After Singapore

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more

Author: pascal

  • 2013 in Review

    It feels good to write again, after a long time of busy days in year 2013. I write this, to keep the spirit of writing, as well as to, well, keep at least one post per year on this blog. Boy, I really miss those days when I have time to write. May be sometime.

    Work

    As the year before, the professional part of my life are shared between the startup I am building, and teaching at a local university.

    kiriThe startup, KIRI, started as a personal project that I worked on after office hours in Singapore. When I returned to Indonesia in 2012, Budi joined in, and we mostly worked at either a McDonald’s in Jakarta or my in-law’s house in Bandung. It was a weekend project, with lots of promises and some fanatic supporters.

    In early 2013, I heard a surprising news that our project was selected as the finalist of Mandiri Young Technopreneur 2012. As a finalist, our team had to attend a week long bootcamp in Jakarta, and unfortunately it coincided with my wedding day. Luckily, Budi could attend most part of the event, while I attended few days of it. Other than the privilege to stay at a 5-star hotel, we also had the chance to participate in seminars led by important people like Bill Reichert from Garage Venture. Most importantly, we were able to build network with people. Though in the end we failed to be a winner, we had a lot of takeaways from this event.

    We also participated in Blackberry Startup training, where we attended weekly sessions of startup trainings. Here also, we met with interesting speakers and people. We even managed to be the finalist of their business plan competition. As with Mandiri event, we again failed to nail the winning position here.

    Mid 2013, we gave it another shot by submitting our proposal to Telkom’s Indigo Incubator event. After series of pitches, we managed to be shortlisted as a winner. For that, we received a grant of Rp 10M and seed funding of Rp 120M. Moreover, we also got a slot in their coworking space in Gegerkalong, plus networking and seminars with fellow startups and important people. In exchange: a share for them, and we had to follow their program, under the lean startup framework. We were happy with that, but not without some downsides. More features were implemented, and more business plans were developed, but it means that I have less time with my code to play with. You know, those little details and tweaks a hardcore programmer would like to code.

    During this journey we were glad that Hudi temporarily joined our team as an intern, for a crowdfunded event organized by Wujudkan. He helped us to implement TransJakarta feature of KIRI, and paved a way for future expansion. Later of this year, Jovan also joined our team as a part time developer. He helped implementing the KIRI API, KIRI Widget, and other minor features.

    Finally, though we are yet to receive our first revenue, I am very happy that KIRI grew a lot in terms of user base and usefulness. Not to mention that we participated in AngkotDay event led by our friend Saska, and featured in one of National Geographic Indonesia blog post.

    For my teaching part at Unpar, it was not less interesting. We were short of teachers, and that means we had to teach more students that we should. At one side, it means that keeping up with the job was very challenging (e.g. skipping lunches with colleagues). On the other side, I became more creative in making things more efficient. Luckily I was helped with my background of working in Singapore, regarded as one of the most efficient countries in the world.

    I also took the position of being a dosen wali (mentor) for new students as well as supervisor for final year projects. That means I got to know more of my students, not only in academic life but also their personal life. It is interesting to understand the challenges they have now, compared to myself as a student many years ago.

    In many parts, my teaching job and KIRI actually synergize. For example, a final year student Nathan helped me developed a KIRI-based android app. On the other side, I have stories to tell to students about my experience building a startup and knowledge of many recent technologies that I can only learn in practice, rather than in university.

    Personal

    _MG_6762On the personal side, 2013 also gave me a radical change in my way of life. As mentioned earlier, I married my college friend Yunnie. Preparing the marriage was exciting yet challenging, as we prepared most of everything by ourself, and helped by some relatives. Just few days before wedding, Jakarta was struck by a heavy flood disaster. The government official issued emergency state, making the guests thought twice to come, especially those from other town. Luckily, two friends from Singapore, Abhineet and Christine managed to come and attended our wedding safely.

    Being a married man has its own challenges and excitement. No matter how much I understood my spouse before, there were always new things I learned after marriage. If before, I took full responsibility of my own actions, after marriage, the responsibility is shared among two. The 24-hour-in-a-day slot is now also shared among us, meaning less “me-time” compared to before marriage. The consequences: less time for meeting friends, watching youtube videos, or, well, writing this blog. Having said all that, there are also benefits of it: a friend for life, a chance to learn new ways of thinking, and learning of new responsibilities. Anyway, we are happy that we are going to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary soon It’s young, but as Confucius said, journey of thousand miles begins with a single step.

    Travel

    I didn’t really travel a lot this year, aside from Bali for late honeymoon and Malaysia for my brother’s rugby game. I do miss traveling to non-mainstream places like museums and parks, but those places are not for everyone.

    Next year, we are planning to visit my brother in Brisbane for his baptism ceremony. This paragraph is just a little reminder for me to write a story about that.

