After Singapore

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more

Author: pascal

  • NUS Museum

    After giving up persuading my friend to go to CSI Exhibition ($20 for geek stuff, too expensive!), I finally decided to go to NUS (National University of Singapore) Museum instead, alone. It’s funny that I have been taking the master course for 2 years here in NUS, but only recently I visited the museum.

    The museum is located next to the University Cultural Center, another building which is normally visited by the lovely PM Lee at least once a year. The museum has 3 levels, and the main entrance leads you to the 2nd level. Nobody was there except the receptionist when I entered the museum. She reminded me to not using flash while taking photographs, answered with a short confirmation from me.

    The 2nd level exhibits fossils and artifacts from the past, as well as their sculptures and paintings. There was one room also showing pictures and stories of mystical rituals in Singapore. From the past. There is no more ghost now in Singapore.

    I then walked down the stairs to the 1st level. There was only 2 persons there, a security guard and another receptionist. The guard kept looking at me while I was walking towards the exhibition room, and even when I browsed inside. It’s a pity for him, there’s nobody else he can watch to fulfill his duty. The receptionist looked as bored as the guard, constantly looking at the LCD monitor she had. And when I walked past her, I could see her playing the Solitaire game. Pity her, too.

    Oh, the exhibition. At the 1st level, there were 2 rooms. One room displayed ancient Chinese ceramics, while the other exhibited paint themed work of modern artists, in collaboration with a paint company. There I found another visitor, at last. I just smiled at her and spoke no more. While looking at the works, my head hit a signboard hanged to the ceiling, and made it swing lightly. The sign read “I would tell the truth”. Well, I tell you the truth that I did hit that signboard.

    Then I moved to the 3rd floor, where artistic but freaky sculptures are exhibited. Some of them showed nudity, but not in pornographic style.

    This 3rd floor finalized my visit to the museum. Pretty exciting visit, though very quiet inside.

    NUS Museum is located at NĀ° 50 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119279. Admission is free.

  • Somerset Food Night

    Few days back, my friend Handy told me that there is a nice padang* restaurant near Somerset MRT, namely The Warung M Nasir (WMN). Well, it’s Saturday night and I don’t want to spend my weekend at home, so I asked him to have our dinner there.

    We were supposed to meet at 7PM, but I arrived slightly earlier. While waiting for him, I saw an advertisement of a cafe called “J-Town”, which at first I thought have something to do with Japanese culture. Turned out the J stands for Jakarta, and they sell Indonesian light meals like siomay or sweet martabak. Sticking to the plan, we still went to the WMN, and planned to get some dessert at J-Town afterwards.

    WMN occupies a small building in Kiliney Road, and they serve several types of food to choose, just like in a Malay economic rice stall. I ordered a chicken rendang with daun singkong (cassava leaves) and boiled egg, with a carbonated soft drink. It costed $6.80, pretty affordable though more expensive than normal nasi padang.The place itself is quite cozy, with the theme of 80’s. Probably that’s why we saw several expatriates dining there, too.

    Afterwards, as planned we headed to J-Town, which is located at the basement of Midpoint Orchard building. It is a small shop with only few tables, but the martabak was very nice.They serve basic flavors like chocolate and cheese, as well as a special one which is durian flavor. For hardcore fans of martabak, also available is the plain one, without any additional flavorings. Other than martabak, they also sell basic meals like fried rice and fried noodle, but we haven’t tried them yet.

    One tip if you, like us, tried to save money by buying drinks in 7-11 instead of at the stall, forget it. The bottled water there may be a bit expensive for about $1.40, but turned out the 7-11 in Orchard Road sells them even more expensive, $2.15 for Indonesian brand Aqua. However since it was Saturday night, we don’t really mind about the extra dollars though.

    Warung M. Nasir is located at NĀ° 69 Killiney Road, Singapore 239526, while J-Town is at Midpoint Orchard Building B1-04, NĀ° 220 Orchard Road, Singapore 238852. Both are a stone throw away from Sommerset MRT.

    * Refers to either a city in West Sumatra or a Bahasa term for “field”, usually used to refer certain style of food with specific spices.

  • Welcome, to the world of tomorrow!

