Rainy Sydney, a moment (Going back years..) and Ying Zi

Today, first day after Christmas at work . Its a bit chilly and raining
lightly. I woke up to the freshness of my room that I had just
reorganized (in basic sync with Feng Shui). I was feeling little cold last
night so I had completely closed the window. In retrospect that should
have prevented rain from coming in. Apparently it must have rained
quite a bit during night, leaving Sydney with a
wet but crispy, teary morning.

My jaw and my cheeks are still a bit out of shape from the
Dental surgery, and I could have well worked from home
( turns out there are hardly anyone at work, except for Nick
and few others in our floor). But I decided to venture
out anyway, and I have few software to copy from the
iso site at office. I had my light jacket on when I started from
room, but had to take it off after I reached the platform,
I was feeling bit too warm.

Once seated on train I put on my iPod and started shuffling
thru my latest purchases and oldies, Korean, Michael Jackson (!),
Faye Wong blah blah.. The whole trip today was worthwhile for a
couple of observations, at Central, the trains were parrallelly sitting
in their tracks on each platform in a way that I could see right
from my window and look at people on the next one, then thru
to next one..and next one..and all thru to the last platform in sight.
It was almost like looking at a mirror placed opposite to another.
You can't possibly do this in a normal office day because the
trains and platforms will be full of people.

But this morning it was a bit like looking
at people and their lives..and a nerve soothing beauty of a young
Sydney girl sitting at seat in front of me. Bit skinny and fragile
looking, but radiant like an olive Sun.

She was also listening to her nano.
And with few exchange of glances backwards she must have measured
me up as well.. ha ha.. or just been aware sitting next to me. Her
frothing with the music was a good sight, so was her glances looking
out, watching the rain drops rushing down the window,
for a moment we were sharing the same views. Reminds me of
fewJamese Blunt lines..

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Flying high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end..


God.. the moments you create,
who else can have such spontaneousness?

Good drifting away.
But yeah, nothing to remember or forget, but a small picturesque
moment, confined in a train car, watching the rain outside,
and smelling the radiance of an unknown fairy. .not bad
start for the end of the year.

The guy seated next to me probably was Chinese, as he kept on
intently looking at my iPod screen when I was changing song and
noticed Faye Wong, and her blockbuster number Ying Zi. The song
basically dances around the fact of being in complete love with
someone, that you cease to exist beyond nothing but a
shadow of that person.

Ying Zi (Shadow) by Wang Fei ( Faye Wong)
----------------------------------------------------
You've got a name
I am just a shadow
In your heart there is a shadow
I am just a name.

I can't put it clearly
or see what it means
this thing inside
doesn't have an explanation
or is it just a show of
Wrong assumption..

Bill O'Reilly, Australian TV, my swollen jaw..

I have been sitting in front of my Japanese tea table, watching lots of TV
and getting myself lost in the Internet, recovering from the teeth pulling this week.

The swelling has set in and remained constant, but not too painful as I feared.
I have cut down on the pain killers and remain solely on guards of antibiotics
and strong mouth rinse. As the girl in the pharmacy said, the antibiotics is
for killing the bacteria from within and the mouthwash from outside.
I've got the TV on most of the time while seated in blue IKEA sitting pads,
with my laptop placed at the brown Japanese table, on day and night.
Right now there is a slow movie set in Emperial India is on in ABC. Its a
train journey of few British and an injured Indian train driver.

I stumbled upon this vicious Fox News talk show, O'Reilly Factor in Youtube yesterday.
The host is the most loud mouthed arrogant moron named Bill O'Reilly. I remeber
watching him while I was Nepal, years ago, and I think I liked the show then.
But watching him vomit his outrageously stupid and one dimensional attacks makes me stir at the thought of how one right wing American evil can take a damning swipe at the entire American Goodness and taint it in front of the entire world. He is a vehement pro Bush,
pro Iraq War fool with full bred blind support and I would say almost a Bush-faith, but no
trace of wisdom or civility. While he seems to have a bit of intellect as to understand
his version of war, saying invading Iraq in spite of a horrendous mistake by Bush
is just a 'mistake', he has no idea about what is going on in the ground, what the American
troops there think of the war and the errie similarity of fighting in vain as their
forefathers did in Vietnam, or what are the other options that could bring about an
immediate or long term solution to the explosive crisis. Watching him is like
watching a mad bull in a crowded market. But disappointingly no one seems to be
able to fully quash this garbage mouth. I have seen some people having a free ride
on rampages like this, believing they can say and what they like just on the strength
of their arrogance and people's tolerance, but this guy is grand daddy of them all..
don't know how the Americans put up with him.

Christmas in Australia

Christmas in Australia is more in sync with the inherent Australian
nature of life - Outdoor activities, beaches mostly. People talk more about going places,
traveling, family vacations, rather than a traditional dinner or Churches
or other more conventional ways of celebration more prevalent in UK,
Europe or North America. I hardly hear about the type of family gatherings
as seen in movies, people here rather make most of the holiday and take it
as a long week off.

This might probably have to do with the season of the Christmas here, its
mid summer in Australia. Its not snowy, white, shivering boxing day.
Its rather full blown sunny day, partly raining, again, beautiful sunshines.
Temperature in Perth on Christmas eve was frying 40 degrees, it was bit
better in Sydney at around 27. So naturally you are enticed to go out, rather
than sit around the fire and sing Christmas carols ( ha ha..imagine doing this in Perth) .
But they do a lot of shopping, and buy gifts for each other to the degree where they spend a
small fortune out of their pockets.

How about us, non Christians in Australia? Well, its a good resting time for us
as well. We won't have huge fat layered turkey dinner, which I think is bad for this time of
the year anyway. We relax and go around as well, or do things on our own, or
get our rotten teeth pulled..like I did.

My Current Verdict on Asian / Australian Cities

City	Infra	Size	Places	Culture	People	Livability	Overall
1. Tokyo	100	100	100	100	100	100	100.00
2. Beijing	60	30	140	130	100	80	90.00
3. Shanghai	70	40	120	115	100	75	86.67
4. Hong Kong	80	40	110	100	85	90	84.17
5. Bangkok	65	35	100	100	100	70	78.33
6. Sydney	80	20	90	50	105	120	77.50
7. Melbourne	70	10	60	50	110	130	71.67
8. Seoul	70	35	70	80	85	65	67.50
9. Kathmandu	5	2	110	125	80	25	57.83
10. Pokhara	3	1	90	95	90	65	57.33
11. New Delhi	35	30	50	75	20	15	37.50
12. Bangalore	25	8	40	30	90	30	37.17