After Singapore

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more

Category: outside singapore

  • 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.

  • 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 🙂

  • 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 €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 €50 notes into the machine to get one hour access. Turned out (and I should have known earlier) that it returned the €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? 😛

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

  • Indonesia Trip (Part 1)

    The immigration officer laughed at me for a while, then she got busy again serving another passengers. Yes, I was there in the Singapore immigration, at the automated clearance gate to be exact. My friend just told me recently that as a Singapore permanent resident, I have the priviledge to pass the immigration gate through the automated clearance using my travel document and thumbprint. Yet what I should have learnt is that travel document means passport, not an ID card. I stupidly put my ID card into the small gap in the machine which supposed to be inserted with the first page only of my passport. And so I cried for help to get the card out the only officer there, but she was too busy checking other passengers passport and had no time for silly mistake like what I just did. Luckily after some tries I managed to let it out myself. Phew!

    Then I had some subs for dinner and grab a cup of coffee while waiting for the boarding call inside the transit area. Did I tell you that I was going to take a flight back to Jakarta for vacation? It has been a long time since I had a night flight like this. The passengers seem to be tired, including me (that’s why I bought some coffee). In the plane, I sat in a 3-seat row, taking the one closest to the window. The middle seat was empty, and at the aisle side, an ang moh (western people) in his 30s looked extrememly restless and exhausted. Sometimes he put his head on the front seat, trying to be able to sleep. At another other time he murmured himself. Poor him. I was more or less exhausted as he did, with exams and deadlines in the past days. But I decided to smile, since it was all over, and my holiday was about to begin!

    We jumped time to when I have landed in Jakarta. My brother was to pick me up at the airport, so I tried to call him. Yet after several desperate tries, I’ve given up. Everytime I call a number, I could only hear a prerecorded voice “Sorry, you cannot make a call at the moment. Please contact the customer service!” But the problem is, I couldn’t even call the customer service, with the same message! Luckily I found a small phone café*. So I made a phone call to my brother’s mobile. I was surprised with the bill. It was 8,500 IDR (1.5 SGD) for one minute connection! But I had no choice anyway (later I found out that I couldn’t call because I have activated the call barring feature – very clever).

    The first few days in Jakarta was well spent with family and old friends. On the day before christmas, I and my brother spent the day watching local movie “Sang Pemimpi” (lit. The Dreamer). It tells a story of a young boy from remote village and his struggle to get scholarship in France. In the evening, we attended a christmas eve mass in a local church of where I usually attended the mass before I left to Singapore. But there’s something different now compared to previous years masses. After the mass has ended, I could still see people shaking hands and greet each other, but there were also some people stucked to their mobile phones. I saw a couple where the husband typed something (must be christmas greetings) into his Blackberry, while his wife struggling to type into her Blackberry at the right hand, and and iPhone on the left. Too bad. For myself, I spent the time asking my brother to take my picture with the christmas tree there.

    At the christmas day, we came back to the same church to watch a play starred by local teenagers. It was about a poor mother who tries to teach her son for becoming a rich person in a wrong way. Spiced with some jokes along the story, it gave a very good message that one needs to work, not merely looking for shortcuts to obtain wealth.

    The next day, I spent my time with my friends from high school. The last time we met was 5 years back on our trip to Bali. Unfortunately time only allowed me to meet them during the day, which was used to play futsal. We were playing against one of our friend’s younger brother and his friends. They were in their 20’s, and the age difference was more than enough to make us exhausted playing against them. Luckily I and my family spent the evening attending a wedding ceremony of a relative (which for me simply means free dinner), enough to recharge the energy.

    On my last day in Jakarta, I spent morning time to buy some sport shirts. Followed by another futsal game, but this time with friends from church. It was 2PM, and the sun shone the the brightest. It really exhausted me again. In the evening, I and my brother attended a Sunday mass, followed by dinner of Sundanese food with family.

    That sums my first part of my trip, where the early morning of next day, I traveled to Bandung; and the story is to be told in the 2nd part.

    * locally known as “wartel”, the phone café serves similar purpose as internet café. But instead it rents, well, phone lines.

  • Indonesia Trip (Part 2)

    (continued from http://pascalalfadian.blogspot.com/2010/01/indonesia-trip-part-1.html)

    Indonesians don’t really like to take public bus for inter-city travel, unless they want to save money. Instead, private companies sell services to transport people from one city to another using minivans. Very similar concept with public buses, only better. And more expensive. Locally they are simply called travel.

    I took one of this travel to go to Bandung. Departed from Jakarta at around 8.30 AM, it took a smooth 2-hour journey to Bandung. Or maybe because I fell asleep during almost the whole trip, exhausted with abundant activities in part 1. At Bandung terminal, I took a cab to go my girlfriend’s house. Unfortunately the traffic was so bad in the city. There was a festival at Braga area, and the whole street was closed, causing jams on other roads as well. Slightly delayed, but I reached there just in time for lunch.