    A warm welcome from Pascal AlfadianHello, and welcome to my new blog! especially if you have come here from the old address http://pascalalfadian.blogspot.com. All existing posts have been migrated, and I will start posting in this location (http://blog.alfadian.net). Oh, and don’t forget to visit the BeenThere! Singapour prototype, which is navigable from top right corner of every screen or here.

    Thanks!
    Pascal

  • Pulau Ubin Cycle Trip

    Happy Deepavali for all my Indian friends! Often called as festival of light, Deepavali is celebrated every year in Singapore as a public holiday. It fell on Friday this year, and it supposed to be a very good time for me to go home to Indonesia. Unfortunately, I had a group meeting for school project the day after, so I could not afford to do it.

    Instead, we planned an outing to Pulau Ubin! Pulau Ubin is an island North East of Singapore where often said as the last “kampong” (village) in Singapore. Its nature is relatively untouched by urbanization compared to the main island. This island is best visited for cycling, and that was exactly what we did during this Deepavali holiday.

    I, Evan, Joseph, Nicolas and Richson met around 9.30 in the morning at a cafe near Simei MRT station. After having a quick breakfast we boarded a bus to Changi Point Ferry terminal, which located about 10km from the station.

    Upon arrival at the ferry terminal, there were already many people queuing to take the boat there. Fortunately the queue quickly reduced, thanks to the short interval between one boat departure and another. Pulau Ubin is only 15 minutes boat trip from the ferry terminal, and we arrived there at 11 AM sharp.

    We then rented several bicycles, one for each person for $12. A slightly better bicycle cost $15. There is also another bicycle rental that is specialized for off-road track that costs up to $20. After pumped the tires, we were ready to go!

    Our first destination was all the way north to the Noordin Campsite, which is also located next to a police training camp. There was not much to see here other except the small beach, one of the few beach which you can see the sea without tankers in Singapore.

    The next stop was to the east side of the island; the Chek Jawa. I will tell you more later about this it. Meanwhile, we tried to take a shortcut through the northern area of the island to go there. After cycling for few minutes, we were leaving the forest area and started to enter open space. At about half to noon, the heat from the sun was killing us. So I took out my sunblock and we started to cover our skin with it to prevent sunburn. We guys love skincare, too. Nicolas had even better idea to paperfold the newspaper I have bought earlier into a hat, to keep our head cool.

    We then continued our journey, but only for a few minutes before another cyclists came by us and told that the road leads to a dead end. I didn’t really buy it, but we decided not to risk it and turned back to take the longer road.

    Around quarter to noon, we arrived at the Ceck Jawa. I’m not sure if there is something to do with the Java island or the coffee, but this place is a small wetland in southeast of Pulau Ubin. To attract people, the government also built several facilities such as the boardwalk, viewing tower and a visitor center. Unfortunately bicycles are not allowed to enter. A sign told us to leave and lock our bicycles outside, but we couldn’t find any lock rental or anything. We finally just left it there and hoping nobody would take our humble bicycles.

    After few meters walking at the boardwalk, we arrived at the viewing tower. The tower is about 7 stories high and the view from above was very amazing! We could see the both sea and the forest from there. Not for the weak heart though, as the platform is shaky as people walk around.

    We then walked again to the viewing platform that shows us the view of a strait, and the island behind it. We argued for a while to decide whether the island we saw was Malaysia or Singapore. Thanks to my good ol’ compass, we knew it’s Singapore. It’s a traditional compass, and yes, I know there is an app for that in iPhone.

    The last stop at Chek Jawa is the visitor house. From the distance it looked like a cottage, but when you go inside, you would see nothing but some displays about Chek Jawa. However, it was a very good place to take pictures, especially when not so many people around. There was also a viewing jetty but we didn’t go there as it was going to rain and lightnings started to scatter.

    We then decided to end our journey and get back to the ferry terminal. We had to cycle our way back to the terminal, and it had started to rain already. Fortunately we brought disposable raincoats to keep us dry. At about 3 PM we finally back at the main island. We had a quick Sundanese lunch at a nearby hawker center, then went back to our each own home. I was tired and sleepy, but very happy about for the outing we had!

    Find pictures of our trip to Pulau Ubin (including the beautiful panoramic view from the viewing tower) at http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/PulauUbinCycleTrip

  • Lunch with Indonesia’s Greatest Minds and Goodbye

    This may be my last (very short) post before the dormant period. The break is over, and the new semester is coming next week. During my semester term I will not have the luxury of having the time to write posts.

    At the weekend just before the semester starts, I had the honor to be invited to the Maureen and Ardian’s wedding ceremony. Maureen was my friend in Sunday school, long time back in Jakarta. She is also a world class freelance graphic designer. Meanwhile Ardian is a world class computer scientist, and has became my friend since we met at the 2005 Google Code Jam competition.

    It was very interesting to realize that Singapore is indeed such a small place. At the wedding reception, I met various friends: colleague from office, my parents’ friends from church, high school friends, and the most interestingly: TOKI alumni. TOKI stands for Tim Olimpiade Komputer Indonesia, i.e. the Indonesian Informatics Olympiad Team who were the selected students to represent Indonesia in the International Olympiads in Informatics. Ardian has kindly reserved one table for us to sit altogether, about 10 of us. And as you may guess, having geeks all sitting in the same table makes it interesting in a certain way.

    Some of us ordered soft drinks. Interestingly, they poured the soft drink into a plain glass, and after we drank part of it, sometimes the waiter came to take the glass and replace it with a new one, fully filled with the same soft drink. Started from the idea that the soft drink in the used glass will be wasted, we wanted to know what is the minimum amount of the soft drink consumed, before the waiter would come and replace the glass. The first idea came into our mind was, of course, binary search. The strategy is as follow: first we would try to leave the glass half full, and see whether the waiter would take it or not. Had he taken it, it means the limit may be equal or greater than the half of the glass, and we would try leaving three quarter full at the next attempt. Had the waiter not take it, the limit must be lower than half, hence we should try a quarter at next attempt. Repeat the process until we could precisely determine the exact minimum percentage of soft drink left for a waiter to take it.

    In the end, the conclusion was too simple: the waiter would take it at half full.

    I told you it is interesting in a certain way. However if you are an Indonesian high school student and think the strategy is interesting in any way, you could try to join the TOKI.

  • Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

    Who would expect that there is still a wetland in the modern city of Singapore? Well the truth is, there is one: Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (SBWR). Located at north west of Singapore, this place is well preserved by the government, despite scarcity of land in Singapore.

    We (me, Richson and Evan) agreed to meet at Kranji MRT Station around 8 in the morning, to take a bus to SBWR. On my journey to the MRT, the sky was very dark and once in a while light rain poured. I was afraid that rain would start falling heavily hence canceling our trip, especially because our trip to SBWR has postponed twice before. When we met at the MRT, there was only light rain, but there came another problem: it took very long time before bus 925 that could take us there came. And when it came, the bus was so full we couldn’t enter it.

    We then decided to take a cab there. The place was surprisingly quite remote, with few buildings around. Luckily when we got there the rain stopped, and the weather was just nice for a walk. The ticket is $1 / person, which entitles you to walk around the wetland as well as hourly short movie screening. As our time was limited, we skipped the screening and started walking.

    Compared to Bukit Timah or MacRitchie Reservoir, there were less trees and more water in SBWR. There were also some viewing platform where you can stand there to see Johor Bahru of Malaysia across the sea. Other interesting place is a lookout tower where we can see the jungle in the surrounding. It was very peaceful and a calming experience, especially after a week in the concrete jungle.

    Unfortunately, as Richson pointed out, there were not so many people coming to SBWR. They are more comfortable to go to shopping malls or watching movie. However, we were there not for the people. We were in fact looking for crocodiles, as promised by my friend Handy. During his visit there, he could spot crocodiles, some crossing the pathway we use to walk. However after few hours exploring the wetland, we couldn’t find one. Even at the area marked with “Watch out for crocodiles” sign. Anyway it was not so bad after all, since we found also many other interesting small animals (that I don’t know the names of them) around the area.

    After two hours walking, we came back to the entrance. Just when we about to leave the place, we found lizards swimming at a small pond near the entrance. Well, at least we found an animal that is similar to crocodiles.