    Conclusion

    The rapid progress of KIRI really took my time in 2013, and I don’t think it’s going to stop in 2014. More busy days ahead, but it should be exciting. I am not going to do this forever though, in a couple years from now (after KIRI can stand on its own), I am expecting to settle down and find more challenges in personal and family life. And travel. (Don’t you think it’s a coincidence that our website is http://kiri.travel?)

    Happy new year!

  • Kuala Lumpur and Asian 5 Nations

    Petaling Jaya Stadium

    After a very long time, I finally had a chance to travel again. This time, was for Kuala Lumpur. My brother had the privilege to be the captain for Indonesia’s rugby team participating in HSBC Asian 5 Nations Rugby tournament. My dad was very excited to watch him playing, so he asked me and my wife to accompany him on this trip.

    The three of us started our journey on Tuesday morning from Soekarno Hatta’s (CGK) Terminal 3. It was my first time flying from Terminal 3, and I had to admit that it was very well designed, despite its status as a budget terminal. Probably also because it was the youngest compared to Terminal 1 and Terminal 2. After two hour flight, we arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport’s Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT), a terminal built mostly for Air Asia flights only. This time, the phrase “low cost” really made sense. From the aircraft we had to walk to the terminal building for a few hundreds meter, and one can easily gets mixed up with domestic passengers or even those who were about to board the aircraft. Later I found out that this terminal was formerly a cargo terminal and used temporarily while they are building the new KLIA2 budget terminal.

    A taxi ride from the airport to our hotel at Petaling Jaya cost around MYR 100 (SGD 40). At first I was surprised by the expensive fare for such ride, but even more surprised with distance when we started riding the cab. Spanning more than 50 km, it’s more than the length of Singapore from west to east! After almost one hour journey, we checked in at Eastin Hotel and looked for something to eat for our lunch.We found a small malay food stall amidst the commercial building. It reminded me of the food I used to eat in Singapore: relatively bland taste with some extra spices to replace chemical taste enhancer.

    Pascal & Gorilla DollAfter lunch, we took the hotel’s free shuttle bus that brought us to Tropicana City Mall, where we bought some snacks and bottled mineral waters for our stock at the hotel. I didn’t miss the chance to buy some packs of Old Town brand coffee. Thanks to my former colleague Ronald, I became obsessed with this brand since I left Singapore. It is very expensive to buy in Indonesia, and it’s just half price when I bought it there. We wanted to buy a local mobile number for MYR 10, but I forgot to bring our passport with us, so the seller didn’t allow us to get one. We spent the evening by visiting another shopping mall, The Curve. It is adjacent to Ikea furniture shop, but we had only energy left to had our dinner there. I had the infamous Swedish meatballs dish, but unlike in Singapore the meatballs were made from lamb instead of pork, as the majority of Malaysians are moslems. We went back to the hotel at 9 PM, with another free shuttle bus provided by the shopping mall.

    The next day, was the day of my brother’s match. It would start at 3 PM, so we had some time in the morning to explore Kuala Lumpur. We took a cab to KL Sentral, the hub for various transportation modes. From there, we took the Kuala Lumpur’s Hop-On Hop-Off bus. For about MYR 35 per person ticket, we could take a double decker bus ride to 23 destinations around Kuala Lumpur. As we didn’t have the whole day, we planned for two destinations to visit: the infamous Petronas Twin Tower and Chinatown. The rest, we would just take a good look from inside the bus.

    Istana NegaraWe passed about 11 stops before the Petronas Twin Tower. At some stops, the bus waited for 5-10 minutes to maintain the 30 minutes interval, as well as giving the passenger a chance to take a quick look on the tourist spot. One of the interesting spots is the Istana Negara (national palace), where visitors can take picture with one of the two guards on a horse in front of the gate. Somehow I pity them, having all those military trainings just to be the object of tourist photography.

    At around 10.30 PM, we arrived at the Twin Tower. The towers were as tall as advertised, but entry ticket cost a whopping MYR 80 (SGD 32) per person. We were not sure what we could get by paying that much, but didn’t want to take the risk of disappointment. We then just wandered around the shopping mall that is located just under the tower, but had to wait until 11.30 PM for the next bus to come. We continued our bus trip, but had been exhausted thanks to our earlier activities and the heat that started to come nearing noon.

    What’s left from us were regained when we arrived at Chinatown. My dad liked my idea of having a bak kut teh (sorry, it’s not halal – but turned out there’s a halal version as explained here) for lunch, so we started looking for one. After few minutes of desperate attempt to find one, I finally went to a dessert stall to ask the seller for a good bak kut teh restaurant around, in exchange for two cold puddings purchase. The bak kut teh restaurant, is called “Big Mouth”, and located in a small alley not far from the dessert stall. The delicious bak kut teh plus the surrounding made me feel like inside a Hong Kong gangster movie somehow, which was a good experience.

