William Chong

Some random musings from the streets of Sydney:

There’s more mentally ill people on the streets than in Auckland. I think one reason could be that Sydney is so busy and stressed (compared to NZ) that perhaps people that can’t take it fall by the wayside. You have the regular homeless/bum-types that sleep on the sidewalk against the wall, or huddle in the corner with a hat out in search of pity cash. This is hard to come by since people here usually don’t care. I also happened to watch an irate power-professional female at an intersection enduring some very inadequate window washing (the dude sprayed more soap than he scraped, no chance of any money) and then screech into the distance, leaving the man with a half-furious, half-bemused expression. Sad to see.

Queues are long. Not sure why, they just are. Trains have people, people, people. I’m quite aware that my limited worldview means that I’ll probably think Sydney relaxed when I hit the streets of Manhattan, for example. More people in the same space. Actually it means more food choices – as long as you have the money, you can’t go hungry in Sydney.

There’s an Easyway! *dances* How crazy is it that Easyway can franchise all over the word from Taiwan? In Sydney it’s very Westernised: you can order pearl milk tea as “Top Seller #1″, or as part of a drink and movie deal, or even little snacks. Definitely not a one-man stall in an echoey Meadowlands set-up…

Even in a small company, to do any discussion with more than one person you have to have a meeting. Meetings are held in boardrooms. Very businessy, very new to me.

Transit lanes. I saw them in Brisbane last time I was there as well, but it’s a pretty good idea – a lane on the far left is reserved only for those who carpool. If the road has a T2 lane, then any car driving along it has to have 2 or more people. I also saw T3 lanes, which is totally funky. What a great idea to reduce road congestion (though it invariably clogs up the other two lanes. Bring a friend in to work with you).

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Getting ready for a bear market. Sold a chunk of shares yesterday. Lost money, but would lose more holding on to it all the way through the downturn. Sea of red arrows striking fear into investors’ hearts.

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