    Going back to the city was another problem. It was around 11 AM, and I had appointment to play badminton at 12 PM. I thought it would be just in time if I take a cab. Unfortunately, there were no cabs wandering around the area, and when we called the cab hotline, we were replied with “The cabs around the area you are going to take taxi from are fully booked”. I am somehow sure they are not fully booked, the drivers must’ve been just too lazy to travel to this remote area. Finally we walked about 500m to the nearest bus stop and take a public bus from there to the Choa Chu Kang MRT station (if only it was Sunday, I did not need to walk that far, since the bus would stop at a nearer stop). Only from Choa Chu Kang MRT, I could get a cab to the badminton court.

    Take bus 925 or 925# (Sunday only) from Kranji MRT to go to SBWR. More pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/SungeiBulohJuly2010.

  • Travel Marathon Recap

    That five weeks has been very interesting to me. I’ve flown four different return trips (two were company paid), to five cities in four countries, using five different airlines. At some point I felt like George Clooney in Up in the Air movie. Two of my journeys were recorded in my blog, but I don’t feel like writing the other two, hence let me just do some recaps and point several interesting things here.

    Airlines
    The first airline I took was ValuAir. Compared to few years back, they had rearranged the seats so that the cabin could contain more seats. Unfortunately that also meant lesser space for my legs. On the bright side, the seats were new and clean. The next flight was Air Asia, but there was nothing special about it. As usual we were served by prettier flight attendants and was subject to flight delay due to unavailability of the airplane.

    Air France was the first non budget airline I took after several years. Generally they had a good service and delicious meals, especially on their long flight (my flight was from Singapore to Paris). The shorter flight (Paris to Napoli) used smaller planes with only snacks provided but same hospitality.

    On my Beijing trip, the company provided me Air China, which was surprisingly unsatisfying. With larger cabin size compared to budget airlines, they provided only two restrooms for economy class. As you can imagine, I had to queue for few minutes before I could answer my nature call. And as you can read in my other post, there was an incident during my flight back to Singapore, where the engine stopped just before we taxied to the runway.

    For my last trip to Indonesia, I tried to use the Indonesia’s national airline Garuda Indonesia. Whilst the online booking process was harder compared to other airlines, I was truly impressed by the revamped on board services they had given. Costing only +/- SGD 250 for round trip to Jakarta, the plane was equipped with brand new seats and in flight entertainments (though the flight was only 1.5 hours long). Free local newspapers were also provided before we boarded the plane. Unfortunately the last flight back to Singapore was plagued by almost two hour of delay.

    Effect on Weight
    Just few weeks before my first travel, I bought a digital weight scale with the interest of tracking and trying to reduce my weight. With help of Excel, I managed to plot a chart of my daily weight. Though until now the weight reduction program has not been fruitful yet (partly blame to the travels), but when combined with my travels the chart has become more interesting. A copy of the chart is shown here, with real values blurred for privacy reasons šŸ™‚ however, I can tell you that the distance between the lowest and highest point is 3 kg.

    The straight lines determines the oversea travels, since I don’t have access to my scale. On my first trip to Indonesia, it did not affect much on the weight. What was contrary to my initial assumption was my Napoli trip turned out reduced my weight significantly, though I ate a lot of pasta and pizzas there, and sometimes double dinner in the plane due to time zone shift. The Beijing trip gave more body fat to me, since there were more beers and fatty and oily foods (you know, Chinese food..). I also gained weight on my last trip to Indonesia, especially due to the fact that this was my final trip during this year summer break.

    One conclusion I can take from the statistic is, your body may well use your calories reserve during long flights and jetlags. Therefore when you want to reduce weight, try to spend more time on planes šŸ™‚

    English Grammar
    Finally, if you think that the English grammar in my blog posts is awful, well, you’re not alone. My friend Paulus who noticed the same thought that I should revisit basic theory of English by reading some English grammar books for high school students. Kindly enough, he gave these books during my latest visit to Jakarta. Therefore you can expect my grammar improves on the next posts (will be a challenge for me..) Thanks Paul!

    If you think that nothing is wrong with my grammar, well, you’re not alone too. I think that my grammar is still at acceptable level šŸ™‚

  • Be Amazed in Beijing!

    Journey to Beijing

    It was Sunday afternoon at home, when I watched the Singapore Open 2010 final. Indonesia’s Sony Dwi Kuncoro played against Thailand’s Boonsak. It was a tough match for both, but in the end Sony won the game and took the championship. As an Indonesian I am proud of him winning the game.

    But never thought of meeting him in person.