    It was almost 2 PM after lunch, which means we had to quickly find a cab to bring us to the rugby game venue in Petaling Jaya stadium. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the exact postal address. One taxi driver refused to take us, but another one boldly accept the challenge with only the fact that we should exit from highway at SS7, and a point in low resolution Google Map, thanks to the unavailability of data plan. After about half an hour journey, we arrived at a stadium in a middle of nowhere. The taxi driver insisted that that’s the stadium we were looking for, based on the fact that’s the only stadium around. But there was no signs of a match going to happen, so I insisted him to wait while I double checked with an officer on duty there. It turned out to be true, we came to the wrong stadium. Luckily the office gladly told me and the driver how to go to the correct stadium. He even rushed us after knowing that the kick off will commence in a few minutes left.

    We finally arrived at Petaling Jaya stadium. But there was another problem, we alighted at the opposite side of the stadium entrance, it was raining, and the cab had already left us. That means we had to walk half the circumference of the stadium to get inside without cover. Luckily, there was another cab and the driver was taking a break inside. Not wanting my dad and wife to get sick, I asked him for his service.

    “Where?”

    “That side!”, I told him while pointing my finger to the opposite side of the stadium.

    Confused at first, he finally accepted the ride for a token of MYR 3 (the official minimum taxi fare).

    MBPJ StadiumWe spent the first half of the game trying to find where was my brother. We then found out he was wearing shirt #7, after asking another viewer who turned out to be a Malaysian studying in Jakarta, having played for Indonesia’s Banteng rugby club. Sadly, it was an uneven match for Indonesia, as Guam beaten them 38-17. Understandable, considering short training time for Indonesia, and the captain’s injury just a day before the match. However, we heard the good news days after we went back, that Indonesia beaten China for 37-13 on the final, securing the place in division 3.

    Our return to the hotel was quite challenging, as the stadium was out of nowhere. After wandering about half an hour, we finally found a cab that could take us to the hotel area. However, we decided to go back to Tropicana City Mall instead, to get some consolation ice creams and stock up our bottled water for the night. Then we took another cab to the hotel. We were quite exhausted that evening, but still had the energy to wander around the hotel area for another local food dinner. We finally picked an Malay-Indian restaurant. It was almost closing, so the menu was limited. We ordered fried rices for our dinner, and got back to the hotel to rest.

    The next day, we just laid down at the hotel, waiting for our flight back to Jakarta at 3PM in the afternoon. The three of us had to finish off about ten valencia oranges my dad had bought earlier due to extreme discount at the shopping mall, an offer he couldn’t refuse. After a desperate attempt to eat one by one, I squeezed the rest of oranges to make an orange juice, with help of a clean plastic bag. It didn’t taste so bad after all, but my dad refused to drink it after he knew where I got the plastic bag from (guess yourself). I spent the rest of the morning swimming with my dad, followed by preparing our stuffs for checkout.

    KLIAThe hotel’s taxi ride to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) cost almost MYR 150, but luckily I asked for another option. A regular cab cost only MYR 100. Still more expensive than taking a SkyBus from KL Sentral, but we didn’t have the luxury of time anymore. We wandered around at KLIA main building for a moment, had lunch there, and took a shuttle bus to the LCCT, as our flight would took off from there. The journey lasted for half an hour, a long trip considering both are in the same area. The check in experience in LCCT was no better than the arrival. We had to walk quite a distance from entrance to the check in counter, immigration and the boarding gate. There were limited signages, and one can easily mixed up too, when walking from the boarding gate to the aircraft. On the bright side, the airport was generally clean and well-ordered.

    Our flight take off at 3 PM closed our journey to Kuala Lumpur, with most of us sleeping in the plane.

    YunnieBy the way, it’s my wife birthday today; somehow coincide with the hotel birthday. Check out also my brother’s game and winning speech here.

  • Faith in Humanity Restored, with Public Transport

    Live with angkotIn case you didn’t know, I have spent about a year in Bandung building this website to help people navigate using public transport. In the meantime I also teach at Universitas Katolik Parahyangan. For both reason, I take the local buses, called angkot, to transport me back and forth between my home and office. Interestingly, taking this angkot means to know more about people’s life stories, much more than driving my own car. And of those stories, there are some worth to share, to restore faith in humanity.

    Let’s start with the first one. Every morning, the angkot I rode passed through Jalan Cicendo, which is the center for blind people rehabilitation. Of course the blindness could not be cured, but one can strive to improve the patient’s quality of life. Almost every day I saw blind people have the confidence to use angkot to travel from their place to another. Angkots in Bandung are most easily differentiated by their colors, not numbers. This clearly gives more difficulties to the blind. However, with their perseverance, the blind patiently waits for almost each angkot passing by and ask the driver if they are driving the route they want to take. On the opposite side, the drivers who are usually famous for being rude to people patiently check if the blind want to ride his angkot, and notify the blind when the destination has been reached.

