I haven’t been traveling lately, so just an upload of a video I took few months back.
Author: pascal
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2 Hours of Graduation, 8 Days of Fun / Part 2 – Road Trippin’
This is part two of the story. You can read the first part here.
Pekalongan Station After spending quality time in Singapore, It was time to go back to Indonesia. I went to Bandung with my girlfriend using an AirAsia flight. Still having euphoria from the celebration, I spent a bit more of money by booking the hot seat at the front row. I felt lucky as the one seat beside me was empty, so I had some extra room. Until a guy from the back seat came in and took the seat. Fortunately, he agreed to move back after I convinced him that the seat is for hot seat passengers only. When the plane landed at Bandung, I realized one more benefit from the hot seat purchase, which is a faster waiting time at the immigration checks. There were only 2 officers on duty, hence arriving later at the gate contributed significant amount of waiting time.
I spent two nights in Bandung, and at the third day was the time for another trip to Pekalongan. It is a small town in Central Java, where my parents once lived their childhood. It is well known as Batik producer, but as I found out it’s also a heaven for seafood lover, thanks to its proximity to the ocean and low living cost. When I was younger, my dad used to take me there by car. We usually spent 1 to 3 days on the road. Not the whole day of course, but we tended to stop and stay overnight in the towns we passed by to enjoy them. This time, the ritual didn’t seem to be feasible anymore and the best option was to take a train!
About 7.30 in the morning, both of us boarded the train to Pekalongan. Unlike the years before, the Bandung-Pekalongan train this time took a much longer route by catching up the rail from Jakarta on the northern side. This means huge maintenance cost saving for the company, and longer journey time for the passengers (but on the brighter side, more scenery to see!). We arrived in Pekalongan about 2 PM, having only about five minutes to alight as the train was scheduled to go again to Semarang
After meeting the rest of the Singapore team (my parents, brother and his girlfriend), I freshened up by taking the legendary Es Teler at Jalan Dr. Cipto, followed by another desert es duren (durian syrup with ice). At late afternoon, we spent some time at the beach. It was not as clean as Sentosa beach, but at least there were not so much tankers there. In the evening, we went to a restaurant near the beach to have a big seafood dinner. For less than S$ 10 per person, we had grilled fishes, whole squids (more than just the rings), salad, and kangkungs (water spinach).
The beach at Pekalongan In the morning next day, we went for another culinary trip: a soto tauco (traditional spicy soup) at a small alley near the Es Teler restaurant. In the afternoon, we had another famous food from Kombor’s restaurant: chilli crab. Not really similar to the chilli crabs in Singapore, their crabs have less meat but better sauce. We tried to burn our fat afterwards at a local franchise of the Time Zone arcade center. After one hour of games, we started to get bored and went back home. Turned out that my aunt just bought a carrom discs for the table that she had had for a long time. Hence we started to spent another hour playing the game (even without precisely understanding the rules). Evening was another chance to taste various local foods in Pekalongan. We started by having swikees (frogs) cooked in various ways for dinner, followed grilled toast (yes, it was really grilled using charcoals!). As for the “dessert”, we had martabak. It was sold by a guy named Ibrahim, who we thought first came from middle east for his figure. Turned out that his father came from India.
I’ve been talking too much about food, haven’t I? Anyway, unfortunately on the third day we had to go back to our hometowns. My girlfriend went back to Bandung while I went to Jakarta along with my family. It was another train trip, but this time much faster. It only took about 4 hours of journey. In Jakarta, me and my brother spent some time to watch a live soccer game by our old friends. Finally, I took a flight back to Singapore in the evening. It felt so fast, though in the end the story worth two posts of blog.
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2 Hours of Graduation, 8 Days of Fun / Part 1 – The Fine City
The Commencement Ceremony After 2.5 years of part time study in NUS, I have finally got the right to retrieve my master degree and participated in the graduation ceremony. The ceremony, or “commencement”, is one thing, but it was the time where people who are close to me came to Singapore to celebrate with me. And this serious business turned into an exciting plan when I found out that the room rate for a hotel in Sentosa Island is not much different than the ones in city. And so I booked the hotel at Sentosa for 4 days of fun, and only 2 hours of commencement (wait, you said 8 days? well, keep reading…).