    Early morning next day, I went to the airport to take a flight to Beijing. The company I work for has a program for selected newcomers of less than 3 years. The 130 of us were invited into a team-building-like program in Beijing, namely “Be Amazed in Beijing!”. I met my Indonesian colleague Hermanto at the airport, who was also attending the same program. We then went to the immigration gate, but just when we were about to go through it, I saw the most unexpected person: Sony Dwi Kuncoro himself! Building up courage, we approached him to congratulate and ask for some pictures. First impression was he is a shy yet very nice person. Well, I was already amazed even in Singapore!

    Afterwards, we had a light breakfast and boarded the plane with another friend Hafidh and Olga. We took off at 9.30 AM sharp. The flight was a bit boring, especially because we didn’t sit at the same row. Around 3.30 PM, we landed in Beijing, and took a taxi to the hotel. Apparently taxi drivers in Beijing do not speak English well, and we had difficulty to talk with the driver at first. Lucky I brought a city map with a pointer to the hotel location, so we managed to tell him the destination.

    Around 7 PM, we came down to the hotel open space to have dinner in standing party style. It was also a chance to know each other. It was interesting to meet different people from different departments from around the world; but even more interesting when I tried the meals provided. There was one food that tasted like cockles, and I ate them without reading the label. Only afterward I read the label, and found out that they were in fact snails! However it tasted good; and when I told this to a French guy, he said “Oh, we have that in France: escargot!”.

    Exploring Beijing

    The following days were mostly occupied with workshops and interactions with top management; but there were other interesting things as well. On one day, we had to play a game on exploring the city of Beijing, Amazing Race style. Our team were given the initial clue, then left in the middle of Hutongs area. There were some challenges, one of which was to find the “Silver Bridge”. Fortunately we had several Beijing colleagues with us, hence finding the bridge is particularly easy. The next task was to have one of us writing Chinese calligraphy on the street. Our Caucasian friend tried it, and surprisingly we had a full score!

    After we finished the challenges there, we moved to another spot, the Forbidden City. We went there by public bus, again with the help of our local Beijing colleague. We entered the north gate, where one of us was asked to play a Chinese yo-yo. One of our French friend again surprisingly played it well, and our team got another perfect score. Then we were asked to go through the Forbidden City, all the way to the South gate. Though it was quite a distance (almost 1km), we didn’t feel tired as we were amazed by the architecture of the buildings inside.

    We then took the subway to go to the next stop, Temple of Heaven. At this spot, we were asked to wear Chinese traditional costumes and perform some attractions, in front of passing by tourists. Even when we started to wear the costume, tourists had already taking pictures of us. More tourists came when we were performing the macarena dance. In the end, it was a shameful yet interesting experience. After exploring the Temple of Heaven, we moved to the last spot: the Beijing National Stadium a.k.a. Bird’s Nest.

    At the Bird’s Nest, unfortunately there was not enough time to play the game, so we were just taking few pictures at the outskirt of the stadium. Then we went back to the hotel.

    Silk Market and Return to Singapore

    Fast forward to the last day. There were no more programs to follow, and my flight would be at 3.30 PM. In the morning I and Hafidh decided to go to Silk Market, which is about 10 km from the hotel. Unfortunately we didn’t really understand the distance at that time, and we just stupidly tried to go there by walking. Only after we have passed the Chaoyang park, we realized that we could not make it on time to the market. Hence we took a taxi and arrived at the market around 10, meaning we only have an hour to shop before we have to go back to hotel for check out.

    Silk Market is a traditional market, where we need to bargain with the seller to get the best price. I remember my boss told me the day before, that I should start bargain at tenth of the asked price. It was hard to swallow at first the fact that they would really raise the price up to 10 times. But in fact they did! When I asked the price for a t-shirt, the seller offered the price of RMB 185 (SGD 37) each! We tried to bargain and even threat to leave without buying, and finally he (and us) gave up with RMB 90 for 3 t-shirts. We then went to a supermarket to buy some packed foods to bring back to Singapore. There we also met an Indonesian couple who were in Beijing for holiday. After some chat, we proceeded to the cashier to pay the foods.