    Another experience came when I rode an angkot to Padalarang, and return. I did this to complete the website’s database, and it took more than three hours on the road. Sitting at the front row seat, I had a chance to have a conversation with the driver, an guy, perhaps in his 60s. It turned out that he is a pensioner of Kopassus, a military group locally known for their achievement being the #3 top elite forces in the world. He proudly showed me his ID card, and told stories about himself when he was young and sent to various countries, like East Timor and Cambodia. From his salary (which he claimed only IDR 7.500/month in the 80’s) and pension fund, he started the angkot business, in which he bought an angkot bus by credit and let himself and another driver ride it everyday to pay for the installment. At the end of our conversation, I realized something, that he shared all his stories enthusiastically, without any complaints about the government or anyone. If you live in Indonesia, you will know that, well, other than this guy, you will not spend a single day talking to people without complaining about things.

    Lastly, about a father’s love to his child. In an ordinary day during my trip to my office, a father and his son boarded the angkot. The son seemed to have suffered from down syndrome, and judging from the transport mode they were using, they were clearly didn’t come from a rich family. Along the way, the father tried to start little conversations with his son, though thanks to the syndrome each topic didn’t last long. Some of the topics that I overheard was a suggestion to fight back when other children mock on him, about asking permission to his son to go to Jakarta to work for a couple of days, and about promise to play together on a future visit to Trans Studio theme park, after he had returned from Jakarta. That sounded simple, but immediately touched my heart. It must have been hard to raise a child with some disabilities, but the father seemed to work hard to give the best for his son.

    Those are the stories worth sharing. Reality show at it’s best, when it comes from reality, not from television.

  • Asia-Afrika and the Museum Konperensi

    This trip was unexpected. It was when I serviced my car at Auto 2000 Asia Afrika, the customer service told me that I had to wait few minutes for the car to get a free wash. There were two cars in front of mine in the line, and after 15 minutes they didn’t move. So I decided to walk around Jalan Asia Afrika to see if there is interesting place to visit. My Nokia phone told me that Museum Konperensi is not too far away. Museum Konperensi is a museum inside a building named Gedung Merdeka. However, once inside, it’s difficult to distinguish which one is Konperensi, and which one is Merdeka part.

    Walking towards the museum, there were interesting places around the street. One is Bandung KM 0, which denotes the “exact coordinate” of Bandung city. This point is useful for standardizing distance between Bandung and another cities, especially in intercity roads. The other is a local newspaper “Pikiran Rakyat” office, which features some boards showing today’s newspaper for free. In case you don’t have Rp 2,900 for a copy, you may just go there to read one.

    I reached the museum few minutes before 1 PM. Unfortunately it was closed for lunch from 12 noon to 1 PM. However, after waiting for few minutes, it finally reopened. The entrance is free, but visitors have to fill in the guest book. Without looking at my entry, the receptionist asked me where I came from, thinking that I am a tourist. I innocently answered “Jalan (street) Mohammad Toha”. “Ah, Bandung!”, she confirmed.

    There were pictures of Indonesia’s founding fathers like Soekarno and Mohammad Hatta, and some dioramas from the independence era. There were also other exhibits from the konferensi theme. One of which was a classic telephone that, of you pick it up will play a translated version of a phone call by a Eastern European lady with Soekarno. The conversation sounded suggestive at first, but turned political then boring along the time.

    Another place to see is the conference hall, most likely the room where the Konferensi Asia Afrika meeting was held. At the stage there were flags of the members. There were also a big gong of world peace showing flags of different countries, though I am not sure what it means in this Asia-Afrika context.

    After about half an hour visiting the museum, it was time for me to go back to the service center. It was an interesting experience, since I don’t have too many chances to visit this type of places.

    Museum Konperensi / Gedung Merdeka is located at Jalan Asia Afrika. Come here by public transport with help of KIRI angkot navigation.

  • Saung Angklung Udjo

    Saung Angklung UdjoTranslated to “Mr. Udjo’s angklung haven”, this place hosts daily cultural performances and sell traditional souvenirs. Though I visited the place twice during my undergrad study, I only went to the shop to get my overseas friends a gift. More than 5 years after I knew about the place, my uncle brought me here to see the performances. And it was spectacular, just as he had advertised earlier.

    The show is held once daily in the afternoon at 3.30 PM, but it’s better to call in advance to confirm and book the place, as the seats are usually fully occupied. It is ironic yet interesting that half of the capacity is occupied by people from other countries. At that time, there were people from Netherlands, France, and even Sudan. There were also people from other provinces like eastern Java and Medan.

