Quality of Life
29th July 2007 6:20pm Fremont, San Francisco
4 days since stayed here, never a single day i missed home... this has to be one of the best trip ever
hmm.. wat can i say about this small town call fremont, its quiet, the weather is perfect, cool breeze, bright sun all at a right balance of 20 to 23 degrees, roads are clean, buildings are new, pple here are extremely laid back and friendly.. onli realised todae from one of the locals that is one of the most sought after and wealthiest places in USA... woosh..
anyway, colleague n i drove all the way to fisherman wharf yesterdae, abt an hour drive down their 880 highway towards bay bridge.. traffic's fine, no crazy taxis cutting our way, everyone driving at a consistant pace.. i've got the priviledge to do the navigation, well at least i can safetly say by now i should be able to navigate ard San Francisco without the map.. ^_^ the roads signs and orientation are pretty easy to read and understand anyway.. so anyone can do it.
Staying, toking and working with the pple here, gave me new perspectives that i believe someone purely here for a holiday will be unable to see... well that again remains strictly to my point of view. -- that is the quality of life here as compared to SG... makes me feel quality of life in SG is still light years away as compared to here.. or even, for geographical or cultural reasons we cld nvr even come near smth like that in the far future..
well take one of those nua days i spend here. i wake up in the morning, had breakfast, finished up my studies by noon. stepped out of the hotel, sun is strong and glaring yet, harmless infront of the cool weather... we then drove around the neighbourhood for food.. neighbourhoods can be like the size of amk and if i wana go to another neighbourhood i have to use the highway, that will probably take abt 5 mins of driving... just on the side of the highway, u can enjoy the magnificant view of a huge mountain clothed in withered vegetation due to the summer heat. along the way, u can see hundreds of huge malls and huge parking spaces... newpark mall, walmart, macys, meryvns, shears etc... they are build low, so u can acty see all of them across the land... in fact there really isnt any high rise buildings ard.. just look up and u will see miles n miles of lands and mountains across the horizon... any worries at this moment just seems to go away at an instant because u just feel so small...
unfortunately food here is expensive.. except maybe for starbucks (whose price is quite standard across the globe) a normal meal will cost ard SGD10... however, in terms of food quality and dining experience its much better here... u hardly see queues in restaurants or fast foods... no parking jams, no noisy students disturbance in the restaurants, no one rushing for their food, staffs here greets everyone wif the genuine smile and attitude.. yes thats the correct word, attitude.. even strangers or passerby stops to say "good morning" or "how are u doing?".... wish pple can be like that in sg..
we decided to go to starbucks for a cup of coffee... chose a table with a leafy shade and clear mountain view.. we are just sitting there enjoying the breeze... one significant thing abt SB here as compared to those in SG, tables and chairs are spread widely (ard 5 steps) away from one another...unlike in sg, u are unlikely to hear wat pple on the next table are toking abt, not sure if u experienced smth like that, sometimes the noice in the cafe (in SG) gets so loud u have to raise ur voice just trying to get ur words across to ur fren on the other side of the tiny table, ... fortunately everything here just seems so laid back, once u sat down, its really just u, ur coffee, the sound of distant jazz pieces and probably ur fren ard u. Same coffee same taste... completely different experience compared to sg... sigh
like all locals, we head for one of the supermarts and some shops for a walk.... when we thought things wld be expensive here, we are in for a shock.. things are truely cheaper and better quality that wat we have and seen in sg. prices of levis can cost u as low as 20USD, timberland, nike, and many other american brands going at rock bottom prices... well of coz, u'll know how these prices goes so cheap if u read about how US exploits 3rd world countries especially production lines, ship back these products back to their own pple at low prices and finally shipped out to the rest of the world at more than few hundreds of percentage profit margins... u will probably noe where our money goes to when u walk into raffles city and bought urself a pair of levis at $150...
anyway... there is nuthin that i wana stress here... just got carried away writting.. in reality, US is not exactly Fremont... seen beggers and homeless Aids victims suffering and begging for money in the streets... broken roads, and poorly furished homes in the city heart of san francisco.. at least the great divide btw the two classes isnt that huge back home... who cares anyway.
alrights gg for dinner, just hope to find my bumblebee soon.
cao.
