Tuesday, December 06, 2005

The Movie Race

05 Dec - At 6.00pm sharp, I and my colleagues left the office and headed straight to the PUTRA train station. We have planed to catch a movie named “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” and the tickets are won thru an online contest.

Everything was according to plan and we arrived to a stop where we need to make a transit to KTM train. I was ahead of everybody when we were walking towards the train station platform. Suddenly, I saw a train stop at the station and as normal people would do, I tell my colleague the train is here so we can catch up with it. After checking the electrical destination sign board, which only has one destination indicated, we confirmed this is the train that’s heading to our way. So, we all aboard on to the train and we’re one stop away to reach the cinema complex.

Sounds like a happy ending, until I saw our stop passed us by at an amazing speed (80kph perhaps?); then I know something has definitely gone wrong (duh!). We’re started a little panic because we thought it would stop at the following station but it didn’t. So, where this train going to take us? Is it going all the way to another state? (Oh boy)

After asking the onboard passenger, we found out it’s going to stop at one of the station and fortunately we’re too far from our stop (Phew!). Nevertheless, we have lost about 15mins. I thought it was OK since we have colleague went there to collect the ticket first. Later, I found out that some of my colleague, who’s taking train with me, needs to get there on time to redeem the ticket as well. I can feel how serious the problem is, if we are unable to make it on time. (The shows starts at 8:30pm; the redeem counter closed at 7:00pm; we’re still waiting for our train to come at the wrong station at 6:45pm) So, this is where the race begins.

When we finally arrived to our stop (that was exactly 7:00pm), I and my first colleague rush out from the train first and heading to the redeem counter. He’s running very fast and I couldn’t catch up (unless it was my house on fire, maybe I can catch up with him). Then the second colleague, who also needs to redeem the ticket as well, catching up on me. I was shocked because she was wearing high heels and running. (OK, it’s quite reasonable because the truth is, my house wasn’t on fire). So, I ran with my own pace and found out that I was just behind her all the way. From there, I can see there are some “I want to see the show tonight no matter how” a.k.a “Never give up” spirits here and I’m really impressed. (By the way, I went to the gym and run on the machine so many times. There wasn’t once I have this much of spirit running with her.)

In the end, both of them was able to redeem the ticket and also thanks to friend who was already there, holding on the redeem counter. We took our dinner there and enjoyed the show that night.

Note: In order to identify an express train from a domestic train. Check out the driver’s window, where they put the “Express” sign there and not on the electrical destination sign board (duh!).

No comments: