Today, I was on an errand. It was actually a good feeling, when everyone was totally hooked up with their work on the seats of their offices, I was instead crawling on the street, moving from here and there looking through my shopping list. Something I’ve never done for quite a while. I was looking up to the expressway from over a pedestrian bridge, when the crowd of the cars dashing over going to each destination. What a busy life. Two hours later, in the overly neat city, for the first time I actually saw a car crashed upon another car. Not anything big, just the car bumped a bit over the car in the front leaving some curving on both cars. But it was a great thing, with only a little conversation, they moved the car to the side of the road out of their conscience in order not to block the other cars. What a different level of people-awareness compared to my compatriots. Again, I felt how life was really interesting. With so many things happening and so many difficulties, I still thought it’s great to be alive. Without the life there’s no such experience. What about death that is not scary then?

I remember someone told me that she was about to commit suicide out of desperation. Another one put up a picture of slitting his own wrist. I would just about to shout, “Get a grip! You’re not the most miserable person in this life!” I really don’t think their situations no matter how I try to picture them deserve anyway in taking their own life. There are just so many people who are having worse life but still struggling to survive. Those people in Ethiopia – endless civic wars, hungers, pirates -, those people in Afghan or Iraq, or even those who live in the worst prison in the world, which part of you could be worse than them? You are not in poverty, you still have your free-will, you are not being tortured, perhaps then you can start by not acting like you’re in such. I know so many people who are in hardship but can still always think positive. So if you read this, start cherishing your life by at least giving yourself a proper respect.

And nevertheless when things are not good as in the moment, and my sense of happiness and sadness don’t really work, I still can sense bit by bit the wind of bliss. So then as the year’s ending, I need to try to recompose my drives. The drives I’ve lost for a while to at least drag my feet further. If I can love rain so much, I should be able to dance with the smile within it right?

These few weeks, I’ve honestly been so much in the sinking mood. So much to think, consider, weight, take care of. So many weird pressures at work. So many interpolations at life. I didn’t feel like doing anything, even socializing. There was slightly the urge to do crazy things: bungee jump, sky dive. In the end, I kept on sinking deeper into my shell. But I’m glad I took the necessary to move to make the change.

I strong heartedly decided to cycle, went to east coast, no matter what, even it had to be alone. I felt like doing it. I need to pushed every burden inside out. I wasn’t alone in the end. It was with a friend of mine. A new friend but we have always been able to talk and share a lot. It was fun, though tiring. More than fun, it was totally relieving. It was also quite beneficial since we could share our thoughts and opened the mind of one another. When it was Monday, I was just so glad I decided to do it. I could just face the Monday differently. Not so much resenting it.

And just today. I met a friend I met on the net for like 7 years (?). So long but we’ve never met although we kept a good contact of each other and kept on talking different things. In the beginning I was a bit nervous but I insisted to myself that it’s time and I’m so glad that we did. It was really nice and interesting. I just feel I’ve known her for so long but now I know her personally. So if you’re reading this, I feel grateful. Thanks. Like I mentioned, let’s do it again next time .

Living in Singapore, separated from your loved ones, family, relatives, friends might take its toll. You may start forgetting about the importance of socializing, getting tied up totally with work, missing the balance of life, or even being individualistic. You may start feeling empty. Now when it happens to me again, I just need to remind myself that I can’t let the routines eat up the best of me. When it happens, make the shift! Since it’s only you yourself who can urge yourself to do it. Happy Wednesday! Weekend and Halloween are coming like fast!

Actually, I’ve been back from Wednesday evening.

The vacation itself entirely was fun and tiring. I didn’t have real chance to meet everyone actually but I almost managed to get a grab of everyone I originally placed on agenda. I visited my fam in Cengkareng, Lippo Karawaci, the usual Taman Anggrek, Binus – of course, Kota Tua, Glodok Area, Pisa Cafe – Menteng (again), and ending to visit my mom and sis in Kelapa Gading. Agenda was almost 100% fulfilled.

I will be out of Singapore again for the next one week. Going back to Jakarta to meet the blackout and *hopefully not* flooding again. Expect some updates after next week. Wish me a happy vacation guys!