4 days since stayed here, never a single day i missed home... this has to be one of the best trip ever
hmm.. wat can i say about this small town call fremont, its quiet, the weather is perfect, cool breeze, bright sun all at a right balance of 20 to 23 degrees, roads are clean, buildings are new, pple here are extremely laid back and friendly.. onli realised todae from one of the locals that is one of the most sought after and wealthiest places in USA... woosh..
anyway, colleague n i drove all the way to fisherman wharf yesterdae, abt an hour drive down their 880 highway towards bay bridge.. traffic's fine, no crazy taxis cutting our way, everyone driving at a consistant pace.. i've got the priviledge to do the navigation, well at least i can safetly say by now i should be able to navigate ard San Francisco without the map.. ^_^ the roads signs and orientation are pretty easy to read and understand anyway.. so anyone can do it.
Staying, toking and working with the pple here, gave me new perspectives that i believe someone purely here for a holiday will be unable to see... well that again remains strictly to my point of view. -- that is the quality of life here as compared to SG... makes me feel quality of life in SG is still light years away as compared to here.. or even, for geographical or cultural reasons we cld nvr even come near smth like that in the far future..
well take one of those nua days i spend here. i wake up in the morning, had breakfast, finished up my studies by noon. stepped out of the hotel, sun is strong and glaring yet, harmless infront of the cool weather... we then drove around the neighbourhood for food.. neighbourhoods can be like the size of amk and if i wana go to another neighbourhood i have to use the highway, that will probably take abt 5 mins of driving... just on the side of the highway, u can enjoy the magnificant view of a huge mountain clothed in withered vegetation due to the summer heat. along the way, u can see hundreds of huge malls and huge parking spaces... newpark mall, walmart, macys, meryvns, shears etc... they are build low, so u can acty see all of them across the land... in fact there really isnt any high rise buildings ard.. just look up and u will see miles n miles of lands and mountains across the horizon... any worries at this moment just seems to go away at an instant because u just feel so small...
unfortunately food here is expensive.. except maybe for starbucks (whose price is quite standard across the globe) a normal meal will cost ard SGD10... however, in terms of food quality and dining experience its much better here... u hardly see queues in restaurants or fast foods... no parking jams, no noisy students disturbance in the restaurants, no one rushing for their food, staffs here greets everyone wif the genuine smile and attitude.. yes thats the correct word, attitude.. even strangers or passerby stops to say "good morning" or "how are u doing?".... wish pple can be like that in sg..
we decided to go to starbucks for a cup of coffee... chose a table with a leafy shade and clear mountain view.. we are just sitting there enjoying the breeze... one significant thing abt SB here as compared to those in SG, tables and chairs are spread widely (ard 5 steps) away from one another...unlike in sg, u are unlikely to hear wat pple on the next table are toking abt, not sure if u experienced smth like that, sometimes the noice in the cafe (in SG) gets so loud u have to raise ur voice just trying to get ur words across to ur fren on the other side of the tiny table, ... fortunately everything here just seems so laid back, once u sat down, its really just u, ur coffee, the sound of distant jazz pieces and probably ur fren ard u. Same coffee same taste... completely different experience compared to sg... sigh
like all locals, we head for one of the supermarts and some shops for a walk.... when we thought things wld be expensive here, we are in for a shock.. things are truely cheaper and better quality that wat we have and seen in sg. prices of levis can cost u as low as 20USD, timberland, nike, and many other american brands going at rock bottom prices... well of coz, u'll know how these prices goes so cheap if u read about how US exploits 3rd world countries especially production lines, ship back these products back to their own pple at low prices and finally shipped out to the rest of the world at more than few hundreds of percentage profit margins... u will probably noe where our money goes to when u walk into raffles city and bought urself a pair of levis at $150...
anyway... there is nuthin that i wana stress here... just got carried away writting.. in reality, US is not exactly Fremont... seen beggers and homeless Aids victims suffering and begging for money in the streets... broken roads, and poorly furished homes in the city heart of san francisco.. at least the great divide btw the two classes isnt that huge back home... who cares anyway.
alrights gg for dinner, just hope to find my bumblebee soon.
cao.
posted by Bryan at 9:17 AM
1 Comments:
The grass is always greener on the other side...
I felt the same when I first reach Aussie... Other than the food and mineral water, everything thing there are like so cheap.
Over there, you are not surrounded by high rise building but you are finally expose to a big piece of sky. It's really places like these that makes your stress goes away....
From now till youa re back, take care!
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