrival, mostly old folks). Are many of our senior citizens

Honour Thy Father (& Mother)

I have just been back from an exhausting but yet rewarding family trip. It didn't helped that I was also away the week before. That left me with no time at all to pen an article for all fathers on this planet but it is better late than never. When I found what little time I had at this ungodly hour before I hit the sack, I also found that seven new countries have reached my blog making it 78 countries in total. The latest being Austria, Guyana (near Venezuela), Iceland, Kenya, Macedonia, Mexico and Iceland. Hey, thanks for visiting and the many others. The other countries are also increasing in their numbers. I want you to warm up by listening to "Papa" (Paul Anka) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMMlcu0cD50 ... "your children live through you and they'll grow and leave you too". Crank up some hobbies and hook up with friends to keep busy mates. Everybody can treat dad to dinner on Father's Day, it is a noble act and is symbolic but beyond tha

Roaring McIlroy

Once upon a time there was Tiger Woods who was the world number one and whenever anyone comes a-challenging, they are probably saying to themselves that they will try for second best. Oh, how the high and mighty has fallen. We are not used to the name being touted as world no. 15 are we? But then again, Tiger may not be feeling all the pressures he had faced previously. He still has the money. I mean in life, it is either we build ourselves up with all the hype or others will do their bidding for you. So who is Rory McIlroy? - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NFAOktnUPI 2011 US Open at Congressional 72nd Hole: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UHklhhske4 Then along came a precocious talent, a fresh face Northern Irish lad (think George Best in nationality and soccer?) with wild curly locks looking no more than the kid who delivers your pizza or the kid next door taking the world by storm. The most important thing to take note here is Rory had just suffered a final round

Palace of The Golden Horses @ Mines Resort

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Going to a place never been before? We are all behind time. Just around Kuala Lumpur alone, I have been to Genting, Petaling Jaya and Shah Alam but never to the Mines Resort - an old mine converted to a resort. I missed the company trip some years back on a 3-day trip (including travel time by bus) and I reckoned I was too lazy to go through the trouble of packing and probably just enough time for a day of golf and back. This trip was prearranged way back and just having been back from Krabi and returning to read the news of the Orchard Road flood and then the 7-hour jam ordeal at the Causeway through JB almost had me nauseating. Can you imagine getting stuck there and then your food/water runs out and when you need to pee? Besides I hated long bus trip because I have taken 18 hour overnight bus trips before, rest a night then another gruelling 6 hour trip by van and another 2 hours by ferry. That was when I was poor. Though still poor, "let the poor say I am rich" - so I