Heya! Back to another post again about just another trip. Hope you don’t get bored as much as I’m worried abot being bankrupt due to putting quite sum of money recently for lots of trips and fun activity. Anyway, here’s a little bit of the trip.

Day 1: Sep 19, 2009 – Arrival, Christ Church, Dataran Pahlawan, Jonker Street

It started for me with no bad feeling at all. It was 7.40 AM and we were already gathering at the Bugis MRT, and a bit later found ourselves walking our way to the Golden Mile Complex. Apparently we were a bit misled by I-was-not-clear-whose idea that Golden Mile was closer to Bugis instead of Lavender, no issue here yet though. Things started to get worse when apparently our coach was nowhere to be found even after we saw the ticket seller and then asked to run with a taxi to Rochor. Wrong bus, the person said! We were almost at the brink of thinking we got left by our bus, and thanks to Meke’s sister who stood up nose to nose on the phone versus the ticket seller, we managed to sit comfortably on our coach on the way to Melacca. Safe.

It took like 4 hours to reach Melacca, that we finally got there close to 1 PM. The hungry group – us, after a toilet session at the nearby hotel- Mahkota, finally found ourselves having our first lunch in Melacca in the Old Taste restaurant – close to the Dataran Pahlawan. The food was just okay – ordered Nasi goreng, the dessert was nice though. The best thing they had free wireless so I managed to ease my addiction to facebook recently. The total cost of the food for persons was at RM 55. Afterwards, we took a cab to our hotel, Emperor, 10 minutes away by cab for RM10, a bit rip-off to be honest for the distance.

The hotel was ok, the toilet was a bit old but clean, at least for our room though as the girls room had issue’ with the water, breakfast buffet was not really variative though and it was at RM 150 per night. Anyway jumping a bit, we started our real adventure on Melacca – all trip was on foot. We visited St. Peter’s church which happened to be pretty nearby. First impression by Meke’s sister’s friends, Stephen, “What the heck is this?” Yeah it was short of everything to be called “interesting”, still we happened to cam-whore though.

Fast forward the story, skipping some other photo-sessions shoot-out, we walked like 20 mins to our second site of interest called Christ church, near to the central of Melacca. The red church was built by the dutch at 1753 and in the surrounding, a still working clock tower, a mini-windmill, water wheel, were also built – which I thought to be cute. Many beca’ decorated with flowers also happened to be in the vicinity which could attract foreign-tourist who never took one, it’s a triwheeled-vehicle cart, cycled by a man on the back in order to move. Afterwards, we were moving to other sites like the Maritime museum, encompassing a big ship and of course the museum. Bad thing that many museums on the day were closed since it’s just a day before the Eid Al Fitr. Then we’re hitting the Melacca Mega Mall at the Dataran Pahlawan area which happened not be so “mega”. We had a bit of dessert there for 4persons at RM 25 before then going to Dataran Pahlawan.

Christ Church - the Red church

At Dataran Pahlawan, you could actually find more historical sites, or cultural symbol of Malaysia. The Malaysian proclamation of independence memorial, the Sultanate Melayan-house, and from here you can access the St. Pauls hill where the Portal de Santiago, a Portuguese fortress and the ruins of St Paul church were situated. The reknowned Spanish missionary. St. Francis Xavier, had his final resting place in the of St Paul church before finally exhumed and moved to Goa India. As a commemoration, a statue of him was built but the statue lost one of its arms after strucked by a falling tree.

Malaysia Independence Memorial

Ruins of St. Paul

From Dataran Pahlawan, we were hitting Jonker Street, a heaven of food, snacks, cheap stuffs, and clothing in Melacca. The street was crowded and actually it was somewhat like a market. We had our dinner in one of the restaurant called Formosa Chicken Rice ball, the rice ball melacca was famous of. We ordered steamed and also black soya chicken, and of course the chicken rice ball. I didn’t find actually the rice ball had any difference with the normal chicken rice except the fact that the texture was softer and was shaped like a ball which actually made my disliking worse towards chicken rice. The steamed chicken was nice though. The damage of dinner was at RM 52 for 4 persons. After dinner, we bought some stuffs in the Jonker street. We actually wanted to try the Satay Celup which Melacca was also famous of but in the end we skipped it because somewhat it looked just like a normal steamboat. It’s just that the stuffs were put in the Satay like-wooden stick.