    Anyway, about the show. It started with a wayang performance which I admit was quite boring, though the skill of the puppet master is exceptional.

    Afterwards, we were surprised by children running around the stage. There could be around 100 children over there. Some of them were playing musical instruments, some just yelling, and others were playing traditional games. But they were all looked happy for sure. Whatever they did seemed like a game for them (note their facebook page has a cover photo that describes exactly what I meant). There was this chubby girl named Diva, who shout the loudest and instantly became sensation throughout the performance. All in all, it was meant to show an illustration of circumcision ceremony for a boy. Yes, we do have a ceremony for circumcision.

    The next performance was a traditional mask dance. Again, though not so exciting, this performance showed a carefully trained skill that the performer has. It was then followed by a performance called Arumba, a marriage of traditional angklungs and modern musical instruments, creating a nice music experience. It was played by several teenagers, some of which are the descendants of late Mr. Udjo, the founder of this haven.

    Then came out Mr. another Udjo, also the descendant of the late Mr. Udjo. But this guy was so special, he was one of the leaders and grandmasters in this haven. He showcased some of the haven’s achievements, one of which breaking the world record by having thousands of people playing angklung at the same time. In this performance, he also lead his team to perform some pop songs, like Michael Jackson’s “We Are The World” and the more difficult one Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

    There were also an interactive performance, where the guests were lent different type of angklungs, identified by Indonesia’s island names. There were total of 8 types, denoting musical notes from do (c), re (d), mi (e), … for one octave. Each type is also represented with a gesture, played by a young boy, who is the son of the aforementioned grandmaster. Then, looking by the boy’s gesture, guests are invited to shake their angklung, and together creating a musical performance.

    The event was closed when the children were wandering around the guests seat, and asking them to come down and dance with them. Traditional games like ular naga and others were played together. All in all, it was a very nice experience, to learn something about the cultural richness of the place I live.

    Saung Angklung Udjo is located at Jalan Padasuka. There are many ways to get there once you’re in Bandung, however be responsible to the nature, take public transport (http://kiri.travel?finish=saung+angklung)

  • Singapore Once Again

    After four months in Indonesia, I went back again to Singapore for a super short trip. I indeed had planned to visit this tiny country once again since I still had a bank account to close, some personal belongings that I left at a friend’s house due to baggage weight limit, and an X-box + Kinect that I won from a lucky draw. Yes, you read it right, an X-box + Kinect. I won it since I used my Nokia E52 to read my hotmail messages, and of course registered my email to the Microsoft-sponsored lucky draw. Considering the number of people in Singapore using Nokia and has a hotmail account, I consider myself very lucky 😉

    I didn’t tell most of my friends about my trip, as the schedule was very tight. Taking advantage of Indonesia public holiday on Friday, I flew to Singapore in the morning, arrived about 2PM and went straight away to the hotel to drop my luggages. I then went to the nearest DBS branch in Bugis to close my account there, hoping to reach there before the bank closes. I made it, and followed by buying some gifts for my relatives at NUS central library. To my surprise, I was entitled for 5% discount as an NUS alumni. I then moved again to Clementi mall, to buy some grooming and dental care goods not found in Indonesia. It was still crowded as before. Lastly, I went to Choa Chu Kang to meet my friend there, also to pick up the X-box. We went for dinner at the nearby Malay restaurant, just next to Choa Chu Kang Park. It was a very nice restaurant with a kampong (village) ambiance. Unfortunately it is going to close soon on early April. About almost 10PM, I went back to my hotel, a one hour journey to Geylang.

    Yep, I stayed in Geylang. For those who doesn’t know, it is a very famous red district area in Singapore. However, it also a best location for transit in Singapore if you are on a tight budget. Cheap accomodations, relatively near to airport, and lots of girls.. I mean, food. If you happen to visit Geylang, don’t forget to try the frog leg porridge and char kway tiau. Anyway, I stayed at Fragrance hotel at Lorong 10, which was surprisingly clean and convenient, for a hotel that lies at the heart of red district area.

    The next day, I left in the morning to have a nostalgic local dish roti prata. I used to have that for breakfast near the office when I worked for Gemalto. After breakfast, I took a bus to Mustafa Center to buy some souvenirs. It is interesting that at the entrance, they put LCD screens showing the estimated number of people inside the building, and the maximum number allowed. I am pretty sure this was due to an audit by the Singapore Civil Defence Force that showed the building is very dangerous when there is a fire, as too many people are allowed inside the building.

