After Singapore

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more

Author: pascal

  • Batam Island, Indonesia

    BatamThis Christmas holiday, I spent one night in Batam for transit to Jakarta. Reason? Just for adventure. There is actually not much tourist attraction in Batam, as told by my friend. One spot that may stand out would be Nongsapura, an upscale resorts area Northeast of Batam. Staying there will cost me at least S$200 per night, so I decided to stay at a cheaper area instead, but take a peek of Nongsapura by getting a ferry to the Nongsapura terminal instead of the usual Batam Center terminal.

    There is no ferry going to Nongsapura that departs from the usual departure point Harbourfront. Instead, I had to go to Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal, which I stupidly mistaken with the Changi Point Ferry Terminal. Assuming that I would go to the latter, I took a train to Pasir Ris station, and planned to continue my journey using a bus. Luckily, when I was there I had difficulties finding the correct bus stop, hence I took a cab instead. The driver knew that ferries to Batam only departs from Tanah Merah, not Changi Point Ferry Terminal. If I really took a bus, it would be too late for me.

    The trip to Batam’s Nongsapura takes about an hour, including boarding and leaving the ship. Nongsa terminal is located inside a small gulf, and upon reaching it, I saw two different views on each side. On my left side, there were upscale resorts, just what I was looking forward to see here. However, on my right side was a poor rural area, where people bathing in sea water, not for fun but because it’s much cheaper for them to do so. The terminal itself is pretty well decorated in with a tropical island theme. However, there were only one immigration officer to serve us, so it took sometime to clear the queue. On this trip, I stayed on a budget hotel, namely the SkyView hotel. It is located quite far from the terminal, so the only reasonable way to get there is by cab. The terminal itself is pretty remote, and the nearby resorts usually have their own shuttle bus to pick up tourists. Therefore I was left with the only option to take a cab for a whopping price of IDR 100.000.

    I reached the hotel about 5.30 PM, and as it was Christmas Eve, I started to walk around to look for a church to attend the Christmas Eve mass. The hotel receptionist recommended me a Batak-themed church, about 500 metres from the hotel. So I walked there and asked the schedule to the lady that stay there. However, she recommended me to go to another church instead, for the mass will be held using a traditional language that I will not understand. She recommended a church in Nagoya called “Immanuel”, which is not within walking distance from the hotel. Hence I took a taxi there, with another expensive price of IDR 30.000.

    Close to the church was a shopping mall “Nagoya Hill”, so I went there after the mass was ended. I took a pizza for dinner, and paid a visit to a bookstore. One magazine about tourism in Batam attracted me, as one article featured in the front page was about “budget hotels in Batam”. There was no price tag, so I just took it and proceeded to the cashier to pay. To my biggest surprise, the magazine costed IDR 50.000. I would have no problem to pay for a good magazine, but the value did not seem to worth for that magazine (for comparison, FHM Singapore costs SGD 6 or IDR 42.000). Hence I cancelled my purchase for the magazine. My trip back to hotel was also surprising: another IDR 50.000 for a cab ride back. Fixed price.

    The next day, I spent the morning jogging around the hotel area. It was not so nice as there were thrashes and some of them were burned causing me to inhale the smoke. After taking a shower, I went for the second time to Nagoya, but since I was not in a hurry, this time I asked the receptionist for a public transport to go there. She recommended an angkot (minibus) with her estimate price of IDR 6.000. I believe she just gave me a worst case number, since I really looked like a tourist. Turned out the driver only charged me IDR 3.000 for a one way trip. Different with angkots in Bandung, these angkots in Batam has a sliding door at the passenger deck that should be closed during the trip. When I was about to help a lady to close the door when she boarded the minibus, she said “no need, it will close automatically”, and reaffirmed by the driver. And she was right, when the minibus started to descend, gravity helped the door to close automatically. Clever!

    Just as told by my friend, there was not much to see in Batam, and that includes Nagoya. Probably one that could be interesting is the Pasar (market) Nagoya area. At one street, there were many people selling various kind of kripik (crackers) and asinan (fruits drenched in vinegar). Another street has series of Singapore style hawker centres, while some of them serves only Chinese vegetarian food. I had my brunch on one of the non-vegetarian hawker center, and turned out they also sell tea and coffee in Singapore term: teh for tea with milk or teh-o for tea without milk. There was also a building named “Batam Lucky Plaza” which sells mostly mobile phones and jewelleries. As I walked around, many people calling me “friend” to offer a cab or an ojek (motorcycle-cab). After about an hour, I returned back to my hotel to pack my things, as I would fly to Jakarta at 13.40 PM.