My parents, brother, and our girlfriends arrived at Singapore on Sunday afternoon after a 1.5 hours of flight from Jakarta. Carrying big bags with us including myself, we took a maxi cab straight to the hotel to check in. We stayed at Siloso Beach Resort, just next to the Wave House Sentosa. It’s would be a perfect place (it’s a stone throw away to the beach), if only there are no tankers resting at the sea, practically covering most part of the horizon. The rest of the day was spent walking around the beach, followed by shopping at the Chinatown area. In the evening, we went to my landlord’s house, who was very kind to invite us for a home-cooked dinner at her house. Few hours later, we left her house with the hope to catch the 9 PM Crane Dance attraction. Unfortunately, the machine was down for maintenance on that day, leaving us only to watch the Lake of Dreams at 9.20 PM. It was okay.
The next day, four of us went to the Universal Studios Singapore, while my parents preferred to go shopping as they have been there before and a second visit is not that interesting anymore. I didn’t expect to be that crowded inside the theme park on Monday. But it was. Except for the Spielberg’s effect showcase, Shrek 4D and Water World, it took about and hour to wait in the queue (and less than 10 minutes in the ride itself). The most exciting attraction was, as before, the Mummy’s roller coaster. At the end of the day, we didn’t ride the infamous Battlestar Galactica, cowardly backing off when we saw that the estimated waiting time is at least 1.5 hour. In the evening, we headed to nearby Vivo City mall to buy some souvenirs, as well as to have dinner at the Food Republic on the top floor. I always like to dine here for its oldies-themed interior design. We then met my parents who were there since afternoon and went back to the hotel to finish the day.
Trip to Universal Studios Singapore The third day was the commencement day. Since it was held in the afternoon, I spent the lazy morning swimming at the hotel’s swimming pool. There was a man made waterfall beside the swimming pool, giving a natural feeling, although a bit awkward. After a late breakfast, we walked at the beach, again lazily enjoying the scenery and the breeze before we had to go for the commencement. About 12 noon, we went to NUS to have dinner at a cafe in Mochtar Riady building. This is a new building owned by the Business School (while they gave their older COM2 building to School of Computing). Then, shortly before 2 PM we took internal shuttle buses to go to the venue at University Cultural Center.
The commencement itself was good and well managed. But perhaps it was too formal to me. It’s more difficult to wear the gown, compared to what I wore in my undergraduate commencement. The seats were arranged in a somewhat random manner, hence I didn’t know the guys who sat next to me. While this is quite normal given the large number of students, it just gave me an idea of a facebook app that retrieves the friend connections from facebook (with student’s consent, of course) and tries to group students with their friends as close as possible. Anyway.., the current seating arrangement turned out to be not so random for some people. The guy who sat on my left turned out to be a good friend of the guy on my right, hence they spent most of the time chatting with each other with me in the middle. After sometime I politely asked one of them to switch place with me, to allow them chat easier and give a relieve for me for not being a man-in-the-middle. The best part of the commencement was, of course when it ended and I had the chance to meet and greet each other and took pictures with fellow graduates I knew. It was such an exciting experience, realizing what we have been through together and finally got the fruit of our labor.
The night was again spent by lazily enjoying the beach, as this was the last night in Singapore. At the next day, most of us went back to Jakarta, but me and my girlfriend took a separate flight to Bandung. Yes, I indeed took the flight to Indonesia! I actually decided to take more leave and spent the whole week for vacation instead of just watching them gone and spend the rest of the week at the office cube. And then the next 4 days of adventure begins! (to be continued…)
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Jakarta & Bandung Trip 2011
Me & Monas After finishing my last semester in NUS, it was time for a long break! This time, I visited Jakarta and Bandung for about 9 days. A luxury I couldn’t get during the semester term.
First stop was Jakarta. I took a flight in the morning from Singapore, and arrived around noon. After landed, I searched for my dad who picked me up at the airport. While I was looking for him, I saw many adolescent girls looking very excited waiting for something. Out of curiosity, I asked one of them what’s happening. She answered “Super Junior is coming!” with a look that says something like “Oh my God! You really don’t know what’s happening? Are you from outer space?”. I only saw the car they rode from distance amid the hysterical fans, but didn’t see the Super Junior members. I didn’t know them beforehand, anyway.
During the 4 days in Jakarta, I didn’t really go to interesting places. I spent most of them for quality time with family and by cleaning up my stuff that I left untouched while in Singapore. One of the task was to dispose a very old 486 desktop computer (from the year 1994). It turned out to be a difficult task, even my friend who works on a project that accept old computers for donation thinks that the specification was too low. I also tried to help my dad to remove a tree stump that lies at our front yard. The root has grown so deep it threatened to spoil the the water pipe under the soil. It was a task that looked easy but turned out to be very difficult. The root was thick and had forked into many smaller ones, making it difficult to pull out. In the end, we gave up and decided to try buying a kerosene to kill it slowly instead.
