After Singapore

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more

Category: places

  • 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.

  • 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

  • Lau Pa Sat

    Sorry for not posting lately, I’ve been busy with school. I did try to write some reports, but most of the time interrupted with my assignments. In the end, I was already bored or forgot the details of the event so I just discard them. Here’s an article on culinary spot. I’ll try to keep it short.

    It was Saturday afternoon, and I’ve been in my campus’ lab for few hours, and expected to spend few more hours there. Not wanting to stay with the computer to spend the weekend night, I contacted some friends from Indonesia, asking them to give Lau Pa Sat a try for its infamous satay for dinner (some, including me, have had dinner there before, anyway). For those who don’t know, Lau Pa Sat is a Victorian style medium-class hawker center in the Singapore CBD area. What makes it interesting, other than live bands on weekends, is the Boon Tat street next to it . After sunset, this road is closed for vehicles and turned into a satay food stalls area. There are about ten satay stalls, in which I personally don’t really know the different other than they are identified with different integer numbers.

    I’ve managed to invite 4 friends, and we were to meet at 7 PM.

    When the clock showed 5 PM, I saved my work and quickly took bus to the MRT (train) station. Since I have plenty of time, I decided to go to City Hall first, to find some supplements my dad asked me to look for. Even after that, I still have almost one hour before 7. So I decided to buy an ice green tea at nearby JCo outlet to let me sit there for few minutes.

    About 15 minutes to 7, Handy called and said he’s already in Raffles Place MRT station (the nearest station to Lau Pa Sat) so I went there and met him. It was his first time to Lau Pa Sat, so he asked me “is the satay good?”. I’ve gone here and eat the satay for several times, but as far as I remember the taste is more or less standard. Even not much different than the satay I ate the day before at a small hawker near my place. So I explained to him that it might be the ambient that makes this place famous.

    While waiting the others to come, we ordered a “fried fritter” from a nearby seafood stall. It was the name that tickled us to order. As far as I know, neither “fried” nor “fritter” is a seafood. Only when we ask to the seller, we knew it was squid covered with fritters then deep fried.

    After the others came, we started to order the satays and eat. Yet after eating them, I felt a bit disappointed. The satays were smaller and too sweet compared to the ones I bought in Commonwealth. And it’s also $0.10/stick more expensive, too. So that supports my theory that it’s only the ambient that makes this place popular. Moreover, when we finished eating, the live band started to play with some good music. So that where the $0.10 goes to.

    Take Exit I from Raffles Place MRT station to go to Lau Pa Sat.

  • Asian Civilizations Museum

    I’ve just received an email from NUS recently, saying that as a student I am entitled to enter 5 NHB museums for free. Asian Civilizations Museum is one of them.

    Finding a friend to go along was not very easy, since the entry fee of $5 could be too expensive for such a not-so-cool venue. Luckily, Richson has keen interest on this kind of stuff and we both decided to go there around 2PM, just when the free guided tour should start.

    We arrived there few minutes after two, and the receptionist asked us to wait down the lobby for the guide to come. But after waiting for +/- 10 minutes, we didn’t find any guide. Instead, we saw the receptionist approached other tourists and said something I didn’t know but made the tourists just went upstairs to start their tour immediately without a guide. We thought that the guide was not available or we were late, so we went upstairs too, anyway.

    The first exhibition was Singapore River, which tells us about the history of Singapore since centuries ago, and how the Singapore River played role in it. It was the major hub for market and Singapore. When it was widely used, the river was full of thrashes. Until one day the prime minister decided to start a $200 million project to clean the river in 10 years. The cleaning was successful, resulting as what we see today. Yet in one article, the writer complained about the unique characteristic of the river has lost due to the cleaning.

    Next part of the exhibition showed us how curators analyze antiques. For example, a painting would be seen under UV light, showing the pencil sketches the painter had drawn to understand the background and intention of the painter.

    The other exhibitions were divided into 4 groups: Southeast Asia, China, West Asia and South Asia. I’m not sure why they exclude other West Asian countries like Japan and Korea. There were also a special exhibition “Hunters and Collectors” where it shows works of explorers from western countries in Asia. It took about 2 hours for us to cover everything except South Asia part. We started at level 2 and continued to level 3, but were to tired to see the last exhibition South Asia at level 1.

