Sunday, March 6, 2011

Local Travel 1: Destination -- Montreux/Veytaux, Switzerland

January 30, Sunday. As I began my mission to see at least 10 Swiss cantons and 5 other countries in Europe in one year, we decided to kick it off by visiting the Chateau de Chillon at Veytaux (just around 3 kilometers away from Montreux).


With me: Carol, Ronson and Cecile

Going there…

Carol, Ronson, Cecile and I met at the pharmacy at the Gare Cornavin at around 2.30 PM. We got train tickets to Montreux which is more or less an hour away from Geneva. The train ride wasn’t that interesting because I’ve passed through the same railway a couple of times already. When we got off at the Montreux gare, we just crossed the street waited for a bus (I actually forgot which bus we took). It’s definitely colder in Montreux in Geneva…well, that’s just my opinion. After about 10 minutes, we reached the Chillon station (bus stop for Chateau de Chillon). In case interested, entrance fee is something like 12 swiss francs per person.

Chateau de Chillon (The Chillon Castle)

It says that the oldest written account of Chateau de Chillon was around 1150. Lord Byron, a famous English poet, lived in that castle.

I enjoyed the tour a lot especially the dungeon area and the keep (highest point of the castle). The castle reminded me of the Lord of the Rings for 3 things: this amazing ceiling at the dungeon that resembles the Great Hall of Moria, a long sword that reminded me of Andúril and the White Tree of Gondor (yes, I’m an LOTR geek!)

It was my first time to see a medieval castle so I really enjoyed it a lot. It took us less than 2 hours to tour the castle but I feel like we still missed some interesting stuff.

Going home…

We missed the direct train to Geneva so we took the train to Lausanne then transferred to a train to Geneva instead. We were planning to grab dinner at our favorite pasta place near my apartment (La Primavera) but Cecile and Ronson were tired already.

I don’t have much to say because we practically just toured the castle but photos are found at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=300609&id=740488999


Monday, February 14, 2011

Manifestation of a Social Life Crisis!

I was planning to do a recap of my week last week when I realized: I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO WRITE!

Monday - Work then home
Tuesday - Work then home
Wednesday - Work then home... oh wait! after work, before going home, I passed by the diplomatic shop (thanks to Nenette) to buy a white chocolate with grappa then went to La Romana for dinner with Carol.
Thursday - Went around the town for some window shopping then we went to supermarket. When I checked my mailbox and I got my package from amazon containing my Final Fantasy 13 disc.
Friday - Literally went straight home from work then played ff 13 until 2 in the morning
Saturday - went to meet Carol for a coffee then another trip to the supermarket
Sunday - I did my laundry at 8 in the morning. At 10.20 AM I left for church. After church, I just stayed home until Carol invited me for a walk.

See! This only goes to show that I have a major social life crisis at the moment.Argh!

Hopefully, I will have something more to write this week.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

The Travelling and Eating Challenge

Last year, I was so pre-occupied with work and settling in that I realized I haven't seen much outside Geneva. I felt bad because I used to love travelling! Therefore, 2011 will be a year of travelling for me. I have decided to do the following this year:

  • See at least 10 Swiss cities/provinces -- Geneva up to Laussanne not included; neighboring France towns are included (except for Ferney which is 5-8 minutes away from my office)
  • See at least 5 other countries -- Philippines not included 
On a local note, I also like to discover the best places, restaurants, cafe, etc. in Geneva. One thing I also realized that after living in Geneva for 8 months, I only have a couple of favorite restaurants... that can't be! 

I'll be posting infos and reviews soon!


Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Discipleship is Relationship

Remember – discipleship is relationship. Church planting is relationship. You will never have church planting problems, only people problems.” – Pastor Dennis Sy

http://www.dennissy.com/the-more-personal/


I couldn’t agree more with Pastor Dennis when he wrote how ineffective giving out flyers, sticking posters and pulpit announcements when inviting people to church. Don’t get me wrong, they might actually catch people’s attention but what is the probability that they will respond to it?