On Tuesday, I went to Bandung to meet my girlfriend, but it became some kind of breaking my diet plan in a culinary trip. Most of them involved having local meals that only found in warungs and home made cooking. On one occasion we had dinner at a modern cafe located next to a mosque, making the ambiance a bit awkward during prayer times. After almost four years (when I left Bandung), this city has been getting more cramped than before.
Almost every time I went to Bandung, I spent some time to watch movie in the cinema. During this time, there was some disagreement between the government and the movie distributor, making the blockbuster movies unavailable everywhere in Indonesia (well, except at the pirated DVD stores). It was quite a pity, but on the bright side it filtered out the mainstream movies that sell by their visual effects, and leaving the good movies that focuses on the story. In the end, Source Code and Scream 4 was quite satisfying to me.
I also spent some time to visit the university where I studied for my undergraduate. There were new buildings, making me and my girlfriend lost for a few moment before finding out the department we were looking for. It was very nice to see the professors that taught me and some former colleagues (I was working part time for 2 years in the university). Things haven’t changed much but I regret that I already forgot the names of some of them. The most nostalgic part is, well, the food. After having traditional fried chicken for dinner, we went for a second round at a nearby soup stall.
On the last day, I took a train back to Jakarta, to catch up the flight in the evening. I arrived around 10.30 but had to wait about one and a half hour for my parents and brother to come. They were taking another train from Pekalongan. While waiting, I went to the nearby tourist attraction: the national monument, a.k.a. Monas. It is interesting, because while I was born and raised in Jakarta, that was only the second time I went to Monas for at least 15 years. The first time was during the elementary school study tour. I was taking several pictures for this blog when a local seller came to me and tried to speak in English with me. I replied in English, too, until he asked me where I come from and I answered “Jakarta”. He looked a bit surprised, this crazy Jakartans still want to go to Monas?
About one hour later, my parent came. We then had a quick lunch, followed by rest at home. And in the evening, I flew back to Singapore. End of trip, was surely a pleasant break
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Red Dot Design Museum
Just after my visit to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum, I went to a nearby museum namely the Red Dot Design Museum. It exhibits various award-winning industrial designs, as well as sell them in the museum shop. There’s not much to tell here, just the fact that the museum was relatively small, but contain a lot of interesting stuffs inside. And when you see the ideas, most will make you think “why nobody thought of it before!”. I share some of the ideas here, so enjoy! (if the slideshow is too fast, you can pause it with the button)
My favorite is KeepIt. What’s yours?
Red Dot Museum is located at N° 28 Maxwell Road, Singapore 069120. It is reachable by Tanjong Pagar MRT.
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Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum
Buddhists celebration day Vesak is observed as public holiday in Singapore. This year Vesak Day fell on Tuesday, making the day-off a bit awkward. It was just a one day holiday, so I couldn’t go too far (like, going back home to Indonesia), but spending the day at home was just plain stupid. I was in the condition of what Indonesians call “style-death” (mati gaya): I really didn’t know what to do for several hours in the morning.Well, the answer turned out to be actually simple: it’s a Buddhist day, so the best place to go is, the temple! There is a temple in Chinatown open for public, namely the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum (even from the name you know it’s way more than just a temple). This temple is 4 storeys high, plus a rooftop structure; and anyone regardless of religion can enter, as long as you wear decent clothes.
The first storey is where I started. Many devotees came to pray, therefore it was quite crowded inside the building. There were some rituals can be done inside the temple. Some devotees queued to get a chance to “bath the Buddha statue”, which merely to pour fresh water into a small statue (my landlord told me about this earlier in the morning, so it’s nice to get a first view look). There was another interesting ritual, which was to put 100 coins into 100 bowls, placed contiguously next to the walls. It seemed that each bowl represent one god, as there were many god-like statues behind the bowls. That interested me to give it a try, by exchanging $10 notes with a hundred 10 cents coins. However, somehow I ran out of coins before I could put into the last four bowls; I must have mistakenly put more than a coin in the bowl before. Judging from the number of coins inside the last few bowls, seems that other people made the same mistake, anyway. Pity those poor last gods..
Then I went to the 4th floor, which where the tooh relic was located. The place was more sacred, so we had to take off our shoes before entering the room, and we were not allowed to take photograph. Another devotees and some monks were praying in front of the tooth relic, separated by a huge glass wall. By now you should’ve suspect that there is something special about the relic. Well, aside from being sacred, it’s made from 320 kg of pure gold! (clink clink..). In this floor, people could also pour some water to the statue there.
