The tales of a Lone Ranger: August 2013

Monday, August 26, 2013

Exploring outside your routine social circle

"No man is an island" the good old saying goes.

Every man has their own social circle, divided into Inner, Intermediate and Casual.

Inner -
your core family members ie parents, siblings, spouse and children, usually less than 20.

Intermediate -
your close friends ie the "bros" and buddy, usually less than 50

Casual -
friends that share the same background or interest to "hi bye" friend. Unlimited numbers.

Maintain a healthy social circle is as important as to maintain a healthy diet. An unhealthy social circle, overly skewing either to Inner/Intermediate/Casual circle will cause anxiety to parties involved.

To illustrate, a buddy of mine recently celebrates his 28th birthday with his bros (Intermediate), forgetting his family members (Inner) dinner appointment; as a result his family members refused to talk to him in the next day, causing anxiety for him and his family. This is a common within the extroverts, mainly guys.

Similarly, somebody whose social circle over-skewed to Inner circle, often require more accompaniment from the partner (core family members). In this case the party that requires more attention will constantly feel insecure when their partner is not around or out socializing, grumbles; while the other party will find his/her partner being unreasonable and over-possessive. The disparity will inevitably leads to argument; resulting in higher anxiety level on both parties. This is common in a relationship, not limited to only ladies, but also to a certain extend, the over-protective guys.

The two illustrations above resembles an analogy of vitamin overdose. All of us know Vitamin C is very important for our body immune system and antioxidant, but in an overdose scenario, it damages our kidney and cause gastrointestinal problems. Hence it is critical to maintain a healthy social circle. But how?

Our routine social circle, especially Intermediate and Casual, are fragile and tend to be shrinking gradually amidst a hectic work schedule environment. We will be too exhausted to socialize after a hard day work. Hence it is good to have annual escapades (team-building, travelling or social event) to breakout from your routine social circle and dive into the "blue ocean", building new relationship with people, literally strangers.

In such scenario, you could be either be with friends or none at all, reaching out to make new friends. Similarly, the potential new friends in the blue ocean may be alone or already in a group. This is when we sharpen our already rusty socializing instinct, approach and being approached, and most likely will end up with friends with similar character and interest. Do not fear to approach people as you will end up receiving more. You could be switching from one group to another, just like you switching TV channels, to find a programme that truly enticed you.

During my recent company team-building event, there were thirty participants selected across various department /division with most of us are new to each other. At first the group starts to form among the own race, thereafter across the race after the ice-breaking.

One observation I had was certain group of people, especially Chinese (sorry to say), have higher tendency to shoot more complaints. The non-satisfactions range from bed too soft, water not hot enough, food too cold, despite being a fully sponsored event. You could hardly see these complaints coming from the Malays and other race (both guys and ladies), who i perceived are more tolerating with the environment. To be fair, during my backpacking experience, the Caucasian does not complaint as much as the Chinese tourist. The organizing committee has good foresight of these coming, hence arrange most of the Chinese in the double room while the rest in dormitory, yet there are still lots of complaints. Some points to ponder.

In the end, I "switched channel" from those with much complaint in their conversation, to stay away from their negativity especially when I am close to the undisturbed mother nature with pristine and clean air. Notwithstanding that, I have a gut feeling that some new acquaintances from the event could be upgraded from Casual to Intermediate of my social circle.

There is no hurry to cherry-pick the right one.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

台湾9天8夜樱花初开游（第六天）

今天的行程只有一个景点 - 台北故宫博物院。

由于昨天从台中到台北舟车劳顿（其实乘搭高铁只须少过一个小时），因此决定今天睡到自然醒。

早上十点才出发，早上除了楼下的麦当劳，似乎没有别的早餐吃。因此乘搭捷运到士林站吃台湾本土的快餐。吃的津津有味。

出了士林站，立刻有告示牌解说公车路线去故宫博物院。

告示牌

我们十二点抵达，买了入门票后，我们就开始参观了。博物院里不能拍照，因此没有照片供分享。

最让我印象深刻的是这里的讲解服务，每天有好几场讲解（免费的），每场一个小时，须预先报名，先到先得。我们订了两点半的讲解。

台北的故宫博物院,与英国大英博物馆,法国罗浮宫、美国大都会博物馆并称为世界四大博物馆。它之所以能被列为世界四大博物馆，因为里头有许多无价之宝的文物。在中国共产党内战的时候，国民党把近七十万件珍品运到台湾。经历二十余年的修复和建档，五千年中华文物的珍宝就此呈现在海内外人们眼前。镇馆之宝包括清朝的翠玉白菜和西周的毛公鼎。

如果不是运到台湾，这些历史文物恐怕逃不过中国文革浩劫
比起中国AAAAA 景区门票人民币80-160元（RM40-80)，故宫博物院的门票很便宜，普通票160元（马币RM16)，学生80元。反观我国马六甲动物园普通票是RM15，这样的价钱可以看到世界四大博物馆实在物超所值。

原因是它属于台湾纳税人税金所设立的，自然必须服务大众，票价高门槛太高就本末倒置了。

鲁肉饭（左）和空肉饭（右）

由于没吃午餐，大约四点肚子饿了。我们到了故宫博物院隔壁的晶华餐厅吃晚餐，才继续沉醉在浩瀚的历史文物当中。我们点了鲁肉饭和空肉饭。

宛汉家家乐。

有得吃是福！

参观完博物院后，我们便去西门町逛街。埔里(Puli Guest House) 的度部先生介绍著名吃生鱼片 (Sashimi) 的餐厅- 三味食堂，位于西门町附近，便步行过去。

果然名不虚传，这里的排队的人龙很长，写了名字还要等一个小时。

所以我们到附近商店街道逛逛，见到了一间很特别，以蔬菜为主的餐厅，便进去试，味道很新鲜好吃！

等了一个小时后回去三味食堂，终于迟到了生鱼片。

吃完由于时间接近10pm, 因此我们简略的逛了几条街道就回去睡觉了。

台湾9天8夜樱花初开游（第五天）

今天我们结束了4天3夜的台中之旅，前往台北再玩3天。
我们订了台中-台北10.39am 的高铁票（提前网上订购可享有8折，700/票折扣至560/票，统称早鸟票，https://www.thsrc.com.tw/tc/ticket/tic_kind07.asp）。

早鸟票广告

一大清早7am便起身了，8am依依不舍的离开了渡部先生的民宿，离开之前还依依不舍的看了这住了3晚的民宿，拍了几张照片。

出发前有段小插曲：
从我们的民宿到客运站大约须步行十分钟。由于需要归还单车，所以我先用单车把最重的行李载到埔里客运站，打算过后再回来载余下的。为了节省时间，我让她也先拖着行李慢慢走向客运站。这是个错误的决定，因为当我回头时，她已经不见人影。由于一直以来都是我带路，所以担心她迷路，又没有电话联络，我当时是后悔到了极点，不应该为了节省时间而可能花费更多时间。慌慌张张的找了几条街后，心里默念圣号，只好去客运站等。还好，她已经在那里了，总算虚惊一场，学了次乖。

从埔里到台中高铁站每半小时有一趟客运，由于之前买了600元的套票，我们就乘坐南投客运过去。我们乘坐8：30am 的客运，9:30am 就抵达高铁站了。