    It was 11 already, meaning it’s time to go back to hotel to checkout at 12 noon. This time we used the subway to get to the nearest station from the hotel, followed by a taxi ride for the rest of the journey. Getting a taxi part was not so easy, since it was too close to the hotel already and most drivers were reluctant to take us for such a short distance. Fortunately we found one who were willing to take us, and we managed to check out on time.

    About 1.30 PM, we arrived at the airport, but alas, the flight was delayed by an hour and half. On the other side it was blessing in disguise, since I could have more time for lunch and sightseeing inside the airport. When Hafidh and I were about to pass through the immigration check, there was a sudden commotion building up. Many girls suddenly screamed with camera in their hand, all rushing into a guy who turned out to be a Chinese celebrity. This guy was heading through the immigration as well, hence making us more difficult to pass through, considering the crowds there. Oh, and he’s not that handsome anyway.

    When we finally boarded the plane at 4.30, all passengers were seated, then something scary happened. Before the plane started taxiing, the engine suddenly stopped and the electricity went off, including the air conditioner. And it happened twice. I have seen this problem many times with cars, but this was the first time I saw it happened to a plane. Few minutes before take off.

    We finally took off at 6 PM, and luckily nothing bad happened during the take off and our flight to Singapore. And that was the end of this adventure.

    More pictures from Beijing at this link.

  • Napoli and Paris-Charles de Gaulle

    Prelude
    Working in a multinational company means you occasionally have to (or, have a chance to) go overseas for business trip. And this time my chance is go to Napoli (Italy) for a two-day workshop. As my schedule was too tight, I decided to not extend my stay there for holiday. Instead, to make use the free time around the meeting to visit interesting places. It is interesting because you have very limited time to visit places and you have to trade off between the “interest-level” and distance required to go there (i.e. time).

    —

    Enough the blah blah, so there I was in Changi airport, few hours to midnight. It was very crowded in the AirFrance check-in counter, though it was still 2 hours before take off. Passengers were required to use the self check in kiosks and there were only one airline representative to help ignorant people like me to use the machine, creating long queue of people. After the check in, I only had few minutes for snack before boarding the plane.

    This was the first time I took long flight (12+ hours), and I got a very important lesson, that you should try to request seat in the aisle, especially if it is an overnight flight. The reason is, you will need to go for restroom or just a short walk every now and then. If you sit in the window side, you need to wake two passengers beside you everytime you want to get out.

    We approached Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport in the morning when the sun has just risen, and from the window I could see the scenery is very beautiful. The land was filled with lots of farms, making it look like a seamless green area. Unfortunately I could not find the infamous Eiffel tower. After landed, I had about 3 hours to take the connecting flight to Napoli. The flight to Napoli was worse, mainly due to two monsters seating behind me. Well, there were two kids, screaming and kicking my seat and the person next to me. Thank God it’s not 12 hours!

    After 3 hours, we landed at Napoli, and I took a cab to the hotel. The driver could not speak English, but he is very friendly and tried his best to promote interesting places in Napoli. At some point, we passed San Paolo stadium, and he kept yelling “Maradona! Maradona!” while his finger pointing to the stadium. I asked him “Maradona? Argentina!”, and he replied “No, Maradona: Argentina. This: Maradona!”. Turned out later he was trying to explain that this stadium is being proposed to be renamed after the football star Diego Maradona, who played in Napoli before.

    Anyway, only after 5 minutes on the road, I have noticed Napoli has the craziest driving style I have ever seen. The driver can easily turn his head back to talk with the passenger when the car is running at 100km/h. In highway they overtake rudely without giving signs. And in the city it is packed with cars and honk easily here and there (more or less similar as in Jakarta). No wonder many F1 drivers come from Italy.

    Upon reaching the hotel, I immediately took a bath and get out again to look for two most important items: GSM prepaid card, and a pizza for lunch. Quoting one travel book: the best place to eat pizza is at the town that founded it. So there I was, exactly at the town where pizza was born! I found one pizzeria and ordered one pizza and a sparkling water. Sparkling water is new for me as an Asian; it is similar to soda water, but the gas is naturally available right from the source. Back to pizza, the bread is very thin and sticky, and the top contains more tomato and cheese than we usually found in Asia. The taste: perfetto!