Next stop is the rooftop. Remember there were 100 bowls in the first floor? I imagined the people working in the temple was very persistent having to maintain those 100 bowls… until I saw the 100,000 Buddhas pavilion! There were actually 100,000 small statues inside the pavilion, each individually numbered. There were also a giant cyclinder rolling inside the pavilion. Devotees could hold on to the cyclinder while walking around the pavilion.
On the third floor there was a museum, showing yet another statues. And another devotees pouring water into the Buddha statue. But this time there was a printed description about the “Bathing the Buddha” ritual (finally, an explanation!). It originated from a story of 9 nagas spraying purified water into a newborn Buddha. Since then, devotees do this kind of ritual every 8th day of 4th lunar month anually.
There was not much to see in 2nd floor, so it concluded my visit to the temple. Although I’m not a Buddhist, it was quite an interesting experience, especially to understand how people from different religion pay homage to the Gods.
Buddha Tooth Rellic Temple and Museum is located at N° 288 South Bridge Road and accessible from either Chinatown or Tanjong Pagar MRT.
To be continued… The Red Dot Design Museum.
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Singapore Biennale 2011
Biennale is Italian for “every other year”. In Singapore, the word is taken to name a bi-yearly art event that is held in various places. When I said various places, it did really vary. In this year biennale, it took place at a museum, abandoned airport, as well as the merlion statue near Esplanade Theater (which many people have mistaken it as reparation work).I’ve been to the 2009 Biennale with my friends, and I didn’t want to miss the 2011 one. This time, I also went with my friends, but we only went to the exhibits which are free of charge. We started around 10.30 in the morning by visiting the Old Kallang Airport. Some of us came early, while the rest were slightly late. While waiting the others, we walked around the grassfield in front of the building. It was interesting, because what I thought earlier as thrashes were acually artworks. There were opened briefcases with pots and plants inside it, or a glass box containing textbooks from the olden days.
Inside the building, there were even weirder exhibitions. In one big room, there was a giant mock up of a fabric factory, with the resulting giant fabrics all around, made of papers and wires. In another half-painted room, there were furnitures from Ikea. The room that interested me the most was a simple dark room, with only neon lamps bent and placed to represent the phrase “Don’t Worry”. It was very simple, yet very subtle. Another interesting exhibition is, well, not the exhibition itself, but a sign that said something like this: “On 13 March 2011, a cleaner accidentally removed some stuffs, which he didn’t know they are part of the artwork”. Well, you never know how an artwork can transform to something else more interesting.
Nearing lunchtime, we were starting to get hungry, and there was only a small coffee shop there in Old Kallang Airport, so we decided to move to another exhibition, Hotel Merlion, because it’s closer to various restaurants in the city. This is the exhibit most visible to tourists, as it is located at the center of the city, and without the makeover itself, Merlion has already been a tourist destination. From outside, it looked like just a red box covering the Merlion statue.
We had to wait in line to get into the room, and there were about 50 persons in the line. However, the organizer has managed it nicely so that people won’t have to wait so long, as well as having ample time inside to enjoy the room. As usual, there was an annoying behavior from some people, trying to have 2-3 people in the queue, then “smuggling” another 4 to join them by cutting the line, after their turn to enter the exhibit was about to come. I was standing in front of them, so it didn’t make our turn slower. But it did affect our experience inside the hotel, since the organizer has limited the number of persons inside the room to avoid overcrowding.
After few minutes of sightseeing and photo taking, the organizer asked us to leave the room to give chance to another eager tourists. And that marked the end of our tour to the Biennale. Quite a short trip, but it was interesting.
Trivia: The Merlion Hotel did serve as a real hotel room at night, for few months. People can check in the late evening, and have to check out in the morning. Booking was made through phone call to a certain phone number served by a single operatory only. It was fully booked just an hour after the line was opened [1].
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Pascal’s Guide to Everyday Happiness
I love Sunday, because it’s a holiday.
I love Saturday, because it’s a holiday, too.
I love Friday, because it’s the last day before Holiday.
I love Thursday, because tomorrow is TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday).
I love Wednesday, because I would start to enjoy the days starting from tomorrow.
I love Monday and Tuesday, because without them, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday would be just an ordinary day.
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The Amazing Races
- Justin Bieber Fans at Soekarno Hatta
There are two ways to react to disturbances in your travel. One is to curse, of course. The other one is to enjoy it as a challenge, as the people in the Amazing Race game. This easter, I went for a short trip to Indonesia and had an opportunity to appreciate that fact. For this trip, I took a flight from Singapore to Jakarta, continued with a intercity (mini)bus to Bandung, spent one night there, another intercity bus to Jakarta, spent another night, and back to Singapore.