    One interesting part when we visit the Southeast Asia, there were a small room with sitting mats. There were also books about stories for children from various countries. We sat there and I took a look on one storybook from Bali. It tells a story about a big, ugly frog named Gobrag. He is nasty and likes to sing (reminds me of the character Giant from Doraemon movie). He sings so badly the other smaller frogs were disturbed. But even they told Gobrag to silence, Gobrag never listen. So one day the small frogs sent three of them to find out another place good enough to live, without disturbance of Gobrag. After walking for some distance, those three frog came to an island. Suddenly the island was moving, and it turned to be a big monster. The three frog went back to their home and told the story to everyone, including Gobrag. But Gobrag didn’t believe.

    “Is it nastier than me?” ask Gobrag

    “Of course!” they answer.

    “Not possible, I am the nastiest! Is it uglier than me?”

    “Yes!”

    “Impossible! Bigger than me?”

    “Absolutely!”

    (At this point I thought Gobrag would come by himself to the island and got killed by the monster. But this story has a very good twist…)

    What Gobrag did was, he blew himself up and ask them again, “Is it bigger than this?”

    “Yes, it is still bigger than you!”

    Then he tried to blow himself again. But still they thought the monster is bigger than Gobrag. Gobrag blew up again, but up to the point it was too much for him. He exploded and died. And the rest of the frogs lived happily ever after.

    —

    Sorry I told the story more than the museum itself, but I found it more interesting than the artifacts and other history lessons. You can read more stories there at the museum, anyway.

    Asian Civilizations Museum is located at N° 1 Empress Place, Singapore 179555.

  • Escape Theme Park

    Summer is the time for fun! After the team building few weeks before, the Gemalto rec-club is now taking the turn to put back fun to function! The club organized a fun day for all Singapore employee in Escape Theme Park. Since the event was held inside the theme park, we had the option to participate in the games or merely trying out the attractions there.

    However, the team games were too much for us after the last team building event. Therefore, I and my friends decided to ride on attractions instead.

    The first attraction we tried was the haunted house. The LCD screen installed at the entrance –which shows the do’s and don’ts on the attraction– makes me a bit de-scared, though. And yes, when we went inside, there were no spooky smells or disgusting liquids. There were only robots, trying to surprise us with sudden movements. I was surprised yes, but not that scary. Amudi was laughing to the tricks already and trying to mock Rika, who was in front of him and behind me. The result, she grabbed my backpack very tightly for few times. Hmm, at least my backpack got haunted.

    The next one was Pirate Ship, or more commonly known as “Kora-Kora” in Indonesian. We sat on a big ship-like platform, and swung back and forth in half-circle rotation. The most thrilling moment is when you’re at the maximum height, your body facing downwards; then it comes down at a very high speed, giving you tickling sensation in some parts of your body.

    Next attraction was called Flipper, where you are spun horizontally only in a bowl-like platform. Well, sometimes you are rotated 45° vertically. It’s not that fun, though. The spin was only about 5 minutes. But we had to wait 15 minutes inside the bowl before it’s running because the operator wanted to check all safety belts are properly tightened one by one before he started the machine.

    Just before lunch, we tried the roller coaster. The name of the attraction is family coaster, in which I should realized before. It’s a family ride. There were no 360° loops nor steep and that-quick descents. Or, should I say, it’s Singapore-style family ride, fully certified by the national heart foundation as safe for even the weakest person to suffer from heart attack by riding this coaster.

    Then we went back to Gemalto booth to take our lunch.

    After lunch, we tried the best attraction in this tiny theme park: the Go-Kart. We had to queue for about an hour before we could ride this attraction. But it was quite worth the wait to ride a mini-F1 with the Bajaj engine. My turn was next to Amudi and he recommended me to choose the car he just used, as it was most powerful compared to others. And yes, as I started pushing the gas, the car roared and ran pretty fast. For the three laps, I wasn’t even got passed by and secured the first place. The track was quite thrilling, where the first part of the track is a spiral-like shape to climb up to about 3 levels high. Just after the climb, there’s the steep descent. It has a lot of “slow” signs to warn drivers to stop pushing the gas. At first I ignored then sign. But after my car start descending, it was shaking very hard; only then I started to brake. And only after the descent, I started to push the gas again. Well, it’s quite a good 10-minute ride.