I first discovered the effectiveness of establishing a relationship as a marketing strategy when I was a volunteer at the UNICEF. I became a volunteer for one of UNICEF’s education project immediately after graduating from college. My work basically was to stand in the middle of a mall and ask the people passing by to either make an onsite donation or make a monthly pledge to give certain amounts – most challenging work ever! I remember, my first time to do it was disappointing. I kept running after one person to another and sometimes even practically shouting: “sir/ma’am, would you like to make a donation?!” I got practically nothing! The second day, after half a day of running and shouting, I gave up! I left my post and started checking out shoes in one of the nearest shoe store. At the shoe store, I ended up in a conversation with one of the ladies who were buying a pair of shoes. To cut the story short, after a brief conversation on wedges vs. heels, I asked her if she would like to make a pledge for UNICEF and she did. From then on, I realized that people would actually stick around and listen to what I had say after having small talks with them that were not related to asking money.


When it comes to discipleship, I learned the importance of establishing a relationship first before anything else with my very own first small group. It was my first time to lead a small group and I was excited about it! My former small group or victory group was composed of 4 young ladies, ages 14-17, and three of them were from the community. Val and I chose the topic “How to Know God’s Will” as we think it’s one of the easiest topics to explain to our victory group (we initially started with a mixed group with Val leading but it didn’t work out).


Anyway, I planned it so well! I prepared a week in advance – I made a topic outline of the second chapter and flow of discussion (yes, they were nicely type written and printed in an A4 paper and in colored). I even practiced the night before our first meeting. On the day it self, I started our victory group with a quick hi, hello, welcome, etc as stated in my color coded script. Then I started with our main event – chapter one of “How to know God’s Will”. After a couple of minutes of talking, I noticed that two of the girls weren’t listening at all (and looked really bored) while the other two were looking at me with a “what the heck is she talking about” expression on their faces. I asked them if they have any questions and they all answered “none”. I started talking again and realized that it’s not working. So I put my booklet and script down, called their names and asked them: “who’s your favorite singer?” They all suddenly paid attention to me and said their favorite artists, songs, actors, etc. Then we talked about school: how annoying some of their classmates were and how difficult their teachers were. The college student started opening up about not being happy with her current course. They asked a lot of questions about me – how old I was, how long have I been a Christian, how am I related to Val, where do I live, what’s my work, where do I work, etc. We didn’t finish chapter 2 (in fact, we didn’t even reach the half of it) but we’ve established a relationship with one another. The following week, we finished our discussion on Chapter 2 (and yes, they were attentive from then on).


In addition to establishing a relationship with the persons when inviting them to church, I say it is also critical to maintain or even enhance that relationship in order for them to stick. Do not just be satisfied in making them attend a couple of services and pay no attention to what’s going to happen to them next. You don’t have to baby sit them but you just have to maintain (or enhance) that relationship you have with them.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Nope, I Don’t Think The World is Ending

Just a couple of quick thoughts on Stephen Waltz’s: The End of The World As We Know It (http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/13/the_end_of_the_world_as_we_know_it?obref=obinsite)


Are we really seeing the end of the “Atlantic Era”? Declining definitely but I think it is far from ending. Although we’ve seen in the first half of 2010 the economic surge of China but right now, it is reportedly cooling down. In addition, economy is only one of the major criteria when we talk about establishing a global power – there’s also the political and military aspect. And with China’s economy cooling down, who can say that they can sustain decades or even century of supreme economy?


I don’t agree with Stephen Waltz that we are reaching the end of the era of the transatlantic powers but I definitely agree that in the case of the US, there is a way out in the current pit hole that they’re in: apply a zero-based look at the current foreign policy strategy! Being a realist myself, this is hard to say but I’m afraid Waltz is correct that conventional schools of thoughts are no longer relevant.


And with that note, I say I do believe that all the factors affecting the decline of the transatlantic powers (from economic decline to political decline, from fighting terrorism to improving the quality of education) are all policy issues. And yes, I agree with Waltz that in a time like this, if the US would really like to come up with an effective strategy to address their current foreign policy, a zero-based look at it should be applied.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

How My Day Was: Sunday




I love this Sunday! Normally, nothing happens on Sunday except for church but today was a different one.





I told myself that I will grab a bite before going to church. I told myself that I will go to Uptown Geneva at least 15 minutes before the service so that I can chat with some people there...