Jonker Street

After Jonker street, we decided to go home. After a joking and quiz sessions after bath in the boys room and then hitting the nearby hawker center for supper, we went to bed. End of Day 1.

Day 2: Sep 20, 2009 – Mahkota Parade Mall, Banya restaurant, Departure

It’s apparently a lazy day that we got up quite late, had our breakfast, and finally leaving the hotel for our last few hours of sightseeing after 9. We hit the biggest shopping mall, still in the Dataran Pahlawan neighbourhood called Mahkota Parade. Apparently the biggest shopping mall was actually small that nothing much to see as well that we didn’t even have our lunch there.

We finally hit the nearby restaurant which we actually had wanted to try the day before but was doubtful in the end, called Banya. The food served was Peranakan food – Malay/Chinese mixed food which happened to very nice. It’s in fact the best feast I had in Melacca. It costed us like RM 85/4 persons. I believe if I ever return to Melacca, I would dine here again.

Peranakan Food

After lunch, we didn’t have anymore time that we just hurried back to the hotel and took our stuffs to checkout. In just 45 minutes time, we already found ourselves on our bus that would take us back to Singapore. Melacca was ok but I mean it’s actually nothing so much to be excited to see thinking that it’s inaugurated as “World’s heritage city”. One thing that would make me to revisit was only the food. But still, it’s the kind of great feeling that I’ve finally visited one more place in the world. Have a good day!

P.S.: Lost another my lock and lock bottle here, sigh!

Sep 7, 2009 – Day 3: Harbour City,  Macau

Initially, we planned to spend the whole day of 3rd day in Macau but fate brought us not being able to wake up very early and decided to spend the morning in Harbour City. Harbour City was a huge, various class, shopping mall located at the Tsim Sha Shui Area of Hongkong, close to the China Ferry terminal. I decided here to left my friends doing their shopping while I was spending my day on the Harbour longue and then moved to the starbucks still with the seaside view sipping my usual frappucino and reading some local newspaper. It’s to my surprise that Hongkong has a history of repetitive attack by acid thrown from above in one of its lot tall building which serves for both residential and business purpose.

View from Harbour City Longue

Around noon, we managed to gather everyone in the China Ferry Terminal, purchased our return ferry ticket for HKD 300/pax and then blasted off to Macau. The first ferry traveled before 6 while the last set sail at 10.30. The wave was not really killing that made you wanted to vomit. It took like 2 hours in the ferry to get you from Hongkong to Macau. By around 2, we were already there stepping on the soil of Macau.

After a bit of fuzziness, we managed to board the correct bus that would take us to the Largo do Senado (Senate Square) which was the host of many historical sites of Macau. We tried the famous Macau egg tart – must try, visited St. Dominiques church here, tried some desserts of a Portuguese restaurant (was too expensive to have lunch here) and finally reached the ruins of St. Paul which was the main historical attraction of Macau. St. Paul was originally a cathedral until it caught fire during a typhoon and had almost all of its parts burned down.

The famous ruin of St. Paul

From Largo do Senado, we left to get a bus that would take us to the Macau Tower, the highest point in Macau. During the way to the bus, we passed a hotel casino which was very famous in Macau, the Grand Lisboa. The architecture was magnificent and the building shined like a golden tower during the twilight. We didn’t happen to enter though. Close to the Grand Lisboa was also its older counterpart called Casino Lisboa and Wynn Casino Hotel. Later, after riding a bus for 5 stations away we managed to find ourselves in the Macau Tower.

Grand Lisboa

Macau Tower was the highest point in Macau and measured for 338 metres. It provided a high rise observation deck, skydiving, sky walking and buggy jumping from its top. But beware, it costed as much as MOP 1000 for a buggy jumping (MOP was pegged to HKD so it counted 1 for 1). So basically, we did nothing there but cam-whoring with the gigantic tower and the lovely suspension bridge with sun down shining open them.