    Conclusion

    Ferries from Singapore operates daily with a ticket price of around SGD 30, destined to Nongsapura and Batam Center (among other terminals, too), but the latter is recommended. Staying in SkyView hotel costs a mere IDR 160.000 per night for a standard room, but a superior room for IDR 180.000 seems to be a better bargain, with bigger room and 21″ TV (standard one is 14″). I would recommend to take public transport whenever possible, as cabs are very very expensive (however in the evening, it’s probably better to pay more rather to risk your safety). From the SkyView, it takes about 15 minutes to the city center Nagoya. There were also hotels at Nagoya, but they are generally more expensive.

  • St. John, Lazarus and Kusu Island

    Last weekend, I stumbled upon an article about Southern Islands in the Singapore Tourism Board’s website. Shortly after reading and googling several other sites, I said to myself “I have to go there!”. These islands are located south of Singapore, and  relatively untouched by civilization, even compared to Pulau Ubin.

    This Saturday, I have collected 8 persons including me, to go to some of the islands, namely St. John, Lazarus and Kusu island. Interestingly enough, Google Maps has very limited information about these islands. The islands do not have a shape information in roadmap view, and in satellite view the non-updated labels are only available in Malay language.

    On Saturdays, there are only three ferry round trips to this island, having the interval of 3 hours. That was why during our trip, we really had to come to the pier on time at 9 in the morning. Unfortunately, two of  us were late by few minutes, hence they couldn’t board the morning ferry. Waiting another 3 hours was not a very good option for them, therefore leaving only six of us continuing the journey. One of those six came in last minute in a rush, and we gave him claps cheers when he arrived.

    St. John

    After about 20 minutes journey, we arrived at the St. John island, a.k.a. Pulau Sakijang Bendera. Just as “advertised”, the island was quite quiet, with the exception of one worker fixing the concrete pathway. And if you have the same question as me, “whether I can get a GSM signal there?”, the answer is yes. Even better, you can also get Indonesian GSM signals too, probably from Batam. The next ferry will be at 12.45, so we had about 3 hours to spend in this island. So we walked, and after few meters, we arrived at the swimming lagoon, a relatively clean man made shore. We just played at the water and sat at the shelter nearby.

    We continued walking to the camp area, which has several “barracks” that can accommodate 60 persons each. This area is fenced, and there were several guard towers to watch the fences. At one gate, there is a sign “Out of Bound to non-campers”. But we didn’t care. Who cares? However after few steps walking inside, there were already a lady approaching us, saying that they are having private events in which they had booked the whole camp. Therefore we quit the area and walked to the other entrance that led to the camp office. I and David gave it a visit to check on the details of these.

    Card games at St. John Island

    Afterwards, we walked again towards the Marine Aquaculture Centre. Unfortunately, this place was closed for public and visitor must request a permit from another building not so close from there, so we skipped this. We walked again to the beach, but then we spent sometime on the benches playing cards. A regular card games, but this time we played far away from the concrete jungle, so you can see in the picture our very happy faces, far from city life stresses.

    Lazarus

    After few minutes playing, we walked again to Lazarus island, a.k.a. Pulau Sakijang Pelepah. It is accessible from Lazarus island through a man made land forming a bridge connecting those two bigger islands. As the sign read, public are “discouraged” to enter this area since it had yet to be developed, but again, why bother to care? It has another beautiful (well, compared to other Singapore’s beaches) but silent beaches. There too was a group of people taking photo shoots of a girl dressed in gown, probably for a magazine cover or something.

    Lazarus Island beach

    It was almost 12.45, so we headed back to the jetty. We still had some time near the jetty, so some of us had our lunch there. Then we boarded the ferry. It was a different ferry from previous one, and this one was better. There were the regular passenger cabin, the open space upper deck, and a VIP room. It was too comfortable in the VIP room that we stayed there for the journey. Fortunately, nobody asked us to leave that room.