    The next few days were spent visiting shopping mall for, err, shopping. We also tried watching movie in Ciwalk Premiere, whereby we can sit in a comfortable electronic controlled recliner seat. Very similar concept with GV Gold Class, only much cheaper. The price is Rp 50,000 or $7.5 in SGD. Personally I didn’t really enjoy the lavish seat. It made me feel sleepy, and I went there to watch movie anyway, not to cuddle myself. Thanks to the non-stop puzzle in the Sherlock Holmes movie that kept me awake.

    On the new year eve, we fired fireworks at the attic. Most of them are small rockets that emits whistling sounds. The attic was transformed into Baghdad-like in the night as we could see on TV during Bush’ presidency period. There was even one firework that shots 6 fireballs, each will explode in the sky. My friend enthusiastically asked me to hold the tube in my hand tightly, and point it to the sky while it shoots the fireballs. I read the instructions for a while, and found a bold text warning “DANGER! DO NOT GRAB WITH HANDS”. When I asked her whether I really should do this, her answer was “don’t trust the text, it’s wrong”. Luckily my hand managed to survive after two set of tubes. It’s only that the fireworks throw a lot of dusts, covering my face and body, forcing me to take another shower in the midnight. All in all, it was a very good experience, especially with the fact that you may not get this in Singapore, as either the SCDF* will quickly come, or your neighbour auntie yelling at you for endangering her life.

    The day after new year, I went back to Jakarta. I took the same travel I used earlier. Reached Jakarta around noon, my dad and brother picked me up for lunch before going to grandpa’s house. Wanted to be quick, we stopped at a small shop selling satays and fried rice. I tried the fried rice with mix of mutton, beef and chicken meat. It contains so much sweet soya sauce, but the taste is just perfect (it’s been a long time since last time I ate food with such strong taste). Afterwards, we went to my grandpa’s house. He was very healthy in his 90s, and I am sure his diet does not include the kind of fried rice I ate earlier. Lastly, we went to pick up my mom, but it was too late to take dinner outside. So we just bought a fast food to take home.

    The next day, I had to return to Singapore, with my brother again dropped me at the airport. There was an automated check in machine for AirAsia flights, so I bothered to give a try. Unfortunately the machine didn’t respond at the stage of sliding my passport. Seems that I have bad luck with travel documents (see part 1), and the queue for normal check-in was too long already, so I decided it is best to join the queue and use old fashioned way.

    At the immigration gate, I was slightly delayed by the tax officer. In Indonesia, we have a special tax of Rp 1,000,000 (+/- 150 SGD) for Indonesian nationals going abroad. An exception for professionals working outside Indonesia for more than 183 days like me, with a proof of passport and work visa. Unfortunately, I’ve just renewed my password recently, and the officer argued that the new passport didn’t have enough information to show that I have spent for more than 6 months abroad. He asked for my old passport, which unfortunately I have put in my checked baggage. After some arguments, he asked me to go to the immigration office for “special treatment”. So I went there, and lucky for me that the officer at the office gave me the clearance without even a single question. Moral of the story: either you bring your old passport for the first 6 months of new passport, or, try to stay away from unfriendly officers.

    The rest of the journey is interestingly normal. I took the on-time flight, arrived on-time, and clear the automated gate easily (this time I knew what document to insert!). And so I arrived back in the on-time-country, Singapore!

    * Singapore Civil Defence Force

  • Johor Trip 2009: The Zon

    The clock showed 10.40 am, and I was sitting inside the examination room at NUS. I was doing the last exam of this semester, for the subject “Network Security and Management”. I saw several people had come out, it seemed easy. Myself, I’ve answered all questions, but was not having 100% assurance they would satisfy the professor. Ah the heck, if I stayed there 5 more minutes, I would be forced to wait until 11 sharp, as the rule says nobody can go out of the room in the last 15 minutes, even if he has finished the exam.

    Then I made up my mind, I called the professor and asked his permission to go out, and start the getaway journey to Johor Bahru! Call me lousy, but I prefer Johor to other fancy destinations in Malaysia for its proximity to Singapore as well as cheap prices.

    I spent about 30 minutes in Clementi before going to Johor to open a new bank account (yet it’s out of the scope of this story ;P). Therefore I started going about half past eleven. Because the day before was a public holiday, and the next day was Sunday, I was hoping it wouldn’t be crowded in the immigration. It was true that on the Singapore part, it was a breeze. In Kranji MRT station, the SBS bus even had to wait a few minutes to wait until the bus is full. Yet in the Johor side, the road to immigration was slightly jammed by private cars. The immigration clearance was smooth, though.

    (Psst, here’s a dirty little secret: my birthday was coming up, and rather than spending more money to treat my friends in Singapore, I’d rather spend more on my time to take them to Johor for half-priced food. But that’s what I call sacrifice! Oh yes, so for that reason, I would like to survey the place I have found at the internet: The Zon, a duty-free shopping mall). Therefore, when I arrived there at 1.15PM, I started to look for a transport to the Zon, which (according to the map) is close to Ferry terminal to Batam/Bintan.