    From Mustafa, I went back to the hotel and take another bus to meet my former landlord. I could have taken bus #51, but I took #100 instead with about 5 km longer route but passed through many interesing places in the city area. En route, I stopped at Alexandra Hospital to buy some dental floss at the pharmacy. Me and my landlord had lunch at her house, and she was very kind to bought us local delicacies like bak kut teh and cakes from the famous Tiong Bahru market. My landlord also gave me several letters sent to me but delivered to her house. Among them are: a due-to-incomplete-address returned personal letter that I sent to Germany, and a $12 check from SingTel because I paid too much for the last month’s mobile internet bill. Too bad I didn’t have time to go to the bank again to cash it. May be I should spend another few hundreds of dollar to visit Singapore again to cash it? 🙂

    After lunch, I then met my former colleagues and have another lunch at Geylang (I planned for just some snacks, but you know, it’s difficult to resist foods that bring nostalgic memories). We talked a lot about our lives, other colleagues in the office, and my projects in Bandung. After lunch, my friend offered me a ride back to the hotel, but I preferred to just walk, to see once again the street of Geylang.

    That concluded my mission in this short trip to Singapore. As I had unused buffer time, I spent the evening by enjoying massage at North Bridge road (there are nearer alternatives in Geylang, but it is not wise for a “clean” person like me). It felt very relaxing, especially after walking almost non-stop for the last two days. After which, I skipped dinner and went straight to the hotel to rest early, for I had to wake up early in the morning, catching the 9 AM flight back to Bandung. To another adventure!

     

  • Ping? Pong!

    This post is just to let you know that I am still alive. I have been occupied with a lot of activities for my startup project with my friend Budi; and other small stuffs (relocation, catechism, etc…). Unfortunately that means lower priority to maintain this blog.

    And as wise men say, a picture worth a thousand words. And turned out it takes much lesser effort than writing, too 🙂 So here are 7000 words of decorations in my new house, that are gifts from friends and relatives.

    A book called On a Street in Singapore, gift from my badminton friends Abhineet, Albert Quah, Albert Tjipto & his girlfriend, and Heldi
    Notebook with messages and greeting cards from my ITB friends in Gemalto, along with other gifts.
    A unique wall clock, gift from other ITB friends, who were with me since I moved to Singapore.
    Singlish candies from my former landlord Christine, Pineaple cake from Budi, and a nice Paul Allen memoir from my brother Daniel
    Swan doll made of unused cement paper from my aunt Meme, along with some decorations I bought myself.
    A cross to help me feel safe. A gift from my aunt Veronica more than 5 years ago, but I still keep it until now.
    Finally, a celebration to start using my new workshop! With help of my girlfriend and her family. Thanks Budi for taking the picture.

     

    It’s hard not to miss Singapore after that four years, but the gifts helped me to remember the good (and bad) times there. I feel very grateful to have friends and relatives that gave those gifts!

    And as you may notice that I’ve changed the blog title. I still hope that I can write frequently again in the future.

  • Malacca Trip

    It will take sometime until I can post a nice article, if any. The quality of mobile internet connection is Indonesia is not as good as in Singapore, and I am practically a nomad for a few moment now. I really want to tell some interesting stories about my adaptation to the new life, but let’s see. For the moment, I have a story about my trip to Malacca, just days before I left Singapore for good. Here it is.

    —

    My landlord gave me a very nice suggestion to spend sometime around Singapore before I left it for good. Therefore, Malacca it was. Malacca is a 4-hour journey from Singapore, depending on the traffic and immigration. As it is a small town and I didn’t have too much time to spend, I only spent a night there along with my friend Handy.

    We departed from a bus terminal in Bugis, about 8 AM in the morning; thanks to my Malaccan colleague Jia Hwang who bought the ticket for me. The bus was quite nice, and we were lucky to sit in the back. About 1 hour before we reached our destination, the bus’ air conditioner system seemed had overheated, spilling fresh water every now and then in the middle seat area. On the bright side, it made people laugh of the silliness.

    Chicken Rice BallWe reached the “Malaka Sentral” terminal about noon, but we had to take a cab to the main tourist area, about 15 minutes journey for MYR 20. We alighted near the end of Jonker Street and quickly queued up for the chicken rice ball restaurant there. It seemed quite famous among tourists, but after all it was just a chicken rice with the rice rolled into few balls.

    We continued by walking along the Jonker Street (a.k.a. Jalan Hang Jebat, Chinatown), which was very interesting. Walking along that street felt like going back in time. All buildings were decorated in a Chinese 50’s era style. Being a tourist attraction street, it was quite amazing to see some unpopular buildings like a newspaper office or a mortuary over there.

    We then checked in at our hotel, Baba House, located not far from the Jonker Street. Exactly as described in a Lonely Planet book, the lobby decoration was very interesting and classic, but the rooms were quite bland. However, it’s not bad at all for a MYR 145 per night rate.