    Kusu

    The last stop was Kusu Island, a.k.a. Pulau Tembakul. In some other months, this turtle-themed island is visited by pilgrims. But it was not that month when we went there, so the island was very quiet. Upon reaching the jetty, we were greeted by a lady who counted the number of people entering the island, as well as reminding us the time of last ferry, 4.30 PM. We fist visited the shore and stayed there for some time, enjoying the nature with background music from Buena Vista Social Club.

    Kusu Island beach

    Then we headed to the small temple there. There were some statues, and interestingly enough a sign describing about 5 different versions of tale on how this island was made. Inside the temple, there were real turtles who were taken care by the temple maintainer.

    There was also a wishing well, in which you need to throw a coin inside it after making a wish. But there were 3 bells inside the well that you need to hit one of them. I managed to hit 2 out of 3 times with 20 cents coins. But the best was thrown by Hafidh who made the bell rang sharply.

    There was not much to do left in this tiny island. So we just sat at a bench and chatted for half an hour while waiting for the next boat to depart at 2.30 PM.

    Just as we left Kusu island, it started to rain. We were considered very lucky, that the weather was just perfect when we were there: not to hot, but also not raining. About 20 minutes later, we were back at the mainland.

    Conclusion

    These southern islands are best if you want to rest and unwind, away from the busy civilization (turn off your data connection for best result). However, if you look for attractions, you may not find many of them here. This place, especially St. John, may be at is best if you have a gathering with your friends, as there were also barbeque pits and a bungalow that can accommodate 10 persons. Just be prepared with occasional noise like the pathway fixing we met upon arriving, or several fighter jets that were having some exercises there.

    St. John, Lazarus and Kusu Island is accessible by taking a ferry (provided by Island Cruise) from Marina South Pier. Only several trips per day, costing $15 for round trip to all the three islands. Marina South Pier is located at N° 31 Marina Coastal Drive, Singapore 018988.

  • Gemalto Dinner and Dance

    Gemalto D&D 2010
    Photo Courtesy of Steven Ma

    If you saw a crazy guy in full sport attire running around Sentosa beach last Saturday, well that’s me. While waiting for the Dinner and Dance to start later that evening, I spent few hours in Sentosa for sightseeing and jogging for exercise. It is one way to allow myself indulge with the food provided at the party. The Sentosa management may claim that it’s the Asia’s favorite playground, but personally I don’t really like Sentosa; with the artificial beaches and many constructions going on to replace old, non-money-making attractions. However, it is still an okay spot for relaxing.

    Where were we? Oh, right. In fact I went to Sentosa to attend the company’s annual Dinner and Dance which was held at the Resort World’s convention center. It was a costume party with a “movie character” theme. I didn’t wear any costume since I assumed many people in my department would not wear one too. I’m in R&D, by the way. It’s a decision I slightly regretted, since though not many, some people really wore costumes. It’s a once in a year experience to act crazy.

    The event was started by the company’s Asia president entering the venue, dressed as a Hongkong mafia, complete with 2 bodyguards that in fact are our own employees. As well said by the host Daniel Ong, it’s one chance that you see upper management people act funny. He talked about the company achievements in 2010, but I believe nobody really listened as we were already in party mode. The host on the other hand had successfully liven up the atmosphere with his witty jokes. One of my favorite was when a girl made mistake on her English grammar, he replied with “You speak bad England, huh?”

    There were some attractions, but for me the most interesting was the flashmob, where suddenly out of nowhere some people come to the  front to dance together with the same pattern. We only realized that one person on our table was missing when we saw him in front joining the dance.

    In this event, I also spent some time taking pictures with some characters, such as Nobita, Tinkerbell, Queen Amigdala and Robin Hood. Seemed that the weirder the costume a person wore, more people coming to them for taking pictures.

    The Dinner and Dance closed around 23.30 with the final draw for the 1st door prize, a travel package worth S$2,000 which I didn’t win. Afterwards, the dance floor was opened, but unfortunately my friends chose to go home since transport will be difficult after midnight. Therefore I decided to go with them since I didn’t want to go back alone.

    All in all, it was an exciting experience to have an annual party with colleagues, after what we have done together for the whole year. Looking forward for another great year! and party!

    As a bonus, here is a picture of Sentosa beach in panoramic mode (click the picture for more):

  • 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 N° 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 N° 69 Killiney Road, Singapore 239526, while J-Town is at Midpoint Orchard Building B1-04, N° 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 🙂 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 🙂

    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 🙂