    I walked around the hotel afterwards, and found many interesting buildings and statues (you can find them at the pictures link). Napoli is a coastal town, but also has many hills on the other side. Closest to the hotel is Castel dell’Ovo (which unfortunately I did not go inside due to limited time), and from there too you can see the mount Vesuvius. I couldn’t find a GSM card, but I then found a supermarket! I always prefer supermarket to buy food to bring back and share with my friends. Not only they are cheaper than the one in tourist spots, but also in supermarket, you get what the local people eat, not the ones specialized for tourists.

    At the night, we had dinner with the some of the workshop participants, next to Castel dell’Ovo. We found out that I had taken the same plane from Paris earlier with two of them. When they asked “where did you sit, Pascal?”, I couldn’t remember the seat number, so I tried to answer with a place of interest, “did you notice the noisy kids at the middle of the plane? I sat in front of them!”. Turned out they sat only 1-2 rows from me.

    For the next day, we had the meeting full day. But in the night, again we had dinner together. This time we went into a hidden pizzeria inside an alley at the downtown, thanks to our friend who stays in Napoli. Upon reaching there, we had to be in waiting list, since the place was full. We more or less waited for about 45 minutes! However, the waiting was paid, since the food was very delicious, even better than the 1st pizzeria I came to. What we had for dinner were mostly different variations of pizza. We also had some croquettes for snack (if you are Indonesian, it similar to our “kroket“, but this croquette is filled with mozzarella cheese). During some chat the next day, my friend told me that we had to wait only 45 minutes because our Napolian friend is a regular customer there. Without him, we might need to wait twice as long!

    And for the day after (2nd day of workshop), only 3 of us had dinner together, since the rest have already flew back to their hometown. We went to a nearby pizzeria, but ordered spaghetti this time; and closed with a gelato ice cream. On our way back, we noticed an orchestra doing their concert in an open space, and it was nice.

    On the last day I spent about an hour and half for morning walk around to take pictures for the last time, since my flight back will be at early afternoon. During the walk I passed some big dogs with the height of my waist, some are untied. At one time, there was this dog I passed by, and we were less than 1 meter apart. Then she suddenly bark at me. For a second I was stunned, but luckily she stopped barking when I just try to walk away and ignore her. Around 10 AM I checked out and went to the airport.

    The flight back to Paris was smooth, but this time I had to wait 8 hours in Charles de Gaulle before the next connecting flight to Singapore. And the bad thing is, I could not leave the airport to have a short visit to the city. Fortunately the terminal for international flight is comfortable enough for transit, with internet cafes and free PS3 terminals to play. In fact, most part of this story was written there while I wait for the connecting flight.

    The internet cafe costs ā‚¬5 per hour, and the only way to get a user id is through the automatic vending machine. In this case, I made one fatal mistake by inserting ā‚¬50 notes into the machine to get one hour access. Turned out (and I should have known earlier) that it returned the ā‚¬45 change with coins! In the end, I got additional 23 coins to take with me through the plane, to Singapore, and I don’t know when I am going to use up these coins later.

    Around almost midnight, I boarded the plane and flew back to Singapore! I sat next to a Bulgarian guy who comes to Singapore for another 7 month trip with a ship from Singapore. He is a ver
    y nice guy, but I would say also bold. He speaks only little English, having difficulties to fill in the immigration card, but dare to travel half of the world. Sign to have more travel? šŸ˜›

    You can find the pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/NaplesTrip

  • Singapore MRT Tips: Get a Seat from Airport to City

    It’s been a very long time since my last post. During my semester term at NUS, it’s practically impossible for me to write a story.

    Anyway, just a short post on a tip to get a seat in the MRT (Singapore’s train system) when you land at Changi Airport and want to go towards the city. As you may know, from Changi Airport, the only train available is the “green” line. You will surely be able to get a seat here, since the train in fact departs from Changi Airport.

    However, after two stops you will have to switch train in Tanah Merah Interchange. And if you do the same thing as every other people here, most likely you won’t get a seat in the new train, since many people from airport (and possibly from Expo station) will transfer to this train, too. That’s pretty bad especially when you need to bring those heavy bags with you.

    The trick very is simple, that to just wait for the 2nd train to come. Most passengers from airport would take the 1st train available for them, therefore occupying the train to city. Since the frequency of the latter is higher, you may get the 2nd connecting train before another train from airport comes; of course with much fewer people.