    Outside the Jonker Street, the town was influenced by Portuguese culture. There were classic buildings like churches and fort remains. The well-known Stadyhus is the central of the surrounding buildings: Christ Church, Windmill, etc… We climbed up the hill a bit to see the St. Paul Church. Plenty of tombstones were planted there, remembering the names of several Portuguese lived in the past. Just nearby, there were some Malay Sultanate museums and the Cheng Ho museum.

    An uncle selling fried potato at Jonker Street
    An uncle selling fried potato at Jonker Street

    The sun was almost set when we went back to Jonker Street. Interestingly, that street was closed for vehicles and transformed into a night market, similar to those in Lau Pa Sat. We rested a while in our hotel, and out again, this time to the infamous satay celup restaurant, Capitol Satay, about 15 minutes walking from the Jonker Street. We were a bit late, so we had to queue for more than an hour for a seat. On the same street with the Capitol, there were 2 more satay celup restaurant with almost no visitors. They were selling alternative value propositions, like “Why pay 90 cents in Capitol, while our satay is 60 cents only” or “We have 40 years experience!”.

    The queue was paid off when we started to dine there. The menu was simple: you pick several uncooked meats or vegetables in wooden sticks, then you cook it yourself in a bowl of peanut sauce. However, it was somehow very interesting and quite delicious, too. While we were eating, we heard all staffs were talking in Javanese. It turned out that the owner of the stall was from Java and had become a Malaysian resident.

    After dinner, we headed to the Maritime Museum, not far from Jonker Street. Unfortunately it only opens during the day, so we only spent the time outside, taking pictures of the massive ship that acts as the museum.

    Goodbye!
    Goodbye!

    On the next day, we spent morning time by walking to the Fort Santiago, which is well known for photo taking spot. It is the remains of a fort that was built also by the Portuguese. The place was nice but not exceptional, perhaps because we had seen St. Paul Church the day before.

    Before going back to the hotel I stopped by a shop selling cendol. The interesting thing about this chendol is the cup. It was made of thick paper, and equipped with the handle; also made with paper. The patented paper handle was made strong enough to hold a full cup of the drink.

    For lunch, my friend Handy had the infamous peranakan laksa, while I chose the safer side by ordering a normal noodle (I had bad experiences with spicy food).

    It was then time to go home. We had to go back to Malaka Sentral to take the bus back to Singapore. We would like to try the public bus there, but it was too crowded hence too risky for my weak knee. We then decided to just take another cab anyway. Few minutes before 2 PM, we were already in the bus heading for Singapore; ending our short journey to Malaka.

  • Sayonara Singapore!

    It has been almost 4 years since I moved to Singapore, and that is not a short period. Shortly I will be leaving this so-called red dot country to start a new journey in Indonesia. There were ups and downs during my stay here, but all gave a wonderful experience.

    It all started when I joined Gemalto, early 2008. I arrived here with my dad, to meet Ronny who became my roommate for about a year. He just graduated from NUS, and looking for an inexpensive room before securing a job. To save money, we shared a non-airconditioned room near Commonwealth MRT, living with the landlord who is an auntie (old lady).

    Though Ronny moved out after about a year, I stayed at the very same place for the rest of my life in Singapore. The place is not exceptional, though. I didn’t install an air conditioner, and since it’s located next to a main road, it’s quite noisy during the day and sometimes at night. At some months, the room temperature at night can be up to 35 °C, leaving the bed drenched with my sweat. However, I am the type of person who prefer to accept things and avoid troubles (or as the Chinese says, cincay), so I kept staying here. Anyway, what doesn’t kill you just make you stronger, no? The good thing about it is the location, being near to MRT, my office, campus, as well as Orchard road; all accessible within 20 minutes. And here’s a little secret for you to save money, if you can live peacefully with a single auntie or uncle, usually the room price will be discounted, since it’s more important for them to have someone to talk to than the money itself.

    The cincay policy also applied to my job, which I have been taken also for the whole life in Singapore. It is very clear until today that working in this company does not give you a lot of money, but instead more of experiences, upgrades (in term of trainings) and flexible working hours. There is one thing I was trying to prove, that you don’t have to work late to perform well at work. I am glad to say it proved well, at least in the work environment I was. The key is to give as much as your time in the office hours to work, and strive to optimize the way you work to make it even more efficient and effective. It is also important to spend your time outside the office hours not to work, so that you’ll start afresh when you work the next day. And lastly, especially in Singapore, be prepared to accept your colleagues saying “Wow, your team is always relax one, never go OT (overtime) what!” (Singlish pun intended).