    After the Go-Kart, we headed to Wet and Wild. It’s an attraction where you ride a small boat of two people, lifted to few stories high, then descend very fast into the water and get splashed all over the body. Most of us joined the queue, but when we realized it will be veeery wet, some people canceled, including me. So it left only Richson and Rika continuing the queue and ride on the attraction. Meanwhile, the others were just playing with Imam’s little baby.

    The Go-Kart summed up our trip to Escape Theme Park. Some of us were to tired and decided to go home. I with some friends preferred to continue to Changi Beach since we are already in the east side of Singapore. The story is not included here, but you can see some pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/GemaltoFunDayAndChangiBeach

    Escape Theme Park is located at N° 1 Pasir Ris Close, Singapore 519599
    Nearest MRT is Pasir Ris MRT, and there is hourly shuttle bus service for free.

  • Singapore Botanic Gardens

    Due to its huge size, it may be difficult to find out how to go there. At least that what happened to me and delayed me from visiting this beautiful park. The official website provides me only the bus numbers without departing and alighting points, as well as recommended starting point to walk. However, I finally decided to go there anyway. Oh, by the way, it’s easiest to go there from the entrance near Gleneagles Hospital (take bus 105 towards the east from Commonwealth MRT, about 5 bus stops away).

    So I went there with my friend Handy around lunch time. We didn’t have lunch before, since we were planning to take it in “Taman Serasi Food Center”, whereas according to local map is just next to Botanic Gardens’ main gate. Unfortunately when we reached there, we couldn’t find one. All we saw around were private houses. So we had to walked a bit to nearby Tanglin Mall and had our lunch there.

    After lunch, we came back to the gate to start the journey. Looking at the map, it’s half impossible to explore all spots in the garden. Therefore, we just walked along the west side of the park, towards the north, passing three big lakes as our checkpoints.

    The first one is the Swan Lake, where… well, swans, live there. Seeing this lake and the swans made me remember the Tchaikovsky’s (did I spell it right?) “Swan Lake” symphony. It surprised me how the swans move very smoothly on the water. And apparently it surprised my friend, too. Initially we saw them from distance and he thought they were robots (you know, it’s Singapore…). But after examining them closely, I realized that they in fact don’t swim rushy like us human being. They just “row” with their feet once in a while and let their streamlined body flows swiftly.

    Next stop was the Ginger Garden. I don’t know what it has to do with ginger, but there was a beautiful-man-made-mini-waterfall. So, why not take some pictures? You can see myself behind a waterfall. Thanks to Handy he could take my picture when I was inside the cave (Now he’s a bit handy on this occasion). Nearby was the Orchid garden, but to enter I need to pay some fee. Not interested.

    We walked again and got into the second lake: Symphony Lake. Part of the lake is meant to be used as a performance stage, but most likely for calm, classic ones. Water is separating the stage and the audience area, so I can’t imagine this stage to be used by pop/rock bands (where the performers usually jumps to the crowd, it’s too far here).

    Next interesting spot is the Evolution garden. Well, not really that interesting. It’s a man made one, explaining how how living creatures evolved. Maybe for kids, yes.

    Walking again, I felt “back to Singapore” again. In the distance I saw cranes and tall buildings, and at the left of the pathway I took is the construction of the new Circle Line MRT Station. There was a sign attached, promising the benefits of new new station to be ready on 2010, blah blah blah.

    Then there were the Eco Lake inside Eco Garden, translated to Malay “Taman Eko”; in which if translated back from Bahasa (Indonesian) to English becomes “Eko’s Garden” whereas “Eko” is a common name for Indonesians. Not so much thing to see, only some turtles I can took picture of.

    We were tired already, so we had to find a way out. From inside we could see the Bukit Timah Road. But alas, it was closed with fences and a small sign told us we do can’t get to the road through here. So we had to turn around and quit through Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden, in which we were not very interested to see because, uh, it’s for children. The exit gate led us to NUS Bukit Timah campus, and consequently Bukit Timah Road. From here you can take bus N° 186 to go to the nearest MRT, Queenstown. And that conclude our journey.

    But a bit of tip: don’t go to northern side, it’s not really worth it.

    Singapore Botanic Gardens has two entrances, but the easiest is to locate the Gleneagles Hospital at N° 4 Napier Road, Singapore 258498.

    More pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/pascalalfadian/BotanicGarden