My first challenge started when I landed in Jakarta. It was to arrive in Bandung as fast as possible to, you know, meet my girlfriend. After touchdown at around 10.30 in the morning, I rushed to find the earliest bus that depart to Bandung. Unfortunately the first bus was already full and the next departure would be two hours later. I then decided to take a “premium” bus, in which each passenger will be delivered to their final destination, instead of the bus terminal. That day was a public holiday adjacent to normal weekend, therefore as predicted the traffic was awful. Even worse, I was unlucky to be the last person to be delivered, after wandering around Bandung and the suburbs. In total, I spent 5 hours on the road! I admit that I failed on my first challenge. Anyhow I was lucky that my girlfriend was understanding enough for my lateness.
The second challenge was when I was about to leave Bandung. My plan was to take another intercity bus bound for Jakarta at 3PM, expecting to arrive Jakarta 3 hours later, so I could catch the Easter eve mass at 7PM. I reserved a cab by phone for 2PM; 1 hour before is more than enough, I thought; which proven to be wrong. I started to worry when the cab company called 20 minutes before 2, saying that they haven’t found a free cab for me. At 2 sharp, they called again, informing the same news. Therefore, I went for plan B: take the infamous Bandung public transport angkot. I had to take the angkot to train station, and transfer to either another angkot or flag a cab there. Quite a pessimistic idea, but there was still hope. Another unfortunate event, after few kilometers the angkot did what is known as ngetem: the driver stopped and wait for another passenger to get in, with the hope of getting more money from more passengers. Based on my 4 years experience in Bandung as a student, this ngetem ceremony could take at least 15 minutes, while the time was already 2.20. I then alight and tried to flag a cab passing by, with no luck. Most drivers were reluctant as the bus terminal is located at a heavy traffic area. I spent about 10 minutes trying to flag a cab with no luck. Finally, it’s time for plan C…
While looking for a cab, I spotted a Damri bus stop, while the bus was there waiting for passengers. To be honest, though I’m a regular angkot user, I have never taken a Damri bus in Bandung before. What caught my attention was the sign on the bus front window, saying that the next stop is Pasteur, which is very close to the bus terminal I was heading to. The driver was not there yet, so I confirmed with a lady who sat at the front seat. She said it’s possible to alight at the terminal, but I had to tell the driver beforehand. After 15 minutes of waiting, the bus finally started to move. It was obvious that I will miss the 3PM intercity bus, but I still had hope for the next one at 4PM. When I told my girlfriend about my decision to take Damri bus, her response was a suprise and a simple and clear “awas copet” (watch out for thieves). Given the bus condition, it seemed very prone to criminal activities, after all. Thank God all my valuables including my self were save. The official price for one trip is IDR 5,000 (SGD 1), and you’re entitled to a receipt as a proof of payment. As instructed by the lady, I told the driver to stop at the intercity bus terminal. I really looked like “a new guy in town”, so the driver joked me that the price to stop at the terminal is 50,000 (in a half-serious tone). I joked him back with a question “could you remove one zero for me?” with a smile. I didn’t want to assume anything about him, but finally I gave him only IDR 5,000, the official price (I didn’t get a receipt after all). Well Mr. Driver, if you read this post, I did it for your own good.
I was late for the 3PM bus, and the 4PM bus is full. The best option I could take was to put myself into the 4PM waiting list. It was very anxious, as my name was not called even as late as 5 minutes after 4. Luckily some passenger didn’t show up at the terminal, and the seat was given up to me. I arrived 3 hours later at the Jakarta terminal, and I rushed to take a cab to get to the church. As the distance to the church was not too far, the driver asked to pay a fixed price instead of using the distance meter. I accepted it, but really regret it later. It’s not that the price was too expensive, but somehow I indirectly helped the driver to corrupt his employer money.
The rest of the journey was not very eventful, though. It was more of spending quality time with my family, and resting my body after the adventurous trip to Bandung.
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Weekend Refreshment: Singapore Botanic Garden
The past week has been quite exhausting, so I switched back to mother nature for a weekend refreshment. This time, it’s the Singapore Botanical Garden. I’ve been here before (the post here and here), and many time I went through some part of the garden when I jog. Anyhow, it’s still interesting to visit, and this time I visited also the National Orchid Garden, for a student entrance fee of $1 (public is $5).I don’t have enough time to write now, so I just share some pictures here. Click on the pictures to see the larger version, or click here to see the track that I walked through.