    After my first few days in Singapore, I visited a friend who had spent more than 4 years in Singapore, and he gave me this wise advise “You’ll get bored here in just a few months”. It is true that one can get easily bored in Singapore. Singapore may have more shopping malls compared to Jakarta, or larger than the town of Kuta (Bali), but everything here seems to be, well, in order. I don’t know how many times I got lost in a new HDB (residential) area, because all the building looks the same. When I go to work, I take the same bus through the same road everyday, unlike in Jakarta where you have to find alternative roads everyday due to traffic jams. Having said those, there is small hope to go out of boredom in Singapore. If you have more cash, flying abroad to nearby places in Asia is a good option. Otherwise (or if you want to save), it’s also good to look for alternative interesting places in Singapore, as you can see in my blog posts. Public parks and museums are good start, and they are usually free or very affordable.

    Photo by Egon
    Photo by Egon

    It was surprising at the beginning to know that Singapore is in the top 10 of highest life expectancy countries in the world, despite the stressful life here. However after spending few months here, the reason became clear. People really care about their health, watch what they eat, and do physical exercise – a lot! Countless of marathons are held every year, also running events with lesser distances like 5km and 10km. Realizing that me and my family has history of hypertension, I started to follow the healthy habit. I started with the child’s play distance 1-2 km, until my boss told me that running shorter than 15 minutes would not have significant impact to the heart. Despite whether it’s true or not, I started to push myself to run longer, up to 7km. For variation, I also went swimming in nearby swimming pools, which is ridiculously very cheap, ranging from $1 to $2 per entry. Finally, I managed to gather few fellow Indonesians to play futsal almost weekly. Ironically that futsal sessions led me to a knee injury that forced me to get a surgery and absence from sport for few months (see the story here). Despite that, I am glad that I now have the physical and mental capability of living a healthy habit, which I look forward to keep when I am back to Indonesia.

    Last but not the least, life is not complete without friends. And one of the most important friends I knew here was those people from Institut Teknologi Bandung. Starting from a friend I knew in a project back in college days, she introduced me to several other friends from various departments in that university. All being new to this country, we were close together in our early years. We even managed to visit Phuket together for a vacation. Unfortunately, after that few years each of us started to settle down, and occupied by different priorities: me taking my master degree, a guy committed to his girlfriend, a lady getting married, others went abroad for study, and et cetera. However we do try to meet once in a while during birthday celebrations and keep in contact through social media means.

    Well, those are a bit of story of my life in Singapore. When I post this, it should be few days before I leave the country. Whether I will still write in this blog, that’s a question for me, too. Thinking about the places in Indonesia that I can write about…

  • Get lost, in the name of development!

    If there is the time I don’t like Singapore, it could be this weekend. It happened few days before my last day here, so it could be bias though. However, read on and you judge me.

    Last Saturday, I went to the library to read a book I was interested at. I went out from home at 9, but forgot that the library actually opens at 10. This was not the first time I arrived too early at the library, but this time was different. Few months back, when I was too early, I just stop by a nearby hawker center to get a cup of coffee while doing something productive with my laptop. But this time, the hawker center was not there anymore: it was demolished and replaced by construction of new HDB. All right, there’s no hawker center, but I remember there was a small park nearby with chair and table made of stone. So I went there, only to be disappointed since they were not there anymore. In the end, I spent the waiting time by sitting at the floor in front of the library, as with other fellow nerds who wants to be the first people inside the library when it opens.

    The second disappointment came when I was about to meet my friends at Raffles City mall. I came the earliest, so I had to wait there. Given my recovering leg condition, I preferred to find for a place to sit. Similar story, I remember that months before there was a convenient place to sit in front of a small man made waterfall (and the way the water fall is programmed in such a way it can form simple pictures), just few steps from the MRT entrance. It was not there anymore, and guess what, it was replaced by yet another shop. There was another free place to sit at the basement, but as expected it was full of people. It was very obvious that if you want to sit in that shopping mall, you have to go to one of the cafés there and buy an overpriced drink. There were plenty of seats, unoccupied. Luckily, I finally found a sofa at a CD shop, where I could sit for free. But as you know, the future of physical music stores is gloomy, so I expect that sofa won’t be there anymore in near future.

    Lastly, another incident on this Sunday, where I was about fight boredom by having dinner at my favorite Japanese food restaurant, Sumo House. Located in Clementi, it claimed to have the  “cheapest sushi in Singapore”. The restaurant occupies a small building with other shops, you can say it as a small plaza. Compared than the newly built Clementi Mall, this mall is a bit old and unpopular. And perhaps that’s why they were already closed when I tried to visit the restaurant. Almost the whole building was closed, leaving only 7-11 and KFC. It’s sad that I couldn’t have dinner there for the last time.

    Well, there’s always another point of view to look at this problem, and the same problem happens in other countries, too. That’s a fact that we have to accept, but, quoting a reader comment in a local newspaper about Cantonement Close HDB tear down… “In our efforts to evolve, do we sometimes forget to stop and sniff the flowers?”