Christmas Eve

Date: 24 December 2004, Fri
Time: 21:00hr
Location: Serviced Apartment

It feels good to be able to drive myself to work rather than to depend on others to fetch me... The intern who has been sending me to work & home the first 3 days will be completing his assignment here & leaving us end of Dec 2004.

For the past days he showed me the way to work - avoiding the CityLink (similar to our ERP toll) which will cost us A$1.37 per trip - by taking the longer route which amounts to twice the traveling time... But I don't mind the long route anyway - at least I don't have to pay...

Getting around the City with a car is really easy, the only problem is parking! The Serviced Apartment I'm staying actually doesn't provide free car parking - it'll cost me A$15 per day for covered parking! So I've to find parking along the road near the apartment & to observe the parking regulation as well... Managed to find the best & suitable parking lot (which I could also oversee the car from my apartment's window!). However, the parking regulation states 1/4P (Mon-Fri, 730am-630pm) & 2P (Sat, 930am-1230pm). Which means on Mon-Fri, the parking lot only allows a car to park for 15min free during the time indicated while Sat, it's 2 hours free parking. On a normal working day, I would have to drive off latest by 745am (given the 15min grace period) for work but coming back after work is not a problem as long as I park after 615pm...

You may ask, how would they know how long we have parked the car? Well, I was told there's a guy (like those aunty in hat we have in Singapore) on duty that goes round to draw line on the road across the car's front tire & notes the time. When he comes back after making his round & finds the chalk mark still visible on the ground, he knows the car has parked longer than it should and so receives a fine. Oh you won't want to get a ticket 'cos the fine cost A$100!!

Understand this regulation applies even on public holidays which really make life difficult for me 'cos today is Christmas Eve & we have half day off! What I did was to drive myself back to the apartment around 345pm, park the car, dropped off my laptop & stuff in the room, went back to the car before 15min grace expires & drove around before I can come back to park the car after 630pm... That was actually 2.5 hours of driving around! Well not quite, I actually drove to another suburb, did some shopping at the supermarket to kill time...

Like most Companies, we have a Christmas lunch celebration today. Food was catered by the company & they taste really good! And from 1pm-3pm, we all gathered at the office cafeteria for lunch & had the gift exchange where I received 2 books about Australia & Victoria - how appropriate! After which, they also organized a lucky draw thingy where everyone will receive another gift - from the company! The gifts range from Yucca (an Australian plant) to picnic baskets to bags of goodies to wine to champagne to even hard liquor! Well, thank God I’'ve got a Yucca! Took photos of all my gifts - check them out at "My Photos".

Have a joyous Chrissy!