Macau Tower

From Macau Tower we took a cab to the Venetian, the most famous and biggest Casino in Macao. It was also one of the largest building in the world. The inner part of the building was indeed lovely with the artificial canal, painted ceilings on some parts and artificial sky on the other parts of the building – somewhat like the foodcourt at Pacific Place in Jakarta. You could even take a ride in the canal with a Gondola, but I wouldn’t really recommend it. Long story short, we completed our cam-whoring cycle, took our late lunch here, shopped for gifts and spent some money for gambling in the casino – they only accepted HKD though, funny since we were in Macau.

By the time we finished gambling, we were already running late. Luckily there was a shuttle bus from Venetian to the ferry terminal. We dashed, jumped into the bus, stamped “kiasu” by other fellow Singaporeans who were half-surprised/half-ashamed knowing we knew that “term” very well since we were queueing like suck even before the bus completely stopped, ran all the way to the check-in area and finally we were there at the ferry that took us back to the Hongkong. The day finally ended after having some dessert back in the hotel area.

Sep 08, 2009 – Day 4: Last minute Shopping – Tsim Sha Shui.

Not much to tell on the Day 4. We woke up still as usual, early for our standard. Dashed for the usual buffet breakfast and then without taking further delay jumped to the Tsim Sha Shui area since it’s close and completed our final round of shopping. To be noted, the Espirit price in HK was just so damn cheap compared to Singapore so make sure to grab it. The G2000 price and many other brands were also cheaper, a reason why Hongkong was also called as a shopping-haven. I also bought some mooncake here which happened to be nice.

Noon time, we were already back in the hotel, took our stuffs that were already like 90% packed – 10% for error. We jumped into the coach after check-out out of hotel, arrived in the HKIA like super-soon, did some last minutes cam-whoring, took our last meal in HK and finally at 3 PM, we bided the final farewell to Hongkong. I believe I’ll visit you again, one day.

Sep 6, 2009, Day 2: City Tour and Open Top Bus Ride

Although apparently, I was dead tired after the crazy night, I had to wake up early since we had a company meeting at the breakfast longue at the 12 floor of the hotel. The detail is irrelevant for this post so I will skip.

After the company breakfast, we hit the nearby Dim Sum restaurant. There were so many of us that we had to split ourselves on 3 separate tables. After tough time ordering plus in the beginning we were given a menu in all chinese characters, we managed to get our order. I would rate the dim sum quite okay, but I got the impression that this shouldn’t be the dimsum that Hong Kong was very famous of! We had to pay something like HKD 60++ per person which was okay.

Dim Sum

After the treat to our hunger, we started our city trip which had already been arranged by the company, sitting nicely on our coach. It was beginning with boring starters with traditional chinese medicine – but I got my best jumping pic in HK here -, and a jewellery shop – bet the tour was paid by the jewellery shop to bring us here-. We were also taken to Repulse Bay situated in the southern HK island,  where we hit the local temple over there. Not much to say that the fact that there’s some interesting myth about the temple and interesting high rise building with a hole in the middle of it saying that it’s where the dragon should pass according to the Feng Shui. We took plentiful of pictures here though.

After a while, we finally arrived at Aberdeen, the fishing village. The famous floating restaurant of Jumbo is located here. We did a little bit of boat trip here by riding a boat going around the fishing village. You could still see lots of traditional boats in the area like a floating market, fishes being dried on top of those boats, but with the cityscape and skycraper in the background. It was nice, excluding the fact that we had to pay like HKD 50 for the boat trip. Somewhat I was getting fishy again with the tour.

Aberdeen

We finally went to the Victoria Peak, the tallest mount in HK island. From there the view was magnificent, you could see the whole city scape of Hong Kong core area during the twilight. Things got even more beautiful when it’s getting darker where all the skycrapers have their light on. Here was also the home to Madame Tussaud.  A very interesting attraction where you could find lots of wax mannequin, a branch of the same museum in London. We took superb lots of pictures with the wax figure of Andy Lau, Bruce Lee, Obama, Bill Clinton, Einstein, Tiger Woods, and other famous figures. Entrance fee was HKD 160.