I woke up at 8.30H but couldn't make myself leave the bed so I just amazingly laid there for 30 minutes. Then I realized I'm supposed to read my bible! So I read my reading plan for the day. I finally got up and prepared for church. As expected, I finished preparing at 10.20H so I found my self running again towards Uptown Geneva. Service was at 10.30H (Argh! I hate my self for being extra slow on Sundays!)

I love our topic at ICF. Our series is "at the movies". Today, the topic was the Bruce Almighty movie.
After the service, I went to the Gare to grab a grande Java Chip with an extra shot of espresso at the starbucks - it's becoming a Sunday routine for me. From the gare, I walked going to my apartment.
When I got to my apartment at 12.30H, I saw a message from Carol asking me if I want to walk by the lake this afternoon. We decided to meet at 15.30H at the Denner.
While waiting for 15.30H, I heated a slice of pizza, called my family, checked my facebook and started reading Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian. I realized that I haven't read the book before it so I started reading "Eat Pray Love" instead.

At 15.30H, I was with Carol and Chito. We didn't catch the bus because of me so we walked up to the gare instead. (I wasn't late! I promise! the bus was early!)
We started on the other side of the lake. We played a couple of games, checked the Jet d'Eau, bought churros (Carol and Chito decided to go for ice cream instead), checked out the rides (we just checked them, we didn't ride anything except for the horror booth).
We went to the other side of the lake to check what's in there. Basically the same. I tried the mojitos... it wasn't that good - too many ice and too many lime.
Carol was going to mass so we decided to go home and meet at Servet for dinner after an hour.
We had dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant. I had my favorite lasagna. I got back to my apartment at around 21.00H
Thank you Lord for a wonderful Sunday!

Monday, July 26, 2010

Heart-Breaking Stories


Last Friday, while wrapping up my work, I looked at our tv to see what's on CNN. The TV is normally in a low volume so I didn't really hear what it was all about. All I saw were these cute doggies in cages - shitzu, dalmatian, siberian husky, some medium sized fluffy dog, etc. So I dropped the papers I was holding and reached for the remote control. I turned on the volume and a japanese was explaining: "My job is supposed to save their lives. But what can I do? this is the law". Then the reporter said: "in a week, if these dogs are not claimed, they will be euthanized..."

Did I hear the person being interviewed and the reporter right? Are they seriously going to kill these dogs?

I didn't want to know but being a dog lover, I wanted to know if the dogs are ok. I continued watching.

Then the reporter said that it has been a week since they filmed the previous scenes and until now, no one has claimed any of the dogs. They showed how a guy guided the dogs to this chamber - some fought for their lives, some where just plainly obedient and some where even excited (perhaps thinking they were going for a walk). Then they were "gassed". A couple of minutes later, the reporter said they all died and new batch of dogs just came in the pound.

The anchor man explain that it was a really diffucult report to show but they had to. They said Japan and the US are one of the countries where there are high rates of dog euthanasia. Most countries in Europe like Italy, France, Switzerland, etc. have ZERO cases of dog euthanasia - dog euthanasia is illegal in most countries in Europe.

Also last week, they also reported that Chinese government has officially banned the selling of dog and cat meats.

Last Thursday, while doing my laundry, this old man came in with a seriously huge german shepherd without a leash! The old man was walking very slowly with his back bent low. The german shepherd was just looking at the old man and patiently walking the same pace as him. The old man put on his clothes to the washing machine and dropped some coins. When the machine was running, he whispered to his dog. The dog laid down in front of the machine and the old man went out of the laundry shop. There were three of us (excluding german sheppy) inside the laundry shop and we were all looking at the german sheppy. At some point, we realized that we were all looking at the german sheppy so we looked at one another in amazement and smiled. After 20-30 minutes, the old man came back with 2 small bottles of water - he gave the other one to german sheppy. Once the old man was done with the laundy, he packed up and blurted some in french to german sheppy. The dog stoop up and walked with the old man. We all noticed that that the old man mind is having a hard time carrying his laundry bag this time bec he didn't tumble dry his clothes therefore they were heavier. I don't know if it was just me for german sheppy was uneasy - walking while literally looking at the old man. So the guy behind me offered help. The old man accepted.

There a lot of touching stories out there how dogs really helped people in a lot of ways so seeing that CNN special report just broke my heart.