    At first I tried to go there by bus, as I’ve researched the numbers of buses going towards Zon. Alas, I couldn’t find where those buses stop. With my belly already screaming for calories, I finally decided to take a cab anyway. There was a taxi counter, where for each trip the passenger is required to buy a certain printed ticket, mostly to prevent the driver from overcharging the passengers. The trip was a breeze 10 minutes, but just enough time for me to chat with the driver, a guy in his 50s. I couldn’t speak Chinese, and he couldn’t speak English. So we tried to speak with Malay/Bahasa and he started to blame me that I couldn’t speak Chinese although I’m a Indonesian-born Chinese. And as usual, I played it safe by blaming Mr. Soeharto.

    About 13.30, I reached Zon, but sad to say that it was below my expectation. There are only few shops, mostly selling liquors or pubs that open at night. There was no food court and the McDonald’s stall only sells ice cream (but there was a Starbucks stall, though – weird!). Then I just went into a pub-style pizza restaurant, with most of the people inside were smoking. D’oh! Luckily I could find a seat that was far from them. I ordered a smoked salmon and an orange juice. After wandering around for an hour, I came into conclusion that the place is not worthy enough to spend time with my friends. Then I decided to go back to civilization: The City Square, another shopping mall near the immigration.

    I started walking outside to find some mode of transportation. Don’t want to give up the experience of taking a bus, I tried to search for a bus stop outside the shopping mall. It was interesting to see around, where there are traditional markets, hawker-style food stalls and the beach. Across the strait you could see Singapore main island, specially the Senoko power plant. After a few more meters of walking, I heard a loud noise of drums being played. It turned out to be a traditional Chinese drum practice by high school students in a Chinese school named “Foon Yew”. And where there is school, there should be delicious-yet-high-in-additives food! So I stopped by a rujak stall to taste some. I also bought a drink named “special teh-c”, which basically is a mix of tea, condensed milk and cendols. And yes, it is good, better than the Singapore ones.

    I spent a few minutes sitting in a bus stop before giving up as for almost half an hour, only one bus passed, and it didn’t seem to stop at a place I know. In the end, I decided to take a cab instead to go back to City Square mall. I spent few hours in the City Square, and another few in Kotaraya Plaza, hoping to be able to wait until 6 pm, since I wanted to try riding the Malaysian train back to Singapore. Based on the schedule, the train departs from Johor Baru at 7 pm, and tickets are sold only one hour before departure. The last time I tried to take the same train, it was delayed by one hour, forcing me to take the bus instead. I was hoping the train wouldn’t delayed again this time.

    So I spent another few hours wandering around in City Square, since it is just across the station. I wanted to have dinner there, but since I was still full from the rujak and teh-c, I decided to buy a take away food instead. Only few minutes before six, I bought a grilled chicken rice pack, and rushed to the station to buy the ticket; hoping that I could eat my dinner at the station’s waiting room. Unfortunately, this time again, the tickets were sold out. Disappointed, I got out of the station and find a place to eat my dinner. I couldn’t bring it back to Singapore since there is a restriction on importing poultry products.

    The trip back to Singapore was not so interesting, may be because I’ve lost interest on the trip due to the train delay. However, I am still grateful for the mini-backpacker experience, and some half-priced music CDs and food I bought from a local store!

    To go to Johor Bahru, you can take train to Kranji MRT, followed by SBS bus 160 or 170 bus from there. If you go from the west side, there will be announcements to take bus from Woodlands instead, but I wouldn’t recommend it since there are less buses departing from Woodlands.

    You can see few pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/JohorTrip2009

  • Johor Bahru

    In contrary to popular belief, going to Johor Bahru from Singapore is inexpensive and hassle-free for Indonesians (and other ASEAN countries nationality).

    To go there, you can take a bus from either Jurong East, Kranji, or Woodlands MRT. I usually take SBS170 from Kranji. The price is around $1 per ride. Expect some congestion in Malaysia immigration if you go on weekends, especially on daytime.
    Before going, be sure to see the alighting point. Buses from Singapore can alight in one of two terminals: Kotaraya or Larkin. I prefer Kotaraya since it’s closer to Singapore and have more attractions (in fact, I’ve never alight at Larkin).
    Meal is inexpensive compared to Singapore. Usually they have the same nominals but halved currency! Last time I ate for lunch for only RM 5, or $2.5, for a fried rice plus orange juice. Even if you shop you get cheaper prices (I saved $5 when buying an Anlene milk!). The two shopping malls worth to visit are City Square (high-end) and Plaza Kotaraya (low-to-med, but has a supermarket).
    If you seek nature, you can go to the nearby public park to the west of immigration checkpoint. Inside you can also visit the zoo, Sultan’s palace, mosque, etc. The beach is located even more west at Danga Bay. I visited there but only during the afternoon. Good to try during the night as it is famous for the nightlife. To watch movie you may try the Cathay Cinema in City Square. The price is around RM 10 for a movie.