Obama, Client, and Fake Pope or whatsoever at Madame Tussaud

It’s night time, time for us to leave the Peak. We didn’t have our ride with our usual bus though. Instead, we boarded the Peak Tram which brought us from the top to bottom just within 5 minutes instead of 20 mins by cars. The tram was one of the oldest Hongkong and was meant only for westerners at the time it was built since only westerners were allowed to stay at the peak. What was so great that the tram travelled with 45 degrees inclination so you were actually like falling while seeing the marvelous night cityscape of Hongkong.

HK Cityscape from Victoria Peak

On the summit, were fetched by our coach to be left somewhere near Tsim Sha Tshui. We hit the local food in the street in smaller groups while waiting for our open top bus. On the open top bus, we could see the view of the Nathan Road from the top while having wind blown to our face. It was very nice. Too bad the trip was so short that it was a short bliss. The trip was ended at Ladies Street. It’s said you could buy lots of cheap stuffs for ladies here in Ladies Street, if you really know how to bargain.

At Ladies Street, I tried the very local dessert of Hongkong, Mango Ice. It was so nice that I really craved even for more when I had been back in Singapore. After our dessert session, we hit another restaurant to actually had our bachellorette to one of our colleague – which unfortunately didn’t go so well either.

Long story short, afterwards we took our trip home just by walking to our hotel since it was very close. It’s the end of Day 2.

Amidst, my downright mood to write anything, I really should leave some footnotes for my trip to HK and MC. I’ve been leaving some trips before without any note and a bit regretting it. The trip was full of new experience. Indulged by the fact that HK-ers are not as gracious as Singaporean, not to mention impatient. The stuffs there to shop are reasonably cheap, a heaven to shop. The cultural characteristic is still very much maintained.

Sep 5, 2009 – Arrival, Tsim Sha Shui, Avenue of Stars, Central, Causeway Bay, Lan Kwai Fong

After arriving in HKIA by Cathay Pacific in the afternoon, we were fetched by our coach to the Dorsett Seaview hotel in Kowloon Area. The hotel was being renovated, and the room was small, facility was just okay. But the location was superb as it’s just walks away from “Yau ma tei” MTR. The rate was very reasonable for HK standard.

Kowloon near our hotel - pretty much the view in HK action movie

I dumped all my stuffs in the room and without wait joined the rest to make our move to the Tsim Sha Shui area by MTR, hitting Avenue of Stars. Avenue of stars is an area where you can see the handprints of many HK actors like jet lee and bruce lee. On the same spot, in the night, they have a daily event called Symphony of the Light but it’s not so much interesting like ever boasted by the HK tourism site. But if you haven’t seen this event, you should. It’s a play of light and lasers from the bay view of HK island where many buildings are collaboring in the play following somewhat too traditional tunes. The HK skyline view from here is great, you shouldn’t miss it.

Avenue of Stars - HK Skyline is in the background

Then, we hit HK island from Tsim Sha Shui by ferry, enjoying the night view of the bay. We had our dinner at the Crystal Jade at IFC, specialising in La mien and siao long bao. Many crazy things happened during the dinner due to the HK-ers streotype to be very impatient but I won’t go into detail. But anyway, the crystal jade in HK is much better than the one in Indonesia. You should try! The price was okay, around 66 HKD per pax.

After dinner, we took the famous HK tram, circling around the town from central MTR to around causeway bay MTR. We took in some sugarcane and snacks, made some pose to the already closed Times Square.

Late night, we headed for Lan Kwai Fong, a famous night life area in HK – something like Clarke Quay in SG. It’s interesting though that the area is very hilly and steep, where else can you club while doing exercise as well? We finally chilled ourselves down in a bar. I ordered some random wine, while my friends were having carlsberg. Around 60 HKD as well per pax for a drink – pretty much the same as in SG.

Lan Kwai Fong

Afterwards, we headed home by taxi since it’s already 2+, the MTR stopped running around 1. The taxi in HK was on par as the taxi in Singapore. But in HK during days, there are lots of traffic unlike Singapore so taking taxi is not really recommended as MTR is extensive – much more line than Singapore MRT- and convenient.